Consider these self-improvement ideas for tasks to keep you active in February :

1. Call an old friend. If you’ve had a relationship you cared about that ended years ago, have you ever thought about re-connecting with that friend? We all seek to have healthy and enduring friendships. If you think there’s a chance you can revive a relationship you’ve missed, go for it.

2. Spend a Saturday with a parent. When was the last time you spent a whole day with a parent? If you’re like most of us, you haven’t done this much since childhood.

* Maybe you can help your mom clean out her kitchen cabinets or just watch a great movie together. You could ask your dad to come over for a homemade dinner and to spend a day or an evening with you.

3. Learn from an elderly person. Ask them tell you about their life’s work or experiences. As people age, they gain an enormous amount of talent, skill and knowledge. Why not use February as a time to tap into some of that information? You’ll be amazed at what you learn. Plus you’ll bring joy to the person you approach with your questions.

4. Volunteer. Call a local assisted living facility and ask to read stories to or take short walks indoors with the residents during the month of February each year. Knowing that you’ve given of yourself can do your heart good, even if it’s just an hour a week for a month or two.

5. Do a special work project. If you live in a place where the weather’s frigid in February, consider completing a special work project at home. Maybe you’ve tabled some project that requires a lot of extra research that you don’t have time to do at the office. Perhaps it’s a task you’ve wanted to do on your own but isn’t a priority from your supervisor’s standpoint.

* At any rate, utilize a couple of hours each week to immerse yourself in a work project that you’re interested in completing. Finishing the project will help you feel more emotionally attached to your work and remind you why you do the job you do.

6. Take a personal physical inventory. Do you ever reflect on your physical condition and appearance? Taking a personal inventory of your health is worth the time and effort.

* First, ask yourself how you’ve been feeling physically. Then, consider your physical appearance. Are you comfortable with the way you look? Is there anything about yourself you’d like to change? Perhaps you’d like to try a new hairstyle or use teeth whiteners to spruce up your appearance. Maybe you just want to lose that last 10 pounds.

For some, February can be a trying month. However, if you take advantage of this time to do some self-improvement activities, March will be here before you know it. And when spring comes, you’ll feel like you’ve already accomplished some of your self-improvement goals for the year.

 photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Keep these ideas in mind to help you recover your optimism:

1. What does reality indicate? It’s easier to be most optimistic when a positive outcome is likely, but sometimes you need to know when to let go or to make a change.

* Taking positive action to produce a better outcome also boosts your optimism because you cease being a helpless victim of life’s circumstances.

2. Prioritize. Start by determining the most appropriate issues, situations and times to be optimistic about. Instead of chasing after many things, some of which may be unlikely, try focusing your energy on what’s most important.

3. None of us knows the future. How many times in your past has a situation yielded an unexpected outcome? Plenty of times! And many of those were probably positive experiences, too.

* Even if life seems full of situations that look less-than-promising, you never know what may actually end up happening. When you open your mind, you’re in a better emotional position to find optimism. And you’re wise to expect the best, because new possibilities lay around every corner.

4. Stay intent on your own passions. When we do what we love, we feel joy, and joy generates optimism.

* Whether you play a musical instrument, love working on cars, or enjoy pursuing any other activity, be sure to set aside time in your week for your hobby. If you can, enjoy some “me” time each day.

* Practicing your craft, hobby, or passion will help prevent you from hanging your hopes on another person, place, or thing. All the joy you need is within you and you’ll rediscover this moment by moment as you do what you love.

* Following your bliss also helps keep you in the present. The past has already passed. And the future hasn’t come yet. All you have this moment. Don’t you want to make the most of it? When you do, your future almost invariably turns out to be more to your liking also!

5. Open your mind to new possibilities. Maybe you were expecting a promotion that never came. Or perhaps you even lost your job. Now is a great time to explore other opportunities.

* Although you undoubtedly were looking forward to whatever didn’t happen, or were happy to avoid what did, the truth is that the future is in your hands.

* Maybe you always wanted to try freelancing, or making something with your hands for a living. Now is the time to run in that direction. Nothing is stopping you anymore, not even waiting around for a different dream to come to pass.

6. Remember, there’s always help. Whether you make use of your social network or see a licensed counselor, other people are there to support you as you move toward your next adventure.

* If you find yourself really feeling depressed, and nothing seems to work to banish it, you may want to check out professional counseling services. Therapists are trained to walk people through all sorts of life transitions and can definitely assist with yours.

Although Alexander Pope wrote, “Hope springs eternal,” you may also find it wise to recognize where to place your optimism and how to rediscover that feeling when you’re down.

If you open your mind to new possibilities and explore the tips above, you’ll be pleased to find that, once again, you’re looking toward the future with optimism and excitement!

 photo credit: gtall1

Follow this process to bring your dreams to fruition:

1. Turn your dream into a goal. When you have a goal, you have a true target. For a greater chance of success, your plan should have a deadline and it must be measureable.

* It has been said that dreams are goals without a deadline. Give yourself the gift of setting a deadline and things will start to happen.

* You want your goal to be measurable because, if you can’t measure it, how will you know when you’ve succeeded?

* For example, this goal is measurable and has a deadline: “On or before June 1, I will weigh 150 lbs. or less.”

* Make your goal as desirable as possible without being unrealistic. If you feel that your goal is unreasonable, it’s much more difficult to encourage yourself to actually pursue it.

2. Prioritize your goal daily. Read and write your goal each day.

* You give instructions to your brain thousands of times a day. Let your mind know that your goal is something more important than, “I feel like eating a ham sandwich,” or “I need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.”

3. Make a list of negative associations. You probably have negative associations with achieving your goal; otherwise you’d already have it. So make a list of all the negative stuff that pops into your mind when you think about achieving your goal.

* Examine that list and think of ways to work around those challenges.

* Each time you notice a new negative association with your goal, add it to your list. Things will tend to change over time, and new challenges will reveal themselves.

4. Make a list of all the positives about reaching your goal. How would it make you feel? How would it change your life? How would it change your perspective of the world and yourself? What would your next goal be?

* Make your goal as attractive as possible. Envision your life after achieving the goal. This will help to keep your motivation levels high.

5. What do you need to make your goal a reality? Do you need to special license? Do you need a laptop? Is there some knowledge you must acquire? Make a list of what you need and figure out how you’re going to get it.

6. Catalog your available resources. Who do you know that could be helpful? What expertise or items do you need that someone else might have?

* Achieving difficult goals can rarely be accomplished alone; you’re likely to need some help and guidance. Look at the list you made in step 5 and see what you already have in your life that could help you on your path.

7. Track your progress. Measure your progress each day.

* Tracking is critical to making continued progress. You can only adjust your approach if you know how you’re doing. Consider making a chart if that’s applicable to your goal.

In many ways, working toward a goal is like baking a cake: if you follow the recipe, you’ll always pull a perfect cake out of the oven. Likewise, if you follow the above steps, you’ll find it much easier to achieve your dreams.

photo credit: ?

Following a fashion trend occasionally refreshes your appearance and keeps you looking attractive in an updated style. Regardless of what change you make, a new style can boost your confidence. When you look good, you feel good and more ready to take on the world!

Consider these easy ways to boost your Self-Confidence by periodically making some changes with your style:

1. Get a new hairstyle or cut. Nothing rejuvenates your style and boosts your confidence like a totally different look with your hair.

• If you normally wear your hair long and straight, consider a short, curly style.
• On a related note, you might even consider making a switch in hair color.

2. Wearing clothing in the season’s most popular colors and prints. When you bring your look up to the present, it’s refreshing and serves to give your self-confidence a real lift.

• A new shirt or blouse in the season’s most comfortable fabric can give you that up-to-date look.
• Although it’s best to avoid buying an entire wardrobe every season, purchasing one or two carefully selected clothing items in the newest colors and prints can freshen up your appearance.

3. Accessorize to establish your style. Accessories tend to be less pricey than clothing, yet make a powerful statement in terms of your appearance. Be bold in your accessories and you’ll feel bolder as well.

• With a scarf in a trendy color, a necklace in the newest style, or earrings that glisten brand-new, your attitude and self-esteem will rise when you add these small updates to your overall style.
• For men, consider classic cufflinks and ties in the latest prints and colors to express your fashion sense with accessories.
• With accessories, you can take a basic wardrobe and bring some real character to it to show off your sparkling personality.

4. Take care of your complexion. Regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, you stand to benefit greatly by taking care of your face and skin.

• Because your face is so integral to your appearance, your facial tone expresses one facet of your overall style.
• Consider getting a facial every 3 months to revive your face, tone up your complexion and refresh your overall style.
• In turn, you’ll experience a real increase in feeling good about yourself.

5. Polished shoes and ironed clothing are the best style accessories of all. Something as simple as polishing your shoes will bring a spring to your step. Taking a few extra minutes to iron your clothing brings crispness to your style that adds to your feelings of confidence.

• Details like this can earn you the accolades of being a “sharp-dressed” man or woman. Others take notice in a positive way and you earn respect simply with your sharp appearance.

Making some simple style changes in your appearance will rejuvenate your overall look. When your style is updated, you feel revived. Bring your look alive this season by trying some of these easy style updates. You’ll look better and your confidence will bloom.

photo credit: SweetOnVeg

How to Get a Better Self Confidence

When you believe in yourself and you’re sure that you’ll succeed at something, you have self-confidence. Throughout life, your level of self-confidence might fluctuate when you’re faced with challenging situations. However, you have the power to build your self-confidence.

Although parents can encourage young children to believe in themselves, as an adult, only you hold the keys to strengthening your own confidence.

If you find that you’re feeling less self-assured than you’d like, you can step up and take action to shore yourself back up. Review the following strategies to find inspiration.

Take personal responsibility to build your self-confidence using these methods:

1. Select a mentor. If you want to believe in yourself, seek someone who you think exhibits great self-confidence. Consider this person to be your model of self-confidence. When selecting a mentor, ask yourself:

* Does he stand straight and strong?

* Is he relaxed and open to others?

* In addition to these traits, maybe he has a good sense of humor and looks people straight in the eye when he speaks to them. Or perhaps he models other characteristics you admire. Having someone to emulate is incredibly inspiring. Modeling after your mentor enhances your self-confidence.

2. Identify what you’re doing right in your life. Sure, you know your shortcomings, but what about all those things you do well? Everyone excels at some tasks or activities. Seek out what those things are for you.

* Make a list of what you believe you’re good at.

* Consider this: no one in the world has the same unique qualities and strengths that you do in the way that you do.

* What are you doing right? If you know the answer to this, your self-confidence will bloom.

3. Pretend you’re self-confident. You can most likely identify times and situations in your history when you didn’t feel particularly positive. Think about how you handled some of them.

* On your good days, you put your chin up and plowed forward into the situation at hand. You pretended you believed you could do it. And chances are, you did!

* Going forward, on the days you feel the least self-confident, think of your mentor and pretend that you’re confident like he or she is.

* Believe in yourself. Have faith that you’ll make it through.

4. Make a list of your strong points. What character traits do you have to offer that are of great benefit to you or others?

* Are you patient, kind or caring? Identify personality characteristics that you’re proud of. Ponder your strong points. Knowing yourself will enhance your self-confidence.

5. In your daily life, notice when you do something well. Perhaps you just cleaned up your car and it looks awesome. Maybe you completed a report and it’s the best you’ve ever written.

* Recognize each day the times when you excel. Perhaps you helped your child through a difficult time or you made a great chocolate cake.

* Little efforts add up to build your self-confidence.

6. Celebrate your progress. Take notice of your good fortune.

* When you’ve met or surpassed your goals, celebrate! Rejoice in your own successes. Congratulate yourself as you build the self-confidence you seek.

7. Choose optimism as a daily approach to everything. Strive to be positive in life’s journey.

* When you make the decision to find the best in whatever life brings you, your self-confidence will soar.

Strengthening your self-confidence is within your reach. Choosing a mentor, knowing your strong points, and celebrating the attainment of your goals are just a few of strategies that build your self-confidence. Promise yourself today that you’ll strive to strengthen your belief in yourself. You have a legitimate right to live your life with great self-esteem.

photo credit: SweetOnVeg

Mitchell Moore’s Famous Quote About Positivity

Mitchell Moore is believed to have once said, “Attitude is everything.” In other words, how you approach your day or a situation determines how that day or situation will go. Thinking positively is a fairly simple personal rule to remember. However, putting it into practice in your daily life can be more challenging

Peter McWilliams’ Thoughts on Positivity

“The road to positivity is strewn with the abandoned vehicles of the faint-hearted.” Peter McWilliams made this astute observation about the challenges of thinking positive. To translate this idea into everyday English: To be positive, you must persevere.

Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking

Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, formulated several fascinating thoughts about approaching life in a positive way. He said, ‘”We tend to get what we expect.’” One interpretation of this saying is that whatever we expect or believe will occur will indeed come to pass. So, if you believe that you’ll do well on a work project, you will. If you expect not to do well, then you likely won’t.
Dr. Peale also said, “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” The beauty of this statement is that it gives incredible hope. The implication is that if you can take hold of your thoughts, you can think your way into success. Positivity rules again.

Positivity: Illustration and Discussion

Consistently thinking positive can be challenging. Maybe your self-confidence isn’t as strong as it could be. If this is the case, you may need to take a leap of faith to think positively. Perhaps you ponder, “But what if I make a fool of myself?” or, “Maybe my co-worker is smarter than I am.”

Consider this illustration:

You’re up for a promotion at work. How will you think about the situation? What do you believe about yourself as it relates to the possibility of receiving the promotion? Here are three ways to approach this matter:

1. Assume you won’t be selected for the job. After all, you didn’t get straight A’s in school. And that new Vice President hardly ever speaks to you. You think you won’t be chosen.
2. Decide you don’t care either way. Whether you get the promotion or not isn’t important. It doesn’t matter. This way of thinking demonstrates the easy way out. You don’t have to put any emotional energy into something when you don’t care.
3. Dare to think you’ll be selected to receive the promotion. You believe you’re smart enough to be chosen. And you know that you work hard, so others probably see that you’re a good candidate. You’ve decided to think positive!

How can you come out of this situation feeling fine, no matter what happens?

Let’s consider each approach to the possible promotion.

Most likely, if you respond like #1 and don’t receive the promotion, you won’t feel very positive. After all, not getting the promotion will now serve as confirmation of what you believe about yourself, that you won’t be successful. However, even if you do get the promotion, you may believe you don’t deserve it. Because of a negative approach, you may feel unhappy even if you get what you want.

If you react as in #2, then you don’t care either way. You’ve convinced yourself that nothing is important enough to invest in it. Your life goes on the same. When you don’t care about something, the end result is irrelevant. However, if the end result truly doesn’t matter, you may not particularly enjoy getting the promotion if you actually do. You’ve deprived yourself of joy by completely detaching from the situation.

But if you react like #3, you go into the situation feeling hopeful, excited, and energized. If you’re chosen, you’ll be reinforced for your positive thinking and re-energized for the work ahead of you.

Even if you aren’t selected, you’ll only experience brief disappointment. After a short letdown, you’ll remind yourself that with your intelligence and perseverance, something good will soon come along. You simply can’t lose by approaching life’s events with positive thinking.

Pondering positivity is worth your time. When you aren’t sure about how to think about a situation, remember Norman Vincent Peale’s quotes on approaching life in a positive way. Consider Peter McWilliams’s point and Mitchell Moore’s famous quote. Attitude truly is everything; with enough positivity, you can change your life.

Vision boards are also known as goal maps, goal boards and treasure maps, and the concepts behind them have been used for generations. Still, they’re gathering renewed interest as people realize how powerful they can be in bringing dreams to life.

Use these basic guidelines to create this tool for yourself:

1. A vision board begins with a foundation. This may be a poster board, foam board, tri-fold board, or cork board. Use what works best for you. Choose a foundation that speaks to you, one that you feel you can easily and effectively build upon.
2. A vision board includes imagery. You can clip pictures out of books, magazines, or the newspaper. If you prefer, you can draw the images yourself. What matters here is that images are present, because your vision board needs to be visual in nature. Seeing pictures of your priorities, dreams, and goals will help you focus on them.

Allow yourself to experiment with different mediums while creating the images for your vision board. Find photographs, sketches, clip art and other images; then draw any subjects for which you couldn’t find an appropriate piece of art.

4. A vision board includes writing. Writing isn’t mandatory, but it can play a role in identifying the key pieces of information. You want to make sure that you can look at your vision board at any point in the future and know exactly what you intended by each picture, word or thought included on it.

Your goal map is limited only by the extent of your personal creativity. It may be simple and strategic or it may be a highly detailed work of art. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what best suits your needs.

The general elements in an effective and motivating vision board are:

1. Visual. Your subconscious tends to work in terms of images and pictures, and so your vision board should be as visual as you can possibly make it. Supplement the images with phrases and words as needed.
2. Emotional. Every image on your goal map should evoke some type of positive emotional response out of you. Seeing it should fuel your motivation to achieve your dreams.
3. Strategic. This tool should be placed strategically in a location where you receive maximum exposure to it. Seeing your vision board as often as possible will help you stay focused on your goals and dreams.
4. Personal. Your vision board needs to emit positive energy. If you think that you’ll be criticized or forced to justify yourself for your vision board, then keep it in a private location so nobody else can bother it or you.

Beyond these basic guidelines, let this tool be whatever you want to make of it. Ultimately, it’s yours to design, develop and utilize as you see fit. You can add to it and change it over time as your goals and focuses change.

photo credit: Ron Sombilon Gallery

Whether you keep a consistent daily journal, an occasional journal, or simply jot notes to yourself when ideas come to you, this technique can have powerful implications in helping you attain your goals.

Making Things Happen

Putting your goals, thoughts, hopes, and dreams on paper can help you actualize what matters to you most. Bring your goals and dreams to life by writing them down. Read them as often as you can to focus your mind on living the life you desire.

Try these journaling strategies to help bring all your self-improvement goals to fruition:

• Write quickly and passionately. Let the ideas flow onto the paper without dwelling on one thing for too long. Writing in this manner will allow your goals, dreams and wishes to flow out freely beyond what you thought possible!
  Try setting a time goal and writing freely without pause until the period ends. Once you’re finished, you may be surprised with what you’ve written and gain new insight and understanding from this activity.
• Write consistently. You may not be an everyday writer, but formulate a routine to keep your journal flowing. When you write on a daily or weekly basis, you’ll find a greater consistency to your thoughts and reflections.
• Set goals and reflect on them. Outline your most important self-improvement goals when you begin your journaling experience. Reflect on them often to determine whether or not you’re taking active steps toward achieving them.
• Be honest. You can be completely honest in your journal because no one else will read it but you. Share your secrets, dreams, and desires – even the ones you cannot share with anyone else. Use your journal as a sounding board, and never sacrifice honesty for any reason.
• Ask yourself tough questions. Self-reflection is an important aspect of self-improvement, and your journal can aid significantly in the reflection process. Ask yourself questions about where you’re at in life and where you want to be so you can brainstorm the necessary steps in the self-improvement process.
• Refer back to your past writing regularly. When you have a bad day, look at your positive writing to ease your thoughts. When you feel lost or unsure about yourself, look back over your goals and insights to find guidance.
  There’s a wealth of vital information in your journal if you use it consistently, and you can turn back to this information to show you where to go next.
• Choose a journal that’s right for you. Select a journal that resonates within you, something that you feel comfortable and confident writing in. You can purchase a journal from a bookstore, create your own, or simply collect loose pages in a binder. The right journal will inspire you to use it.

Simply putting your thoughts down on paper can help you realize your dreams and focus your attention on what truly matters in your life. Strive to write in your journal as often as you need, and refer back to what you write to help you keep those goals in mind. Journaling is a powerful tool, but is only effective when you’re willing to put your passion into it.