Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Join me on The Power of Less Challenge Forum by making a commitment to form a new habit you want to create. One habit…not two or three. Personally, I’m going to spend every day doing something to market myself. Just be sure it’s a small habit that can be done in 10 minutes a day. If you have other new habits you’d like to create, do it during the next 30 days.
The helpful part is that you will share your commitment in the public forum, created by Leo Babauta from Zen Habits Blog, and then take 2 minutes each day to record your progress on the forum. What are your dreams? Do you want to exercise more, parasail over the ocean, laugh more often? Choose the habit you want to create!
Let me know how you’re doing.
“Instead of being slaves to bad habits, why not be servants to good habits?”–Fred Van Amburgh
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Aren’t we lucky to be alive during this unique time in America? An election year (almost 2 years really) where a woman and an African-American were 2 of the presidential candidates. Even with this progress, our country is seeing such challenges that it’s important for all of us to become more conscious, wake up, and vote! I’ve noticed many friends, clients, and even myself getting nervous about the election. Expressions such as ” I feel I have no control” or “We’re in such a mess, we’ll never recover” have come up often. I thought I’d take this last chance to share 3 simple tips on how we can enhance our happiness quotient in the next few days. 1.) VOTE: This will make us happier because by making the effort to take action and speak our minds (in the voting booth) will empower us to contribute to what we believe will help our country. 2.) VOLUNTEER to make calls or help at the polling booths. 3.) WATCH The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central to see the humor in politics, while simultaneously catching up on the news of the day and watching fascinating interviews. I am always surprised when people tell me that they aren’t voting because they don’t believe it matters. On the other hand, I am also inspired when I witness thousands of individuals standing in lines for 8 hours because they know it does! I also wonder if they are trying to be discouraged from voting!
How about you? Do you have suggestions for staying happy during these last 2 days of the election (and beyond)?
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Beliefs sure do affect all of us in every aspect of our lives. Judgements made or insinuated are insidious. America is supposed to be a melting pot. After all, our forefathers came to America with the intention of practicing religious freedom. I am always amazed that so many Americans are still prejudiced. Why are they? I think because of fear. Fear of change. Fear of losing control. When we have a vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, speaking to a crowd, and allowing them to shout out about Senator Obama, “kill him” “, “off with his head”, and then NOT speak up. WE each must stand up and stop this. She is not necessarily responsible for what they might say, but she is responsible to stop cries of hate. In my opinion, she is stoking anger and division. Each of us has a responsibility to create more acceptance of differences. HOW? Voting will be one way to speak our minds. Are you registered? Vote for what you stand for, without tearing down the other candidates. It is a practice to choose what we want, not focus on hate.
David Gergen of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, CNN commentator, and in my opinion a deep-thinking fair man, who has been a presidential advisor to Republicans and Democrats, from Richard Nixon to the present, has expressed his concern. He recently said “there is this free-floating sort of whipping around anger that could lead to some violence.”
In this global financial crisis, our focus must be on what we want, not on what we fear. Our beliefs blind us and sometimes make us do crazy things. When Barack Obama spoke in Ohio yesterday, he encouraged the crowd to reject panic and division, and instead focus on resolve and steady leadership. Of course, I know all the candidates are criticizing each other, but there is a line that Palin has crossed, in allowing hate threats. I want to acknowledge John McCain for defending Obama, one time, when a woman said Barack was an Arab and she did not trust him. McCain said “No, he’s a decent family man and citizen.” But that raises the question, does McCain believe all Arabs are not decent?
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Books such as Think and Grow Rich and As A Man Thinketh have been around for many years. By reading these books and others, many of us have learned that our thoughts have powerful affects on us. Thoughts will always flow through our minds, but we don’t have to believe everything we think. We can choose the ones to believe. This isn’t ‘new age jargon’. In Dr. Norman Doidge’s new book, The Brain That Changes Itself, you will find how he bridges the gap between science and self-help in his varied case studies of brain plasticity. Dr. Doidge was also featured on PBS’s The Brain Fitness Program. (more…)
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
Through coaching and teaching, I have compiled a list of common limiting beliefs that women have shared with me. I thought you might want to take a look. Check any statements that resonate with you. Are you willing to ask yourself a few questions to change your beliefs and change your life?
___1. I’m not enough (e.g., good, educated, thin, young, smart, rich enough).
___2. I need to make others happy so I won’t be rejected.
___3. I can’t be happy until he/she changes.
___4. I have to earn other people’s approval to feel good about myself.
___5. If I let people really get to know me, they won’t like me.
___6. I have to stay in the relationship because I can’t make it on my own.
___7. If I’m happy even when others are suffering, it means I don’t care.
___8. I can’t be happy until the relationship/career is different.
___9. If they really loved me, they would _________________.
___10. I need to do more and more to be worthy.
___11. I don’t know what I want.
___12. I shouldn’t put my needs before others’.
___13. I’ll never really change.
___14. I’m responsible for other people’s happiness, and they’re responsible for mine.
___15. I don’t deserve love, success, money, fame, etc.
___16. If I pursue my own interests, my relationships will suffer.
___17. I don’t have time to nurture myself.
___18. It’s too late for me to find happiness and success.
___19. If I speak my mind, I’ll be rejected.
___20. I should be farther along than I am.
___21. I’d better not be too happy, or I’ll just have farther to fall.
___22. Things will never work out for me.
___23. I shouldn’t have to ask my partner for what I want.
___24. I’m a bad/unlovable person.
___25. I need fear to motivate me and keep me in check.
___26. I’ll never make enough money.
___27. I’ll always have to struggle, while others have it easier.
___28. Whatever I’m doing, I should be doing something else.
___29. Health problems will always keep me from happiness and success.
___30. I can’t do it.
If any of these statements ring true for you, it may be time to take your destiny into your own hands by dissolving the beliefs that sabotage your success and happiness.
What is a belief? It is a perception of reality, or something you were told that you had no reason to doubt. How do you know that you have a self-defeating belief? If you are feeling some way you don’t like feeling, you are probably believing something that’s not true.
Choose one limiting belief and ask yourself these questions:
* Do I believe that?
* Why do I believe that?
* What seems true about that?
* What might concern me if that belief were gone? (What might happen that I would not like?)
These questions give you a powerful starter kit for creating happiness beyond belief. Freedom from your beliefs is life changing.
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
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