Friday, May 15, 2015

Memory Lane

As my birthday approaches I like to sit back and look through my days of happiness page on Facebook.  I don’t always remember to post but it’s fun to look through the posts and remember the fun day that I posted.  I have a happiness jar on my counter and every day I put a post it in there with a happy memory of the day.  It is fun to open one up occasionally and relive the happy memory.  There have been so many good memories this year it’s hard to mention just a few but I will mention some of my favorites.  Many of these are inside jokes so I apologize if you don’t quite understand all of them. 


  • What Lorraine?... What? 
  • Johnson controls
  • 10 darts is too many!
  • Friends trivia and way too much wine
  • Moving fixtures around the floor at work.  It doesn't matter how many times we do it we still giggle.  Helena Handbasket vacuuming.  
  • Uptown funk flash mob
  • Sad cat diary and sad dog diary
  • Jimmy Fallon and all the lip sync battles
  • Getting grief from former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
  • Woody and Andy
  • Bringing 2 different shoes to the workout
  • Meeting Paul Stanley and Jeremy Spencer in the same year!
  • "All by myself"
  • Improving by 5 minutes over last year’s boot camp challenge
  • Benjamin and Deeda 1st sleepover
  • My MDI8 boot camp crew – Love them!
  • Getting to come home to the most amazing man. So blessed every day for him.
     Tomorrow I am having a birthday party and I know I will regret posting this because there are sure to be funny memories that need to be recorded.  Or not. :) You never know - there may be another post on Sunday.  Just depends on how I feel.
Remember to make the most of every day – you are not guaranteed any amount of time.




Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Happiness Advantage

Last week I went to a class called The Happiness Advantage.  I left with a new idea about how to approach happiness and success.  The idea that when I am successful I will be happy never really works out.  Sure you will have snippets of happiness but it will be fleeting.  The premise behind this idea started by Shawn Achor is that in order to be successful you must be happy first.  I am interested in learning more about this because I think that it is human nature to strive to be successful and set goals for yourself to constantly challenge yourself.  As a matter of fact I have blogged about this exact thing.  I said make sure to set goals high enough so that they are challenging and worth fighting for but at the time I didn’t realize that reaching that goal may or may not bring you happiness.  After reading the book and taking the course I realize that you are more likely to be successful the happier you are.  In fact that happiness and gratefulness will bring more and more good things into your life.  

There are 5 things you can do (don’t worry – they are small things and easy to do) to help you find the happiness advantage. 
1      1. 3 gratitudes
        2.  Journaling
        3.   Exercise
        4.   Meditation
        5. Random acts of kindness

Mr. Achor is a psychologist from Harvard but he isn't telling us to sit on a couch and talk about our problems while spending thousands of dollars.  He is telling us to take control of our lives and make them better by doing more for others.  So let’s talk about the 5 things you can do. 

3 gratitudes is an easy one. Sit down and write 3 things you are grateful for and be specific.  Don’t just say my health.  Why?  Were you sick for a while? Did you have an injury you recovered from? What about your health are you grateful for?  

Journaling can seem like a senseless thing to do but think about the memories you are creating every time you write in it.  If you write in it every night – whether it’s a memory, a list of ideas to stir your creative juices or just a quick note telling yourself you are amazing, it’s a great thing to have and come back to years from now.  Plus there are always lessons to learn in what you are doing so use this journal as a tool to grow. 

Exercise.  This is a no brainer.  Everyone does better when their heart is pounding and sweat is pouring off of them.  It may not always feel that way but I guarantee your body will always thank you for pushing it to its limit.  Your heart needs to pound and you need to push toxins out of your body on a regular basis.  Find something you love to do and just do it!  It doesn't have to cost anything – it just has to be activity.  The cost of not working out is far greater.  Get your blood pumping and your creativity flying.

Meditation is a hard one for some of us.  I will not lie – I struggle to get my brain to quiet down long enough to feel relaxed but I do know that every time I meditate I get better and clearer.  It is not something you will ever master so stop trying – enjoy it for the benefit of peace and quiet. 

Random acts of kindness is probably the most fun of all of them.  Next time you are in the drive thru of Starbucks or a fast food place (eek!) pay for the person behind you while you’re paying for your order.  Imagine the look on the person’s face when they pull up and the person tells them that their order has been paid for by the car that just left.  There is no way for them to thank you and that is the point.  They may feel so grateful that they do something for the next person they see.  It’s all about paying it forward.  Let’s pay forward happiness rather than glares, dirty looks and horn honks. 

Will doing all these things alone make you successful?  Probably not, but they will make you happy and that in turn can bring you success.  Who knows what things will come your way just by doing some of these small things each day. 

Happy days to you all.
D.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Love or Fear...





My boyfriend sent me this video the other day and it really resonated with me and I needed to share it. Jim Carrey is a comedian but he says something so profound that you will have a new found respect for him.  Watch this and then ask yourself – are the decisions you are making right now being decided in love or fear?  Probably the most important thing I took from this speech is that you can fail at what you don’t want so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.  Just don’t be afraid to ask the universe for what you really want.  You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world. 

Not much needs to be said after this video except – go out and do what you are meant to do in this world.  Remember what makes you passionate and go after it!
 

http://omeleto.com/199433/

Friday, October 3, 2014

Motivate your mind



Motivate the mind and the body will follow.   I have struggled with running, a particularly grueling boot camp workout or even sitting down here at my computer to write.  I can find a hundred reasons to quit but I know if I just keep going that I will find the results that I really want in my life. 
Last Saturday my boot camp crew and I participated in the boot camp challenge at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.  It is a 3 mile obstacle course that the Drill Instructors put the new recruits through for 13 weeks.  Now I will say this – my boot camp is tough.  There is no doubt about it.  But what these recruits go through for 13 weeks is grueling.  We only had to run it one time and I will say that was enough.  Last year I finished it in 41 minutes and this year I finished it in 36 minutes. I am extremely proud that I improved by 5 minutes.  It makes me realize that everything that I have been doing this last year has been leading up to this challenge.  I could have not run as hard, not jumped over those logs with everything I had, not crawled through the sand as quick as I did but I knew that at the end I wanted to improve my time so I kept going.  My mind was screaming at me to stop, slow down, you are exhausted, you need water, you need to walk, you need to quit.  I never did.  I kept running and when I got to the last mile I knew that I could make it because I had come this far and I knew that there were no more obstacles in my way.  (Literally and figuratively). 
How many times in our lives have we not pushed as hard as we could? How many times have we listened to the little voice that says stop, don’t go on? More times than we care to admit I bet.  I am interested in working with companies to motivate and coach their teams to success and here I am thinking how hard it might be.  I am talking myself out of what makes me passionate because of fear.  I need to learn that my mind, while a powerful force, is not always the controlling factor in my life.  I know that many times the mind will warn you that there is danger or that something doesn’t feel right.  I am not saying to ignore that.  You know when something isn’t right so go with your gut.  But, when you know it’s your dream and your passion and your mind is telling you that you might fail – then ask yourself:  Are you scared of failure? Or of being happy?  I believe that many of us believe we are not worthy of happiness which is why we sabotage the things that are going well in our lives.  It’s easy to blame the failure on other forces other than ourselves.  I think if you take a good hard look at your life you will see that many times we are standing in our own way. Now I am not sitting here preaching at you.  I have and sometimes still do these things and it is the acknowledgement that makes it easier to move on.  I know that sometimes it’s easier to just give up and stay in the status quo but ask yourself.  Are you really happy? Or just really comfortable?  Remember:  you cannot spell challenge without change.  You have to be willing to step out on that ledge and take the risk.  Do you think those Marine recruits didn’t think about quitting every time they had to run that course for 13 weeks? Yes, most of them did think about it and some of them did quit; but the ones that made it through know they did it because they didn’t let their mind overpower them.  You are also capable of anything but you have to convince your mind to keep going.  


                               
            

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Moonshot Thinking



Moonshot thinking.  Many of us have never even heard of the term. I hadn’t until today.  We had our monthly leadership meeting at work where all the managers and leaders get together and usually pat each other on the back for whatever good thing they got accomplished this month.  Today was different.  There were 2 guest speakers who have regular day jobs but on the side they go around and talk to businesses about moonshot thinking and how to change the dynamic of your organization.  The premise is that you take this fantastic goal, something that you would love to do and think more than anything is nearly impossible to achieve.  Much like Kennedy saying we were going to put a man on the moon but hadn’t even created the technology or had any idea how it could happen.  They just knew they wanted to so they started creating the plans. 
One of the most important things I took away from the meeting was that just as I have been saying in my blog posts there is power in partnership.  If you hold all your cards to your chest and don’t share any information then the organization cannot grow.  You must trust that the team you have is capable and has valuable input in the process.  When you take one person’s ideas you are just dealing with what that one person knows.  If you have 10, 20, 50, 100 people all putting in their input you are creating what is called social capital.  It is a dynamic approach at creating an organization that is highly communicative, energetic, passionate about the relationships with their teams, and supportive of one another.  How many companies out there that you have worked for have you felt that way?  Usually you are just trying to keep your head above water and get the pertinent information out before the entire building burns to the ground.  If you approach it from a standpoint of collaborative work then you are not putting out fires you are creating fires within the team you are leading.  
One of the speakers said that leadership is not a position it is a decision and that in any organization you will have 18% of the team that are toxically disengaged, 50% that are just disengaged and 32% that are highly motivated and interested in pushing the business forward.  If you just step in and build a relationship with the team and create the vision and mission with them they are more likely to engage in what they are doing.  Be clear in what your mission and goals are and when you create mission driven leadership you will have a team that is actively engaged. 
The exercise below was one they had us do at the beginning of their presentation and it helped me realize what I am interested in doing with my life.  I am starting a leadership organization that will focus on life/work coaching, mentoring and inspiring teams and leaders.  That is my moonshot.  

So I will pose the same question to you:  

What is your moonshot? 
        - What makes it important to you?
        - How do you communicate that vision? 
        - What supports do you need to achieve it?