“There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year”
Kathleen Norris
Bread Into Roses
1/31/11
Archive for January, 2011
On Snow (the Monday Inspiration)
Posted in Food for the Spirit, Life Improvement, Philosophy, the Monday Inspiration, tagged snow, the Monday Inspiration, winter on January 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »
4 Years Go – Making Big Dreams Real
Posted in Food for the Spirit, Life Improvement, Living in a Magickal Universe, personal growth, Philosophy, self improvement, tagged 4 Years Go, facing challenging times, Kaizen, Life Mission, living in a magickal world, Making Big Dreams Real, practical skills for living in a magickal world on January 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Last time, I talked about Kaizen-taking baby steps in the direction of your dream.
Maybe , though, you think that you can’t accomplish your dreams at all.
Maybe you question whether you can make a difference…..
You can, you know.
When you bring your heart, your soul, your spirit, your time, your attention, your love to something, amazing things can happen.
And think about what you want to give your future to…
Catherine
Foresight
1/30/11
Kaizen and the Dragons of Resistance
Posted in Alternative Health, Life Improvement, Living in a Magickal Universe, personal growth, Philosophy, self improvement, tagged baby steps, facing challenging times, follow your bliss, Kaizen, living in a magickal world, overcoming resistance, practical skills for living in a magickal world, resistance, the Dragons of Resistance on January 25, 2011| 3 Comments »
So we want to improve ourselves and our lives –
To grow,
To learn,
To make the world around us better place,
But we find it’s hard to get started – to get off of our posteriors and make things happen.
It’s that darn resistance…..
(Remember? We talked about resistance in a previous post.)
So how do we deal with that? How do we keep resistance from shooting our dreams down in flames?
Well, one way, when faced with the Dragons of Resistance, is just…don’t…wake…the…dragons…up….
Kaizen to the rescue!
What’s Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese business principle which also happens to work wonderfully on personal goals as well.
How’s it work? Well, the basic philosophy is to break your goals down to the largest step that you’re willing and able to start on now…
Why small? Well, the bigger a goal is , the more likely it is to trigger resistance. Smaller goals are more likely to move in under the radar without activating resistance, while still moving you in the direction of your dreams.
Why now? Because if you act when you first have the idea, you have the energy of excitement, which can help you get places. The longer you wait, the more likely resistance is to rear its ugly head.
And why the biggest step you’ll start on now? Because different people have different thresholds of comfort. If you chose a step that’s big enough to trigger resistance, it can slow down or stop you. If you chose a step that’s smaller than you need, you’re wasting your momentum.
If you set a goal, and you find yourself struggling to get going, that’s a cue that you need to break the goal down smaller.
So, for instance, if your goal is to clean and reorganize your home so you’re comfortable having your friends come and visit (social networks are important and fun, too.), maybe you resolve to start by decluttering your living room.
If you find you somehow can’t get started ( and you know you truly want visitors), you may want to chunk this down and start by clearing 1/4 of the room.
If that doesn’t work, maybe you start by clearing the coffee table…
Sometimes, the goals get down to what seems like absurd levels. Like maybe you stand in the doorway to the room, look in, then withdraw to the kitchen for some coffee…
But the fact is that, in a goal that triggers resistance at such a high level, completing even a tiny step in the right direction can both relax the resistance slightly and give you a burst of energy to go further.
So then you set another step – the biggest one you will start on immediately without triggering resistance.
Baby steps towards your bliss.
So, what’s your next baby step?…..
More change coming
Catherine
Foresight
1/25/11
On Comfort Zones (the Monday Inspiration)
Posted in Life Improvement, Living in a Magickal Universe, personal growth, Philosophy, self improvement, the Monday Inspiration, tagged Eleanor Roosevelt, facing challenging times, Foresight, Free Will, living in a magickal world, moving outside of your comfort zone, practical skills for living in a magickal world, quotes, the Monday Inspiration on January 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Foresight
1/24/11
On New Year’s Resolutions, Physics and Having a Better Life
Posted in Life Improvement, Living in a Magickal Universe, personal growth, self improvement, tagged facing challenging times, Free Will, inertia, living in a magickal world, moving outside of your comfort zone, New Year's resolutions, physics, practical skills for living in a magickal world, resistance on January 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
We’ve been talking about New Year’s resolutions and about making changes in ourselves to make our lives better.
(By the by, did you realize that you can start a new year and make a resolution to change your life at any time you like? Mind-blowing, that.)
We’d all like to be healthier/wiser/more prosperous/ more successful/ more whatever our heart calls us to –
But, for the majority of us, change is hard.
Remember your high school physics?
A body in movement tends to remain in movement, and a body at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted on by an irresistible force….
And, since most of us don’t have that irresistible force in our area, while we have good intentions, we tend to fall back into our old patterns (many of us around this time in January…)
Going back to the physics analogy, to get our bodies at rest into motion, we need to find a way to overcome resistance…
Resistance that comes
- from old habits;
- from temptation;
- from inertia:
- from the expectations of others;
- from fear of change;
- from fear of failure;
- from fear of success;
and from any other really good reasons we have lying around the house.
There are always lots of perfectly good reasons to stay in the life style we’ve currently achieved. Unfortunately, if we want to learn, grow, and have the potential of a better life, we have to kick those perfectly good reasons to the curb and find the way to get past the Dragons of Inertia….
So lets look at that…
The adventure continues ahead…
Catherine
Foresight
1/23/11
Coming Soon – the Monday Inspiration
Posted in Life Improvement, Living in a Magickal Universe, Philosophy, self improvement, the Monday Inspiration, tagged Foresight, Inspiration, Life improvement, living in a magickal world, practical skills for living in a magickal world, quotes, the Monday Inspiration on January 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Hi there
Do you like quotes? I do.
Not every quote, but there are a lot of them that hit me right where I live.
Some inspire me. Some make me laugh. Some show me that people who have accomplished astounding things have still wrestled with many of the same concerns and issues that I have (and if someone that amazing can still have doubts, challenges or a sense of humor, it kind of tells me that there’s hope for us all to be equally amazing).
When I was working out of an agency cubicle, I’d make easels out of paper clips to post a rotating series of quote cards to remind me to be strong, creative, extraordinary or whatever else I needed to be inspired to aspire to.
If you’ve been reading us for awhile, I hope you know that we try to give you the tools you need to follow your dreams. In an effort to make this blog an even higher quality experience, I’m going to start adding a weekly quote for you. Some of them may relate to our current posts, and some may not, but I’m hoping that you’ll find inspiration and hope for your journey of exploration in them.
Watch this space for your Monday Inspiration.
See you soon
Catherine
Foresight
1/22/11
