....So you think you can't fit it all into your life? If you're careful you can, I promise you. There are a few steps you must follow in order to fit all of the important things into your life and your schedule.
The first thing you need to do is set clear goals. I learned a lot about goal setting from the legendary Anthony Robbins. He says that in order to reach your goals, you have to get clear about what you actually want. Makes sense, right? If you're not clear about what you need to accomplish, you won't accomplish anything.
In order to set good, attainable goals for yourself, first you need to have a few categories from which to choose. I'm going to give you a few categories and once you get going, you'll want to add one or two of your own.
1. Physical
2. Financial
3. Home
4. Relationships
5. Work
These are in no order, whatsoever. So choose the one you that sounds most important to you.
If you choose Physical: First, you should take stock of where you are. Are you over weight? Are you a great weight but need to be more toned? Are you toned and fit, but want to make sure your heart is healthy? In this area you might want to get in really great shape - who doesn't. Should you join a gym? Will you go? You'll have to fit it into you schedule. Maybe you just need to go for a quick run each morning or evening. That will take care of cardio as well as firm things up a bit!
Here's a goal I would set: I want my heart to be healthier, so I need to get more physical. I want to run on my elliptical machine that I desperately needed to purchase a year ago. Since I bought it, I've been using it as a clothes rack. My goal is to get on that thing three times per week. Part of that goal is to get a TV set up in front of it, so I don't just walk away when I get tired or bored. I have a goal of bringing a TV in front of it by the end of the week, so I can start using the elliptical next Monday. After I have the area set up, I will go to my 365 Brilliant Days Planner and choose the three days and times I will put myself on that hideous machine. I will put a good movie in and watch 30 minutes of it at a time so I can look forward to continuing the move the next time I work out. If it's too boring and I hate it, I'll schedule to go out running instead. There. Goal set and recorded in my planner.
Would you choose Financial as your goal?: My goal would be to get debt free as soon as possible. I cannot set an exact date until I sit down with all of my bills and create a budget. I'll write down all of the bills and the balances on each one. I'll choose which one to pay off first and focus on that one as much as possible until it's gone, while still paying on the others as well. Once that one is gone, I'll focus on the next. Then the next, then the next. I'll write each payday into my planner and remind myself of which bill I'm continuing to focus on. I may even add up the entire balance of all of my debt and write a new list each payday - if it's not too depressing!!! But keeping track of it in my planner will help keep me focused on it so I don't forget and decide a new pair of Louboutin's would be more important!!!
Maybe you choose to set a goal for your Home: Note your days off. Make a list of everything in your wildest dreams that you'd like to re-do in your home. Start plugging those things into you planner on your days off. Not all at once. Just one or two things on each day. After a while, all of the things you wanted to do will be done. You've scheduled them. You're going to work on them. They will get completed.
Relationships?: Have you been neglecting people who are important to you? I'm guilty of this. Make a goal of contacting one person every other day. Mom, Dad, best friend, new friend, old friend, relative. Do not underestimate the value of your relationships. This is an important goal for everyone to set. Write who you want to call/email/write into your planner. Don't think of it as heartless because its written on paper. It is a reminder.
Remember our friend Albert Einstein: Don't waste time trying to remember things you can write down and look up later!
Last goal to discuss for now: WORK. That four letter word. Do you have your dream job? Are you happy to go to work each day? They say do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life again. Are you doing what you love? We'll talk more about this soon. For now, make a few notes about what your dream job would look like. What do you love to do so much that you'd do it for free?? I think we'd better come back to this one. For now, schedule some time for yourself in your planner to sit down quietly and think about your job. Think about what you love about it, what you hate about it. What you'd rather be doing. Pretend it's a perfect world and you can do anything you want. Get the juices flowing.....
You don't need to know exactly every move you're going to make in every area. You just need to get started. Each month, in our 365 Planners we'll be re evaluating our goals to see where we need to modify them. You will reach a goal and need to find something else! I promise that will happen to you!
Your first goal is just to get started. Get thinking. Get writing. Get going. No commitments, just ideas about your perfect, dream life!!
Get a beautiful glass of Champagne (or your beverage of choice).
We're about to start celebrating every day!!!........
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Where the heck is Day 4??!!
Where the heck is Day 4 you ask?
I am writing this on Day 5! AS PLANNED my lovelies!
The beauty of organizing your life consistently is that you also have the luxury of planning a day off for yourself. I've had today planned for quite a while actually.
I have it written into my 365 Brilliant Days planner and I've been looking forward to it!! Counting down the days as a matter of fact.
My wonderful, fabulous, smart, sexy husband has been out of town. He was back in town for only a couple of days so we planned a romantic dinner - Chinese food to go - some snuggly alone time, and a movie at home date night!
It was so nice!! We were able to spend a nice amount of uninterrupted time talking and catching up. Reorganizing our schedules and planning our next date night for when he gets home in a week or so! Then we..... dot dot dot..... and spent the rest of the evening watching a great movie that we both love!
(....dot dot dot..... courtesy of the Mamma Mia movie)
The beauty of being as organized and thought-out as we are is that now we have something BRILLIANT in our schedules! We don't feel as though we are passing notes and texts to each other. We will look forward to our date, think of something fun to do, and if we start to feel a little lonely, we will think about our date and smile!
Please understand that I am not giving you all this detail to tell you how fabulous my life is. Although it IS. I am telling you this because I want you to understand that every part of your life can be organized. Not just your work and your tasks, but your off duty life as well! And all written down in the same place. Allowing you to create joy and brilliance! Allowing you to build the life of your dreams!!
With a little planning and carefully choosing to say yes or NO, you can probably fit it all in.
And if you feel you can't......
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Day 3. The Power of "NO"
.....Once the pity party was over and I figured out what I needed to fix, I felt 100 pounds of weight fly off of my shoulders. I felt happy! I felt like a light bulb went on over my head! I felt free! I felt opened up to new possibilities! And it SCARED the shit out of me.
The BIG thing I needed to do was: LEARN TO SAY NO.
Once I made the decision to learn to say no, I actually had to say the word to some people. That was scary. But I thought, start small. The ladies who lived on my street used to meet up twice each week for book club. Twice! Why? Don't normal book clubs meet up once each month? Twice each week didn't even give me time to read the book!
"No" number one was to call the secretary of the "Bored Housewives Club" and tell her I couldn't come to the meetings any more. PS and by the way.... I was the ONLY woman in my posh neighborhood in Connecticut that actually worked. Everyone else played tennis at the Country Club full time. I used to joke with them that none of them would be the next Anna Kournikova. They were all over 40 and Anna was about 18. Do the math. Some of the ladies would even put their children in day care so they could play tennis all afternoon. Me? Resentful? Sure made the phone call easier to make. They were great ladies. Fun and interesting. Bye bye. I'm sure they didn't miss me much after the fourth or fifth bottle of wine!
"No" number 2 was to my current husband. That was a little harder. I had to tell him that I was going to hire a cleaning lady. I was saying no to cleaning a huge, dusty house by myself. Strange, that man. No matter how much money I made, it was all his! How the HELL did I let that happen? Shame on me. He wasn't even all that cute! And as you might imagine, he said, "Absolutely not. I will not have some stranger in my house." And as you might imagine, I decided to sneak a cleaning lady in once each week anyway. It was BRILLIANT. For a while at least. Of course I got caught. I panicked and introduced her as my friend, whom I was helping out! He was a jerk, but he wasn't stupid. Naturally, he knew I was lying and naturally, there was an argument. I held my ground and told him I was going to continue having her come to clean. If we wasn't ok with it, I'd continue having her come when he was at work. Period. Five days later it was all over. I had my cleaning lady and he and I never talked about it again. He's gone now.
"No" number 3 I felt a little guilty about. For a minute. Then I got over it. I was asked to volunteer some time at our local grade school. I do not have children, but that small detail didn't stop the PTA from asking me to volunteer a few mornings each week in the school library. Of course, being the weenie that I used to be, I said yes. Then about an hour later I hated myself for saying yes to her when I could barely find enough time in the day to get everything else done. I called the school and backed out of the agreement. No judging please.
Why am I telling you all of this? One reason: YOU must learn to say no.
How can you accomplish all of your goals and live your fabulous, brilliant life if you spend all of your time doing things for other people? Let me explain!!! We all have our favorite organizations, charities, etc. that we want to be part of. I certainly do, and I find a way to help as much as I can. Sometimes I help by sending a little money. Sometimes I help by donating food. Sometimes I help by showing up at an event an rolling up my sleeves. I help based upon what I am able to fit into my life and my at that time.
Let me ask you this: Who do you need to say no to? Is it a girlfriend who is an energy drainer? Is it a group you joined that is sucking the life out of you?
Especially while you are learning to manage your life and create your super organized, powerful self, you need to very closely manage with whom and with what you are filling your time. There are 24 hours in a day. You need to get a good night's sleep every night if possible. There goes 8. Do you work? There goes another 8. That leaves you 8 good hours to build, create, nurture, redecorate, declutter, achieve your goals and LIVE. There is no honor in volunteering so much of your time that your own life suffers. Make sure you are saying NO when you need to say no. Make sure you are managing your time. Even micro-managing your own time is good for you when you're working on your OWN BRILLIANT LIFE!
Once I said "NO" to 8 or 10 things that were sucking my time down the drain, I started to feel happier, more rested, more accomplished, less stressed. I chose what I wanted to do every day. I chose it, scheduled it and did it. Life got better and better from that point on.
So give yourself a HUGE gift. Time. Time for you and for everything you want to accomplish. Time to sit down quietly and set goals for yourself. Time to spend with your family without being interrupted. Time for a bubble bath and glass of champagne without being interrupted. Time to finish that great book without being interrupted. Time for YOU.
I promise you'll thank me when you master the power of "NO."
So now you're probably asking me, "OK smarty pants. I have all this time now. I admit I'm less stressed, but NOW what do I do? There's only so much QVC I can watch."
That answer is coming.....
The BIG thing I needed to do was: LEARN TO SAY NO.
Once I made the decision to learn to say no, I actually had to say the word to some people. That was scary. But I thought, start small. The ladies who lived on my street used to meet up twice each week for book club. Twice! Why? Don't normal book clubs meet up once each month? Twice each week didn't even give me time to read the book!
"No" number one was to call the secretary of the "Bored Housewives Club" and tell her I couldn't come to the meetings any more. PS and by the way.... I was the ONLY woman in my posh neighborhood in Connecticut that actually worked. Everyone else played tennis at the Country Club full time. I used to joke with them that none of them would be the next Anna Kournikova. They were all over 40 and Anna was about 18. Do the math. Some of the ladies would even put their children in day care so they could play tennis all afternoon. Me? Resentful? Sure made the phone call easier to make. They were great ladies. Fun and interesting. Bye bye. I'm sure they didn't miss me much after the fourth or fifth bottle of wine!
"No" number 2 was to my current husband. That was a little harder. I had to tell him that I was going to hire a cleaning lady. I was saying no to cleaning a huge, dusty house by myself. Strange, that man. No matter how much money I made, it was all his! How the HELL did I let that happen? Shame on me. He wasn't even all that cute! And as you might imagine, he said, "Absolutely not. I will not have some stranger in my house." And as you might imagine, I decided to sneak a cleaning lady in once each week anyway. It was BRILLIANT. For a while at least. Of course I got caught. I panicked and introduced her as my friend, whom I was helping out! He was a jerk, but he wasn't stupid. Naturally, he knew I was lying and naturally, there was an argument. I held my ground and told him I was going to continue having her come to clean. If we wasn't ok with it, I'd continue having her come when he was at work. Period. Five days later it was all over. I had my cleaning lady and he and I never talked about it again. He's gone now.
"No" number 3 I felt a little guilty about. For a minute. Then I got over it. I was asked to volunteer some time at our local grade school. I do not have children, but that small detail didn't stop the PTA from asking me to volunteer a few mornings each week in the school library. Of course, being the weenie that I used to be, I said yes. Then about an hour later I hated myself for saying yes to her when I could barely find enough time in the day to get everything else done. I called the school and backed out of the agreement. No judging please.
Why am I telling you all of this? One reason: YOU must learn to say no.
How can you accomplish all of your goals and live your fabulous, brilliant life if you spend all of your time doing things for other people? Let me explain!!! We all have our favorite organizations, charities, etc. that we want to be part of. I certainly do, and I find a way to help as much as I can. Sometimes I help by sending a little money. Sometimes I help by donating food. Sometimes I help by showing up at an event an rolling up my sleeves. I help based upon what I am able to fit into my life and my at that time.
Let me ask you this: Who do you need to say no to? Is it a girlfriend who is an energy drainer? Is it a group you joined that is sucking the life out of you?
Especially while you are learning to manage your life and create your super organized, powerful self, you need to very closely manage with whom and with what you are filling your time. There are 24 hours in a day. You need to get a good night's sleep every night if possible. There goes 8. Do you work? There goes another 8. That leaves you 8 good hours to build, create, nurture, redecorate, declutter, achieve your goals and LIVE. There is no honor in volunteering so much of your time that your own life suffers. Make sure you are saying NO when you need to say no. Make sure you are managing your time. Even micro-managing your own time is good for you when you're working on your OWN BRILLIANT LIFE!
Once I said "NO" to 8 or 10 things that were sucking my time down the drain, I started to feel happier, more rested, more accomplished, less stressed. I chose what I wanted to do every day. I chose it, scheduled it and did it. Life got better and better from that point on.
So give yourself a HUGE gift. Time. Time for you and for everything you want to accomplish. Time to sit down quietly and set goals for yourself. Time to spend with your family without being interrupted. Time for a bubble bath and glass of champagne without being interrupted. Time to finish that great book without being interrupted. Time for YOU.
I promise you'll thank me when you master the power of "NO."
So now you're probably asking me, "OK smarty pants. I have all this time now. I admit I'm less stressed, but NOW what do I do? There's only so much QVC I can watch."
That answer is coming.....
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