Staying Motivated

The first full week of the new year is coming to a close. I thought it would be nice to share a little inspiration to keep you motivated. After all, real change isn't about one defining day. It's about the day-to-day.

1) This note is from Dianne, the bride who combined her wedding with the Light the Night Walk to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, as featured on A Practical Wedding:

I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your New Year reflection form! My new husband and I personalized it a bit for our own reflection and we had the most wonderful New Year. As our Christmas gift to each other, Chuck and I spent New Year's in San Diego (about 2 hours from our SoCal home). We had a great Mexican dinner, sipped champagne in the hot tub and went to bed early so we could be up at 5:00 and on the beach at Coronado to welcome the first day of the new year by watching the sunrise on the beach (and as a bonus we got to see 3 dolphins frolicking in the waves!). Over the course of the two wonderful days, Chuck and I worked through the entire form and created our vision and intent for the year to come. Since we have the areas of work and family time pretty well covered, much of our mutual goals focus on physical health (continued remission for me and increased fitness and nutrition for us both), fiscal health and service to others. I created an electronic collage inspiration board and I thought I would share it with you. This will be on our fridge for the next 12 months (although Chuck suggested that for maximum contemplation time we should post it in the bathroom!). :-)

Thanks for sharing, Dianne!

2) Here's an interesting article about being your best self now.

3) Follow these tips about how to stick to your resolutions from The Psychology of New Year's Resolutions:

To be successful with your own resolutions:

• Have a strong initial commitment to make a change.
• Have coping strategies to deal with problems that will come up.
• Keep track of your progress. The more monitoring you do and feedback you get, the better you will do.

Ingredients for setting yourself up for resolution failure include:

• Not thinking about making resolutions until the last minute.
• Reacting on New Year’s Eve and making your resolutions based on what’s bothering you or is on your mind at that time.
• Framing your resolutions as absolutes by saying, “I will never do X again.”

4) Try tracking your progress through www.thecarrot.com. It looks really cool.

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