Me Time

The Importance of Putting "Me Time" on Your Personal Calendars

What is at the top of your personal To Do list right now? Do you spend the majority of each weekend running errands and handling personal and family chores? When was the last time you scheduled Me Time?

We are not machines, though we often push ourselves like mechanical beasts. We all need to take breaks and relax. We all need time alone to ourselves, even when it seems like there's no spare time to do so (which, in fact, is the exact time when we most desperately need a break from the world, other people, and all the commitments and tasks facing us).

Me Time should be exactly that. Time for just you, or just you and someone you don't see very often that you want to share some special time with. Me Time is not a time for running personal errands. It is a time to be alone with yourself, catch your breath, and regain your internal harmony.

If you will block off a couple of hours once or twice a month for Me Time, you will feel rejuvenated and reinvigorated. 

Here are some wonderful activities and pursuits to consider for your periodic Me Time blocks:

·         Commune with nature. Walk on a beach. Hike in the woods or forest. Stroll through a public park, feed the birds and enjoy your own tasty snack.

·         Treat yourself to a spa treatment, massage or Reiki session.

·         Go to a game, concert, play, or movie by yourself, or with a friend or family member you haven't seen in awhile.

·         Eat outside. Tip: many hotels have snack bars and cafes at their outdoor pools. Or, if you live near the ocean, try one of the outdoor restaurants at any of the resorts overlooking the water. Breakfast overlooking the beach can be quite the personal treat!

·         Visit a museum, science center or historical building. This can be an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours, especially if you are traveling alone on business. And it certainly beats sitting in your hotel room reading email.

·         Plan your next vacation by visiting travel agencies and tourism promotion offices. Grab a few brochures, find an enjoyable spot for a relaxing cup of coffee, and draft out your own itinerary.

How can you find the time to do these things? Well, for one, eliminate as many of these time wasters and energy destroyers as you can:

·         Watching the news or ESPN Sports Center every night (with the constant repetition of major stories you won't miss much information if you skip these shows twice a week).

·         Reading the daily newspaper or watching the morning news each and every day (again you won't miss any major stories if you skip this activity twice a week).

·         Mindlessly watching television in the hopes that doing so will re-energize your tired body (it won't, but a brisk 15-20 minute walk will).

·         Likewise mindlessly surfing the Internet in the hopes of finding something interesting to occupy your already overloaded mind.

·         Worrying about possible negative consequences of something that has not occurred and may not actually happen.

·         Spending time consciously regretting the past or worrying about the future.

·         Over-analyzing data and options before making a decision.

·         Gossiping about others.

·         Spending time with negative people who drain your own energy reserves.

·         Playing electronic games on your smart phone, tablet or computer.

Just putting an end to a few of these activities will easily reward you with four to five hours of extra time a month that you think you do not currently have.

Lastly, a tip of huge importance. You must put Me Time onto your calendar and do your best not to let anything cause you to cancel this commitment to yourself. It is best to schedule these sessions 4-5 days ahead of time. The anticipation will build inside you as your appointment with yourself nears. 

Also, to help get you motivated, we have hundreds of motivational quotes in our book Project You: Words of Wisdom. It is available at Amazon in paperback ($6.45) and Kindle ($3.88) formats.

Please give Me Time a try. We would love to hear about your experiences with Me Time. Let us know in the comment box below. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is also available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Passion Leads to Authentic Happiness and Greater Self Satisfaction

Keep Rekindling Your Passion

There will be times when your inner fire goes out. 

At such times you will need to reflect and resolve whether it is the passion for a particular project, event, person, or thing that has gone out, or if it is something on a larger scale. It may, in fact, be an overall cloud impacting numerous aspects of your life. This happens.

Whatever the cause, reflection, reading inspirational and thought-provoking authors, and increasing your health and fitness will combine to supply you with the spiritual, emotional and physical energy needed to help you through such periods of waning passion. The most important thing is for you to know how to rekindle your flames of passion, as the method for each of us differs.

Passion will help you through good times and bad. When there is no passion the deep-down desire to do a thing is lacking. When there is passion, the desire to do something often becomes the power to do it.

As Anthony Robbins says, "There is no greatness without a passion to be great, whether it's the aspiration of an athlete or artist, a scientist, a parent or a business person."

Here is one of the beauties of life. Greatness does not require performing on a world stage, or even a national one. Greatness is equal whether found in a superior athlete like Michael Jordan, in a scientist like Albert Einstein, in a chef in a local restaurant, or in a school teacher who unearths or triggers the imagination and creativity of her students.

The key to all such greatness is the passion found in the inner core of these people. Their greatness results from their passions. 

As the great 19th century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm." 

What are you passionate about? Which of your passions needs rekindling at this moment? 

Today is a great time to stop and reflect on your passions, and how to spend more time on the things for which you are most passionate. 

Doing so will help keep you on the path of Living A Determined Life. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.90) and Kindle ($6.88) formats.  

Be Passionate. Be Enthusiastic. About Your Life.

Ask Yourself What Makes You Come Alive 

Nido Qubein, a noted motivational speaker, often tells his audiences, "Enthusiastic people experience life from the inside out." 

When you bring your passion to life you impact your own world, rather than letting outside influences impact you.

Almost all of us have greater passion as children, or young adults, than during our later years. Fortunately it is not difficult to rekindle that youthful passion. It simply takes knowing what burns inside you and concentrating on methods for bringing your passion to the surface and into the world. 

One key to success comes from the writer John Eldredge: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who come alive."

Your passions are your inner truths. Understand this and rely on this knowledge. 

Also, as Benjamin Disraeli wrote, "Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."

Passion is at the opposite extreme of indifference. Here is a great anonymous quote on indifference that may help you cast off the shackles of lethargy and use your inner passion to help you strive for authentic satisfaction and happiness:

Indifference never wrote great works, nor thought out striking inventions, nor reared the solemn architecture that awes the soul, nor breathed sublime music, nor painted glorious pictures, nor undertook heroic philanthropies. All these grandeurs are born of enthusiasm, and are done heartily.

Life is not a spectator sport, but a participatory one. This is what Living A Determined Life is all about. 

It matters not if you are involved in something big or small, globally grandiose or locally rooted. As long as you have a passion for it, and this passion drives you to be fully engaged and involved, you will be closer to achieving authentic satisfaction and happiness.

As Denis Waitley wrote, "Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire ─ you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away." He also wrote, "Chase your passion, not your pension." 

That is very good advice indeed.

This article is partially excerpted from our top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.89) and Kindle ($6.88) formats. 

Deeper Self Understanding -- Part One

The key to self understanding is to be open and honest with yourself. 

In the previous Project You Life Blog post on Self Understanding (Part Two), we shared with you that self understanding will help you become and remain authentic. And, of course, you want to be authentic. 

Of course, you cannot be authentic if you do not know who you truly are. That is where self understanding comes in. Self reflection is the best school you will ever attend, and it is best that you become a lifetime student enrolled in this school.

Howard Gardner, a psychologist at the Harvard School of Education, differentiated between two types of personal intelligence:

interpersonal intelligence ── being the ability to understand other people and what motivates them, and

intrapersonal intelligence ── being an inward capacity to form an accurate, genuine and truthful model of one's self.

Gardner described the core interpersonal intelligence as the "capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people." He depicted intrapersonal intelligence as the key to self-knowledge with "access to one's own feelings and the ability to discriminate among them and draw upon them to guide behavior."

The key to true self understanding is to be open and honest during your reflective dialogues with yourself.

It is also important to tune out what others say about you. As the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton wrote in his book No Man Is an Island, "Others can give you a name or number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within."

Also, do not get caught up in thinking your job title, your possessions or anything else you associate with are the real you. In the words of Eckhart Tolle:

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious and other collective identifications.

None of these are you.

Understanding the true motivations behind your thoughts and actions will place you in a better position to do what is right (for yourself as well as for others) when confronted with options and alternatives.

Likewise, realize that material wealth and creature comforts will not define who you truly are. Nor will they determine who your children truly are. Yes, a comfortable childhood usually leads to a more comfortable life as an adult. No one is arguing that there is a need to live in abject poverty to "find one's true self." On the other hand, as Andrew Carnegie said, "He who dies with wealth dies with shame."

To determine if what you are doing is in line with your values, ask yourself "why" are you doing it? Why are you starting that new business venture or creating that new product? To make money? Fine. But is that what you truly value? Or is it to make a difference in people's lives? The latter resonates much more strongly for most, as it is in line with their true values. 

This article is excerpted from the Amazon top-selling personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Motivation Creates Compelling Images For Success

Real Motivation Is That Drive From Within

According to motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, "People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily."

His pithy saying on motivation is at the heart of why some people get motivated and others do not. Everybody has their moments of motivation; a time when sparks go off internally and they tell themselves (or others) "I am going to do this or that."

"Real motivation is that drive from within," believes motivational speaker Denis Waitley. "You know where you are going because you have a compelling image inside, not a travel poster on the wall."

Adds his fellow motivational speaker Brian Tracy, "The clearer you are about the consequences of your actions and the more intensely you desire to enjoy the consequences that your behaviors may lead to, the more motivated you will be."

The closer you are to self actualization on Maslow's scale, the greater will self satisfaction be as a motivating factor. Naturally, there are few greater reasons for doing anything than taking action because it fits in with your own self image or because it has importance and relevance to you.

When you combine this kind of motivation with determination and commitment, you are nearly unstoppable. You may never achieve the exact, glorious outcome you envision for yourself, but whatever you achieve through motivated action will be far greater than living a passive existence where life simply passes you by.

As Abraham Lincoln noted, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."

Let your personal resolution to achieve your ProjectYou Life Journey goals be your fundamental motivating factor and A Determined Life will be yours. 

This article is excerpted from Project You: Living A Determined Life, a best-selling book at Amazon available in Kindle and paperback formats.