positive thinking – Page 6 – Rachel MacDonald

Choose Your Experience

13 August, 2011

I was reminded of a valuable lesson in positive thinking this morning and thought I’d share it with you all!

About a month ago, I rocked up to a beauty clinic for a deluxe facial I had booked in. It was one of these Living Social deals where I was promised $550 worth of treatments (LED light therapy, microdermabrasion, a Pomegranate peel, some thick gel-like cream that was to be infused into my skin, a partridge in a pear tree, etc) for $85. Not cheap compared to a lot of those deals, but it seemed like good value to me nonetheless.

Anyway, I had a flat out Saturday ahead so when I arrived at 9am for my appointment and was told there would be a 20 minute wait I thought, sweet, that’s cool, I’ll probably just have to skip one part of the treatment so I can make it to my next appointment in time. Not ideal, but definitely not the end of the world.

I was eventually taken into one of the rooms, set up on the bed and told that someone would be with me shortly. Fortunately (or unfortunately), there was a big clock on the wall in front of me and as I lay there watching the big hand move further and further around until it reached 10am, my annoyance grew, to the point where I had to get up and tell the receptionist I’d need to rebook as I had another appointment to race off to. And I left.

As far as first impressions go, after waiting for an hour with no explanation, my opinion of the clinic wasn’t particularly high.

Anyway, my winter skin was still in desperate need of a facial so I rebooked again for this morning. During the week I was thinking about cancelling – getting a facial is all about feeling comfortable and relaxed and good vibin’ out the wazoo, and I wasn’t feeling the love for this clinic at all. What to do? I battled a bit more in my head and thoughts of bright, smooth, glowy skin won out in the end, so I got out of bed early this morning and trotted off to the 7am spin class at my gym to kill some time and some calories beforehand. Bring on the endorphins, I thought.

Now this is the embarrassing part. For at least the first 10 minutes of the class, a selection (ok, all) of the below ran through my head (in sync with the beat of Voodoo People by the Prodigy):

“If they make me wait again, I’m asking for my money back. I’ve got so much to do today and who has time to sit around waiting? Ra Ra RA!”

“The treatment will probably suck anyway.”

“Can’t believe they didn’t follow up or apologise after I had to leave last time!”

“There goes an hour and a half of my morning. GOOOOONE. See ya!”

Certainly not proud of those thoughts, but based on my first encounter with these people, I’d etched a pretty definite set of conclusions into my psyche about how things would play out. Basically, I was setting myself up for a bad experience.

Not good. But also incredibly good, because by the end of Voodoo People, I had a minor epiphany (either that, or the optimism receptor in my brain finally woke up).

The experience could go exactly the way I wanted it to if I set the intention. In other words, if I expected it to be good, it would be.

I was after a luxurious facial that would leave me all gooey and dreamy, so that’s what I started thinking about. I imagined the therapist being happy to see me. I pictured myself drifiting off into dreamy dreamland with a big smile on my face. I pictured the whole thing running exactly to time and me walking out feeling rejuvenated and pampered. I’d flick my hair over my shoulders and flash my pearly whites, and people would cheer and there’d be streamers and fireworks and… oh, wait.

Anyway, the facial was beautiful. I had a great chat to the beautician, who was very friendly, and I totally forgot about last time. Erased, gone from my mind. My pre-conceived notions dropped away as the gel infused deep into my dermis. Or something. By reframing the negative thoughts I’d conjured up in my head about how it was going to play out and deciding that I wanted the morning to unfold perfectly, it did.

I walked out feeling awesome and on the drive home, two things kept playing over in my mind:

1. We create our experiences. What we focus on we attract. Positivity is a choice.

2. Everyone has bad days. The beautician was having one last time, and I was having a shocker by focusing on the negatives. Letting go feels tre-men-dous.

What a morning!

+ What about you? Have you ever gone into something expecting it to suck/ expecting to fail/ expecting to be disappointed and that’s what’s happened? Do you think you’ll try this little positivity trick?

Images: 1. Ache 2. Good Golly Holly

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6 (More) Ways To Be Ridiculously Happy!

27 July, 2011

Welcome to Part Two of my posts on happiness: 6 (More) Ways to Be Ridiculously Happy! Part One is here.

Writing about happiness and living magically is my favourite thing to do and something I want to do more of, so thank you for leaving feedback yesterday and letting me know that you enjoy reading this kind of thing. There’s definitely lots more I want to share on this blog, so let’s launch straight in with a few more golden tips, shall we?

1. Visualise your dream life.

Grab a pen and a piece of paper and get scribbling. Jot down all your wildest, hugest dreams – let your mind go crazy with the possibilities! Think of the end result. Don’t attach to unimportant details, just wrap yourself up in the joy you feel when your most potent dreams are unleashed on the page in front of you. Create a killer vision board and review it daily. Repeat after me: “Miracles are happening every day. Everything I’ve ever wanted is on it’s way to me now. The hard work is done and I’m completely open to the spectacular beauty unfolding all around me. I AM BLESSED IN SO MANY WAYS.”

2. Have fun (and lots of it!)

Big, delicious, messy fun. Lift the veil of seriousness and get silly, why don’t ya?! Look at ways to incorporate a little more play into your life. Start a tickle war with someone, and try tell me you don’t feel a million times happier after you’ve squealed your head off. It’s impossible not to! Send a friend a funny email, grab a magazine and draw mustaches on everyone. Make up a silly song. Wear socks with cartoon characters on them. Walk like a lunatic around the house. Crank up a bit of R’n’B and crump in your underwear in front of the mirror. Pretend you’re in an old school aerobics video. Started consciously smiling. Smile in the car as you drive to work or on your morning walk. Smiling positively effects brain chemistry. Actually, do you know researchers have found that smiling is equal to the feel-good brain stimulation of 2000 chocolate bars? Did somebody say chocolate?!

3. Stop judging.

The main reason we judge is because we’re insecure. We want to make ourselves feel better by tearing someone else down or projecting our own fears/ issues/ inadequacies on them. We judge when we’re scared, when we feel intimidated or out of our depth. We judge when we see someone else having the courage to do something we wish we had the courage to do ourselves. Ouch. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, isn’t it? The good thing is, unhealthy habits can be broken. Take a vow to keep a close eye on your thoughts and push them in a positive direction. I love this from Mike Dooley: “If you could actually stand in someone else’s shoes to hear what they hear, see what they see, and feel what they feel, you would probably wonder what planet they live on, and be totally blown away by how different their reality is to yours. You’d also never, in a million years, be quick to judge again.” Remember how it feels to be judged and put an end to your judgemental behaviour today.

4. Healthy = happy!

Changing your diet and the way you treat your body has a profound and powerful effect on your overall happiness. Something shifts inside you when you commit to eating well, getting enough sleep, nourishing your spirit with meditation or relaxation and working up a sweat through exercise. Best. feeling. ever. Crank up your happiness by clearing the crap from your fridge, lacing up your sneakers, heading outdoors, and trawling virtual treasure troves for healthy recipes (Crazy Sexy Life, 101 Cookbooks and all the healthy foodie blogs under my Blogs to Bookmark tab are a great place to start). Abundant energy supplies and off-the-scale clarity can be yours SO easily. Clear the slate, and glow you good thing!

5. Recharge.

Motivation ebbs and flows in our lives. That’s a given. When your mojo really slumps and you feel overhwhelmed, your body is telling you to take a take a break. How many times have you pushed yourself to get something done to “get it out of your hair” and then felt disappointed or guilty about your output?

Earlier this year I was pushing myself pretty hard, trying to do everything and scattering my energy in a million different directions, and a few hormone tests revealed I had extremely low cortisol (stress hormone) levels, resulting from adrenal fatigue. Sound like you too? I’m trying (hard!) to listen to my body and take breaks when I need to rejuvenate (believe me, this is harder than it looks) and I’m making more of a conscious effort to remind myself that the world won’t stop spinning if I take a breather. The notion that ‘Breather = Boring’ is a fallacy. I’m definitely guility of believing in the past that without things to do, people to see and projects to complete, life would be… well, dull. I’m growing out of that belief now! Take the pressure off, relax, pamper yourself, jump in the car and head off on a road trip for the weekend with your nearest and dearest. A bit of R & R and a dose of self-forgiveness goes along way to boosting your happiness. Promise.

6. Honour your relationships.

Happy people spend more time working on and in their relationships. As a race, we humans feel happier when they’re in the company of other people. Strengthening our relationships and deepening our connections with others leaves us feeling gooood, so why shouldn’t we go out of our way to nurture those bonds more frequently? There’s this thing that happens for me whenever I don’t feel like doing something (let’s say, going out to dinner after a tiring week at work) – I always have the BEST time and come home with a full heart and a smile on my face. It’s such a nice reminder that everything else slips away when you’re spending quality time with good people.

Be generous with your loved ones. Think of generosity as a much bigger concept than buying your friend a nice birthday present or paying for a round of drinks on a night out. Generosity can mean inspiring someone when they’re feeling flat on life with an uplifting email or a thoughtful text, or doing something “just because” without expecting anything in return. It can mean really listening, offering to cook dinner for a friend who’s stressed about money or work or not coping with a new child or a sick family member. Generosity means thinking beyond the ‘self’ and genuinely putting someone else’s needs before your own. You’ll always feel happier for it.

+ So there you go! I’d love to know: what does ‘happiness’ mean to you?
+ What do you to keep happiness flowing steadily through your days? Talking about happiness quadruplifies (new word) it so tell me in the comments!
+ And finally, please feel free to ‘Share’ this post on Facebook if you think someone you know might benefit from it… the link to share is just below.

Images: 1. Elena Kalis 2. Reckless Means No Rules 3. 4. 101 Cookbooks 5. Beach Bungalow 8 6. Favim

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6 Ways to Be Ridiculously Happy Today!

26 July, 2011

I’ve broken this post into two parts – I’ll post Part Two tomorrow morning!

1. Make happiness a priority.

Happiness is a choice. It’s so easy to blame our unhappiness on external influences – our parents, job, friends, partner, fate, whatever – but this is the thing: happiness is an inside job. Whenever you find yourself in a situation that makes you feel bad/ fearful/ worried/ angry, remind yourself that happiness exists separate to, and regardless of what’s going on around us, and whether we choose to access that power or not is solely up to us. We’re all the architects of our own lives and emotions, and if happiness isn’t a top priority – something we consciously commit to on a daily basis – then other things will inevitably interfere with our efforts to feel joyful.

I love this description of positive thinking from David J. Schwartz’s The Magic of Thinking Big:

“Your mind is a thought factory. It’s a busy factory, producing countless thoughts in one day. Production in your thought factory is under the charge of two foremen, one of whom we’ll call Mr Triumph and the other Mr Defeat. Mr Triumph is in charge of manufacturing positive thoughts. He specialises in producing reasons why you can, why you’re qualified, why you will. The other foreman Mr Defeat, produces negative, deprecating thoughts. He is your expert in developing reasons why you can’t, why you’re weak, why you’re inadequate. His speciality is the “why-you-will-fail” chain of thoughts. Tell yourself “Today is a lousy day.” This signals Mr Defeat into action and he manufactures some facts to prove you are right… but tell yourself “Today is a fine day” and Mr Triumph is signaled forward to act. He tells you “This is a wonderful day. The weather is refreshing. It’s good to be alive.”

Once more for posterity: happiness is a choice, baby!

2. Bloom where you are planted.

This means living fully, wherever you are and with whatever you have. When you put specifics around being happy, telling yourself, “I’ll only be happy when I lose weight/ get a new job/ find the man of my dreams” you shut the door on the other ways you could be equally happy. The conditions will never be perfect for you to start self-actualising, because perfection is a moving target. The reason it always seems a little out of reach is because perfection doesn’t exist. Not as you imagine it, anyway. Sometimes we’re afraid to embrace the moment exactly as we are now, so we procrastinate, we trip ourselves up, we come up with a list of conditions that dictate that X, Y, Z must be fulfilled before we can proceed. Flip your perspective and really hone in on the end result you desire and stop worrying about the “how to get there’s.” Just set the intention and trust. Be present and unfold into the space you find yourself in right now.

3. Surround yourself with positivity.

Ever heard the term “Lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas?” In my opinion, this doesn’t just apply to the company we keep. It applies to all the messages we’re regularly taking in – the books or trashy magazines we read, the celebrity gossip sites, the mind-numbing TV shows we watch. Reign it in, take control! I’m subscribed to a whole bunch of fantastic newsletters that sprinkle positivity in my inbox daily such as DailyOM and Notes from the Universe, and I also get my inspiration fix from sites like White Hot Truth, Think Simple Now, Ordinary Courage, Goddess Leonie (and plenty of others!) I refuse to read gossip websites and trashly weekly magazines because I really don’t need to know whether Beyonce’s ass has cellulite or who’s been Photoshopped to look obese/ anorexic. Not my bag. Fill your cup with positivity and drink in the good stuff daily.

4. Be grateful.

For your life and the people in it. Write a gratitude list in your journal or in the Notes app on your phone. Join us here on In Spaces Between every Wednesday and add your list in the comments under my Making Me Happy posts. Acknowledge the people who help you out, pay you a compliment or give you great advice by letting them know how truly thankful you are for their kindness. Compliments are awesome to give AND receive and the more we give thanks to others, the more goodness we attract into our own lives. It’s a beautiful little cycle. I’ve just written myself a reminder in my diary to up my compliment quota today and I highly recommend you do the same!

5. Stop seeking constant approval from others and stop comparing!

Because it makes them the master and you the slave. Worrying about what other people think is a losing battle and it holds us back from being our vibrant, passionate, imperfectly unique, totally awesome selves. Live the life you were always meant to live and be who you were always meant to be. Without excuses. Without playing small or dumbing down or diluting your opinion for fear that you might not be ‘liked.’

Often, one of the biggest impediments to discovering our own glorious gifts is our fascination with the gifts and talents of others. Turn your focus in, rather than out, and celebrate (and nurture and grow) all that you have to offer the world. Comparing yourself or competing with others invariably leads to jealousy – and all that jealousy is good for is shining a light on the parts of ourselves that we need to work on. Nip it in the bud before you get to that point by practicing self-love and remember that by focusing on everyone else’s journey, you’re diverting the focus from your own. Also, no-ones life is perfect so you never know if what you’re envying in others is actually “real” under the surface!

6. Make peace with yourself… and accept that it’s okay to fail.

You’ve made mistakes in the past and you’ll no doubt make them again in the future. And that’s a good thing. The biggest growth and the best lessons come from our greatest screw ups. Drop the shame, let yourself off the hook. Transform what hurts into what helps. For all the doors that are slammed in your face and all the no’s and the rejections, remember that there are opportunities that you can’t even comprehend waiting for you just up ahead! Worry is fuelled by all the scary details from past experiences and it can only thrive if you let it convince you that the same will happen in the present. Let go, move on, turn the page.

Bonus Bounty!

Wear your “good” perfume – everyday + dance in the rain + send yourself a love letter/ email/ text + fill your house/ workspace with plants and fresh flowers + cook yourself a gourmet three-course meal – on a Tuesday + drink in a sunrise, marvel at a sunset + accept compliments from others so you can see the truth about yourself + tell someone you appreciate them + spend the whole day lazing around with a good book + be okay with saying no + shut your eyes and imagine smiling faces and warm embraces + take your camera on an adventure and see where you end up!

+ Aaaaand, finally, check in tomorrow for more happiness-related inspiration!

Images: 1. Modern Parents Messy Kids 2. Gary Pepper Vintage 3. National Geographic 4. Lollophoto 5. My Modern Met 6. Daisy Lowe 7. sun-believable

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Life Reset Wrap Up

11 July, 2011

Morrrrrning!

My “Life Reset” week ‘officially’ ends today, but I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ll continue to make a conscious effort to fill my weeks up with positivity and things that make me feel good. I’m as Sagittarian as they come and living optimistically has always been my “thing” but it was so nice to set the intention and raise the bar this past week – and even though I wasn’t feeling fabulous with my flu (which is now gone, hooray!), I got a lot out of focusing my attention on the areas of my life that needed a bit o’ lovin.’

I mentioned in my About page for this website that the name In Spaces Between is “a reminder to take pause in the spaces between doing “stuff,” to consciously do the things that make us smile from the inside out. Creative stuff. Heart-opening stuff” and that’s just what I did this week! I have this feeling that my life is shifting quite a bit at the moment, and in the most enchanting way. I’ll explain that further once I delve into it a bit more myself, but I just feel the momentum is really increasing and that I’m steering my ship in the right direction. Which is radder than words.

This is what I’ve been doing for the past few days to get my heart-racing and feet tapping:

Exercise

Friday: I go to a group training sesh every Friday and we either do an hour of hill sprinting (plus some ab-killers!) or, like this Friday, we hit the beach and do a circuit with squats, abs, push ups, ladder runs, hurdles and so on. The weather has been super chilly here but ridiculously clear, and the mornings, while icy, have been just stunning. The workout definitely sparked me up for my last day of the working week (well, kinda… I do work weekends now with my new love, In Spaces Between!)

Saturday: Braved the cold again and hit the walking track with a beautiful friend of mine for a 1 hour 45 minute walk/ chat catch up. Best start to the weekend, loved it. I actually had pretty sore abs later that day, does anyone get that from “power walking” or is it just me? Must have been tensing them like a maniac!

Sunday: My man and I got up early and did a 6km “race pace” run which was fantastic. It made me realise how much I miss the feeling that comes after a good run; this time last year I’d just completed my first half marathon, so I’ve gone from running 17-20kms each Sunday to… err… feeling it after 6kms!

Monday: I must have been keen to get into today because I woke up at 5.05 am even though my alarm was set for 5:30am. Okay body, I’m hearing you! I trotted off to spin class at my gym and must say that I’m feeling pretty damn amazing. Just as an aside, my lucky/ favourite numbers are 11 and 7 and today’s date is 11.7.11 – how could it not be an awesome day?! Hello, Monday, what have you got in store for me, because I. AM. READY!

Eating

I discovered this recipe on an awesome blog I found via one of my fave writers, Sarah Wilson (thanks Sarah!) and we made a loose version of the raw tacos for dinner last night. We didn’t go totally raw, as we needed to use up some food we had in the fridge, but supplementing tortillas for the lettuce was DELICIOUS! Apart from that, I’m still on a strawberry kick and have been trying to eat lots of vegetables and unprocessed foods (well, except for Saturday night’s dinner at the football game I went to with Ramai which consisted of M & M’s and hot chips, which is definitely questionable. Eek!)

Quality Time

I really wanted to have some quality time with good friends and my amazing fiance this weekend. Beautiful friends spoiled us with dinner Friday night and I went out to breakfast yesterday with my fave girls. Ramai and I also had a spontaneous, last minute trip to the football on Saturday night and some good hanging out time over the weekend which was totally soul-warming. Love energy flowing like mad!

Words of Wisdom

These articles resonated with me like crazy:

1. Do you have high expectations of other people?

2. “Genius is the offspring of the in between.” Kinda what In Spaces Between is all about, right?! (PS: I so needed to read this one!)

+ Of course, the other big news this week was that we are in the Top 21 for The Lane’s Dream Wedding competition, so I hope you don’t mind me asking you to vote for us (pretty please!) I’ll give you the details later today and for those that are interested, you’ll also get a bit of an insight into our love story on The Lane’s blog. So exciting, we feel truly blessed to have even made it into the Top 21 considering there were thousands of entries from across Australia. To win would be an absolute dream come true!

+ And, finally, how did you go this week? Did you feel a little more “on track?” If life was a tad crazy and you weren’t able to squeeze in your mini-life transformation, that’s totally fine – but why not make this week the week that you give yourself the gift of clarity and get inspired to live more magically? Go out there and grab life with two hands, sunshine!

Images: 1. Lenubar 2.My New Roots 3. Cherry Blossom Girl via Flickr 4. Etsy

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The F Word

5 July, 2011

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood” – Marie Curie

I was chatting to a beautiful friend of mine yesterday about her feeling a bit overwhelmed and resistant to change. Inevitably, the F word came up. Yep. F E A R. F to the EAR. So, I thought we should talk about stepping (or being shoved aggressively) out of our comfort zones for a bit.

This is the thing: fears are self-created.

Ponder that for a moment. Standing at the edge of the unknown is a vulnerable place to be, and can unnerve even the most enlightened among us. This is how it usually plays out – you create a feeling of doubt in your mind, you buy into that feeling, you feel bad/ worried/ stressed/ inadequate and you hesitate. Fantasised Experiences Appearing Real.

Fear = friction = chafing. And we all know that chafing is bad.

Fear holds a mirror up to our insecurities.

Fear is fueled by the notion that we don’t believe we can have what we really want. We ache for more, we hold ourselves back, we self-sabotage, we get in our own way. Why? Not because we can’t do it, but because we’re scared we can do it – and then what? We worry (unnecessarily) about steering our ship into those uncharted waters because we’re scared that once we get there, we might make mistakes or fail or not be as capable as we originally thought we were. I’m sure you’ve all come across the below quote by Marianne Williamson at some stage but it’s worth sharing again here:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Potent stuff.

Something to take comfort in is that everyone has gone through change at some stage or another and fear is a universal emotion. Starting a new job can be daunting, as can breaking up with a long-time partner to backpack through Asia or speaking out on something that’s not sitting right with you. Take self-doubt as a cue to search for the strength that has always been within you. Get inside those worries and probe them with questions. What’s at stake here? Do I have any control over the result? What’s the worst that can happen, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, what’s the best that could happen? Will this matter to me in six months time? When we flip our perspective, our doubts and resistance can actually be enormously positive, providing us with a great insight into where we are stuck and where we need to rise up to tackle the challenge head-first.

The greatest antidote to fear is action.

Experiencing fearful thoughts is part of being human. The choice is whether we want to dwell on them or not. I love this from Danielle La Porte who says about fear:

“First, admit you have the fear: “Great it’s up on the table.” Now, you have to be clear on what the fear actually is. Once you do that, it sort of melts into something you can handle. The very act of being clear on what you fear transforms it; it’s not fear anymore but knowledge.”

One of our strongest concerns is that an issue is so big and so intimidating that we don’t know where to start with fixing/ conquering it. As happens in life sometimes, the simplest answer is the right one here: action cures all. I’ve started to make a concerted effort whenever I feel fear rising up inside me – fear that I’m not doing enough, fear that I’m doing too much, fear that I’m missing out, fear that I’m not good enough to take things to the “next level” in my life – to strip things right back and look inside that worry to see what the real problem is. If a confidence-theiving doubt like “You’re probably wrong, don’t say it just in case” arises for me it’s generally when I question my knowledge and experience in a situation, which if I’m brave enough, can be drilled down further to this bitter truth: at that point in time, I’ve convinced myself I’m not good enough. Is anyone else hot in here?

Because being uncomfortable ain’t my idea of a good time, I’ve learnt that the only way to conquer fear is to take deliberate action. That is, I recognise that I feel hesistant and scared and out of my depth and I jump in anyway. As Steven Pressfield says, start before you are ready. Accept that you’ll make mistakes and trust that everything will work out just as it’s supposed to. You’ve done this so many times before and you can do it again. You are more than enough. Honour that.

+ Have you done anything lately that’s put the fear in you? Something that pushed you out of your comfort zone? I’d love to hear your thoughts on resistance and what you do to combat it!

Image: via Etsy

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From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be

23 June, 2011

Vision boards. Shimmering visual representations of who we want to be, what we want to have and how we want to feel. The desires of our hearts laid out in pretty pictures. The purpose of a vision board is to activate the law of attraction (regardless of your thoughts on The Secret, this stuff is pretty powerful) – that is, the idea that the things we give attention to, we attract into our lives. When using the law of attraction to proper effect, we utilise positive visualisation (the art of creating compelling and vivid pictures in our minds) to attract to us the resources, people and opportunities we need to achieve our goals. It motivates us, increases our awareness and gives our brains a specific vision of what we want.

Example vision board layout

Dreaming Big: How to Construct Your Own Vision Board

Step 1: Take a few minutes of quiet time to think about the words that sum up where you want to be. Your sweet spot. Tune in to your desires, try them on for size. What does truth/ freedom/ success/ happiness feel like? Scribble… breathlessly. Are you smiling yet? Get raw. Get messy. Unleash.

Step 2: Define the categories you want represented on your board and start collecting images. Think about areas of your life like Career, Finances, Love, Family/ Friends/ Relationships, Travel, Health/ Fitness/ Wellness, Happiness, Spirit and Creativity. Add your own classifications. Tear pages from magazines, trawl websites, Google Images, Flickr, Pinterest and Tumblr for inspiration. Being specific will help you visualise what you want, but don’t get discouraged if you can’t find a picture of the car you want in the exact colour or a picture of the town where you dream of resting your head in Italy. A map of Italy is enough.

Step 3: If you are proficient in Photoshop, create a new blank canvas (I always go for A3 size) and open your favourite images. Scan in any photos you’ve clipped from magazines (or leave space to stick them on at the end). If Photoshop isn’t your thing, grab a pair of scissors, some glue and a piece of A3 paper/ cardboard or a corkboard and get snip-crazy.

Step 4: Add the text for the headings (as above) and lay out the images underneath. If headings feel too restrictive, freestyle baby! Go nuts.

Step 5: Devise your list of soul-shaking affirmations. Speak as if it’s a done deal. Use an “It’s-happening-now-and-it’s-friggen-awesome” tone. Instead of “I want to write books that change lives,” you’d say “I’m changing people’s lives every day with my kick-ass range of bestselling books.” Examples of powerful affirmations are below for you to play with and customise. Rip words from magazines (let’s call them energising words) like “Fit, Fab and Fantastic!” “My Dream Home” “Total Success” “Double Your Energy” “Your Happiest Year Yet!” and so on. Women’s magazines in particular are full of catchy slogans so attack that discarded pile in the corner with vigour!

Awesome Affirmations:

“I am massively increasing my income every day”
“I am feeling fit and healthy at my perfect weight of xx”
“I am ecstatic driving my brand new black Mercedes”
“I attract empowering and positive people into my life” (this is one of mine)
“I am discovering my life’s purpose” (another one of mine)
“I move from the old to the new with joy and ease”
“Incredible ideas are flowing to me easily and continually”

Sweeteners

+ Make it visible. Put your board up somewhere you’ll see it often. As I mentioned previously, mine is stuck on the glass in our shower, facing in, so that I see it every morning and night. There’s no excuses for not visualising my goals regularly when they’re sitting front and centre while I beautify! I’ve also got another smaller copy of my board glued in my diary. Think about making a screen saver out of your board or leaving a copy in the glovebox of your car to read on the way to work. Stoke the fire.

+ Put yourself at the centre. Find a photo of you doing something you love, with a huge grin on your face, feeling carefree and full of joy. Stick this in the centre of your board – this represents the way you want to feel every day.

+ Dreamsetting and manifesting have the potential to bring up a bit of the ol’ resistance. You know, the “I’m not enough’s’ “I can’ts” “As if that will happen’s.” We all go through it. It’s what we do to push past it that counts. Remind yourself that limitations are created in our own minds.

+ Michaelangelo once said ” The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Wise words. Put one enormous goal (that scares you) on your board. Allow the possibility of attaining it to enter your head. Get drunk – delerious – on that possibility and start believing it. Push yourself out to the jagged edges of your comfort zone, and hang there for a bit, see what it feels like to be done with that toxic relationship, to be running the organic soap business you’ve dreamed of since childhood, to sell up everything and travel the world with just a bag on your back, to live in your mansion by the sea. Often we don’t believe we’re worthy of receiving what we dream of so we prevent it from flowing our way by playing it safe. GUILTY. AS. CHARGED. I once had a goal list I devised in January that was so damn safe I’d achieved everything on it by March. Not ideal. Looking back, I’d become so hooked on the “high-achiever high,” feeling smug as I crossed things off my to-do list, that I’d created a goal list that made me look good. To who? Myself. I’d started to feel guilty about not achieving some of the stretchy, big goals I’d set out for myself so I’d whipped them off the list to stop me feeling inadequate. These days however, I see the stuff that puts the fear in me as a personal challenge. Kapow.

+ Quit the self-sabotage (tired old defense mechanism, that it is), quell the rampant head-chatter, drop the need to create a buffer in case things don’t work out so you can say “Told you so, knew I wasn’t good enough.” You’re more than good enough. You knock it out of the park.

+ Don’t worry about artistic ability or making it perfect. Being artistic isn’t important; creating a board that resonates with you emotionally is.

Your turn: have you ever made a vision board? Do you think you’ll give it a go? Love to know what you think about this concept in the comments!

Images: 1. via Pinterest 2. Absolute Sunday

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Why I Love Mornings

11 June, 2011

You may hate me a little bit for saying this, but I’m one of those people. A ‘morning’ person. Shocking right? I suck at sleeping in (so much to do, so many people to see!) and when it comes to energy levels, focus and creative flow, mornings are definitely when I get my best work done.

My favourite thing about the morning is that it truly is ripe for the picking. To me, mornings hold a wonderful ‘clean slate’ appeal. Those beautiful few hours before you start work and your energy becomes scattered between onerous tasks and other people’s expectations, where you can snatch some ‘me time’ and think about what you want out of your day. Granted, rising early isn’t for everyone, but I tend to feel a bit wonky for the rest of the day when I sleep in. Unbalanced, sluggish, slightly off centre.

Peering into my morning routine, it’s hardly a surprise to find the beauty lies in the repetition. The ritual of turning the light out between 9:30 – 10pm each night and knowing that I’ll be launched into my day with a big blast of exercise-induced endorphins generally gets me pretty excited! There’s also something about the stillness of the morning that I relish. I love watching the day turn from dark to light, sitting at the traffic lights on my way to the gym with the radio on, sleep in my eyes, tradesmen in trucks beside me, the sun peeking out over the ocean. If I’ve got things to do on the computer (unrelated to my full-time job that is – my general rule after years of taking work home with me and staying back late in the office is to leave work at work) my best bet is to jump out of bed and punch it out early. Preferably before 6:30am, followed by some light stretching.

So this is why I love mornings. If you’re a bit of a voyeur like me and love seeing how other people tackle their mornings, you’ll love this site that details the daily routines of famous writers, artists and interesting people. Fascinating stuff.

As for my routine, I’m always on the lookout for new, brighter and better ways to do things and my morning ritual is no different, but here’s how it currently looks:

1. Wake up between 5:20 – 5:30am (to my alarm in winter and often before my alarm in summer as I’ll leave the curtains open a crack to let some natural light flood in).

2. Water. I splash my face with cool water to give my senses a jolt and let them know that, yep, it really is time to wake up, and then I drink a couple of glasses of room temperature water. With a big squeeze of lemon if I remember. I’m a huge water drinker and because I exercise in the mornings, I like to start hydrating for the day pretty much straight away.

3. Clean and potter. While I’m drinking water/ searching for my exercise gear, I’ll generally put away the dishes left in the rack the night before and put on a load of washing if need be. Probably not ideal but helps me feel organised for the day.

4. Make the bed. Once I’m dressed, I’ll make our bed. I was taught to make my bed when I was about four and a half and have done so nearly every day since. It grounds me, and sets an intention for a chaos-free, ordered day ahead. Read more about bed-making and happiness on the fantastic blog The Happiness Project.

5. Exercise. By about 5:50am, I’m out the door and ready to start exercising. My routine at the moment involves one of the following five to six days a week: group training (hill sprints, circuit training), running, gym classes like Spin and Body Attack, walks along the beach or around the national park/ headland across the road from our house, body strength training or pilates.

6. Visualisation. I return home at 7am to get ready for work and while I’m showering, I read over the affirmations and goals I have up on my vision board. Which sounds a bit woo woo, but totally isn’t. I’m a goalsetter/ vision boarder from way back but a friend recently told me how she sticks hers on the glass in her shower, facing in, so that she sees it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Genius. I can’t tell you how much I love this! Topping and tailing your day by crystallising your vision of what you are working towards is something that makes such a huge difference to your day, and I really recommend giving this a go. Stay tuned, as looking at ways to live a better life is something I’m really passionate about and will delve into further in future posts.

Something I’m really trying to work on at the moment is incorporating more stillness into my mornings, whether it be with 10 minutes of stretching and meditation, or reading a chapter of my book on the couch before the shower/ get dressed/ make lunch/ dash out the door madness begins.

My man and I have also started turning the news off and listening to music in the mornings. Who needs to start their day knowing how many armed hold-ups there were the night prior or who lost their life in a tragic accident? I’m all about filling your skin up with the good stuff. Getting joyful. Ringing a friend for a laugh. Reading a Daily Motivator. Dancing naked in your lounge room if you so desire. Happy days.

I’d love to hear about your morning routine in the comments – what’s working for you?

Images: 1. via Pinterest 2. monk3y.tumblr.com via Pinterest 3. via whitehottruth.com

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