New Years Revolution

So...we made it to the end of January - and the year is well and truly under way! I hope you enjoyed your daily dose of feelgood from the New Years Revolution. We end our journey through January with a piece from Gina Edwards about the little things you can do all year round to make life a little bit fun. It's all about YOU.

I'd happily carry on all year with this blog, but the day job demands some attention and I'm sure I'd soon run out of experts and contributors! Thanks...I mean it...to everyone who took the time to contribute to the blog in one way or another. Keep coming back to Relentlessly Positive - and have a great 2008!!!

THE LITTLE THINGS... by Gina Edwards

How much time do we spend in the pursuit of happiness as a vague concept? Do we really spend enough time doing the little things that make us smile - and that make us feel good inside?

Spending time focusing on ourselves is something we all pay lip service to - but the world we live in seems to absorb our lives without us even noticing. There’s a line in a famous Leonardo De Caprio film that inspires me - “paradise wasn’t some place you can look for, 'cause it's not where you go. It's how you feel for a moment in your life.”

I don’t believe you have to go to a desolate beach, and lounge in the sun with Leonardo to find a place that’s your paradise (although, lets face it, I wouldn’t say no.) A moment of paradise can be found in a snatched hour on a Sunday, in a good book, or in sharing a joke with a friend. Simple smile inducers are all around us, but sometimes we just need reminding of where to look for them. Here are a few of mine.

Please Mr Postman

Write a letter to a friend. Write about what you have been up to; your achievements, your goals; share amusing stories and gossip – even tell them how much they mean to you. This will help you feel good – reconnecting with an old friend, and the knowledge of how chuffed they will be when the letter arrives on their doorstep is enough to make you feel all warm inside. If you’re writing to an old friend, why not include a photo of the two of you and any other friends you share?

Get active

Go for a walk in the park. The fresh air alone will help clear your head. If you feel generous and energetic, why not borrow a friend’s dog for a few hours? Canine antics will no doubt get you moving…and make you laugh. All exercise releases endorphins – hormones that make you feel happy. Getting fit is a great excuse for dumping the daily chores, so whether it be a gentle yoga class, a fast paced gym session or just a stroll in the park, find out what works for you and make it your escape.

Feed the five thousand

Cook a meal for your mates. There is nothing better than enjoying a meal that was lovingly prepared - with the help of the delectable Nigella or the gorgeous Mr Oliver – with a good bottle of wine and some great company. Keep the menu simple, but make sure that you have your favourite cooking CD playing loudly in the background for motivation. Mine has to be Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits, and when I’m on my second glass of wine, cooking my heart out, I sound so like her it’s uncanny. Belting out your favourite track into a wooden spoon while sautéing, stirring and flambéing will definitely make you happy…and dinner will be the icing on your (handmade) cake!

Bubbles!

Run yourself a bath. Nothing beats a really good soak. Peace and quiet, candles, copious bubbles and some of your favourite music should send you off in the right direction.

Be a bookworm

Get stuck into a good book. We get used to flicking through magazines and scanning the papers – so set aside an hour or so to dig out a Dickens or a Jackie Collins. Losing yourself in a book is a great feeling – as long as the book isn’t one of those trendy ‘I had a really bad childhood and nobody loves me’ autobiographies!

Reminisce

Put together album of all your favourite photos. We all have boxes of photos (pre-digital cameras, anyway) and spending a few hours organising them and rifling through memories of old friends and loved ones will make you feel nostalgic, and remind you of happy times. If you’re very organised and keep your albums regularly updated, then take the time to look through them anyway. People are always devastated when their memories and photographs are destroyed in fires or accidents, but how many of us can honestly admit to taking the time to delve into ours and make the most of them?

Are you constantly trying to be better, richer, prettier, thinner? Do you ever wish you were someone else? Well stop it!

Anyone who has ever sat through a rainy afternoon of daytime TV will be aware of the concept of self esteem. Especially if you, like me were hooked on American chat shows as a panacea for all colds, migraines and flu in the 1990s.

OK, so I've grown out of my Ricki Lake phase now, and I can't watch Trisha Goddard or Jeremy Kyle without wanting to (a) call my dentist or (b) throw a shoe at the TV. But the one thing most of these 'I can make your life better' chat show hosts seem to carp on about all the time is self esteem.

So, what is it? Is it knowing that you look good in your bikini? Is it having a car that you can show off? Is it being first in the egg and spoon race? Not a bit. Self esteem is the opposite of what's called 'approval addiction' and approval addiction is a malaise that is taking over the brains of an awful lot of fabulous men and women - and turning us into media-led scaredy cats who are afraid to be who we are in case we don't fit in to some image or ideal set for us by faceless people trying to sell us a dream.

Nathaniel Branden

Self esteem has been written about by many a self-help book author. One of the best is Nathaniel Branden, who says:

"Self-esteem has two essential components:

• Self-efficacy: Confidence in the ability to cope with life’s challenges - giving you a a sense of control over your life.
• Self-respect: Believing that you are deserving of happiness, achievement and love. Self-respect makes possible a sense of community with others.

See? Nothing there about being a size ten or having a four-bed detatched and three foreign holidays a year.

The truth is, it has to come from inside. The way many of us feel about ourselves is one of the main reasons I started Relentlessly Positive. I was, and am, sick to death of hearing intelligent, capable people putting themselves down for what they saw as their failings and completely ignoring all the things that I love about them.

What won't work

You will never ever get anywhere if you spend your life living for other people. If you think that being thin is going to give you confidence - it might make you feel warm and glowy to get attention and compliments, and you might get a high from the fact you no longer need to shop at Evans (Lord knows, that would be a bonus...) but it won't make you like yourself any more. The high will wear off, the 'haven't you lost weight?' compliments will dry up, and you'll start looking for approval somewhere else.

The same goes for money or talent. OK, being rich can buy you a better class of misery but wealth never buys happiness. There are some very happy rich people out there, but the chances are they were content and happy anyway. If your bank balance dictates your happiness, you will spend far too much time worrying about it - and should the worst happen, you'll lose your entire sense of self worth based on an arbitrary figure.

Robbie Williams is rich and successful but is he happy? Is he hell. He is probably the most insecure person in the music industry, a world populated with people desperate for others' approval because they can't just sit back and say to themselves, "You know, I'm living a charmed life. I'm being paid to do what I love every single day." - they are obsessed with chasing the next number one single, more column inches, and positive reviews. Why do you think so many celebs end up in rehab? I say 'No no no' <groan>

So what will?

"Self-esteem has to do with what I think of me, not what anyone else thinks of me."

If you want to be happy, stop trying to be someone else. Stop focusing on what other people think of you, and turn it around - take an interest in other people, what do you think of them? What have they done with their lives? What makes them tick? When you're alone, take some time to be just you. Stuff what you *should* be doing. Lose yourself in pleasures that you really enjoy (reading, yoga, art, chocolate, sex...)

You'll know when you're focussing on yourself too much - you'll use words like 'me, myself, I, mine' a LOT. Someone's mental and even, to some extent, physical health can be directly related to how 'self-referential' they are in their conversation - as people become healthier they use the 'I' word less, in the same way that when your knee stops hurting you don't need to rub it any more.

You can't make people like you, love you, or fancy you. And if you don't like yourself, that's going to make it even harder for any self respecting potential friend, boss, or lover to be interested in you. self loathing radiates from every pore - but so does real self acceptance, and people who are comfortable in their own skin absolutely light up the room.

People with high self-esteem . . .

• Usually see other people in a better light, too.
• Expect other people to like and accept them.
• Perform better in high pressure situations, and do better work when the standards are high.
• Feel confident and secure enough to shrug off negative comments from others.

On the other hand, people with low self-esteem . . .

• Frequently dislike others.
• Expect that other people will dislike and reject them.
• Have trouble performing under pressure, and find it hard to work in demanding environments.
• Are more vulnerable to negative comments and reactions from others

We're brought up in a world where from an early age we are told that we have to conform. we have to buy these products to be popular, look a certain way, dress a certain way and think a certain way. bu stop and think about it. Think about your own circle of friends, and family. Are they all drop dead gorgeous? Are they all thin? Are they all rich? Do they all have the perfect career, a family, a big house? My bet is that no, most of them don't fit that ideal. But I'll bet that you love them anyway? So why can't you love yourself, cheesey as that sounds? We are all different. We're supposed to be, for goodness sake.

The only person that matters is YOU. One of the most important things that you can do for yourself is to take real responsibility for your actions.. Refuse to behave like a victim … or to wait for someone to save you from life’s problems. That includes the latest diet. Realise that whatever is wrong in your life - it doesn't make you a bad person, and that you are capable of overcoming it. Be yourself...it's the only way you will ever be happy!

If you enjoyed the tips from Fiona yesterday, you'll be pleased to read more good advice from her about how to eat to beat the rest of this cold, grey January...and keep you going well into February and March too!

FOODS TO HELP YOU BEAT THE NEW YEAR GLOOM

There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to eating to counteract mood swings (they occur as a result of so many different personal circumstances) but eating regularly in an effort to keep your blood sugar levels stable may reduce cravings for sugary, salty and fatty foods, maximise your energy levels and enable you to cope better with the ‘daily grind’.

One way of managing this is to eat something and drink something every 3 hours. 7am:- porridge or muesli with sliced fruit and a sprinkling of mixed seeds and a pot of mint tea 10am:- bundle of raw chopped vegetables with some hummus and a bottle of water 1pm:- vegetable soup, a tuna or chicken salad sandwich and a fruit smoothie 4pm:- small tub of natural yoghurt, a handful of nuts and a piece of fruit (and more water of course!) 7pm:- brown rice, loads of shredded vegetables and a piece of grilled fish (quick, delicious and available in every supermarket), couple of glasses of wine and loads of water 10pm:- couple of oatcakes with cottage cheese or sliced chicken and a cup of ‘calming’ tea (camomile is the business as long as you let it infuse for AGES!)

Get a good nights sleep...

If you tend to get to sleep relatively easily but wake up during the night (other than to go to the loo!) have a small snack before bed. Try a couple of oatcakes topped with mashed banana, turkey or tuna or a cup of hot milk or a small tub of natural yoghurt with a spoonful of honey.

If you find it really difficult to get to sleep, make sure you have your dinner/supper at least 2 hours before you go to bed, include some brown rice, a can of mixed beans or some lentils, a bit of fish (particularly oily fish like salmon, mackerel or herring), lean chicken, turkey or game and plenty of vegetables and ensure you limit alcohol, coffee, tea or fizzy drinks in the few hours before bed

Lack of exercise and excessive stress a real culprits when it comes to disturbed sleep so do yourself a real favour and crank up your fitness level (this website is stuffed with suggestions on how to do that – so there’s no excuse!) But don’t exercise too late in the day if you have sleeping problems and experiment with some relaxation exercises for twenty minutes in the evening to help you become drowsy.

If your New Year resolutions are starting to falter, take heart: there’s a good reason why and it’s something you can address…

Most people write down their New Year goals but don’t stop long enough to think deeply about how they felt when deciding their resolutions. Nor do they realise they need to release their negative feelings before they can make any permanent changes.

Releasing feelings is one of the hardest things of all to do – especially in today’s society with the pace of life so hectic and demands on your emotions so high.

Why Resolutions Fail

The reality is that most resolutions fail, because we are essentially creatures of habit and creating a new way of “being” requires a whole new physiology…yes…physiology. And to achieve that, you must start with the most powerful influence on your physiology - your feelings!

Feel Different to Be Different

If you want to “be” different, you must “feel” different - rather than trust the popular theory that all you need to do is “think positive”. Anyone who has attended an expensive “positive thinking” course knows that the effects of trying to “think positive” last for about two weeks at most and then those old thought patterns resurface and scupper further progress.

Feelings create thoughts: thoughts create attitudes

To permanently rid yourself of negative thought patterns and create a new way of being, you need to first identify the underlying feeling that caused you to create that negative thought in the first place. You must start by becoming consciously aware of how you feel. This process will open up your mind to reveal the thoughts “attached” to your negative feelings. As you experience the feelings and associated negative thoughts, you will begin to release them and you will be relieved of the common symptoms associated with holding on to negative feelings and thoughts; anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Speaking to a trusted friend or practitioner about your thoughts and feelings will help the whole process as will taking the vitalFLOWER Agrimony – a flower remedy prepared with the same system devised by Dr Edward Bach to capture its full pure vibrational healing energy. Millions of people use flower remedies to treat ill health and emotional discomfort. If New Year doubts and despondency are affecting you, Agrimony can help you clarify your feelings, open up and share your thoughts.

If you often present an artificially cheerful face to hide your inner problems, this is the essence for you.

A classic New Year helper, it will help you discover, accept and find the courage to share your worries. In so doing, you will begin transforming the negative force tied up in those pent up feelings to a positive energy that will change your life and improve your health.

You simply take a few drops straight onto your tongue or drop several into a glass of water and drink them this way.

Find out more about vitalFLOWERS and Agrimony at www.simplyvital.com. There is a special offer running until the end of February 2008 where you can buy the vitalFLOWERS for just £2 each instead of the normal £3 for 10ml.

Is the onslaught of January, cold weather and the treat of flu, colds and Norovirus filling you with a desire to stay in bed? Even if you haven't been tempted in to yet another diet by yet another TV show about fat people, you probably do want to know about some easy and enjoyable ways to look after your insides when there seems to be no shortage of things conspiring to make you feel grotty.

Fiona Kirk takes us through some of her tips for a health-filled winter...

Vegging out

You’ve got to get the vegetable thing under control (at least five portions) so take the Mediterranean route and munch on a salad or some raw vegetables while you are preparing your lunch or evening meal. Either - Sling a bag of mixed leaves and herbs into a bowl, add a bag or tray (or both) of baby veg (carrots, mange touts, cucumber, corn, peas, cauliflower etc.) and a handful of baby tomatoes, add a good glug of olive oil (and/or nut/seed oil*), a generous squeeze of lemon juice, some sea salt flakes and a couple of grinds of black pepper and dig in. 
Or – have a tray/bag of raw vegetables (as above) with some hummus and/or tzatziki and dip and crunch while you prepare 
And – have a pint of water or go 50:50 with some fresh vegetable or fresh fruit juice and water 
Why?  The benefits are huge:- 

·          vegetables provide the broadest range of nutrients and phytochemicals (especially fibre and carotenes) of any food class
·          they are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and protein and the little fat they contain is in the form of essential fatty acids
·          more and more evidence is accumulating showing that vegetables can prevent, as well as treat, many diseases, especially chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis
·          all that chewing helps release enzymes to help your digestion
·          if you are watching your waistline (or trying to reduce it!) you’re likely to eat less of the main dish
·          you body swerve the ‘salty snack attack’ (crisps, tortilla chips, nuts etc.) while you are preparing the meal
·          the water/juice mix will help keep you hydrated, help your body get the maximum benefit from the bucketful of nutrients provided by the vegetables AND keep the booze at bay till later! 

* experiment with the huge variety of oils that are now available on the shelves:- walnut, hazelnut, avocado, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, rapeseed etc. – go for ‘cold pressed’ wherever possible.

Boost your brain cells

Curb your inner shopaholic!

Did you survey your January bank statement with a tinge of regret, or worse, stuff it in a drawer without even reading it? Do you resolve every year to 'sort your money out?' Well, Max Eames, author of The Wealth Mechanic, has some timely words of wisdom...and he's been there, done that...

Here’s the truth about why your New Year’s Resolutions so often end up kerbside!

What did most of us do on New Year’s Eve, besides drink cheap champagne as the clock struck midnight?  We made New Year’s resolutions, didn’t we?  The start of a new year always seems to be the opportunity for a fresh start.    We usually resolve to change a habit that we can’t seem to shake:  ‘I’ll stop watching so much television… I’ll stop eating so many microwave meals… I’ll stop buying things on the Internet… I’ll stop staying late at the office,’ and so on.One reason that most resolutions fail is because we haven’t examined the pay-offs we receive by maintaining these behaviours.  For example, many of us who struggle with our finances fall into a series of habits that seem to give us the same sort of, shall we say, ‘rush’ as behaviour we would normally label as ‘addictive.’ 

Addiction

As a psychotherapist, I have been introduced to a whole spectrum of ways to define the term ‘addiction’:  an inability to participate in the real world, some form of moral weakness, a lacking in willpower, a spiritual crisis – and even a disease of some sort.         Having said all that, most of us tend to think of addiction as the kind of ‘misuse’ that – in one form or another – does its thing by passing our lips.  But maybe the whole issue isn’t as simple as that.  No doubt about it:  there are certainly so-called gamblers, workaholics and overspenders who eventually find themselves suffering the same sense of despair we more readily associate with substance misuse.  The feeling certainly sounds similar to what I myself felt when I – a reformed ‘compulsive spender’ – was hopelessly overspending.  On a day-to-day basis, I suppose I was invariably trying in vain to bring into my life three sensations that everyone in the world seeks:

Purpose and meaning
Genuine happiness
 Peace of mind  

Having our fair share of each of these sensations isn’t a lot to ask for, is it?  Naturally there are times when we have one or more of them in our life to a greater or lesser degree, but we want all of them equally – and most of us want them full-on, 24/7.  The reality is that none of us gets an equal share of these feelings at any one moment – but (as is the case with a farmer’s three-legged milking stool) uneven legs can still provide a stable platform.

Three legged stool

In hindsight, my own problem with overspending seems to have been an attempt to manage those moments when one aspect or another of this “three-legged stool” seemed to break away.  If I didn’t feel equally supported by all three sensations at the very same time, things felt a bit wobbly underfoot.  So many of us fail to realise that when one of these ‘legs’ falls short for a while, without a doubt the others will balance and support us.  But if we cannot accept that each of life’s supportive sensations is actually meant to step in and out of our lives, we find ourselves at odds with the way the world is set up.  We then search for other forms of contentment in an attempt to sustain a permanently upbeat mood.

Happy pill spending habits?

I myself started to believe that the best way to ‘take a happy pill’ was through my silly spending habits.  And you could say that I embraced life’s highs.  Who doesn’t, in some form or another?  But when the highs were absent, I wrongly interpreted what was happening as some sort of drug-like ‘comedown’.  Ultimately, though, the same holds true for all of us:  it’s all smoke and mirrors; just an illusion that we are filling some kind of emotional void.And yet somehow I believed that ‘retail therapy’ gave my life a sense purpose and meaning, made me feel happy, and eased my mind.  Thus the self-confessed ‘shopaholics’ aren’t actually in search of clothes or shoes – though it certainly looks that way when an army of bags marches into the downstairs hall.  Such people are simply trying to re-create an upbeat sensation, and who can blame them for that? Think about it for a minute:  what’s actually IN all those shopping bags?  When under the illusion that shopping brings some form of emotional satisfaction, such people are actually trying in vain to fill their bags with something money can’t actually buy.   

Max Eames

Psychotherapist And Author Of The WEALTH MECHANIC programme, The 100% Proven 7-Step Financial Fix-It Formula For Absolutely Anyone In Debt

www.MaxEames.com 

Now for something a bit different after all the confidence exercises....how to create your perfect sanctuary, without having to pay out for expensive treatments or an overnight stay...

Discover your inner spa...

Can you imagine all the benefits of a spa visit without the paper knickers or having to be coated in a sticky brown substance that has none of the pleasures of chocolate?

What if you didn’t have to think about how to modestly cover up with a towel, or even have to shave your legs and worry about stragglers near your girlie bits first. Where is this magical spa of freedom and pleasure? Can it really exist? Can I buy a voucher?

You don’t need to - this is your Mind Spa and all you need to do is summon up your inner therapist so you can reap the benefits without a blush in sight.

Most people visit spas in the quest for inner peace and relaxation but in reality bliss is already yours and I’m going to show you how.

Relaxing

If you like, you can make your inner spa experience more enjoyable by dimming the lights, lighting a candle and playing some restful music.

Make yourself comfortable and cosy ensuring you’ll be undisturbed for a the duration of your spa visit.

Create in your mind a choice of rooms. Begin with a cool one that you can visit if your thermostat is a little high.
Add a peaceful, sensual and sensory one. The beauty of this spa is that it is exactly how you would choose it to be.

If you fancy deep red drapes with golden sashes in your sensual area so be it. Maybe you like the sound of trickling water while it caresses your skin in your cooling area. Or, how about a variety of colours and textures for your pleasure in the sensory room?

The Inner Massage

Here is a relaxation exercise for you to try. Of course you can change or develop it in any way you please.

Choose your room - you can change it about if you like. It’s all yours, there are no rules.

Take a few slow breaths while thinking about the sensations and feelings that you associate with inner peace and calm. If you have chosen to play music allow it to wash over and through you. If you are revelling in quiet be aware of the silence in your mind.

Spend a few moments noticing where you might have any tension in your body. We can experience tightness for a variety of reasons ranging from anxieties and fears to anger and irritations. Please don’t pay this much mind; it is about casual observation and gentle awareness.

Imagine you are massaging and soothing every part of yourself from the inside out to the rhythm of your breathing and this process will relax away any little niggles.

If you like you can imagine your perfect Adonis (or Adonis-ess) stroking your weary limbs and then lose yourself in a fantasy of bliss.

In your own time rest until you are sated. Each time you visit your spa the experience will be enhanced and, quite possibly there will new rooms.

Barbara

Barbara Ford-Hammond is an Author & Muse. Her book ‘Past Life Tourism - Gateway to Bridging your Past and Future’ is published by Mirage and available on Amazon. The book is described as a self-help how-to style book featuring past life regressions and future life progressions with scripts for you to carry out your own and if you choose research your findings.

Barbara is currently writing her second book, Psychic Salon. This is about how to develop your psychic abilities without the weird, whacky and woo woo.

Barbara has produced self-help cds and is soon to have her own show on My Spirit Radio.

Please visit http://www.barbaraford-hammond.com for more information including details of day courses and weekend retreats.

Imagine being able to step in front of a group or up onto a stage and feel even more confident than you did when you were sitting on the sidelines.   If this sounds impossible to you or even too good to be true, you¹re in for a pleasant surprise.  You are already an expert at the skills you will be using to develop the confidence habit. Paul McKenna helps you develop inner confidence...

Retrain your brain

The brain is a mass of millions of neural pathways, with each idea or memory moving along its own path. Whenever we do something new, we create a new neural pathway so we can re-access that experience again more easily.  Each time we repeat a particular behaviour, we strengthen the associated neural pathway, just as when you walk a path through a field it becomes a clearer path. Research has shown that these neural pathways in the brain actually get physically larger through repetition of behaviour.  That is how people become ’hard wired’ to certain automatic behaviours like smoking and over-eating. 

We can use that same mental architecture to design pathways to success and happiness, and to create associations that allow us to ‘switch on¹ certain feelings whenever we want them. I¹m going to guide you through accessing a strong positive state.  Each time you experience a peak of the good feeling, press the thumb and middle finger of either hand together to create an association between confidence and the physical gesture.  Over time, this gesture will become your confidence switch, enabling you to access your most confident states at will. Before you undertake this technique read through it first so you know each step  

The Confidence Switch Technique 

1. Remember a time when you felt really, really confident.  Fully return to it now - see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel how good you felt. (If you can¹t remember a time, imagine how much better your life would be if you were totally confident - if you had all the power, strength and self-belief you could ever need!) 

2. As you keep going through this memory, make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds louder, and the feelings stronger. 

3. As you feel these good feelings, squeeze your thumb and middle finger of either hand together. 

4.  Now, squeeze your thumb and finger together and relive that good feeling.  

5.  Repeat steps 1 ­ 4 several times with different positive memories until just squeezing your thumb and finger together begins to bring back those good feelings. 

6. Still holding your thumb and finger together, think about a situation in which you want to feel more confident.   Imagine things going perfectly,going exactly the way you want them to go.  See what you¹ll see, hear what you¹ll hear, and feel how good it feels.

For more information on Paul McKenna's NLP course which can help boost confidence and motivation on 21st April visit
www.paulmckenna.com or call 0845 230 2022  

Do you envy people who seem to be naturally confident? If you think that being more confident would make your life easier...Tricia Woolfrey has some great advice aout how to get that confidence  

Confidence for the Life You Want 

One thing I’ve noticed above all else in my career as a hypnotherapist, trainer and coach, is that there are a lot of people (71% according to research I conducted in 2007) who want to be more confident.  Most people felt that this confidence would make them happier, less stressed, more successful in their careers and would even give them more friends.

I wonder what five words would describe your life right now?  Think about it for a moment.  Will you feel that you have lived a rich and fulfilling life if you continue as you are?  Or is it time for a change?

Many of us are frustrated that things aren’t working out exactly as we would hope and yet we are unsure why.  Often it is because we do not have clear goals or that our beliefs – that which we hold to be true – are limiting us.  Or that our values – what we see as important – are being compromised.  Or that we don’t have the self-belief to just go for it.

1. Understand what your values are and live your life by them
   
2. Be clear about what kind of life you really want.  Look at all the different areas of your life -  health, relationships, career, family, finances,spirituality, leisure and personal growth – and make a vision of what you would like it to be like.  You might want to use a vision board (see www.pw-hypnotherapy.co.uk for a digital version.)
   
3. Break these goals down into manageable steps and work those steps diligently
   
4. Do an inventory of all the resources you have available to help you – internal and external - and use them.

5. Identify any limiting beliefs that you have about achieving your best life and work on transforming those to empowering believes (try 21 Ways and 21 Days to the Life You Want book available on the website below.)

6. Learn from every life experience – there is always a positive lesson.  This will help you to move forward and build your internal resources.

7. As Normal Vincent Peale said “Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them.  You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.”

8. Surround yourself with positive things: thoughts, people, music, inspirational quotes and read materials and books which are inspiring and uplifting. 

9. Use your free will and your power to move you forward as you monitor your progress.  You have many resources and life experiences which will help you on your way.

10. Be kind to yourself and others.  Remember that life is not an event but a journey – we are all learning every day.  Some learn faster than others and forgiveness is healing and freeing.

The life you want can you yours.  And it starts with a decision, a vision and then by actions.  Everything you think, everything you are, everything you say and do can move you forward. 

A 15% discount is offered to anyone who would like to attend Confidence for the Life You Want workshop on 8^th  and 9^th February.  See website below.

Tricia Woolfrey is a hypnotherapist, trainer and coach based in Surrey and Harley Street and author of 21 Days and 21 Ways to the Life You Want, plus a range of hypnotherapy CDs and conducts regular workshops. 

For more information see Tricias Website

If you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions, you might find that you’re now at the point where they seem less and less attractive – and perhaps you’re even on the point of ditching them...

John Burns from Gift4Life says that he has the solution to that ‘broken resolution syndrome’

Don’t give up!

Nearly half of us pledge to lose weight or exercise more, while other favourites include giving up smoking and cutting down or even giving up booze - but statistics show that more than a quarter of us will break our promises to ourselves within the first week and by the summer fewer than half of us will be holding firm.

“The problem is that life gets in the way,” says hypnotherapist John Burns of Gift4Life.com, the personal change website.

“We start off with a strong conviction that it’s going to work and struggle for a month or two before giving up - that’s where Gift4Life can help!”

John went on to say “It’s my belief that people have far more personal resources in their mind than they realise; it’s just that they don’t know how to effectively tap into them. The hypnosis downloads enable you to take back control of your own mind”.

The site, which was launched earlier this year, is home to hypnosis and self-help MP3’s, created by John and other therapists and complimentary health specialists, which can help people achieve the change they’re seeking.

Among the subjects addressed are stress management, slimming, nail biting, procrastination, sleep problems and self confidence – all can be downloaded from the site and are available as MP3 files or on CD’s. Uniquely, visitors can hear samples of the audio sessions on-line.

“The site empowers individuals to take control of their lives,” says John. “Every year we have people coming to us asking for help to keep their resolutions, but they do it after six months or so of not achieving what they wanted. We’d like to help them in advance so they are stronger when they resolve to make those changes.”

My seven New Year Resolution tips to share with you:

1) Decide on just a few really important goals; it's hard to focus on lots of things at the same time so pick just one or two and go for those.

2) Make sure that this goal really is something YOU want and not something you feel pressured to do by someone else.

3) Estimate a realistic time scale to achieve your goals; if losing weight for example, 2lbs a week is a nice steady number to use.

4) Now double the length of time you worked out so carefully in step 3! Why? Because just like repairing a house there are always unexpected items that cost you more. In life there are events that push you away from the right path, so take them into consideration at the outset.

5) Fix your mind on how your life will be when you have achieved your goal. What will it look like? How will you feel? Will it have a sound or a smell? Use all the power of your imagination to make it real for you, when you have it fixed in your mind, squeeze together the finger and thumb of your dominant hand. We are making a physical trigger to go with that goal.

6) Spend a few minutes each day using that finger and thumb trigger to recreate the goal scene, reinforce the image and choose to do three things each day that take you closer to that goal.

7) When you get there...celebrate! Keep doing whatever is needed to maintain that goal.

Free Hypnosis Download

To help you make life a little easier, Gift4Life is offering everyone a completely free hypnosis relaxation MP3 from the website at http://www.gift4life.com - you simply sign up with your name and email address. You’ll get an email by return with your link for the MP3 that you can download immediately.

You’ll also get a free self-development newsletter straight into your inbox.

The MP3 will play directly on your PC or you can load it onto your MP3 player or iPod.

About John

As well as being the driving force behind Gift4Life, John Burns is also the Hypnotherapist at Somerset Hypnotherapy. In this practice he works one-on-one with clients helping them make empowering and life affirming changes in their outlook.

John began studying Hypnosis and NLP as a way to understand the way we communicate with each other. His Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) training came from attending training sessions with Paul McKenna, Michael Breen and Richard Bandler. The idea that both positive and negative suggestions were all around us fascinated John and led to further study with gifted trainers from both the USA and the UK.

John continues to refine and develop his skills through regular training in the latest techniques and through helping his personal clients break free of outdated or negative self beliefs that stop them living the life they desire. He also imparts these skills to others through tutoring and mentoring programs.