“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” Arnold Bennett “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin Why are you reading this blog? Probably because you want to make a positive change in your life. Perhaps you want to improve your social skills, simplify how you work or change your attitude and how you think. Now this is great. But it is seldom that easy. There may be obstacles outside of you. There are almost certainly obstacles inside of you. In this article I’ll explore some of those common obstacles that can make change so hard and how to get around them. You don’t want to change. Maybe you think you want to change something. But is it really your wish? Or is it the wish of your parents, boss, partner, friends or society? If you don’t really want to make the change deep down then it will be very hard to go the distance. Yes, you can begin but if there is no inner drive to do it then you will lose motivation easily and feel like giving up all the time after a while. What to do about it: Sit down and really think about whose goals you are working towards. If they are not yours then think about what you can do to stop working on them and spend more time on your own consciously chosen goals instead. If you still have to go on with may have started as someone else’s goal – perhaps your boss has told you to do something and you can’t just ditch that if you want to keep your job – then find your own reasons for working on that goal. Brainstorm and write them all down. Review that paper and make the goal into more of your goal and know why you are working towards it for you own sake. Your environment is holding you back. If you are for example trying to lose weight then it will be a lot harder if the people around you are eating junk food every day. If you are trying to think more positively then it will be a lot harder if you hang out with negative people all the time and watch the news and negative and fear-inducing TV-shows too much. What to do about it: Change your environment in a ways that will support you. That’s doesn’t mean that you have to take drastic measures like never talking to some friend or family member again to cultivate a more positive attitude. It may just mean that you cut down on seeing the most negative people/TV-shows etc. that much and replace that with more time with positive people and positive media consumption. By doing that the process will be so much easier. If you are trying to lose weight then find people with similar goals that you can spend some time with each week. Even if it’s just via an online forum of some sort. Carve out some time and a space for yourself with people and motivational and educational information – books, blogs, magazines etc – that will support you as you move towards your goal. Also, by involving more people and/or for example signing up for courses somewhere you will feel commitment to people you like and a bit of positive social pressure to actually go there when you are supposed to instead of slacking off on the sofa. One common problem with the social environment is that you perhaps fear what people may think if you make change. Well, in my experience people are seldom as harsh as you think they will be. They are most often supportive or simply not that interested/neutral to you making changes. People are most often focused on their own goals and challenges in life. Or what other people may think of them. You are not the center of the universe. You feel like giving up after one or three failures. When you are really young then you probably don’t build failure up to be this huge thing. You learn to walk, fall down and ding your head and get up again. The same goes for learning to ride your bike. But through influence from school and society failure becomes this increasingly more frightening thing. Sure, as you get older the stakes become higher and you can lose more if you fail. But I do think people often exaggerate the effects failure will have simply because they feel frightened. What to do about it: Most of the time the sky will not fall if you fail. People will not mock you. Life just goes on. But you have to do things to gain this understanding. You will not get it just by reading these words and all the other things by people who have said the same thing for centuries. Your mind has to experience failure – or the possibility of it – over and over to make the fear of failure to lot smaller. That has at least been my experience. You may however find motivation in that failure teaches you things books/blogs cannot. By changing your perspective to a more curious one and seeing failure more as a learning experience than something to fear it becomes easier to handle. You don’t feel enough pain yet. Why do people change? Oftentimes I think they have simply had enough. The pain of staying as you are becomes too big and you seriously start looking for a positive way forward. What to do about it: Besides waiting until the problem becomes pretty much unbearable you can try to see your future self vividly in your mind. Ask yourself: What will this lead to in 5 and 10 years? Where am I going? Towards massive debt, a heart attack, serious illness and severe restrictions in your future? Do you want go to that place where it is very likely that you will wind up if you don’t make a change? Then see your future self where you have made the positive change. What positive and awesome things has it brought you in 5 years and in 10 years? See it all in your mind. And remind yourself of the positive and negative consequences by writing them down and reviewing them whenever you feel like quitting and going back to your old ways. Vividly seeing the probably very real future consequences of not changing can be that nudge you need to get serious about improving something in your life. You don’t know how to practically make the change. This is a common obstacle. Fortunately, nowadays we have the Internet so it’s a lot easier to find practical solutions to the problems many people have faced before you. What to do about it: Ask yourself what have other people before you or around you have done to improve their situation? Talk to people who have made the change you want to make (lose weight, quit smoking, improve the social life etc.). Or if you can’t find anyone, read the top rated books on Amazon.com on that topic or read blog articles. But make sure that you take advice from someone who has actually been in your shoes and gone where you want to go. Find a way that suits you. It may not be the first method or system you try. So be patient. Keep moving forward towards the things you want most in your life.

{via} I’m so honored to have a guest post up over on Balance In Me today. Anastasiya’s blog is very well-respected and full of valuable information. I wrote this article for those of you who tend to have an “all or nothing” view of exercise. Before I introduced the theme of balance into my life, I‘d frequently skip exercising all together if I didn’t feel like I had enough time to go hard and make it worthwhile. Life is busy, so as you can imagine, this led to a lot of skipped workouts; a lot more days of inactivity than days of activity. Maybe you can relate… If so, follow this link: Is Your Thinking Sabotaging Your Fitness Goals? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

You know me by now and you know that a major part of my career is inspiring women to love their bodies more. I recently discovered that today is the NOW Foundation’s 2011 Love Your Body Day . I’ll take any opportunity I can find to encourage you beautiful women to make an effort to accept your bodies today and everyday. As a Pilates trainer, I spend my days helping women transform their bodies. I see a lot of people who are unhappy with their shape and size but I admire them for taking time to improve their health and quality of life through exercise. But us women, we tend to get a kick out of complaining to one another. But more than that, I believe we have been taught from a young age that we should complain. We somehow believe that it would be too conceited or vain to abstain from the body-bashing conversation. But I whole-heartedly disagree. I know we’re all prone to criticizing our appearance. Trust me, I spend 90% of my day standing in front of a mirror wearing spandex. I struggle with confidence just as much as the next girl. It’s one thing to feel a little frumpy from time to time, but it’s another thing to consistently pursue negative self-talk and join in the vicious cycle of community body-bashing. So, I leave you with a challenge: in honor of 2011 Love Your Body Day, I challenge you to abstain from all negative comments about your body from now until the end of the week. I understand that the thoughts may still pop up in your mind, but stop them in their tracks. Resist the urge to audibly complain to those around you. Keep me posted on how it goes. Note: if you’re my client or in one of my classes, this challenge remains in place indefinitely 🙂 *This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival  * Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #BodyImage #Health

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task” William James “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” David Allen Simply getting started and taking action instead sitting around and discussing things or theorizing about them is one of the most common things that are stopping people from improving their lives. But to keep going until something is finished can also be a big issue (it has certainly been so at times for me at least). I have however found a couple of good solutions that help me. Today I would like to share 3 of them. But first, just be careful with what tasks you aim to get done. Don’t think you have to finish everything you started. If a book sucks, read something else. Using this as an excuse to quit something that feels hard or unfamiliar is not a good idea. But there is no law that says that everything has to be completed. Go for good enough. One pretty big issue for me in the past was that I wanted to polish everything until it was “perfect”. The problem is just that such thinking often leads to many things not ever being finished. So you have to find a balance for yourself where you do good work and don’t slack off but at the same time don’t get lost in trying to improve and polish something too much. I have found that balance through experience. It is also very important to be aware that nothing will ever be perfect. Striving for perfection can be pretty dangerous. Because you will never feel like you are good enough. You have set the bar at an inhuman level. And so your self esteem stays low even though your results may be very good. So just focus on gradually being more consistent instead trying to be perfect. Realize that good enough is good enough. And that goes both for your work and for you. Set a deadline. Last year I set a deadline for when my second e-book should be finished. I had realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Sure, I still missed it by a few days but finally I did the last part of the work and was done with it. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally a good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much. Use limits and rituals to keep your focus during the home stretch. The last part of a project or a task can often feel pretty hard and it is easy to get lost in procrastination. By setting limits for how often you check email each day, how much time you spend on social networks and forums, how much time you take to make small everyday decisions you can over a month or two develop these things into habits that run automatically most of the time. I limit my own checking of email, Facebook, blog statistics etc. to one ritual at the end of my workday where I just string all the checking together into one 20-30 minute session. This allows me to get the creative parts and the most important tasks of the day done early in the day when I am rested and focused and it prevents me from getting lost in everything else. By incorporating limits like these into your lifestyle you are less likely to get distracted during the last part of the work and you can keep your eye on what’s important.

I’m so excited to share an interview I did with Anastasiya Goers  from Balance In Me . She is truly an inspiration in balanced living and I’m honored that she took the time to share her life and tips here on The Balanced Life.  She is a perfect fit for the “Real Women. Real Balance.” series as she is a busy mother of twin girls, a wife, a fitness enthusiast, an author and a Pilates instructor (love that!). Read on to learn more about her and hear her advice for bringing more balance into your life. I especially love her tips on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle in the midst of  a busy life. Be sure to read the full interview as she is introducing a very exciting new program that just might change your life… 1. Hi Anastasiya! First off, I’m curious, what inspired you to start your blog “Balance In Me”? For many years I was looking for answers to make my life more balanced. It always seemed that working on just one area (health, career, family) was not enough to make my life complete. I also saw lives of my friends and how much they missed balance in their lives. When I decided to open a website i was looking for a topic that could summarize my life vision and the word “balance” definitely hit the spot. 2. What do you do when you’re not working on your blog? Well, quite a lot actually. I am raising twin-girls (they are three and a half now), teach Pilates classes at a wonderful studio, work in web promotion with my husband, scuba dive, paddle board, spend as much time outside as possible, cook healthy dinners, run, clean the house (not my most favorite responsibility :-)), spend time with my friends, participate in the life of church and right now finishing up my first ebook. I probably forgot a few things along the way, but who counts, right? I guess my lifestyle definitely shows that you can balance it all and still remain a sane human being at the end 🙂 3. What is your favorite post on Balance In Me? Wow, that’s a tough one. I guess it depends on what mood I am in and what I am going through at the moment. I guess, if I am just looking for answers about what life is all about then I would choose My Life is out of Balance If I had to choose the post that described the most important lesson that I learned in life then I would go with A Simple and Fast Guide To Patience For Impatient People And if I had to choose the post that could improve lives of the largest amount of people then it would be The Happy Couple Cheat Sheet: 15 Steps To A Balanced and Healthy Marriage (Relationship) 4. What does balance mean to you during your current season of life? Right now balance for me means being a good mother and wife without losing myself. It means finding perfect harmony between my desires and goals and the needs of the people I love the most. Balance also means using my resources to the biggest benefit of people around me. These are the main reasons why I keep writing, teaching and giving to others; these are the reasons why I am looking forward to the start of every new day. 5. Who/what inspires you? I find inspiration in pretty much anything around me whether it is my kids, my backyard or a courageous story of a cancer survivor. As you know October is a breast cancer awareness month that is why right now I hear all over the place about people who fight this horrible disease personally or who fight to find a cure. There is no single person that I would like to point out because in my opinion every person who does something with his/her life can inspire a tremendous ripple effect in the world. I think that to find inspiration we just need to open our eyes to the world around us. 6. What is your best tip for maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the midst of a busy life? Move as much as possible and cook simple meals. A lot of times people think that they need to spend hours at the gym or working with a fitness trainer to stay active. The best thing one can do for their health is add small intervals of activity during the day whether it is walking for a little bit, doing a little bit of stretching in the middle of the work day or spending some active time with family and friends. When it comes to healthy eating I believe in cooking simple meals with natural ingredients. Most of the meals that I cook for my family take 30 minutes or less to prepare and are packed with nutrients and wonderful flavors. I try to maintain natural flavors of foods (which means that I don’t have too cook them for too long) and add a pinch of spices to give my meals a special “mood.” 7. What projects are you currently working on for Balance In Me? Right now I am about to launch the first home-study ecourse on BalanceInMe – Reclaim Your Life . It is a 15-days intensive that anyone can take from the comfort of their own home. The course focuses on simplifying busy lifestyles, bringing more balance into any life, learning effective time management techniques that actually work, fighting bad habits and becoming a more balanced person all over. I noticed that a lot of people (including me) tend to overextend themselves and at some point they lose track of where their lives are going and have no idea how to get them on the right track again. The course is the first-of-its-kind project consisting of a guidebook and a workbook with 54 practical exercises. I think that people are tired of “feel-good”, “think-happy-thoughts” type of materials that take time (and a lot of money) but bring absolutely no result. The course that I have created uses only proven-to-work strategies to reclaim life once and for all. It is highly customizable to meet different lifestyles and different life goals. I am very excited about helping people to live more balanced lives. Thank you, Robin, for having me at your wonderful website! If you’re interested in finding out more about Anastasiya’s ecourse be sure to click here: Reclaim You Life In 15 Days . I can’t wait to dive into the book and soak up all of the rich, practical advice she offers. Can you really deny an opportunity to invite more balance into your life?  Questions for Anastasiya? Post them below! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #Balance #Pilates #Fitness #Health #cooking #exercise

Most of us don’t have a lot of extra time to put together a healthy lunch before work, so it’s important to set yourself up with convenient options. Too often, the convenient options are the unhealthy options. You can change this by taking a few minutes each week to prepare your food so that you can make a healthy lunch in minutes. Who doesn’t love saving time? Tip: Create your own “salad bar” for the week. Your shopping list: Pre-washed bag of spinach or mixed greens (you may need 2 bags depending on the size) Mini pearl tomatoes (organic is always best) 2 bell peppers Trader Joe’s beets (found in the refrigerated produce section) Trader Joe’s steamed lentils (also found in the refrigerated produce section) 1 can of artichoke hearts (in water) Low sodium turkey breast, sliced 1 tub of crumbled goat cheese (a little goes a long way) Low fat or fat free dressing of your choice (be sure to check the sugar count in fat free varietals) *Feel free to toss in more of veggies of your choice* When you get home from the store, slice up the peppers, beets and artichoke hearts and store them in separate Tupperware containers. Wash & dry the tomatoes so that they’re ready to use. By completing these simple steps in advance you’ll be able to prepare a healthy lunch in minutes. Just toss the ingredients into a bowl, sprinkle with goat cheese, top with a slice or two of turkey, and a splash of dressing and you’re ready to go! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #diet #healthyliving #healthymeal

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” Marcus Aurelius “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust Circumstances can certainly make life unhappy. But a part – often a big part – of unhappiness comes from our own thinking, behavior and habits. In this article I’d like to share 7 of the most destructive daily habits that can create quite a bit of unhappiness within and in your own little world. But I’ll also share what has worked, what has helped me to minimize or overcome these habits in my life. Bonus: Download a free step-by-step checklist that will show you how to overcome these 7 destructive habits (it's easy to save as a PDF or print out for whenever you need it during your day or week). 1. Aiming for perfection. Does life has to be perfect before you are happy? Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy? Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like something goes just perfect. How to overcome this habit: Three things that helped me to kick the perfectionism habit and become more relaxed: Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a project or something else never being finished. So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to be lazy or to slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good enough and when you are there then you are finished with whatever you are doing. Have a deadline. I set deadlines every time that start with a new premium guide. Because about a year ago, when I was working on my second e-book, I realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much. Realize what it costs you when you buy into myths of perfection. This was a very powerful reason for me to let go of perfectionism and one I tell myself still if I find thoughts of perfection pop up in my mind. By watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and you want it. But in real life it clashes with reality and tends to cause much suffering and stress within you and in the people around you. It can harm or possibly lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because your expectations are out of this world. I find it very helpful to remind myself of this simple fact. 2. Living in a sea of negative voices. No one is an island. Who we socialize with, what we read, watch and listen to has big effect on how we feel and think. It becomes a lot harder to be happier if you let yourself be dragged down by negative voices. Voices that tell you that life will in large part always be unhappy, dangerous and filled with fear, worry and limits. Voices that watch life from a negative perspective. How to overcome this habit: Replacing those negative voices with more positive influences is very powerful . It can be like a whole new world opening up. So spend more time with positive people, inspiring music and books, movies and TV-shows that make you laugh and think about life in a new way. You can start small. For example, try reading an uplifting blog post or book or listen to an audio book while eating your breakfast one morning this week instead of reading the paper or watching the morning news on TV. 3. Getting stuck in the past and future too much. Spending much of your time in the past and reliving old painful memories, conflicts, missed opportunities and so on can hurt whole lot. Spending much of your time in the future and imagining how things could go wrong at work, in your relationships and with your health can create self-doubt and build into horrifying nightmare scenarios and playing over and over in your head. Not being here right now in life as it happens can lead to missing out on a lot of wonderful experiences. No good if you want to be happier. How to overcome this habit: It is pretty much impossible to not think about the past or the future. And it is of course important to plan for tomorrow and next year and to try to learn from your past. But to dwell on those things rarely help. So I try as best as I can to spend the rest of my time, the big part of my time each day, with living in the now. Just being here right now and being fully focused on these words I am writing and later as I cook and eat my lunch and work out be fully focused on doing that. Whatever I am doing I try to be there fully and not drift off into the future or past. If I do drift off then I focus only on my breathing for a few minutes or I sit still and take in what is all around me right now with all my senses for a short while. By doing either of those things I can realign myself with the present moment again. 4. Comparing yourself and your life to others and their lives. One very common and destructive daily habit is to constantly compare your life and yourself to other people and their lives. You compare cars, houses, jobs, shoes, money, relationships, social popularity and so on. And at the end of the day you pummel your self-esteem to the ground and you create a lot of negative feelings. How to overcome this habit: Replace that destructive habit with two other habits. Compare yourself to yourself. First, instead of comparing yourself to other people create the habit of comparing yourself to yourself. See how much you have grown, what you have achieved and what progress you have made towards your goals. This habit has the benefit of creating gratitude, appreciation and kindness towards yourself as you observe how far you have come, the obstacles you have overcome and the good stuff you have done. You feel good about yourself without having to think less of other people. Be kind. In my experience, the way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge and criticize people more and you tend to judge and criticize yourself more (often almost automatically). Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself. Focus on the positive things in yourself and in the people around you. Appreciate what is positive in yourself and others. This way you become more OK with yourself and the people in your world instead of ranking them and yourself and creating differences in your mind. And remember, you can’t win if you keep comparing. Just consciously realizing this can be helpful. No matter what you do you can pretty much always find someone else in the world that has more than you or are better than you at something. 5. Focusing on the negative details in life. Seeing the negative aspects of whichever situation you are in and dwelling on those details is a sure way to make yourself unhappy. And to drag down the mood for everyone around you. How to overcome this habit: Overcoming this habit can be tricky. One thing that has worked for me is to kick the perfectionism habit. You accept that things and situations will have their upsides and downsides rather than thinking that all details have to positive and excellent. You accept things as they are. This way you can let go emotionally and mentally of what is negative instead of dwelling on it and making mountains out of molehills. Another thing that works is simply to focus on being constructive. Instead of focusing on dwelling and whining about the negative detail. You can do so by asking better questions. Questions like: How can I turn this negative thing into something helpful or positive? How can I solve this problem? If I am faced with what I start thinking is a problem I may use a third solution, I may ask myself: who cares? I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all. 6. Limiting life because you believe the world revolves around you. If you think that the world revolves around you and you hold yourself back because you are afraid what people may think or say if you do something that different or new then you are putting some big limits on your life. How? Well, you can become less open to trying new things and growing. You can think that the criticism and negativity you encounter is about you or that it is your fault all the time (while it in reality could be about the other person having bad week or you thinking that you can read minds). I have also found that my own shyness used to come from me thinking that people cared a great deal about what I was about to say or do. How to overcome this habit: Realize people don’t care too much about what you do. They have their hands full with worrying about their own lives and what people may think of them instead. Yes, this might make you feel less important in your own head. But it also sets you free a bit more if you’d like that. Focus outward. Instead of thinking about yourself and how people may perceive you all the time, focus outward on the people around you. Listen to them and help them. This will help you to raise your self-esteem and help you to reduce that self-centered focus. 7. Overcomplicating life. Life can be pretty complicated. This can creates stress and unhappiness. But much of this is often created by us. Yes, the world may be becoming more complex but that doesn’t mean that we cannot create new habits that make your own lives a bit simpler. How to overcome this habit: Overcomplicating life can involve many habits but I’d like to suggest a few replacement habits to what have been a couple of my own most overcomplicating habits. Splitting your focus and having your attention all over the place in everyday life. I replaced that complicating habit with just doing one thing at a time during my day, having a small to-do list with 2-3 very important items and writing down my most important goal on white board that I see each day. Having too much stuff. I replaced that habit with regularly asking myself: have I used this in the past year? If not then I will give that thing away or throw it away. Creating relationship problems of any kind in your mind. Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy. Getting lost in the in-box. I spend less time and energy on my email in-box by just checking it once a day and writing shorter emails (if possible not more than 5 sentences.) So that I can spend more time on helping my newsletter subscribers, on improving my blog and on other things that are a win/win for you and me. Getting lost in stress and overwhelm. When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind then, as I mentioned above, breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again. Then you can start focusing on doing what is most important for you again. Here’s the next step… Now, you may think to yourself: “This is really helpful information. But what’s the easiest way to put this into practice and actually make a real change with these destructive habits in my own life?” Well, I’ve got something special for you… A free step-by-step checklist that includes all the steps in this article… save it or print it out so you have it for your daily life and for the next time when one of these 7 habits starts to drag you down. Download it now by entering your email below. Image at the start of the article by Mitya Kuznetsov ( license ).

I received a letter from a reader last week that reminded me why I began this blog and why continue to do what I do each day. Her words touched me and I think they’re worth sharing… “Hi Robin. I just found your blog and am so amazed. I have been trying to convince myself and the other people in my life that “healthy” is important, and skinny, thin, diets… those are not important. So I was so grateful to find your blog and someone with a similar mindset. I love your blog and I love what you are doing with it! It’s such an important message. Healthy. Balanced lifestyle. I just want to say thank you… At this moment you are the only person in my life supporting those notions, although certainly others mean to. They just get caught up in how important our culture makes superficial traits.” I removed her name because things like this can feel very personal to share. We’re taught to feel ashamed if we’re not on the  “get skinny, look perfect” bandwagon. I applaud her for her desire to take a different path. It’s easy to join the crowd, bash your body and engage in “fat talk.” It’s hard to go against the grain, take a stand and love the body you’re in. Can you relate? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

It’s no secret that magazines play a powerful role the way we feel about our bodies. Flipping through the pages of almost any women’s magazine can leave us feeling frumpy, chubby, sloppy and bland in comparison to the beautiful (airbrushed) models that grace the pages. Lately I’ve seen a shift in Self Magazine’s messaging. They’re publishing more and more articles on happiness, health and positivity. I commend them for that and hope that the shift continues. Today I stumbled across the article, “Does A Woman’s Body Image Affect Her Exercise Routine?” This article represents exactly what The Balanced Life stands for. It puts words and statistics to my passion and mission. Thank you Self Magazine! It is absolutely true: when we learn to love our bodies, we care for our bodies. Feeling good about ourselves inspires us to make healthy choices, stick to our fitness routines and break bad habits. When we hate our bodies and cultivate a negative internal dialogue we ultimately sabotage our success. We cannot guilt ourselves into a motivated state. Hence, my preaching that GUILT. DOES. NOT. WORK. If you’re reading this and thinking you’re doomed because you have a terrible body image right now, start small. Check out my earlier posts “Change Your Mind. Change Your Body.” and “Chasing Perfection ” and begin with one small step. Eventually you will find new ways to appreciate your body and I’m here to help. Still not sure how to make the change? Post a comment. Let’s discuss. We’re all in this together. via Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #Balance #Fitness #BodyImage #Health #exercise

It’s Thursday and I’m done with clients for the day! Sometimes there are perks to waking up before dawn. I’m catching up on my blog reading and here are a few pieces I’m enjoying that you might enjoy too… Sarah from Everyday Paleo writes about her decision to love herself and the results that followed . Dr. Weil explains why your sodium and potassium levels matter . Eek. The money-saver in me loved this article from Wise Bread about 25 Frugal Items For Your Organic Vegan Grocery List. Lisa Johnson shares her thoughts on whether or not parents are responsible for childhood obesity …a touchy subject, but an important one to address. Last but not least…I admit that I have a Kiehl’s obsession. And I have really good news. Beauty Blogging Junkie posted a 20% friends & family code . Hurry, go get yourself some delicious Creme de Corpse . Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

Image by nattu ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely…” Ralph Waldo Emerson To me one of the most interesting things about improving life and growing is to make the regular day even better. Reaching your goals, having really special or awesome days and learning to handle bad times and slumps are of course important but many days in life are spent in-between that. And one of the most common problems today, maybe more than ever, is that the regular day gets dragged down from maybe a good morning into a day of stress, overwhelm and being busy but barely moving forward. So today as I sat down to write I wanted to write about some of the best things in this area that I have learned in past few years. Things I do today, a regular Wednesday, that I almost never used to do half a decade ago to live a more relaxing and focused life. The short to-do list. I used to seldom get much done in a week when I was in college. Then I used somewhat overloaded to-do lists for a while. That landed me in too much stress and I procrastinated away many days. Today I aim at getting two or three of the most important things done each day. One thing at a time. I find that if I try to multi-task I usually get stressed and unfocused. So I try to single-task pretty much everything I do during a day as best I can. Avoid the gray zone. What is the gray zone? That is when you are for example bringing your work home or when you bring your stress from home to work. Sometimes this might be unavoidable but making a habit of either of these things can really ramp up the stress and make things even worse. I avoid the gray zone as best I can by having some pretty firm rules on when I am at work or when I am not working. I work from home so rules like these are essential for me. So I: Do no work after 7 o clock in the evenings. Do not do work on weekends. Take breaks pretty much every hour. Having these firm rules helps me to not get lost in the gray zone, to stay in the present moment and to not create stress about work when I am not working. Be where you are. This is related to the last pointer. When you work then work. When you are with a friend, family member or partner fully be with them (not with someone else or at work in your mind). Being fully where you are and mindfully focusing on what you are doing right here right now is one of best things I have ever learned. Just being where you are fully and being fully focused on that moment brings out so much detail and joy and inner peace. It makes the moments of life more enjoyable. Single-tasking is one way to tap into being mindful for me. Another tip I often use is to focus fully on just what is in front of me and around me right now for a few minutes. I take in the world around me with all my senses just for a short while to connect with the present moment and to get out of my own head (by that I mean to not keep thinking about some past or future scenario). And I sometimes take a couple of dozen belly breaths and focus on just my breathing to reconnect with the now. Shape the environment. I have found that I do my best work best if I work in a cone of silence. That means that I shut of the cell phone, the instant messenger, I sit by myself and I very rarely go online. Try that or a variation of it that fits you and your situation and see if that helps you to reduce your daily stress. Be early. I am pretty punctual. Not really because I am a stickler for these things. But because I want to avoid the stressful traveling. I want to spend my traveling time relaxing. So I make sure that I give myself time to prepare if I am going out to eat or to a party. I make sure that I am maybe 5 or 10 minutes early to a meeting. It’s a very simple thing to reduce stress in your mind and body. If it doesn’t get done then that’s OK. I’d like to get my two or three most important things from my to-do list done each day. But life is life. And sometimes it interferes. Such is reality. And then someone might get annoyed or angry. But the skies won’t fall and in the long run it won’t matter much at all. So don’t beat yourself up and create a lot of stress within. Life is too short for such things. There is a day tomorrow too and you can get that one thing done then instead. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. Thank you! =)

I’m so excited to have Laura Sears guest post on The Balanced Life today! This recipe couldn’t come at a better time. As summer turns to Fall, we’re all in the mood for warm, hearty soup. This recipe is healthy & simple; two key ingredients in maintaining balance throughout the week. Laura Sears is a food writer and the blogger behind LB’s Good Spoon. Born and raised in Ohio she is both molded by those roots and the ones she grew in Santa Barbara, California. Her love for local, seasonal food blossomed in Santa Barbara, along with the nickname LB and her love for gardening. She now resides in DC. Living in DC has been an adjustment but she’s been encouraged by the number of farmers markets and local suppliers of meat and dairy. You can follower her at LB’s Good Spoon . Curried Lentil Soup by: laura sears This meal doesn’t take too long to prepare, especially if you’re like me and buy the package of already made lentils and drop the whole shabang into the soup. It cooks up in no time. (Coincidentally, Robin posted about these lentils last week!) Recipe thanks to and loosely adapted from Molly Wizenberg, as seen in Bon Appetit: Ingredients: 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 2 tablespoons curry powder 1 package prepared lentils from trader joes (or 1 cup French green lentils) 4 1/4 cups water 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas drained and rinsed 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 tablespoons butter 1. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat and add onion and carrot and season with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is cooked, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon garlic and cook about 4 minutes. 2. Add 2 tablespoons curry powder and stir until fragrant, about a minute. Add lentils and 4 cups water , season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. If the lentils are not cooked you’ll need to cook this for 30 minutes. If your lentils are, well then you’re just fine. 3. Puree chickpeas, lemon juice, 1/4 cup water, and 2 tablespoons olive oil, and remaining 1 tablespoon garlic. Add chickpea puree and butter to the soup, season with salt and pepper to taste, stir til combined, heat through, and enjoy! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #cooking #guestpost #healthymeal #recipe

Waking up at 5am each day means that convenience  is of utmost importance in the mornings. Although you may not wake up that early, I’m willing to bet your mornings can be rushed and hectic too. Last night I took 15 minutes to hard boil a dozen eggs to have on hand for quick breakfasts and convenient snacks. I highly recommend it for a healthy, natural protein option at your finger tips. But there’s a trick to perfect hard-boiled eggs….ready for it? Don’t boil them. Truthfully. The secret to perfectly cooked eggs is to bring the water to a boil and then turn it down immediately. Here’s a step by step guide…. 1. Place eggs in the bottom of a sauce pan and cover with 1-2 inches of cool water. (This will keep the eggs from cracking). 2. Bring water to boil. 3. When water begins to boil, immediately turn the burner off and let the eggs simmer in the heat for 1 minute. 4. Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let the eggs sit for 10-12 minutes. 5. With a slotted spoon, remove each egg and place in a bowl of ice cold water until they cool. There you have it! Easy, fresh, and healthy. photo credit photo credit Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #diet #healthysnack #recipe

via More often than not, when 5:00pm rolls around we’re faced with 3 choices: 1. collapse on the couch 2. meet up with friends for happy hour 3. squeeze in some exercise After a long day at the office, this can be a ridiculously difficult decision to make. For many of us, that 1 hour window after work is the ONLY hour we have for ourselves. It’s post-work and pre-dinner. It’s fleeting and it’s valuable! It can be SO hard to say no to happy hour with the girls for the sake of exercise, but sometimes it’s the right decision to make. For me, running is cathartic and there are days where I just know I need to get outside and induce some endorphins. Other days, even when I have exercise planned, I’ll happily throw my plan out the window at the mention of a margarita. But how do we know when we’re making the best decision? Again, it all comes back to balance. Does one of these options dominate your 5:00 hour? Do you constantly make time for friends but never make time for exercise? Or perhaps you hold tightly to your downtime and forget how valuable social time with the girls can be… The truth is, what we need differs from day-to-day. It’s important to tune in to what your mind and body need and make your choice accordingly. Knowing that you’re making an intelligent decision for YOU on THAT particular day will free you up to enjoy your 5:00 hour without the guilty feeling that you should be doing something else (ahh, yes, one more way to step away from the guilt, hallelujah). Listen to your body. Make smart choices. And enjoy the freedom that comes from living in balance. Question: What competes for your time during your post-work hour? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #Balance #exercise #Health #healthyliving

Image by notsogoodphotography ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” Leonardo Da Vinci Do you sometimes feel stuck and unable to take action? I do. To get what you want out of life you can’t sit around wishing for it to happen. And wishing that someone else will do it for you don't work too good either. In this article I’d like to share 4 simple habits that help me when I get stuck in inaction and that have worked very well for me to go from a lazy guy who spent too much time on the sofa watching TV to becoming a focused and effective person of action. Start your day in the right way. How I start my day has probably become the most important factor for how much action I take during the day and how the day turns out in general. A good start often leads to a good day. A bad or indecisive start often leads to a pretty mediocre day. So create a morning routine with breakfast, perhaps a short work out or a short meditation and other things you find gets you off to a great start. Then add doing the most important task of your day at the end of that morning routine. That usually works well for me to build a productive day where I take quite a bit of important action. On some mornings I may feel low in energy, unmotivated or have extra inner resistance to taking action. Then I start small instead of starting with the most important task. I do maybe some decluttering or clean up a bit. I may do a deal with myself to just work for 5 minutes on a relatively easy task. Or if that feels like too much I make a deal with myself for 2 minutes of work. The most important thing is that I get started and get moving. If I do that then I will continue to keep moving forward. Break down it down into small steps. Work can become overwhelming and filled with negative feelings when you look at a big project or task. You want to escape. You procrastinate. Then you become stressed because there is a deadline somewhere down the road and you are giving yourself less and less time to complete this thing as you procrastinate. A big help here is to form the habit of breaking down big things into small, manageable steps that you can have done pretty quickly today and that will not give you anxiety or pump you full of negative emotions. So break down a task into small, practical steps that there is an end to. If you have to read a book then break that task down into reading for 30 minutes. After you have read for 30 minutes check this off of your to-do list or just tell yourself that this task is done. In my experience, it is very important to feel that you have finished tasks at the end of your day and to not have them hanging over you as you go home, spend the evening trying to relax and as you go to bed. Your mind wants to know that a step is finished – even if it is a small step like reading for 30 minutes – to be able to relax fully and to not create vague stress inside of you. So break it down into small steps. Look at and focus on just that first step single-mindedly until it is done. Then continue to the next step and focus on just that. Do that and you’ll waste less extra energy on worrying and on your work. Celebrate what you did today. This is something I am still working on and something I can do more of. But it makes a big difference when I do it. You have to appreciate your good work to feel even better about your life and yourself. So take two minutes out at the end of the day to think about what you can appreciate about what you did today. Or write down a couple of self-appreciative things in your journal. Have a tasty treat or a bigger celebration. Tell someone how nice something turned out or how proud you are over something important you did today. Reward yourself for the things you did right today to strengthen your action taking habit. And remember to be kind to yourself for the things you may have missed or not gotten done. No point in trying to beat yourself up. No point in trying to be perfect. See what you can learn from it and perhaps try another solution tomorrow instead and see if that works better. Take one small action right away to get the ball rolling. What is one thing you can do to pretty much make sure that something will get stuck your I’ll-do-that-when-I-have-the-time list for a long time? Read about something and get excited about it. And then do nothing about or tell yourself that you will take action tomorrow. Instead, take one small action today, as soon after you have read about whatever you are excited about. Call up your friend and make arrangements to meet this Sunday night at seven to start working out, trying yoga or eating at the new restaurant. If there is an exercise you can do in whatever you read about and it looks promising then do it today. If that feels hard make a deal with yourself to only work on it for 5 minutes. If you want to travel somewhere in particular then don’t stop at a vague dream. Take a few minutes and look up prices online and then look at your budget and see how much you need to save or earn extra to be able to take that trip. That’s it for today. Now get that ball rolling. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. Thank you! =)

via giulianarancic.com Hi Everyone! My Fresh Citrus Margarita was featured over on Giuliana Rancic’s Fab, Fit, Fun website this week! She did an article about healthy tailgating and included a link to my blog. Very exciting! It’s a helpful article with some great tips. If you love football season, head over and have a look :  A Tip Top Tailgate . It’s so fun to watch this blog grow! I think this calls for a little marg to celebrate the good press 🙂 Hope you’re having a great week! credit: fab,fit,fun.com Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #recipe

It’s been a crazy Friday and I’m still recovering from summer trip #10 of 10. Whew. No time for a Happy Friday post today. But it IS Friday, and I AM happy, so hopefully that will do 🙂 I hope you’re finding something to be happy about too. Enjoy your weekend! Via Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

Today’s *Favorite Find* is Trader Joe’s pre-packaged Steamed Lentils. They’re super easy to prepare and an excellent source of fiber and protein. I toss them with my salad at lunch for a healthy form of protein that will keep me full through the afternoon. You can also use them as a substitute for rice – toss them with some grilled chicken and roasted veggies and you’ll have a hearty, comforting meal. Convenient health food can be hard to find. Trader Joe’s nailed it with this one. You can find them in the refrigerated produce section. Serving size: 1/2 cup Calories: 120g Fat: 0g Fiber: 8g Protein: 9g Get 3 FREE Pilates workouts in your inbox now! YES PLEASE! #TraderJoes #diet #fiber #Health #HealthyMeals

Image by nattu ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Mae West I have blogged for almost 5 years now. Over that time I have shared many awesome and timeless quotes on life. Today I would like to share 15 of my own favorites, the ones I return to time and time again myself. So here are 15 of the most important thoughts on how to live a kick-ass life. I hope you'll find something helpful in this article. 1. Woody Allen on showing up. “Eighty percent of success is showing up” One of the biggest and simplest things you can do to ensure more success in your life – whether it is in your social life, your career or with your health – is simply to show up more. If you want to improve your health then one of the most important and effective things you can do is just to show up at the gym every time you should be there. The weather might be bad, you might not feel like going and you find yourself having all these other things you just must do. If you still go, if you show up at the gym when motivation is low you will improve a whole lot faster than if you just stayed at home relaxing on the sofa. I think this applies to most areas of life. If you write or paint more, every day perhaps, you will improve quickly. If you get out more you can meet more new friends. If you go on more dates your chances of meeting someone special increases. In a way success is quite a bit about numbers. The really successful people have often tried and failed a lot more than the average person. 2. Nike on taking action. “Just do it!” Quite a while back I sat around and thought about Nike’s old catchphrase that seems to pop up from time to time. I thought: “Well, that’s easy to say, but it’s not so easy to just do”. So I concluded that it was just another catchphrase that people throw out because well, they have to say something. Now I can see that there is actually some really useful advice in that catchphrase. So what changed? Well, I guess I figured out that you can’t really sit and think yourself out of something. And I figured out that I was thinking way too much. And that I identified closely with what I thought and felt. This tip is connected to the previous one. People often have a hard time with showing up consistently. Why? Because of inner resistance and bad habits (such as overthinking things). Sometimes you can motivate yourself out of such a negative headspace by, for example, reviewing why you want to show up (improve your health, earn more money etc). Sometimes that won’t work though. And it’s those times that can send people spiralling into negative spirals going downwards or positive spirals going upwards. Because some people will stay at home when they encounter the resistance. And some will just go and do what they want to do anyway, despite that their mind and emotions might be saying “no, no, no!” Don’t trust your thoughts or feelings too much or take them too seriously. You may want change in your life. But your mind may want homeostasis (everything to remain stable). And so there is a conflict. And so there is an inner resistance to change. You don’t want to get stuck in overthinking things or thinking that your thoughts or emotions are in complete control of what you do. You want to stop listening to what they are saying – or screaming – and go and do whatever it is that you deep down want to do. 3. Anaïs Nin on what we see. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” This was one of the biggest revelations I had when I first got into personal development. I realized that the world was perhaps not fixed in some pattern. I realized that I was mistaking my view of the world with the world itself. Because the world can be viewed from many different points. And it does change according to who is watching it. An optimistic person will for example notice the opportunities, things to be grateful for and that even though things may be hard or bad right now they will change once again. The pessimist will likely stay stuck in inaction, think that his or her world will not change and look down on the optimist as some gullible and naïve fool and that way find a way to feel superior and good about himself/herself. I have tried both ways in my life. I highly recommend going the optimistic route. This quote is also interesting because it helps you realize that what you see in your world can also say things about you. If you find a lot of hostility and standoffishness towards you in your world then perhaps you are more like that than you would like to think too? If something about people irritates you then perhaps it is because that quality is something you yourself have and it is something you do not like about yourself? Think about your world and what it can tell you about yourself. Think about yourself and how you may be interpreting the world in ways that do not serve you very well. 4. Confucious on the simplicity of life. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” The mind loves to think. So it thinks and thinks about things. Making them more and more complex than they ever really were. And so you bog yourself down with too many thoughts and perhaps a lack of action due to things just seeming too complicated and hard. Don’t get lost in details and unimportant things. Realize what is most important in your life and discard what you don’t need. Then spend more time and energy on the important things in your life. And stop thinking so much and instead take action to gain a better understanding of life and of yourself. 5. Winnie the Pooh on appreciating the little things. “Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon” Daily happiness is to a large part about appreciating the small things. If you just allow yourself to be happy when accomplishing a big goal or when having some great luck then you are making life harder than it needs to be. Instead, focus on appreciating things that you may take for granted. Take two minutes and find things in your life you can appreciate now. If you want a few suggestions, here are a few of the things that I like to appreciate: My food. The weather. My health. Friends and family. This blog and the opportunity to write about what I want. You, the reader. Myself and the fine things about me. The funny thing is that if you just start appreciating something you can very quickly start jumping around with your attention and appreciate just about anything around you. You may start with the food you are eating right now. Then move your attention to the phone and appreciate that you can contact anyone – and be contacted by anyone – you’d like. You might then move your attention outside, through the window and see the wonderful sunshine, then kids having fun with a football and then a really attractive person walking by. And so on. Or you can take a couple of minutes each night and write down 5 things you are grateful for in a journal. Doing any of these two exercises will over time make it easier to naturally in everyday situations be more appreciative and grateful for your life. 6. Audrey Hepburn on worrying what others are thinking about you. “I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.” One of the biggest part of thinking and doing what you really want is to stop caring so much about what other people think of you. A lot of the actions you take – or do not take – may be because you need approval from other people. When we are young we get grades in school that tells us that we are “good”. This makes it very easy to create a life where you always go looking for the world to give you the next hit of approval. It may be from your family, boss, friends, co-workers and so on. But this need creates neediness. And the stronger the need the stronger the neediness. And so other people will sense this. And approval may be withheld or used to manipulate you. Or they may just not like your neediness. The people on the other hand that do not care that much about getting approval often do more of what they want deep inside. They may be considered courageous for instance. So the way they live their lives will gain appreciation and approval from the people around them. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. 7. Helen Keller on fear. “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” You cannot sit on your hands and take it easy and hope to get things done. At least not the things you really want to get done (which often may be the things you fear doing). Why do people sit on their hands and get comfortable in their ease and quiet though? Well, one big reason is because they think they are safe there. But the truth is what Keller says; safety is mostly a superstition. It is created in your mind to make you feel safe. But there is no safety out there really. It is all uncertain and unknown. You may get laid off. Someone may break up with you and leave. Illness will probably strike. Death will certainly strike in your surroundings and at some point come to visit you too. Who knows what will happen an hour from now? This superstition of safety is not just something negative. It’s also created by your mind so you can function in life. No point in going all paranoid about what could happen a minute from now day in and day out. But there is also not that much point in clinging to an illusion of safety. So you need to find balance where you don’t obsessed by the uncertainty but also recognize that it is there and live accordingly. When you stop clinging to your safety life also becomes a whole lot more exciting and interesting. You are no longer as confined by an illusion and realize that you set your limits for what you can do and to a large extent create your own freedom in the world. You are no longer building walls to keep yourself safe as those walls wouldn’t protect you anyway. You can instead start your own daring adventure. Perhaps slowly at first, but still. 8. Winston Churchill on your troubles. “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened” Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time. This is of course easy to say. But if you think back and remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more worry from your thoughts. This makes it a lot easier to start doing more of what you really want in life. And to move through your day to day life with a lighter, happier and more optimistic attitude. 9. Wayne Dyer on what you teach people. “Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.” This is a very important point and something I think is perhaps often missed by people who want to improve their social lives and make it more positive. They may think “well, I have been so nice towards everyone for the last few months but it doesn’t seem to have changed their behaviour towards me much”. This is the “nice guy/girl” problem. He or she is very nice but there is no assertiveness. There is no changed feeling within about how you feel you deserve to be treated. You may still be nice just to get approval from other people. You feel the craving need. And you then are less likely to get the approval. We do to a large extent choose how we want to be treated. How you expect people to treat you can have a big effect on how you allow yourself to act and how people around you view and treat you. If you start creating a role for yourself where you always let people do what they want to you then you may create some pretty destructive and negative things. You may create an identity for yourself where you get used to always taking whatever anyone doles out. You create a kind of victim identity where you may look happy on the outside but don’t feel so good on the inside. But since you have gotten used to it after a while you may accept it and think that:  this is just who I am . You may create a concept in the minds of the people around you that it’s OK to treat you this way. Either because you seem so positive despite what they are doing so they think it’s OK. Or just because you aren’t saying no and some people may take advantage of that. Look, you can’t please everyone. I think both Eleanor Roosevelt and Buddha have mentioned something along the lines that whatever you do there will always be people who don’t like what you are doing. And that’s OK. That’s normal. Going around trying to please everyone at your own expense isn’t healthy though. Or even a realistic thing to attempt. It eats away at you both mentally and physically. So be nice. Be positive. But make sure you set your own standards, rules and limits too. And remember that you might as well do what you want because there will always be critics. 10. Kahlil Gibran on sorrow and joy. “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Your pain and sorrow is in retrospect often a gift. It makes you stronger. More empathic and understanding. It helps you out in some way and guides you. You can always look back it when you feel down and be happy that you aren’t in that place anymore. And it’s often in the sorrow that we later on create our strengths. Many very fit people started on that path because they had hit a big low point health wise. And many great speakers or just very social people may have been being deathly shy at a young age. It’s to a large extent all that emotional leverage and all those painful emotions that at least initially give people a great motivation to change their lives in a radical way. Your sorrow expands the spectrum of human experience, understanding and emotions for you. You become more grateful because of your sorrow. The sorrow carves deeper. And the deeper it carves, the more joy you will also be able to contain. The sad times make the happy times even sweeter. 11. Mahatma Gandhi on being the change. “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.” If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns. And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that  you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact. And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world. 12. Ernest Hemingway on keeping your eyes on where you are going. “Never mistake motion for action.” It’s very easy to get lost in busy work. You may spend much time in your in-box or filing and organizing things. But at the end of the day or week, what have you accomplished? Just because you’re moving doesn’t mean that you are moving in the direction you really want to go. To do that you have to do the things that you know are really important and in alignment with your goals. And not getting lost in busy work. So, improve your effectiveness and productivity. But, more importantly, never lose your view of your big picture. And take the action and do the things you need to do to get yourself where you want to go. 13. Samuel Beckett on failure. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” This is an easy and relaxed attitude towards failure. An attitude that says that failure is as just about as normal as cooking your food or brushing your teeth. I remind myself of this one when I have failed or made a mistake. Or when the fear of failure pops up. It pulls out all the drama one might associate with failure. And makes it easier and less burdensome to take action. 14. Kristen Zambucka on reality and changing your world. ”Though I might travel afar, I will meet only what I carry with me, for every man is a mirror. We see only ourselves reflected in those around us. Their attitudes and actions are only a reflection of our own. The whole world and its condition has its counter parts within us all. Turn the gaze inward. Correct yourself and your world will change.” This is perhaps my favourite quote. I like it because it reminds me that even though there is big, big world out there with many possibilities and people in the end big change in your life comes down to you changing yourself. As I mentioned above, it’s very easy to get stuck in thinking that your perspective, the lens through which you view reality is reality itself. But you can’t really see reality. You can only see it filtered through the lens. And the lens is you. Changing, for example, a very negative attitude to a very positive one changes how you view yourself and your entire world. But it’s very hard to convince anyone of this. You just have to choose to try another perspective and just use it for a month or so. Even though homeostasis may want to draw you back to the comfortable stability of your old viewpoint. Which may cause you to rationalize that this positive attitude stuff is uncool or cheesy. Truth is life will never be as in your dreams if you don’t change and correct yourself. No one is coming to save you. No book or personal development guru, not your parents, no knight/lady in white armour. Yes, people around you can of course be a big help. But as an adult in this world it is time to grow up and save yourself. Not just because it is the right thing to do. But also because it is what actually works. 15. Mark Twain on following your heart. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” An awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. Thank you! =)

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” Eleanor Roosevelt “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” Benjamin Franklin What do you fear in your everyday life? One common answer would probably be to be criticized. To stand there and hear those words streaming out of someone’s mouth and feel stupid or feel rejected or like you are getting smaller and smaller. I get quite a bit of feedback from my readers. Most of it is positive and supportive. But there are also sometimes criticism or harsh and nasty attacks. That part isn't always so fun and can be hurtful. But it is a part of life if you want to live your life your way. That being said, I have a few steps that I usually run through when I get an email that is critical or is attacking me. This isn’t some magical protection from being hurt or feeling pain but it helps me to better handle criticism and sometimes to get something good out of it. These steps work pretty well in real life too. 1. Don’t reply right away. It is very easy to become riled up, angry or defensive when you receive some criticism. This is not a good position to be in to fire away a reply if you don’t want to wind up making the situation worse. Plus, I really work on keeping my self-esteem high. And to lash back at them or to not be the better person here can really hurt your self-esteem. It might feel good for a while to do so but it is a dirty high that comes with a hangover of feeling worse about yourself and subtle or not so subtle self-destructiveness. So this is about my own well-being to a high degree. And so I never reply back right away. Instead I look closer at the email. If you receive criticism in real life try to at least take a couple of deep breaths to cool down just a bit and to feel more balanced before you reply. 2. Really listen to the criticism Instead of attacking the other person for his or her words and building a hostile atmosphere try to calm it down. Try to remain level-headed, open and figure out how this message can help you. Ask yourself questions like: Can I learn something from this piece of criticism? Maybe there is something here that I do not want to hear but that could help me to improve? 3. Remember: the criticism isn't always about you. Some criticism is certainly helpful. Some isn’t that helpful or just simply attacks. What can I do then? Well, then I remember that criticism isn’t always about me. It would be nice if all criticism one gets comes from level-headed place. But in reality people will have a bad day or week. Some will hate some part of their life. Some might not be all that well at this moment. So they lash out at you to release pent up negative emotions. On your blog or maybe in school or at work. It’s not fun. But it happens. To lessen the sting of this criticism or these attacks I try to be understanding. I think that based on the message I got – often really angry or overly critical about some pretty minor thing – this person isn’t feeling too good right now and is overreacting or need to release some pent up emotions. By being understanding of this it becomes easier to just let such messages go instead of feeling bad or becoming angry too. 4. Reply or let go. If you reply then try one or a few follow up questions if you think that could help you. And even when someone blurts out something not too constructive like “Your work/blog/product isn't very good” you might want to ask a few open-ended questions to get more constructive information. Questions like: What part of it did you not like or did you not find helpful? How can I improve it? When I reply to a critical email I try to keep my attitude positive and kind no matter what they have written. I thank him or her for what he or she wrote. I may add a question or two to get more clarification. Sometimes I get back a much more level-headed reply where they actually help me to improve what I am doing and although I may still feel a bit hurt it also feels good to be the better person in this situation and to create a constructive conversation. If they won’t answer your questions then they are probably just lashing out. And so it is time to let go. I really don’t reply to all emails though. Nasty attacks are for example most often just put in the junk mail folder. I have more interesting things to focus on. 5. Keep your daily balance. This isn’t a step to handle one specific email, phone call or critical message. But I have found that it becomes a whole lot easier to handle criticism if you stay balanced in your daily life. Those messages seem to not be as hurtful, they don’t affect me as much or sometimes just roll off my back like water on a duck when I: Work in a relaxed way. Extra stress makes you more susceptible to the negative messages and to overreacting to criticism. Manage the 3 fundamentals. That means to eat properly, to get enough sleep and to work out a couple of times a week. Keeping the balance of your physical fundamentals make you mentally stronger too. Keep the self-esteem up. Criticism can send you down a spiral of self-loathing and feeling lousy about yourself. Keeping the stress down and the energy-giving fundamentals up can help you to not wind up in such dark places. Keeping your own self-esteem up is also vital. A couple of basic things that help me to do so is to behave in way where I do the right thing (like being the better person when replying to a critical email) as best I can, to appreciate myself, my good traits and accomplishments and to forgive myself instead of beating myself up about stuff or holding myself to impossible standards. What is your tip for handling criticism in a good way?

via lululemon After another great morning of classes I’m happy to report that my students are progressing at an incredible rate each week. I love it! I get such joy out of watching them master their roll-ups and take their teasers one step further each class. I enjoy watching my students work hard. I love the occasional eye roll and grunt as I guide them through a long abdominal series. It’s okay. I get it. Pilates takes a lot of self-motivation and active engagement to get the best work out of a class. And it truly is HARD work! That being said, as I continue to push each student to challenge themselves and engage deeper in each movement, many of them are progressing on to the next stage of the work…finding ease in the effort. It’s one thing to do hold a plank for 60 seconds while tensing your shoulders, clenching your glutes, hanging your head, and scrunching your face. It’s quite another thing to hold a plank with secure shoulders blades and an engaged abdomen while simultaneously lengthening your spine and calming your breath. If you find yourself getting bored with your training or more importantly, if you find yourself feeling tense after your workouts, I encourage you to find the ease in the effort as you move forward. Perfect the art of calm, controlled movement. Move beyond brute force and work gracefully with your body and your breath. Find strength in the flow and learn trust your own strength. Give it a try this week and let me know how it goes 🙂 Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE! #breath #exercise #Health #Pilates

Oh. My. Goodness. I have a new love affair. You HAVE to try this recipe. So easy. So delicious. And still healthy! I found the original recipe on Choosing Raw and she isn’t kidding, this treat will change your life. Especially if you’re a fro-yo lover like myself. I added peanut butter to add some protein. Remember, fruit is processed in the body very similarly to sweets because it’s full of sugar so adding protein can help stabilize your blood sugar and keep cravings at bay. Peanut Butter & Banana Soft Serve 1 frozen banana 1/8 cup almond milk (start with less, add more as necessary) 1 scoop peanut butter or almond butter (all natural) I believe this works best in a food processor and if you have one you may not need to add the milk.  I used my blender and it worked perfectly.  Adding a little bit of milk helped with the consistency. Tip: When freezing bananas, wait until they’re nice and ripe and make sure to peel them beforehand. 🙂 Directions are simple: blend all of the ingredients together and enjoy! And add some cacao nibs for a little extra deliciousness! Share this one with your friends, they will LOVE you for it! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #recipe #banana #diet #peanutbutter #Health #healthydessert #softserve

Image by Shermeee ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else” Winston Churchill If you are reading this then there is good chance that you agree with me that optimism is pretty awesome. But it is not always easy to adopt a more optimistic attitude and there are roadblocks. So today I’d like to share a few of them that I have bumped into and how I have overcome them. You are swimming in a sea of negativity. If you are trying to change your attitude then it’s not very helpful to live in a world where forces try to drag you back to your old mindset each day. It makes it very hard to change. What you allow into your mind will have a big effect on you. So be selective. If you’re hanging out with negative people all the time then that can really drag you down. It’s not easy to stay optimistic when pessimism is the default mode in your world. Another part of this is getting hooked on the news and prophecies of the sky falling. The sky is probably not falling. Consider spending less time with negative voices. Cut back on – or cut out – seeing negative people. Cut back on watching the news or even more spectacularly negative TV-shows. But don’t forget to replace that old stuff you cut out with something more positive instead. If you have a vacuum in your life then you are more likely to revert back to your old habits. You can for instance replace reading the newspaper in the morning with listening to personal development CDs, watching something fun or just having a good conversation with someone that positive, funny or enthusiastic. You get stuck in thinking that you have to be an optimist 100 percent of the time. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that when you adopt a optimistic attitude then it’s just on. Like when you flick a light switch. And that would be nice and simple, wouldn’t it? But in my experience you improve gradually with a few bigger leaps from time to time. For example, today I stay constructive and optimistic for about 80 percent of the time. Five years ago or so, I was probably positive for about 30 percent of the time. So I have made big improvements in this area. But it has taken years and lots of exploring and work to have a more consistently optimistic attitude. And the work continues. Mental fitness is like physical fitness. If you let things slide then you get out of shape and then you can’t do the things you used to do. I think it is very important to be aware that nothing will ever be perfect. Striving for perfection can be pretty dangerous. Because you will never feel like you are good enough. Even though you may be optimistic 90 percent of the time you still feel deep inside like you aren’t OK. No matter what you do. You have set the bar at an inhuman level. And so your self esteem stays low and your optimism sinks even though your results may be very good. So I think it’s better to just focus on gradually being more consistent instead trying to be perfect. You get stuck because of the benefits of your current attitude. At some point you have to make up your mind. Will you go for the benefits of adopting more optimistic attitude? Or will you stay with benefits of a negative attitude? Because there are benefits to both of them. It’s not like a negative attitude is something that is just stupid and something people do without any reason. A negative attitude can for example give you this: Attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. No risks. When you are negative you can find explanations for why nothing will work. And so you don’t have to take action and have to risk for example rejection or failure. A feeling of being smarter and right. A common attitude of very negative people seems to be – and it was in my case – that you think you are smarter than other people. They do, fumble and fail. While you can judge and analyse life and them from a safe distance. It’s not hard to feel smarter than most people when you are always on the sidelines. But it’s not clever. In the end it’s just sad. So there are a few benefits and quite a bit of pleasurable feelings to be drawn from a negative attitude. But I have found that a optimistic attitude – although it may sometimes be harder to keep up – is more helpful and just makes life a lot more exciting and fresh. To be able to have a more consistently optimistic attitude you have to let go of the negative attitude and those benefits or you’ll get stuck at a certain level. You miss the physical part of the picture. One good way to become a more optimistic person is to ask questions that empower you instead of making you feel like a victim. If you are in negative situation you can for instance ask yourself: what is the hidden opportunity in this situation? So one part of an optimistic attitude is about learning to think in more helpful way. But it’s not just about your thoughts. I have found that one of the best ways to turn around a negative mood or just to remain positive and strong is to work out. After you are done it sometimes feels like you are a different person. Doubt and worries just seem to fall away or at least become a lot smaller. This nice thing about this is that it works kinda automatically. Because sometimes you just can’t pump up your own enthusiasm or motivation. Or see things from an optimistic perspective. When working out you don’t have to think or push through such inner resistance. You go and you work out . And most of the time it works like pushing a stress and tension release button in yourself. Being in pretty good shape and working out a couple of times a week is to me one of the most fundamental and effective things you can do to improve your attitude and life. You may discover that if you improve this area of your life then some of the tips for how to think in a more optimistic way become a bit superfluous. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. Thank you! =)

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.” Spanish Proverb “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task” William James Not all tasks of the day are inspiring, fun or exciting. Some just feel dull or boring. But you still have to wash those dishes and take care of those monotone, routine tasks at work or in school. So what can you do to not get lost in procrastination? How can you get going with those tasks you don’t feel much like doing and get to done? In this article I’ll share how I do it, how I get some motivation and find more pleasure in what may seem to be a boring task. Think of why you are doing the task and how good it will feel when it is done. Instead of focusing your mind on how boring a task may feel focus your thoughts on why you are doing this and how good it will feel when you are done with it. If needed, sit down for a few minutes, close your eyes and see in your mind and feel how good it will be when you are there, when you are done with the task. Then go to work with that motivation and those positive feelings in your body. Do it mindfully. When you sort papers, do the laundry or do the dishes be fully there. Focus 100% on just the fork with all your senses – how it feels, looks and smells – as you are scrubbing it and nothing else. Don’t get lost in daydreams. If you are just there I have found that even such a simple and mundane task becomes more enjoyable and something that can bring inner calm rather than distress. Don’t think too much. Get going instead. The more you think about the boring task the more boring it seems in your mind. And so it becomes harder and harder to get started and to get to done. So try to think very little about it. Just make a decision to start doing the task, get up and go do it right away. Make a deal with yourself and set a timer for 10 minutes. It is often in easier to do tasks like these in small bursts. So make a deal with yourself to make a dent in this task. Make a deal to just spend 10 minutes on your inbox, mundane reading or cleaning the house. Set a kitchen timer and say to yourself that you only have to do this work for 10 minutes. When the timer rings you can continue doing it if you feel like it (this often happens to me because getting started is the hard part). Or you can stop and go do something more interesting instead. Create a pleasurable distraction. If possible, try to listen to the radio, your favorite songs, an audio book or watch a movie or TV-episode while doing your boring task. You don’t always have to do just one thing at a time in silence. I often listen to music or watch an episode of the Simpsons while doing the dishes or other routine work at home. Reward yourself. When you are done with your task then reward yourself. Take a walk in the sun, move on to a more fun or creative task at work or in school or have a tasty treat. This habit can make it easier to get started and to keep going each day. Because you know that you can look forward to not just being done and the long-term payoff from that but also your immediate reward right after you are finished. What is your tip for getting the boring tasks done?

I can’t get enough of this new smoothie recipe. In fact, I’m sitting here finishing one right now and contemplating making another. It’s delicious and packed with vital nutrients. Don’t let the ingredients or the color scare you away, somehow this just works…in an incredible way. Banana, Date & Almond Butter Smoothie 1/2 banana 2 dates (pitted) 2 tablespoons ground flax seed 1 scoop protein powder (unflavored & optional) 1 scoop almond butter (pb would work too) Big handful of fresh spinach 5 ice cubes water or almond milk (I use unsweetened vanilla) Fresh dates are perfectly sweet on their own so this smoothie doesn’t require any added sugar. I love that.  If possible, use unflavored protein powder so that you can avoid all of the added sugars that come with the flavoring. Keep it natural. If you go for almond milk instead of water, seek out the unsweetened vanilla flavor. Again, reducing sugar is always a good thing. Spinach, dates and flax seed are packed with fiber and potassium which help with blood pressure, digestion and heart health. Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #recipe #diet #fiber #healthysnack #Health #smoothie #nutrition

If we really want to see a change in the way that the fitness industry speaks to women, then those of us fighting the good fight need to stick together. From time to time, I’ll be showcasing women who are out there living healthy, vibrant lives and spreading a positive message. When I stumbled across Caitlin Boyle’s blog I knew she would be a perfect fit for The Balanced Life. As you know, I’m a believer in ending  “fat talk” and I found out on her blog that she is too! Match made in heaven. She’s a perfect example of a woman who is passionate about healthy living but doesn’t let the pressures from the media dictate her worth and beauty. Below is a little interview with her and how she started the incredible Operation Beautiful movement. Read on… v Hi Caitlin! Can you tell us a little about you before we get started? My name is Caitlin Boyle and I’m 26 years old. I was born in Miami, Florida and now I live in Charlotte, North Carolina with my husband Kristien and two dogs. I majored in Creative Non-Fiction and Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I used to work as an urban planner, but now I make a living as a blogger, author, and motivational speaker. Operation Beautiful began on my personal site, Healthy Tipping Point. What is Operation Beautiful, and what inspired you to start it? The site started in June 2009 and I’ve received over 7,000 notes from all over the world since it started, including notes from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Operation Beautiful involves posting random notes in public places for other people to find. These notes typically encourage a positive body image or outlook and include phrases like “You are beautiful inside and out” or “Scales measure weight, not worth.” I was inspired to start Operation Beautiful after having a really bad day at work; I wanted to do something small and simple for someone else to make me feel better! Why do you think so many women struggle with self-esteem issues? There a lot of negative messaging in our society, and the issues start young – did you know the average girl goes on her first diet when she’s 8 years old? The biggest mistake we make is beating ourselves up for not looking like models or celebrities. It’s time we stop emulating or striving for a type of perfection that doesn’t even exist in the real world. It’s OK to look like a human! I couldn’t agree more! Do you think the media will ever change their attitude towards promoting healthy body image? I think society needs to ask them to change, and then I hope they will listen to consumers. What do you hope for the future? There is a lot of negative messaging in our society. The biggest mistake we make is beating ourselves up for not looking like models or celebrities. It’s time we stop emulating or striving for a type of perfection that doesn’t even exist in the real world. It’s OK to look like a human! What do you think should be our “goal” in terms of healthy diet and exercise? I think the goal is to find something active that YOU like to do and regularly incorporate it into your life for pleasure, not because you feel like you ‘have’ to do it. Also, eat healthy foods and enjoy treats in moderation. Above all else, remember that the goal is HEALTH, not size or weight. Healthy looks different for different people. I love it. Before we wrap up, can you tell us about the Operation Beautiful book? The Operation Beautiful book is called Operation Beautiful: Transforming the Way You See Yourself One Post-It Note at a Time. It was published in August 2010 by Gotham Books and was featured in Glamour, Fitness, Women’s Day, FIRST, and on The Today Show. The book includes 125 amazing notes and stories, as well as tips on how to lead a happier and healthier life. The book is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. For more from Caitlin be sure to check out her two blogs: Healthy Tipping Point & Operation Beautiful Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

This routine is for those of you who come home at the end of the day with a tense neck, tight shoulders and a stiff back. If you don’t have a foam roller yet, please get one! They’re cheap, effective and perfect for releasing tension at the end of the day. After hours of sitting hunched over a keyboard it’s incredibly important to re-align your spine and stretch the muscles of your upper body (primarily your neck, chest and shoulders). This routine will take no more than 5 minutes and will help you de-stress both mentally and physically. And for good measure, I threw in a couple of abdominal exercises to strengthen your core and prevent further back pain. PECTORAL STRETCH Lie down on the foam roller with your feet flat on the floor and your arms resting by your side. Take a few seconds to breathe and relax into the position. Open your arms out to the side with your palms facing up and allow the pectoral muscles to open and stretch. Rest your hands and elbows on the ground if you can do so comfortably. Hold for 5-10 breaths. ARM CIRCLES Keep you abdominals engaged and your shoulders stabilized while make 5 big circles with your arms. Try to brush the floor with your hands but don’t force a big rotation if you’re too stiff. Work within a comfortable range of motion. Repeat in the opposite direction. RHOMBOID RELEASE Place your arms in a “goal post” position with your palms facing up. Be sure to keep your forearms parallel to the floor throughout this entire movement. Slowly slide your forearms up above your head and then slide them back down. Keep your shoulder blades stabilized and the front of your rib cage closed. Focus using the roller to massage the muscles located between your shoulder blades. Repeat 5 times. CHEST LIFT Keep your feet flat on the floor, sit bone distance apart. Interlace your hands behind your head to support your neck. Keep your elbows wide but within your peripheral vision. Inhale to prepare and exhale to lift your chest, folding right under your ribs. Repeat 5 – 10 times. TOE TAPS Rest your hands gently down on the floor. Engage your abdominals and draw both legs up into “table top” position. Lower one leg at a time to tap the floor, moving the thigh bone, not just the foot. Inhale as you lower, exhale as you use your abs to draw the leg back up. Repeat 5 times on each side and 5 times with the legs glued together. If this puts strain on your lower back, then make your movement small and don’t worry about touching the floor. Questions on how to perform these exercises? Post a comment below… xo, PS – you may also like how to release knots in your back and the “anti-computer”shoulder series. Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE! #Pilates #tensionrelease #abdominalexercise #stretching #exercise #breath

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/circo_de_invierno/ / CC BY 2.0 [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.” Swedish Proverb “If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.” E. Joseph Cossman ”People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” George Bernard Shaw You are going about your regular day in your usual fashion. Then a thought or a feeling strikes you. It multiplies and start circling around and around in your head. Becoming louder and louder as it saps your strength and makes you feel weaker. Worries can really put a wet blanket over your life and suck the excitement and fun right out of it. So strategies are needed. Strategies to redirect our thoughts and feelings away from the worries and to make them fade away and let us regain inner peace or at least make those worries manageable. In this article I’ll share how I do that in my own life. Some of these things may work very well for you. Some may work less well. So i recommend going through these steps and trying them out and see what works best for you. 1. Ask yourself: How many of the things you feared would happen in your life did actually happen? This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time. This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts. So whenever I am struck with worries, I ask myself this question and I remind myself of how little of the things that I have worried about over the years that have actually become real. I find that this most often calms me down. 2. Ask yourself: Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? It’s very easy to fall into the habit of making mountains out of molehills. You think and think about a small problem until it becomes something that you believe may ruin your life. So why do we do it? Why don’t strive to make things easy and simple? Well, one reason I believe is protection from pain. By making the problem huge can you can invent a helpful excuse to convince yourself to not take action. Another reason is that the ego wants more. It wants to feel better or worse than someone else. By making things more complicated than they need to be you can make them feel very important. And since you are involved in these important things, since you have these BIG problems, well, then you have to be important too, right? Plus, by doing so you can get a lot of attention and comfort from other people. So how do you get out of the habit of making mountains of molehills? Two tips: Zoom out. Ask questions that widen your current perspective. Questions like: “Does someone have it worse on the planet?” The answer may not result in positive thoughts, but it can sure snap you of a somewhat childish “poor, poor me…” attitude pretty quickly. This question changes the perspective from a narrow, self-centred one into a much wider one and helps me to lighten up about my situation and to be grateful about my life. Bring awareness to you own thought patterns. Ask yourself further questions like: “Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?” and “What is the simplest and most straightforward solution to my problem that I may be avoiding to protect myself from pain?” 3. Refocus your mind and attention towards the solutions rather than the worry. To move out of worry I find it enormously helpful to just start moving and taking action to solve what I am concerned about. Two tips that have helped me to take action more consistently every week are: Using a morning routine. This is perhaps the most powerful tip I have found so far in this area. You simply set up a routine in the morning that you do as soon as you wake up. This works so well because what you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. As humans we have a strong tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. That’s one big reason why a bad start often leads to a bad day and a good start often leads to a good day. So create a routine that gives you a positive and proactive start to your day. A tip is to include doing the hardest task of your day first thing in your day. Starting small. To get from a state where you just feel like sitting on your chair and doing nothing much to one where you take action over and over you can do this: start small. Getting started with your biggest task or most difficult action may seem too much and land you in Procrastinationland. So instead, start with something that doesn’t seem so hard. One of my favorites is simply to take a few minutes to clean my desk. After that the next thing doesn’t seem so difficult to get started with since I’m now in a more of a “take action” kind of mode. 4. Go and do a work out. This is perhaps a somewhat unusual step. But I have found that on some days I cannot change my thoughts or immediately find an solution by using the three steps above. Then I go and do a workout like lifting free weights for half an hour or I do a body weight circuit. And that will most often change how I feel. Because I get a hormone boost and an energy boost. With that boost in hormones and energy you feel like you’re in forward motion, with a clearer focus and you feel more inner stability with a lot less inner doubt. The nice thing about this is that it works kind of automatically. Sometimes you just can’t let go of that worrying feeling or pump up your own enthusiasm or motivation. Or see things from a positive perspective. When working out you don’t have to think or push through such inner resistance. You go and you work out. And most of the time it works like pushing a stress- and tension-release button in yourself. 5. Remember: Tomorrow will come anyway. Live and fully enjoy here and now. To be able to let go all that excessive thinking about the future (which often leads to worries in the end), to live better today and to be able to take that positive action to move forward it really has been very helpful for me to develop a habit of learning to live in the present moment. Because it’s there that you can do things in the best possible way with your focus fully on what you are doing. Three of my favourite techniques for developing this habit and drawing myself back to the now when I get lost thinking too much about the future or past are these: Focus on what’s right in front of you. Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses. Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel. Be still right there and just take in the world around you. Focus on your breathing. Take relatively deep breaths with your belly. Focus your attention on just the in- and out-breaths for about two minutes. This aligns you with what is happening right now and it also calms down a stressed and worried body. Pick up the vibe from present people. If you know someone that is more present than most people then you can pick up his/her vibe of presence by hanging out with him or her (just like you can pick up positivity or enthusiasm from people). If you don’t know someone like that then I have often recommended listening to/watching Eckhart Tolle in the past. I still do. I especially like his audio book “Stillness Speaks”. Another guy that I find helpful for picking up presence from is Wayne Dyer. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. 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Those of us in the fitness industry spend a lot of time talking about what to feed your body. Rarely do we talk about what to feed your mind. As you know by now, I believe that the first step in changing your body is changing your mind . When it comes to fitness, there are a number of ways we sabotage our success, but over time I’ve discovered that this always begins in the mind. As women, we consistently sabotage our efforts to make healthy changes by feeling guilt when we don’t measure up to certain expectations. But where do these expectations come from? Why is it that you believe you NEED to be two sizes smaller than you are right now? Why is that you think you need to look a certain way before you can wear a certain kind of outfit? Why is it that you feel guilty after eating pizza and drinking beer? Why is it that you think you have no self-control? Let me ask you this: Are you devoted to celebrity gossip magazines? Do you read fitness magazines thinking that the articles and info in there will motivate you to get in shape? Do you look to celebrities for inspiration and fitness advice? The messages that we receive through the media have created in us a culture of unrealistic expectations. Every time we pick up a magazine we feed our mind. Every time we turn on the television we deepen our beliefs about what we “should” do or what we “should” look like without even realizing it. We are trapped in a world of perfectionism. The trouble is, we believe that perfectionism is motivating and we believe that chasing it will give us the will-power that we need to attain it. This is absolutely false. Chasing perfection will never work. We’ll defeat ourselves before we even begin. Perfectionism reinforces an “all or nothing” attitude toward health & fitness. If we continue in this way, we’ll continue to start and stop diets, workout religiously for a few weeks and then “fall off the wagon”, eat “good” for a few days and then binge on ice cream, etc. Perfection cannot be our motivation. It. Will. Not. Work. This is an issue near and dear to my hear. I gave up magazines all together for a few years because I couldn’t read them without feeling fat, frumpy and inadequate. I know this may not be true for everyone, but it was true for me. Thankfully, I’m now in a healthy frame of mind and can read them without internalizing the messages they send so I’ll indulge from time to time….but I know my limits! And I want you to know yours too. I’m not telling you to give up magazines and TV and I’m not saying that they’re inherently bad. But I am encouraging you to become aware of the messages that you are allowing to enter your mind on a daily basis. We’re all going to be affected by different messages & mediums so it’s important for you to know what YOUR “weak spot” is. There is a healthy balance to be found. Let’s keep the discussion going. Post a comment and tell me your thoughts 🙂 Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #Balance #Fitness #Health #thoughts

This recipe was born out of an incurable love for margaritas and a strong aversion to sugary, high-calorie cocktails at happy hour. Enter, my Fresh Citrus Margarita. This cocktail is extremely simple and extremely satisfying. Feel free to play with the porportions to suit your tastes. Fresh Citrus Margarita 1 shot silver tequila .75 shot triple sec juice from 1/2 of a lemon juice from 2 limes (maybe more depending on how ripe they are) juice from 1/2 of an orange drizzle of honey (optional) ice If you like to sweeten it up a bit, add a drizzle of honey. It’s a great complement to the citrus and you’ll still save hundreds of calories compared to prepared mixes and restaurant versions. CHEERS! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #lowcaloriecocktail #margarita #recipe

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denemiles/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” W. M Lewis “How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.” Martin Luther I love getting started with a new habit or project. There is excitement and a certain freshness ahead of you as you are about to get going. But sometimes it stops there. At about to get going. Because “you don’t have the time”. Or it's “not the right time right now”. I have whole chapters on how I establish new habits, keep up the motivation after that initial enthusiasm perhaps has started to wane and on how to become more of a person of action in The Art of Relaxed Productivity . But today I would like to share just three tips for that first, crucial step. Three steps that have worked for me over and over to get started with something and to grow. Ask yourself: Do I really want this? One reason that you may never seem to get started is because your heart is not in it. If you set a goal but it isn’t your goal then it will be hard to achieve or even getting started with it. If you realize that it’s a goal set by people around you – parents, teachers, bosses or society in general – then, when possible, eliminate the goal and set a few goals you would like to achieve. Or try to find you own motivation and reasons for achieving a goal rather than the ones people around you have set. This could put the goal in different light and suddenly you’ll feel a whole lot motivated to get started. But you don’t always have to have a burning desire to do something to get going. I have begun something many, many times just because I was curious. If you are curious but feel an inner resistance then the next two tips will be helpful. Ask yourself: What is the worst that could happen? If you feel like you can’t get started for some reason then ask yourself: what is the worst that can happen? A lot of the fear we feel before getting started comes from fuzzy and foggy thoughts about what could happen. But if you actually imagine the worst realistic scenario then it’s often not as frightening as you thought. You won’t die or anything. And it won’t ruin the rest of your life. Imagine the worst scenario and then try to create a plan how you could get on your feet again if that scenario, against all probability, should happen. You’ll then most often realize that whatever your fear is you could probably get back on your feet and back to your normal life pretty quickly once again. Start the easy way. If it feels like too big of an effort in your mind then you'll come up with all kinds of reasons to not get started. So start easy. Take a small step into something new. Go out running for just 10 minutes. Instead of running for 45 minutes. Or run for just 5 minutes and walk for 5 minutes. The important thing is to make the habit stick and you do that by actually doing it a whole bunch of times. Then you can slowly, step by step, increase the amount of time you spend running each time you are out. Work on something new for just 10 minutes. If you feel reluctant to starting with something new then commit to start doing actual work – not more planning or preparation – for just 10 minutes. Or for 5 minutes if 10 seems too much. Then do just 5 or 10 minutes of work on the new thing each day. After you have gotten started you will however often just continue working after those first few minutes minutes are up. Getting started is often the hardest part so make it easy on yourself by initially setting the bar as low as you are comfortable with.

Confession: Lately I’ve felt guilty of going against what I preach on this blog and to my clients (which has led me to feel extra guilty since I write all about ditching the guilt. Hmm. Whoops). I’ve recently made some changes, mostly dietary changes, and have strictly avoided certain food groups during the week. Why? To keep my weight down. Yep, I’m confessing. I made these changes right around the time my new blog launched and so I quickly realized that I needed to do some serious self-evaluation to make sure that I’m maintaining authenticity in my message and in my life. I took some time to honestly question my motivation behind the changes I’ve made to see if I’ve begun to fall back into old unhealthy habits. If you’ve read about me , you know that I used to have a very black & white approach to diet & exercise. I n.e.v.e.r. want to live that way again so it became clear to me that an honest self-check to determine WHY I’ve been following new dietary “rules” was in order. Thankfully, I learned something incredibly valuable. I feel good, I feel healthy and I can confidently say that I’m still seeking balance, just in a new way that fits this particular season of life. I realized that balance can look different based on life’s ever-changing demands and circumstances. It can also look different for each person. This summer my husband and I planned an incredible amount of weekend travel. We just completed trip number 6 of 9. When I go on trips I tend to go into “vacation mode” no matter what. Most of them are centered around friends, family and celebrations so there is a lot of eating, drinking and indulging to be done. And indulge I confidently do! In addition, most of the trips have been short and packed with activities which has left little room for exercise. All this to say, in order to maintain a sense of balance during this season, I’ve needed (more importantly, wanted) to be extra intentional about my diet and exercise on the days spent at home in between trips. For me, this means going for runs, doing Pilates, eating fresh whole foods, and taking breaks from certain indulgent food and drinks. Simply put, I’ve been using my weekdays to balance out my weekends. And it’s been working for me. Do I want to maintain this pattern when life returns to normal? No. I prefer to find balance on a daily basis and avoid setting eating parameters all together. But, has it been helping to keep me healthy and happy in this season of busy-ness? Yes, absolutely. I’ve recently spoken with a few clients about this exact topic. One client is in the process of a big move and has not been able to exercise as much as she would like. I have been careful to remind her that it is merely a SEASON and that is important to acknowledge. Just because life gets crazy doesn’t mean you should lose all hope of achieving fitness goals, it may just require adjusting your perspective and expectations to fit your current season of life. I think it’s a valuable lesson and I’m curious to know what you think. Based on your current season of life, what does balance mean to you? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

Many people don’t know that there are principles that every good Pilates workout should include. There are 10 and knowing them may help you understand the bigger picture of Pilates. Pilates is a method, not just a random assortment of exercises to make you work. It was through understanding these principles and watching them spill over into my everyday life that I came to believe that Pilates can significantly impact ones lifestyle. Thus, “The Balanced Life: A Pilates-inspired Lifestyle” was born. The 10 principles: Awareness Breath Balance Control Concentration Center Efficiency Flow Precision Harmony Over the next few weeks I’ll be focusing on a few of the principles and exploring how they apply to our practice of Pilates as well as how they can create positive changes our everyday life. There is so much to discover in the world of Pilates and I wholeheartedly believe that diving into these principles can help you FINALLY break free of the diet/exercise cycle that has kept you stagnant for so long. I’m confident because it worked for me and I’ve seen it work for my clients time and time again. A question for those of you practicing Pilates: did you know that these principles existed prior to reading this post? I’m curious 🙂 Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

Image by visualpanic ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.” Sydney J. Harris Maybe you are on vacation right now and are trying to relax and release the pressure and tension from a year of school or work. And maybe you are soon going back again. So what can you do to increase your sense of centeredness and relaxation not only during these remaining weeks of summer but also during this fall? Well, here are six tips that have worked well for me. I hope you'll find something useful. Spend your time online in a very focused way. One change I usually do during the summer is to minimize the time I spend online. I cut it down to the bare essentials. Basically that means I update the blog and send out new newsletters. And I check my email/Twitter/Facebook maybe once every other day. Of course, you may not have the option or want to make exactly those changes. But you may want to try to cut down on your online time a bit. Maybe just check all the things you check online once a day. I have found that it makes me a lot more relaxed, focused on the most important things and leaves me with more time to use for other things. Let go of what you “have to do”. If you are feeling totally stressed out and wrapped up in everything you “have to do”, here is a good question: “Will this matter in 5 years?”. This is of course not an excuse for you to not do anything. But a reminder that the small things we get wrapped up in when we feel stressed are often not that important when you view it from a wider perspective. In the end you can choose what you want to do and not do. There are of course consequences to everything that we do and that is something one must keep in mind. But I think it is very important to feel like you are in control of your own life to be able to stay centred and minimize stress and pressure. It’s important to choose what you want to do instead of always living in reaction and feeling controlled by outside forces all the time. You may for example feel like you have all these things you “just have to do before the summer is over”. If such thoughts are stressing you out, you may want to choose to say no to some of those things. And you might want to take a day where you take it easy and do pretty much nothing. It can do wonders. Take 30 belly breaths. This is one of the quickest and most consistent way to relax that I have found so far. It can be done anywhere and anytime. It’s great way to release pent up tension and to centre yourself in the present moment once again as you bring your focus to just the in- and out-breaths. Here’s a simple instruction on what to do: Sit or stand up straight but in a relaxed way. Put your hands on your stomach. Using your stomach breathe in slowly through your nose. If you are doing it right your stomach will expand and you’ll feel it with your hands. Breathe out slowly through your nose. Breathe in and out 30 times. Take deep and slow breaths. Act as you would like to feel. Another simple tip you can use just about anywhere. Your emotions work backwards too. If you slow down then while walking, moving your body or talking you can often start to feel less stressed (compared to if you move/talk fast). Slowing down to decrease stress goes for many other things you do in everyday life too like riding your bicycle, driving the car and eating. Stop thinking the world revolves around you. One great way to make your life unnecessarily hard and difficult is to assume that the world revolves around you. It can make you feel like you are trapped in a cage built out of social pressure. Not pleasant at all. But is everyone watching everything you do? Thinking about you a lot and discussing what you said or did? Probably not. It’s very seductive to think they do because it makes you feel important and it gives you validation and attention. But they are probably spending their time worrying about their own challenges in life and what other people think about them. It’s not easy to let go of the belief that the world revolves around you. But there are huge benefits such as decreased shyness and increased openness towards people and trying new things. So you give up or decrease the importance you put on validation from the outside. And by doing so you can release a lot of pressure and stress and increase your own inner centeredness and freedom to feel that you can do what you want in life. And as you do so you stop raising your self-esteem and increasing positive feelings about yourself through the validation people may give you (or at least you cut down on it a lot). Instead you now raise the self-esteem and increase the positive feelings by doing more of what you think are the right things to do in life and by caring more about what you think and feel about yourself and how you are living your life. Just accept how you feel right now. Maybe you try out some of the tips above. And maybe they still can’t help you to shake that stress, inner pressure or whatever you are carrying around. I would then suggest just accepting that it is there. To tell yourself: “This is how I feel right now and I accept it”. This may sound like you’re giving up. However, by accepting how you feel instead of resisting it you reduce the emotional energy that you are feeding into this conflict/problem. It then tends to just lose speed like a car that runs out of fuel. And oftentimes it becomes so weak after while that it just moves out of your inner focus and disappears. If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. 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This is a favorite series of mine. I’ve written it as a 40 minute workout but if you have less time just adjust the length to fit your needs. Give it a try and let me know what you think! Cardio: 15 minute run – Jog at an easy pace for the first 5 minutes. Once you begin to feel warm pick up the pace and run at a HARD pace for the remaining 10 minutes. It’s not a long duration so you can afford to push yourself and tire yourself out. Pilates: 10 minutes  – Visit my YouTube page and pick any video that suits your needs. I recommend “Flat Tummy February” for a solid 10 minute core strengthening workout. Cardio: 15 minute run – Head out for another 15 minute cardio session. Run at a fairly hard pace for the entire set.  Just think:  7.5 minutes out and 7.5 minutes back and you’re done! By sandwiching your strength training in between two cardio sessions you’ll keep your heart rate up for 40 minutes without actually having to run for 40 minutes. In addition, breaking it up into 3 short sections makes the time fly by. Focus on completing one section at a time and you’ll have completed a fabulous workout in 3 easy steps. Let me know how it goes! xo, Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE! #Pilates #calories #running #Workout #weightloss #hiit

Before I post this delicious recipe, I’d like to kindly remind you that this is not a food blog. It won’t take you long to figure that out. I can’t promise beautiful pictures, drop-dead delicious meals or anything that requires a Kitchen Aid food mixer. Somehow that didn’t make it into our house as a wedding gift, but I’ve managed to survive 🙂 What you WILL find on this blog are easy, healthy recipes. We’re all so busy and I understand that. If you’re like me, you like to cook, but you just don’t have much time to spend in the kitchen. Recipes here will be simple, healthy and balanced. My hope is to provide recipes that will make living a healthy lifestyle more manageable and more approachable. So with that, here is a favorite of mine as of late. It’s fresh and satisfying and can be pulled together in a matter of minutes. I make a big batch and serve it as a side dish when we grill and save the leftovers for lunch. You can also throw this salad over a bowl of quinoa for a complete meal. Goat cheese is a great go-to cheese. Because of its strong flavor, a little bit goes a long way. It’s also low in fat and calorie content when compared to other cheeses. Cheers! Tomato, Cucumber & Basil Salad: 1 carton cherry tomatoes, halved 1 cucumber, sliced in small chunks a handful of fresh basil, chopped 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar Crumbled goat cheese, to taste It’s as simple as it sounds. Mix all of the chopped ingredients in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil & balsamic vinegar, sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese and enjoy! Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #produce #recipe #Lifestyle #Health #healthymeal

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill is probably no stranger to anyone. He was an inspirational British leader during the Second World War. He was also a writer, historian, poet, artist and the only British Prime Minister to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Here are a few of my favorite fundamentals from Churchill on how to improve your life. 1. Focus on what you are doing right now. “It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” “It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.” When you start to look too far into the future then any task or project can seem close to impossible. And so you shut down because you become overwhelmed and start surfing the internet aimlessly instead. That is one of the reasons why it is good to plan for the future but then to shift your focus back to today and the present moment. Then you just focus on taking the first step today. That is all you need to focus on, nothing else. By taking the first step you change your mental state from resistant to “hey, I’m doing this, cool”. You put yourself in state where you become more positive and open, a state where you may not be enthusiastic about taking the next step after this first one but you are at least accepting it. And so you can take the next step. And the next one after that. The thing is, you can’t see the whole path anyway and it will shift and reveal itself along the way. That’s why the best of plans tend to fall apart at least a bit as you start to put it into action. You discover that your map of reality doesn’t look like reality. 2. Be concerned about action. “I never worry about action, but only about inaction” Yes, taking action can lead to failure, rejection or making mistakes. There is always a risk for that. But if you stay in inaction then you are pretty much guaranteed that nothing will change or improve. How can you improve your action habit though? Three tips: Reconnect with the present moment. This will help you snap out of over thinking and just go and do whatever you want to get done. It is one of the best tips I have found so far for taking more action since it puts you in a state where you feel little emotional resistance to the work you’ll do. And it puts you in state where the right actions often just seem to flow out of you in a focused but relaxed way and without much effort. One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep your focus on your breathing for a minute or two. Check out 7 more tips in 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment . Lighten up. One way to dissuade yourself from taking action is to take whatever you are about to do too seriously. That makes it feel too big, too difficult and too scary. If you on the other hand relax a bit and lighten up you often realize that those problems and negative feelings are just something you are creating in your own mind. With a lighter state of mind your tasks seems lighter and becomes easier to get started with. Start small. To get from a state where you just feel like sitting on your chair and doing nothing much to one where you take action over and over you can do this: start small. Getting started with your biggest task or most difficult action may seem too much and land you in Procrastinationland. So instead, start with something that doesn’t seem so hard. One of my favorites is simply to take a few minutes to clean my desk. After that the next thing doesn’t seem so difficult to get started with since I’m now in a more of a “take action” kind of mode. 3. Be an optimist. “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” “I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.” Focusing on what helps you sure makes a huge difference compared to if you keep focusing on what is wrong in every situation or what makes you more of a victim. It’s like living in two different worlds. How do you make the shift to a more optimistic attitude? Well, it takes time. But gradually you can change it. Four of my own most favorite tips are: Take care of the basic fundamentals. This is for me the most important thing you can do to maintain and strengthen your positive attitude. How you eat, sleep and workout is huge factor. A good lifestyle, how you live your life on normal days determine how you feel, think and how much energy you will have. For example, exercising and keeping my testosterone levels pretty high consistently – I do that by focusing on free weight exercises that target many and big muscle groups – is a very simple way to get a lot of positive emotions to flow through my body automatically. A good workout always seems to do the trick. Positive influences. Fill your mind and emotional system with positive input from people, music and programs/books. Other people’s thoughts have a big influence and emotions are contagious. Limit your time with negative people. Reduce TV or magazines that may make you feel worse about what you don’t own or your body. Or just create fear and negativity within you (for instance a lot of news shows). Limiting negative influences can make it a lot easier to keep the positive attitude up. Set the context for your day. What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. We have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. You can use that your advantage in few ways. You can for example do the hardest thing on your to-do list first. When it is done you’ll feel good about yourself and it makes the day feel easier and you’ll have less inner resistance to getting the rest of the tasks of the day done. Act as you want to feel. Act as if you are feeling positive. After a few minutes you will actually feel it for real. So smile. Use positive language. And so on. It feels weird at first but it really works. Just practicing these four things in a consistent way can make a huge difference in your life. 4. Be persistent. Don’t give up. “Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential” “If you're going through hell, keep going.” Since society often tells us to look for quick fixes it’s easy to make the mistake of giving up to soon. After you have failed perhaps 1-5 times. That’s the “normal” thing to do. But what could have happened if someone just kept going after that? And for each failure learned more and more about what works? I think people often make a mistake of giving up too early. Your mind probably has a reasonable time-frame for success. This might not correspond to a realistic time-frame though. It’s useful to take a break from advertised perspectives and let more realistic perspectives seep into your mind. Learn from people who have gone where you want to go. Talk to them. Read what they have to say in books or online. This will not give complete plan but a clearer perspective of what is needed to achieve what you want. Now, that’s not to say that you should never quit. But it can be helpful to keep going on your current path for a while longer. And that’s not to say that you should do the same thing over and over in exactly the same manner. It’s better to do and get an experience. Take the lessons you can learn from that real life experience. And then adjust how you do things as you try again. It obviously helps immensely if you find what you really like to do. And what you really, really want. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, to get what you want and to build on inner strengths like persistence. 5. Don’t lose the enthusiasm. “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” It’s very easy to get down on yourself and your results when things don’t go as planned. What was once enthusiasm can quickly become apathy and pessimism. But how do you do keep up the enthusiasm after things have gone wrong and you just feel like giving up? Well, as I mentioned in the previous fundamental, it certainly helps to have something you really like doing and something you really want. And the tips found in fundamental # 3 such as keeping your energy up, acting as you would like to feel and keeping away from negative influences work very well here too. A good additional tip is simply to ask better questions in “negative” situations. Instead of asking yourself why this or you suck ask yourself questions that empower you. Questions like: What can I learn from this? What is the hidden opportunity in this situation? 6. Remember, most troubles never happen. “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened” One final, quick thought. But a very important one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time. This is of course easy to say. But if you think back and remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more worry from your thoughts. This makes it a lot easier to start doing more of what you really want in life. And to move through your day to day life with a lighter, happier and more optimistic attitude.

If you haven’t read last week’s ‘Mindful Monday’ post take a moment to catch up on Change Your Mind. Change Your Body . Hopefully you’ve begun to recognize the negative thoughts that have taken up space in your head. There’s a good chance that those thoughts have been putting down roots for years so it will take a bit of work to remove them and replace them with something better. I, for one, work at it on a daily basis. So the question becomes, “what now? I can hear the negativity spinning around in my head, but what do I do about it?” Now it’s time to dethrone them and laugh at them. I’m serious. It’s time to rid them of the silly power that they’ve been allowed to hold without your permission. Recognizing them for what they are (laughable lies) will help you to break the habit of believing them to be true. Genneen Roth , author of “Women, Food and God” , refers to this internal negativity as The Voice. Here is a brief excerpt from her book that aligns perfectly with what I believe: “Byron Katie says, “I love my thoughts. I’m just not tempted to believe them.” The moment you stop believing The Voice, the moment you hear the You are the worst person in the world. You are the selfish and shallow with a dry withered heart and elephant skin neck , and you say, “Uh-huh, right, so what else is new?” or “Really? I am the worst person in the world? Is that true?” or “Honey sounds like you need a couple dozen margaritas. Talk to me after you’ve had them,” you are free. Freedom is hearing The Voice ramble and posture and lecture and not believing a word of it.” There IS freedom from The Voice and with freedom comes hope, joy, change and new life. So, starting today, talk back. Talk back to yourself and remove the power from your negative thoughts surrounding your body and abilities. Even though it seems counter-intuitive, these thoughts are one of the key factors that are holding you back from making positive changes and finding balance. For example, “Ugh, I feel fat, I need to work out more” is not motivating. We’ve been led to believe that these kind of thoughts will give us the extra push we need to get in shape and get health. This is dead wrong. They’re holding us back. Stop. Don’t let yourself use guilt & negativity as a motivator one second longer. Keep me posted on how it goes… Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

Happy 4th of July Weekend! I had a wonderful, lazy morning that included a stroll downtown for an Americano and a stop at the local Farmer’s Market. This is by far my favorite time of year for fresh produce; so many sweet fruits and bright veggies. The variety and the flavor makes it much easier to eat healthy during the week. Fresh cherries by the handful. According to my cherry guy this may be the last week to get them so pick some up while you still have the chance. Mounds of green beans and heirloom tomatoes. Buckets & buckets of fresh cut flowers. Okay, serious foodie points if you can tell me what this crazy veggie is… What about you. Did you find anything good at the farmer’s market this weekend? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #farmersmarket #Lifestyle #produce

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdegutt/ / CC BY 2.0 [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow.” Yiddish Proverb “Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” Confucius Most of us have one or a few habits that we consider bad and we’d like to get rid of. But how do you do it? Today I'd like to share I have a few suggestions that have helped me and people around me greatly. Here are 8 tips that can help you to finally get rid of that bad habit once and for all. Tell your friends and family. If you tell people around you that you will stop smoking or start working out three times a week then they will check up on you. And you will feel a social pressure to keep up with your promise now that it is let out into the world. I would recommend only telling people who you think will support you or be neutral. Negative people make things so much more difficult. Make it painful to not go through with it. This may not be for everyone but you could consider making a promise to someone. For example, if you stray off the path to better health by having French fries or a cigarette then you will give your friend 100 or 500 dollars. The point is to add some possible pain to keep yourself in check on days when you may feel a bit tempted. Listen to those who have gone where you want to go. Not to people who have no practical or real idea about what your challenge entails. It is important to get the best advice that actually works in real life. Seek it out in people around you, in the best books on the topic (check for the number of stars and read reviews on a site like amazon.com) and on blogs and forums that seem reliable. What will this lead to in 5 and 10 years? See your future self vividly in your mind. Where are you going? Towards massive debt, a heart attack, serious illness and severe restrictions in your future? Do you want go to that place where it is very likely that you will wind up if you don’t make a change? Then see your future self where you have made the positive change. What positive and awesome things has it brought you in 5 years and in 10 years? See it all in your mind. And remind yourself of the positive and negative consequences by writing them down and reviewing them whenever you feel like quitting and going back to your old ways. Avoid temptations. Know what usually triggers your bad habit. Places where you are likely to spend too much money. Things in your cupboard that will not help you to get healthier and you should not have at home at all. And people that drag you down and back into your old ways. Replace it. If you stop doing one thing then it can leave a vacuum in your life. It’s easier to not relapse if you replace that space with a new habit. If you had chips and candy at home to snack on then have fruits and nuts to snack on when you feel the cravings. If you stopped checking social media and the internet for many hours each evening then replace that habit and space with reading more books or joining a club, sport or evening class. Don’t remove more than one habit at a time. It may seem like a good idea to overhaul your life all at once. When regular life, stress and lack of energy interfere it usually leads to failure. Don’t try to be Superman or Wonder Woman. Take it easy and change one habit at a time to dramatically increase the odds of real life success. Don’t make a huge deal out of it. If you think about it and talk about it all the time then it will feel like a huge deal to get rid of that habit. This will make each day much harder mentally and you may feel overwhelmed. Instead, keep it simple and realize that whatever habit you want to get rid of thousands if not millions of people have done so before. Yes, things do get tough from time to time. But there is no need to create a lot of extra drama around it and in the longer run make things more difficult than they need to be. If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone else on Twitter, Facebook and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

I recently had the honor of speaking to 100+ junior high and high school girls on the importance of healthy living. The event was wonderful, powerful and encouraging. The goal was to gather as many young girls as possible and remind them of their worth & value. The  evening focused on recognizing the messages we receive from the media, (see Beauty Pressure ), allowed for opportunities to share struggles and provided skills to stay strong, confident and healthy throughout your high school years. A few women shared their stories regarding social pressure, eating disorders and addictions to shed light on issues that often go unmentioned. My role was to speak on how to have a healthy view of diet and exercise. It was right up my alley and so much fun. I shared about finding balance, getting sleep and learning to listen to your body to know when you need rest. I also encouraged them to become “anti – fat talk” by not giving in to that kind of self-bashing that us girls can do. The night ended with a fun (and funny) Pilates workout as a group. all the GLAMourous girls Me with two very inspiring women who participated in the event Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE! #Pilates #selfimage

I love running. I love that it is perhaps the most natural, innate form of exercise. We are born with a natural inclination to run. We run as children and continue running as we grow old. I once read that “there’s something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses; fear and pleasure. We run when we’re scared, we run when we’re ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.” I love that. However, at some point in our lives, running often takes on a new purpose. For many of us, it’s a means to maintain our health and stay in shape.  Something that was once so natural becomes less natural with age. It wasn’t until I began my own practice and study of Pilates that I recognized the immense importance of form and posture while running.  Improper running form is a fast-track to injury. Without proper core strength, and muscle development running can cause a significant amount of stress on your joints. Increasing your core strength relieves pressure from your joints, improves your balance and reduces  your overall risk of injury. If you enjoy running, try incorporating the following exercises into your routine. Each of these exercises can be performed in the comfort of your own home. ROLL UP Increases abdominal strength, lengthens the lower back muscles and stabilizes the pelvis. Set Up: Lying on your back, legs together, parallel and straight. Arms reaching back towards your ears, palms facing in, shoulders drawing away from your ears. Inhale Lift arms towards the ceiling and gently lengthen through back of neck and lift head and shoulders off the mat. Exhale as you peel the spine up and off the mat hollowing through the abdominal wall. Continue to Exhale as you curl all the way up to the sits bones rounding spine over legs. Inhale Start rolling back away from the legs, aiming for the lumbar spine to hit the mat first; keep lengthening out through the legs. Exhale Articulate your spine back down to starting position using your abdominal muscles to control the speed of the roll down. Imagine that each vertebra hits the mat sequentially. Finish the roll down and reach arms back without letting your ribs protrude forward. Repeat 3 – 5 times Watch out for: Elevation or rounding of shoulders, loss of “C –curve”, using too much momentum (jerking) LEG CIRCLES Promotes lengthening of the hamstrings and movement of the hip joints while maintaining a stable pelvis and core. Set Up: Lying on your back, arms in a T position, one leg extended up toward the ceiling, the other leg stretched long on the mat. If you have tight hamstrings or feel unstable, bend the bottom leg and place the foot flat on the floor. Inhale and Exhale Bring the lifted leg across the center of your body and draw a circle in the air. Repeat circle in the same direction 5 times Repeat 5 circles in the opposite direction. Change legs and repeat as above Watch out for: Rotation or tilting of pelvis, rotation of torso, shoulder tension, hip flexor tension BASIC BACK EXTENSION Strengthens the back extensor muscles which will help to reduce rounding or “hunching” of the shoulders. Set Up: Lying on your stomach, forehead on the mat, arms by your side with your palms facing in pressing against your thighs. Keep your abdominals engaged and keep the front of your hips connected to the mat. Exhale Lift your head and shoulders off the mat, to reach a neutral spine, fingertips reaching toward your toes. Lift in one long line and lengthen away. Inhale Exhale Lower body to mat. Repeat 3 – 5 times Watch out for : Tension in the neck and shoulders, tilting the chin up, lifting into thoracic extension, loss of abdominal connection. Stay tuned for more information on how to use Pilates as a form of cross training for running. This post merely scratches the surface. More to come! Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE!

Many people assume that the main benefit of practicing Pilates is increased flexibility. While you will improve your flexibility through Pilates, it is only a  small part of all that Pilates can do for you. If you practice Pilates on a regular basis, you can expect to: Improve posture and spinal alignment Reduce back and neck pain Re-train muscle patterns to restore balance Build core strength Increase mobility of joints and restore range of motion Aid in prevention of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis Build long, lean, toned muscles Improve circulation Reduce stress and increase energy Restore balance to the body (and your life) Build confidence and improve self-image These are just a few of the benefits, but this is by no means a comprehensive list. So if you’re not doing Pilates yet, you should start. Doing so just may change your life for the better. What is the best change you’ve experience through practicing Pilates? xo, Ready to BUILD STRENGTH & FEEL GOOD in just 15 minutes a day? Join the FREE 5-day Pilates Strong challenge! JOIN THE FREE CHALLENGE! #NeckPain #Pilates #knotinback #Tension #strength #coretraining #stress #ShoulderPain #flexibility #BackPain

Our thoughts affect everything we do, say, feel, think & believe. Our thoughts construct our reality, shape our view of the world and determine the way we feel about life as a whole. Our happiness level is 100% dependent on the way we think and the perspective that we have. Yet we rarely take the time to recognize what’s going on in our heads. This is something I’ve been working on over the last 2 years – becoming aware of my inner-dialogue. Pilates is a mind-body form of exercise. I firmly believe that you cannot separate the body from the mind. In fact, I’ve learned that changing the mind is the first step in changing the body. I’ve recently acquired a new awareness for the power of thought and most importantly, how quickly they can lead me down a road I don’t want to go down. Within seconds I can believe things about myself and my life that I would never say out loud or allow anyone else to say about me. Perhaps you can relate. All it takes is one magazine article, one bad experience in a dressing room, or one careless comment by a peer. The good news is that we have the power to change this process. This one little tiny corner of the world that we CAN control. And it’s imperative that we do. When we don’t take time to sort through our thoughts they become our truths. More often that not, the thoughts that stick as truths are our fears and insecurities. Most of them are a product of the messages we’ve received through others or the media and are worth re-evaluating. Today, I encourage you (and of course myself) to be mindful of your thoughts. That’s all, don’t take it any further, don’t try to fix it, just begin to notice what’s going on in your head. I think you’ll be surprised by what you find. Try to analyze your thoughts from a third person perspective. When you notice a negative thought say it out loud. Yes, you’ll feel silly, but it will really help to audibly hear the way you’re speaking to yourself. As women, we think a lot of negative thoughts about our bodies and appearance so be especially aware of your inner dialogue while getting dressed, looking in the mirror or eating a meal. However, if you are achievement-driven, you might notice that your thoughts take a negative turn when you’re at work, interacting with colleagues or preparing for a big presentation. Let’s talk about it. When is your negative self-talk most likely to show up? Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS!

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust Living a happier life often seems to be about living your big dreams and putting in a lot of work over a long time. I agree that it is one part. But another part of happiness is here in small ways today. So in this article I'll share ten small tweaks I like making to find more happiness in my daily life. I hope you'll find something here that you can use today to make your life better too. Be kind in small ways. Let someone in into your lane while driving your car. Hold up the door or hold the elevator for a stranger. Not just because that you tend to get back what you give in some form. But for yourself too, these little things add up and make you feel better about yourself. Be appreciative of other people. Replace the habit of spotting the things that annoy you about people with one where you make small or big positive observations about them. It could be their great sense of style when it comes to shoes, how they always make you laugh when you need it or simply that they are always on time. Be sure to tell them that. Cut back on the time you spend with most negative person in your life. And spend more time with the most positive person(s). Cut out or cut down on the most negative media influence in your life. It could be the news on TV, the newspaper, some magazine or type of music, type of books or blogs or websites. Replace that time and find new energy and inspiration from one or more positive sources like inspiring movies and books. Or uplifting music and people. Be 5 or 10 minutes early. This will make travel time a time of relaxation and renewal rather than a time of stress and negativity added to your day. Plus, you’ll be on time. Do what is not “you”. Try a new dish for lunch. Read a book or watch a movie that is not in your usual genre. Learn a little about a topic that is not something you are usually into. This is a great and fun way to find new perspectives in life, to grow and to expand your comfort zone just a little on a daily or weekly basis. Cultivating this habit also makes it easier to get out of your comfort zone when larger and “scarier” opportunities present themselves. Let go of one thing from your past. Clinging on to an old conflict, argument or that you were wronged by someone can consume a lot of time, energy and space in your life. It can also be oddly comforting since you are so used to it. But life happens right now, day by day. And as Jan Glidewell once said: “You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” So to stop hurting yourself you have to accept that what is in your mind is in the past now. By accepting that it is in the past but also in there inside of you as a memory you can start to decrease the hold this memory has over you. By accepting that is there and that you need to let go to live your life fully now that memory will lose much of its power. And you can let go. Take the smarter and higher road. Don’t be someone the people can walk all over, set boundaries and say no when needed. But recognize that unnecessary conflicts just waste your time and energy. And that some people are so addicted to the drama and conflicts that you will never win or reach an understanding between the two of you. There are more fun and good things to spend time on in your life. So try to reach an understanding. But if it doesn’t work then remove yourself from getting drawn into their conflicts and make the day better for both you and possibly them. Be kind to yourself. The next time you make a mistake or fail don’t treat yourself like a jerk of a boss would. Instead, be kind, see what you can learn from what happened, gently nudge yourself in the right direction again and keep going. Appreciate yourself. It’s OK and something that a lot of people don’t do enough. Spend 5 minutes tonight with thinking about or writing down in journal the things you can appreciate about yourself and how far you have come. Do this enough times – try 30 days – to change how you view yourself on a more permanent level.

Image by goodsurfers2008 ( license ). [hana-code-insert name='social w twitt face' /] “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain Motivation can be a huge help for you to achieve what you want in life. But how can you find all that motivation you need? Well, looking at timeless advice from time to time helps me. And in this article I'll share four of my favorite timeless thoughts on motivation, four thoughts that motivate and inspire me. Make a conscious choice. “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.” Wayne Dyer “I was thinking one day and I realized that if I just had somebody behind me all the way to motivate me I could make a big difference. Nobody came along like that so I just became that person for myself.” Unknown Help, accountability and motivation from others is always good. But in the end you to be able to rely on yourself. And there is really no escaping it, because as Dyer says, it’s always your choice what to do. So you have to consciously choose to motivate yourself. You can do that by: Doing what you really, really like to do. When you really like doing something then the motivation to do it comes automatically (most of the time). And when you really want something then it simply becomes easier to push through any inner resistance you feel. You are so motivated to achieve whatever it is you want that the risks you may encounter may be scary but smaller than your desire. Make a list of upsides. Write down all the benefits you will get from achieving something, like for example getting into better shape or making more money. Save it and pull that list out of the drawer whenever your motivation is lacking and review it. Or put it somewhere where you will see it every day. This is a powerful way to reconnect with your motivation and reasons for taking action. Compare yourself with yourself. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead. So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved your results. Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review. But the most important thing is to take responsibility for your own motivation and feelings and not wait around for someone else to do it. When you do that you will most often find a way to get yourself to start moving towards what you want. Walk your talk. “Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.” Vince Poscente This is great tip. Whenever you don’t follow your own talk or just your inner rules of how you want to behave you tend to feel bad. Your esteem of yourself sinks and your motivation to get going does too. So you have to be honest with yourself when you feel like you are out of alignment. You have to get up and get started again. When your talk and inner standards you have set for yourself align with what you do then you your self-esteem goes up. You feel great because you are living like you deep down want to. And you are getting all these important things done and can enjoy the results. And then you want more of that good stuff, you sometimes feel so motivated that you can’t wait to get going. This is not always easy. In the short run it’s often easier and less uncomfortable and scary to lie to yourself a bit and hold yourself back. But the rewards for walking your talk are big. Both on the outside and the inside. Set big goals that really inspire you. “Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.” Robert H. Schuller Without inspiring goals you tend wander around aimlessly in a confused funk. I think the most important thing about setting goals is to find goals that really inspire and motivate you. What are your goals? As much as possible, you have to set the goals for yourself. Should and ought to-goals aren't good enough. Or goals that other people have set for you. Think about your goals. Think about who has set them. Then think about what you really want in life. Then set your own goals. Write them down. I also don’t think one should be afraid of setting big goals. Set a big goal that inspires you even if it may seem a tad unrealistic at the moment. If you have too easily achievable goals then you may find that they don’t give you that motivational spark and drive. When you start to think a bit bigger then you get motivated and your mind starts looking for the solutions that will help you achieve that goal. Thinking too small can leave you with a “meh…” feeling or make you feel like you can do it later. And a benefit of doing things this way – even if you don’t quite achieve your big, big goal or it takes a while longer than you may have hoped for – can be found in a quote from Les Brown: “Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.” Don’t get too hung up on being motivated to get started. “The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.” John C. Maxwell Here’s another view on motivation. Maybe you don’t need it to get started? Maybe you can create it along the way? Many times I have found it better to just do it and start working instead of trying to motivate myself to get going. At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going. But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality. And after you have kept going for a while you become more and more motivated. Because you start to feel like you can actually do this and you can keep going to achieve your goal. And now you are also walking your talk which boosts your motivation. On some days you may not seem to be able motivate yourself into action. Even if you review your goals or reasons to achieve something. That’s ok. You can still make a conscious choice based on what you know deep down is right and just start moving your hands and feet anyway. No matter how you feel inside, no matter what negative thoughts may be circling around in your head. Try both to get yourself motivated before you begin and to just do it and find the motivation along the way. Try both ways and see what works best for you. If you thought this article was useful, please share it with someone on Stumbleupon, Facebook and Twitter. Thank you very much! =)

Do you ever pay attention to the way you start your day and how it affects you? Early mornings can be rough. But thankfully, we get to decide what these mornings look like and we don’t have to be a victim of early morning blues. I noticed awhile back that I was falling into the habit of waking up and immediately sitting at the computer to check email and Facebook. I’m not saying this is inherently bad, but for me, it sure wasn’t helping my mood or energy. Email sometimes stressed me out and Facebook always zoned me out. Not exactly a morning pick-me-up. Perhaps you can relate? I’ve been trying to be more intentional about the way I start my day. If you can relate to needing a change in your morning routine here are a few ideas to try: leisurely read the paper and enjoy a cup of coffee or tea go for a morning walk read the bible or another book that awakens your spirit journal (perhaps write out a short gratitude list?) sit by a window and enjoy a few minutes of silence before the rest of the house wakes up listen to uplifting music instead of watching the news do Pilates! (you can sign up on the right side of the page and receive a free 10 minute guided workout) So, this week, lets give this some thought. Let’s be intentional about starting our days off in a way that fills us up. This is one small part of our lives that we have some control over and it’s an opportunity to make a simple change that will invite more life into our days. Question: what is your favorite way to start the day? PS – you may also like How To Write A Health Vision & My Personal To-Do List Strategy Ready to finally stay consistent with exercise – even when you’re short on time & energy? Join me for the FREE Creating Healthy Routines Workshop & walk away with an exercise routine you can put into action immediately! I'M READY FOR THIS! #Balance #Lifestyle #mornings #gratitude #healthyhabits

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” Brian Tracy I believe that one of the biggest reasons why people get stuck in reading and discussing things instead of taking action to change their lives for the better is simply that it is uncomfortable. But to make real changes in your life you have to step outside your comfort zone. At least for a little while. And regularly. In this article I’ll share three habits that have helped me to make it easier to step out the comfort zone. Develop a habit of mixing things up. This is an easy and simple way to expand your comfort zone and to keep your curiousness up. Try new music. I mix things up by trying new music every month. I have a look at the best music on sites like Pitchfork and Metacritic. Then I load a few of those albums on Spotify and listen. Try new food. Each week we try cooking a new recipe from our cook books. It is most often a tasty experiment and helps us to find, sometimes unexpected, new favorites. Such small habits allow you to keep from getting stuck in the same old rut. It allows you to discover a ton of new exciting things. And it’s just plain fun. And by changing your perception of yourself from someone who sticks to the old and comfortable all the time to someone who likes to mix small and big things up it feels more natural to mix things up in any other area of life too. You break out of your comfort zone regularly and so the inner resistance and fear that things will not go well becomes a lot smaller in everyday life. Develop a habit of doing something in small steps. What holds us back in our zone of comfort is often a fear that facing that fear head on all at once might be overwhelming. Taking small steps is a solution to that problem. It allows you to stretch your comfort zone and slowly making it less uncomfortable and frightening. Become more social. Let’s say you want to be less nervous and awkward in social situations. To solve that you can take small steps. Steps like first just saying hi to people. And being more involved in conversations at work or in school to exercise your conversation muscles. After a while those things will feel more comfortable. And so you can expand your comfort zone a little bit more. Become more effective. You can start with just working 1 hour a day fully focused on your most important tasks in cone of silence (this means to shut out and shut off all distractions like the internet, the phone, the door to your office etc. as best you can). And then go back to your normal routine. The next week you can add an hour and work two fully focused hours a day. Step by step you build a more powerful habit that may feel uncomfortable at first. Create something new. When I was going to start making my own products I was hesitant. I was just used to writing blog posts and putting together a whole book seemed like fun but was definitely outside of my comfort zone. So I took a small step and put together a smaller e-book at first that I give away for free to new newsletter subscribers. By doing things this way you gradually desensitize yourself to social situations, to a new way of working or whatever you are uncomfortable with. You make it the new “normal” for you. So, identify where you want to go or how you want to improve your life. Then make a plan with some smaller steps you can take to gradually lessen your discomfort. Develop a habit of letting other people help you by keeping you accountable. Being accountable to someone else is one of the most effective ways to push yourself out of comfort zones and stick with what you are doing until it becomes a new habit. So find someone else who wants to improve in the same area as you. Or just someone who wants to improve something in his or her life and wants an accountability buddy. Then keep an eye on each other and support each other. Nudge each other in the right direction and let a bit of positive social pressure work in your favor. If you cannot find an accountability buddy simply make the accountability public in some way. Post about your new goal or the habit you want to develop on Facebook, on your blog or tell family and friends. Or start a thread about your progress with getting into better shape on a fitness forum or on a forum related to what you want to achieve. A few examples: At the gym. If you have decided to start going to the gym it might be easier to actually get going and keeping going there every week – even after the initial enthusiasm have dissipated – if you have a gym-partner. At the party. If you want to meet new people at a party then you and friend can nudge each other in the right direction. Keep each other’s mood up and go in with an open frame of mind and just have new conversations with people. Assuming rapport can be helpful if you want to do that. When you want to lose weight. The diet is, in my experience, the most important thing and often the most difficult thing to not cheat too much on when you are losing weight. It becomes easier to stick with the program and not go off the rails when you have a weights loss partner – someone with similar goals – or someone you can be accountable to. Someone who nudges you back on track when you are having a bad day and want to devour a lot junk food. Someone who will tell you that it is not your weekly cheat day quite yet. Start with one of these habits. Use that one habit as much as you can for 30 days or more until it really becomes a ingrained habit in your life.