How to Create Lasting Change, One Habit at a Time.

One of the most common mistakes we do, and which I have been guilty of myself on numerous occasions, is to try to suddenly stop being ourselves and start being someone else.

I'm not talking about a personality change, I'm talking about a habits change.  We commit ourselves to start doing a bunch of new things we have never mastered as if it was as easy as switching on a lightswitch.  "Next week I'm going to start going to the gym 4 times a week, eating only healthy foods and turning it all over to God," or "I'm going to stop spending money on useless things, start following a budget and saving 10% of my income," or "I'm going to start asking every pretty girl out, just accept the rejections and master flirting."   Any of these sound familiar?  If you haven't said something like this yourself, you've probably made a similar commitment in another area of your life.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

 We make these commitments with the most earnest intent on keeping them.  We apply ourselves diligently to the task, for a couple days or a couple weeks, until something 'bumps' us from this new way of being and then suddenly we are right back to were we started.  What happened?  Our habits.

We are ultimately who are habits dictate we are.  Whoever we are right now, is a result of the habits, the thinking processes and beliefs we've adopted over the course of our lives, but mainly from our childhood.  That is not about to change just because we decide it needs to.  Deciding to change is a key first step but that must be followed by constant, deliberate tending of the garden of the mind.  Particularly the subconscious mind.

We are not conscious of our habits, heck, I'm often not even aware of my habits until my wife does the courtesy of pointing them out to me.  They exist within the subconscious realm of our mind.  The subconscious does the all the heavy lifting in our day to day life, it tells us how to walk, how to read facial expressions, what to pay attention to and what sensory information to disregard (at any given second your subconscious is filtering all the sensory information, editing out what is 'normal' and just bringing what is 'important' to your conscious awareness - for example, how does the air around you feel?  Warm, cool, is there a slight breeze from the wind or air conditioning?  What sounds are there? Do you hear the mechanical rumbling of the air conditioner or heater? Traffic outside? The fridge or other device humming?  Chances are you were oblivious to these until you read the question and now are suddenly aware of them.  Why?  Because your mind suddenly declared them important and so your subconscious stopped filtering them out.).    In the same way, your subconscious has learned set behaviours that may have been beneficial to you at some point (eating/shopping to avoid the feeling of pain/discomfort or avoiding rejection to stay out of pain) but they aren't helping you now.   

So no matter what we consciously decide to do, until we first break and reset those unconscious habits, we will remain a slave to them.

For illustration, let's say someone gave you a beautiful pocket watch as a child.  It unerringly always gave you the exact correct time and so you've come to depend on it to ensure you're always on schedule and on time.  It's served you well for years without fail and you never question it, for you have never had any reason to.  Except you've now grown up and moved to a community that has Daylight Savings Time.  Suddenly, your watch is making you run an hour late for everything and no matter what you do, and how many times you commit to being on time, as long as your running your life according to that watch you continue to be late.   It's not until you manually change the time on the watch that it once again serves you.    In the same way, until we identify and manually change our habitual behaviour, they will continue to cause us grief.

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." 1 Corinthians 10:13

So if we want to achieve LASTING change that makes a PERMANENT difference in our life then instead of trying to start being something we're not, we need to ask God to reveal to us what are those habitual behaviours that are tripping us up.  It might be clear already, God may show us in a moment of stillness, or someone might say something to later that all of a sudden 'clicks' and we understand what it is that we've been doing.  No doubt there's a lot of contributing habits that we will need to deal with - pick one.  Pick the one habit that will give you the biggest shift and biggest trickle down effect into other areas of your life and focus on that.

Once we have our chosen habit to break, we need to determine what is the new behaviour that we want to replace it with.  This may require some prayer for clarity on exactly what that should be.  Ask the holy spirit to guide you with this, to make you aware of when your engaging in the old behaviour and to help you engrain the new one.   Visualization is a useful technique.  Spend a couple minutes daily, in a quiet place, picturing what you normally do and then visually destroy that mental image and replace it with the new behaviour pattern.   Be prepared to fail!  Old habits die hard.  We are going to catch ourselves having reverted back to the old behaviour, especially when stressed, or busy and just going off instinct.  It's fine.  Don't beat yourself up.  Your subconscious is just doing what it's been programed to do.  It's working as it's suppose to, so don't get overwhelmed or feel defeated. If you're still feeling down, ask God to lift that from you. Spend a bit of time visualizing how that situation should have gone like.  Play the situation out like a movie in your head but this time with a different ending.  The subconscious cannot differentiate what is real from what is vividly imagined.  So with continued practice and repetition the new behaviour will slowly become more and more automatic.   Eventually, you'll start doing it without thinking about it, and at that point, your ready to start working on the next behaviour you want to change.


"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." ~ Romans 12:2

There's always temption to try to change multiple behaviours at once but that can lead to overwhelm. Keep God in the foreground here.   Seek His guidance, His strength, His grace (for when we stumble) and know that He will see you through the process.   The more we come in alignment with God, the more tests will come our way.  Don't be discouraged, like students in school, we MUST be tested to ensure the new lessons stick with us for life.   Accept them and celebrate them, they are there to help you. With God, we will overcome, and one habit at a time,we will be made into a new creation.

Isagenix - Can I Actually Become Rich Selling Isagenix?

Confession: I am not a Isagenix Millionaire, nor am I striving to become one (although I reserve the right to become one in future).   I do use some Isagenix products (Isalean bars mainly).  My wife, who is a health professional, does endorse and enroll people in Isagenix but this is not her primary focus just a side income.

Over the past two years I have been in touch directly and indirectly with a lot of people who are involved in Isagenix.  There are some people who I introduced to the products when I was actively involved who are still using the products and there are many who are not.   There are people who started before (or after) I did who are still involved in the business side of Isagenix and there are many who are not.  This has given me some unbiased perspective over the last couple years on if the claims of becoming a millionaire by Isagenix are, in fact, true or not.

In my personal experience, I can say very confidently, it is, in fact, True.  However, I cannot said with any certainty at all if it is true for you.  I have seen it happen to at least one person I know, have met others it happened to and know many others well on their way to that goal.  It is absolutely, one hundred percent possible to earn a million dollars by selling and enrolling people in Isagenix.

Refocusing my efforts

One of my challenges is staying focused on what's really important.  I tend to start one thing and a week or two later want to start something else.   I have a ton of great ideas and I want to work on ALL of them but it's just not an efficient or effective use of my time and energy.

I listed a bunch of projects I was working on in my last post and promised to refocus and let you know my results.

So I reviewed my yearly goals statement, my life mission (to Lead, Love and Literate) and applied the 80/20 rule (give 80% of my time/energy into the 20% of things that will produce the most powerful results).

Having done that, I whittled my list down to:

Getting my Isecas the Dream Cat books published.

These two books are finished and just need to be sent off to some publishers.  Selling one or both of them could net me some (relatively) quick cash and be a huge moral boost.

Drive NEW traffic to my wife's site.  

Again, this is already set up to make money but is basically selling to a stale list.   We need to find creative ways and new partnerships to get fresh eyes on the site to drive sell-through.  


I'm still committed to refreshing/enhancing and making this site profitable but it's not revenue generating NOW and getting to a point of generating a meaningful amount of cash will take some time.  So at the moment it can't be a primary focus.



As always I'll keep you guys up to date on my progress and experiences.

Preston

Finding my Focus

This is something that I'm working on right now.

If I spend as much time focusing on my blog as I do giving my opinion on things that matter nothing in life on the internet (see yesterday's post) I'd easily have 2-3 blog posts a day!

Right now though my focus is scattered all over the place.   I'm writing a book (Dillon's Dilemma), sending two others out for publishers to review (Isecas the Dream Cat, Isecas and the River Nile), posting on this site www.thecuphalffull.com, looking at Wordpress.org versus other options, reviewing a book, helping my wife redo her website www.healthybydesignprogram.com, helping her with her new venture Fitness By Design, finding other blogs to partner with, attending a medical clinic to make some easy extra money (I'm here now in fact even though it's Easter weekend and I wish I was at home helping my wife prepare), my day job, my family (which is another area I need more specific focus), church commitments, I've auditioned for a part in a play (which I must blog about) and life's usual assortment of things that must be done.

As you can I've spread myself thin and am constantly on my own case for why I haven't gotten more done in each individual area.

What I really need to do is to set myself down and refresh my goals.  Once I re-clarify what my goals are, I need to put them in order of importance, apply the 80/20 rule (80 percent of my time goes to the 20 percent of goals that will produce the greatest results), break them down in monthly, weekly and DAILY activities and determine what habits I need to be developing to achieve those goals.

That is of course a great idea, and I'm committing myself here to getting that done by Monday April 1st (tomorrow is a right off as it's a packed day with family / church Easter activities).

So we'll see you Monday with my results.

Are Video Games a Tool of the Devil?

I'm going to share this from a deeply personal level in the hope that others who share most or part of this story can take an honest look at their own lives and behaviours and ask themselves, 'Is this what I really want?  Or is this done to distract and deny me my own potential?'

I've been really struggling with writing this post.  In part because I don't want my fellow video game fans to think I'm hating on their favorite past-time.   I'm not.  I love video games, or more specifically the gamer scene and that is the problem.

What was once a temporary diversion to fill the dead space in between real life activities or a forum to enjoy real life social interaction, has become a rather ridiculous habit that does nothing to add real value to my life.

The devil has taken something innocuous and enjoyable and used it as a tool against me as the devil so often tends to do.   Video games are not in and of themselves evil.  Sure some are indeed overtly violent or even deal in demonic themes but for every Call of Duty or Doom there is an Angry Birds or Wii Sports.  The games themselves are not the problem, it is in how we use them.

There are two forces ever-present in our lives, even if we remain blithefully oblivious to them.
First there is the presence of the Holy Spirit, there to guide us to our God-given destiny.  A life of love, purpose and a peace beyond understanding - which we all struggle to arrive at.  The spirit whispers to us and we need to learn to attune ourselves to hear it.

Second there is the devil, always looking for ways to delay or deny us from ever achieving that destiny and from ever fulfilling that purpose.   The enemy is loud, attention seeking and forever promising fun, ease and a simpler - if less fulfilling - way.

In a more down-to-Earth sense, there are those things that more you towards your desired goals and those things that move you away.  I don't think this is an issue of debate for anyone.

And unless you work in the games industry there is no real debate on where games themselves fall.  There are a distraction.   That is not a crime and can at times feel like a blessing but when we have people who identify themselves as 'gamers', who play for hours a day, who constantly read up on the lastest news on the latest upcoming games, who spend countless more hours on forums discussing and arguing over those same games and game systems, buying more games than they can actually play, creating a backlog of unfinished games and even a backlog games that have never even been opened or played; we need to step back and reassess.

I myself have fallen into this trap.  While I don't actually spend a lot of time playing, two to three hours a week, I spend far, far too much time reading and discussing games and the industry on the net.   Yes, I enjoy it.   But is it harmless?

If you identify yourself as a gamer add up the amount of time you spend reading about, discussing, shopping for, and playing games.   Now answer this: If you took that same time, money, energy and passion and devoted it over however many years you've been a gamer to some worth while cause - be it writing a book, starting a business, finding a life partner, helping others, advancing your career, getting a higher education or whatever else seems good to you - where would you be in life right now?

For myself, I probably spend about 30 minutes playing either at home on or my smartphone - yes it counts - an hour reading game related news and about three or four hours on forums in pointless debate over how games and games systems are going to do.    That's about five hours a day.  Effortless hours as I do it for fun and do not consider it work, but it is, work is involved, it's just effort without lasting reward.   I'd estimate I've spend about $2,000.00 over the last six years on games and game accessories - and that's only because I'm notoriously cheap and spent an average of $20 per game.   And yes, I have an enormous backlog that eventually had to be excused as a 'collection' because I probably won't live long enough to finish them all.

$2,000 over six years isn't really a great deal of money and at best might have paid for some evening college courses.  Five hours a day though, over six years?  That is a tremendous amount of lost potential.  I could have written and gotten published multiple books.  If I applied that to my Isagenix business I'd be a millionaire by now.  This is a little disingenuous though as much of that wasted time is wasted at work, killing time waiting for something to do.  Yes, I am highly under-employed.  No I'm not complaining, but it is not the  benefit you might think, rather it is a dreadful bore.    Regardless, even if some of that time was put to focused thought on how to improve my life, daily, there is no doubt that I would be living a higher quality of life than I am now.   And I spend those five hours obeying the holy spirit?   It brings tears to my eyes to know the difference not only to my life, but to my kids and to countless others lives if I had acted with that same passion, and effortless joy to what the spirit bade me to do.

I've always considering my habit 'harmless' but now the spirit has revealed to me the truth.  That it has a very real cost.   Time that I cannot reclaim (but for the grace of God) opportunities lost, bad habits past on to my children and aiding and abiding others in there own unhealthy gaming passions.

What saddens me further is knowing, from my years on forums there are countless others who spend far more time playing, far more time on forums discussing and far more money buying games than I.  To them I am a 'casual' gamer for they are the 'core'.  I am not better than they, only more blessed by having other demands on my time and money.  

If you identify or relate to what I'm saying, then do as I have started doing.  Rebuking that devil!  Now when I feel tempted to read about what's happening in the gaming scene, or log-on to a gaming forum or look to see what sale there might be on games (like I need another one) I rebuking the devil for trying to waste my time, my money, my passion and my life.   Instead I the holy spirit and what God would have me doing at that moment.

I am not perfect at it.  Out of habit I still find myself 'taking a peek' but I am getting better, the urge is getting less, the passion for the games and moreover the gaming culture is dwindling and I am able to focus on more meaningful things.  Things that are better my life, my families lives and hopefully, God willing, yours as well.

I haven't forgotten you

Havn't posted in a few days and I just wanted to let you know that I'm still here and still working this blog.

So you have an idea of what's happening and to keep myself honest here is a list of things I'm currently doing to move this blog forward.

I am working on my most controversial blog post yet - it's also proving to be the most difficult.   I know what I want to say but struggling to find the right 'voice' to say it.

I am reading a book which I will be doing a review on.

I am learning all about Wordpress to see if I want to move my blog - and my wife's website - over to it.

But to be honest, I could be doing more.   I'm easily distracted and have plenty of things to distract me.

So let's set some goals:

My post to be up by tomorrow.

Review by end of next week.

Wordpress site up by next Wednesday (not live).

See you tomorrow.

Preston Squire

Give me your suggestions

I'm just digging around looking at different products / books / etc that I can review for you.

So far I'm looking at various things that will help you technically to improve your life.   That is to say, manage stress, improve relations, improve finances, 'manage' time, etc.  Nuts and bolts stuff.   I will look at Christian based tools but I'm if there are better tools that aren't Christian-based then I'll focus on those.  

Then there's the mental/emotional/spiritual side of things.  Knowing the nuts and bolts may not help if you're stuck in a rut, like I was, and not effectively utilizing them.

However, I would love to hear from you, my readers, as to what you'd like me to review for you.   Any products or books for self-inprovement that you're curious about but wondering if it's worth the money/time investment?  Let me know and I'll try to review it for you.    It certainly doesn't have to be Christian material and if you want me to review, something like 'The Secret' or other New Age material I will but you'll get a decidely Christian take on the material.   If that's what you want, fine, suggest away.

Please post in the comments below or msg me at Prestonsquire@thecuphalffull.com


Thanks.

Loving regards,

Preston Squire

I'm Back!

When I first started my blog - TheCupHalfFull.com I was reading all sorts of self-help books and felt the need to 'give back' and share a lot of the great information I was learning.

At the time I felt the best way to help others would be to provide the information, that I had taken the time, effort and money to acquire, in easy to digest posts for free.  Why should lack of money separate someone from the crucial bit of knowledge they need to succeed?

Over time my opinion on that changed.  Part of that was from my own investment of a large sum of money to get a Life Coach to radically change my life.   I had the coaching for a year, and while I discovered many things, two of the primary lessons I learned from that was:  A) That I already knew pretty much everything there was to know about self help.  I wasn't being told anything I didn't already know (aside for some insight into my own psyche)  B) That KNOWING ISN'T ENOUGH.   Despite KNOWING what to do, I still hadn't changed my life.  What got me to start doing a lot of the things I knew, putting principals into actual daily consistent practice was the fact that I had spent the equivalent of a used car (money I couldn't afford and didn't have) to get this coaching and I was determined to get my money's worth (and hopefully turn my life around enough to re-coop that money).

If you are a long time reader, you'll know Life Coaching didn't provide the breakthroughs I so desperately sought.  Those came from giving my life over to Christ and that was far more transformational than anything man could teach.

This made me view the blog very differently.  Posting free information, no matter how good, how potentially life altering it was, wasn't doing my readers any good.   They loved to read it, occasionally thank me for it or commented on it but because it they had gotten it without effort, they didn't actually apply it in any real meaningful way.   They gave it the same value as they paid to get it.  Virtually none.  Plus, complete self-reliance is fundamentally flawed. A sick mind can't heal itself.  God needed to be brought into the picture.

Nor was the blog doing me any good.  It had been semi-therapeutic to write at first and a good practice to help maintain the knowledge I'd learn but it was still an investment of time that benefited me not at all.  Knowing I was helping people had been payment enough, but once I felt I was actually short-changing them by reducing the value of the information to nothing, there was no incentive to continue.

My own transformation had also caused me to go away from some of the new-age stuff I had originally blogged on and become more Christ-centred and centric but I didn't feel biblically schooled enough to teach a Christian path.  Nor did I want to exclude non-Christians from the truth.  Or perhaps more accurately, I didn't want them to exclude themselves if I spoke of Christ.

 So where am I now...?

My desire to give back has returned but now with more of a renewed sense of direction.

I am happy to share information freely but at the same time realize that some things must be earned in order to have value.   

I am content and confident in my Christian walk enough to share it openly but I do not seek (nor will I bother too) preach to the choir.  This blog is more for people who are desperately seeking to improve their life and are at least open to listening to how Christ - plus many practical do-it-yourself methods - can make a difference for them as it has for me and countless others.

I will review and occasionally endorse self help products, books, coaching etc from a Christian perspective. In time I intent to create some of my own. And yes, expect to pay for quality life enhancing products.  As I said, some things must be earned.   And I might indeed make a percentage of proceeds should you buy a reviewed product through my site. So in advance I thank you for choosing to pour back into my life by making such a purchase.  I pledge to make and provide information on the very best products I can find that I TRULY feel will help, or could help if properly applied, my readers to make some changes in their lives.  I will be trying each one out myself and will give a thorough, frank and honest assessment and let you know if it's right for you.  Some things may be right for some folks but not others.  If I see something that I feel is a scam, or hurtful or not-in-line with Christian principals I will alert you to that too.

I hope to make the site a lot more social and more open with lots of discussion.  I fully expect people to ask questions about God. Or my thoughts on things like 'The Secret'.  I expect some challenges.  I welcome them.  And I expect my Christian readers to welcome them as well.   For if someone is coming to me and challenging God, then that means they are seeking answers.   They may not yet be ready to actually receive them, but hopefully something I or another says will plant a seed that slowly takes root and in time flowers into a more abundant life for them.   I have seen a great many people who were 'lost' and 'beyond help' be restored by God and become some of the most valuable members of society.  We are all His children and He loves us all.   It's only a matter of if you are open to receiving that love.   Even some people in the church struggle with this.

I do not know everything and this will be as much as a learning experience for me as it is for others.  I will be seeking answers and knowledge from those further ahead in life and in spirit than I (and from God, the bible, etc) and in turn, passing that on to those people who are still where I myself have been - struggling, broke, lonely, confused, frustrated, depressed, anxious, addicted and emotional bankrupt.   I had endured them all for longer than I care to think about.  Now I am on the other side.  I am at peace, confident, loved, determined, breaking new ground and learning to live a life of excellence.  If you are here with me, link arms and help me, if you are struggling to get to this point - keep coming back.  We love you, and we (I) am committed to help you along your path.

In accordance with all this, look for a lot of changes to be happening to this site.  I'll be moving it from Blogger to WordPress.org to have more flexibility.  Changing the look and feel of the site.  Doing more reviews, interviews, and working with others to bring my readers the very best I can.  TheCupHalfFull will fulfill it's original design and become more social, having a Facebook site and forum - living up to it's tagline 'Inspiring Conversations'.   In short - I'm not playing.   I intent to make this site the very best I can, meaningful, impactful, inspiring, and inviting.  I place I can live, figuratively and literally in a financial sense - so I can give this site the full time attention it deserves. A place you'll want to come back to day after day to learn more, be more and do more.  A fellowship of people all committed to help one another grow.  And an introduction to Christ, who He is and why you should seek Him to help you in your journey.

Every journey begins with a single step.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

Whether you've been visiting this blog for years or just discovering us now, sound off in the comments below and let me know how you feel about this new direction.

Loving Regards,

Preston Squire

Getting out of 'I Don't Know'

I'm about to start work on my Young Adult Novel tentatively entitled 'Dillon's Dilemma' which I've been reluctant to do because I've been having a case of writer's block.

I'm at one scene where the hero is being chased through a parking lot, except, in my research I've discovered where the characters must be, in order to maintain real world accuracy there is no parking lot.

So now I must rewrite but I'm feeling stuck because I'm walking around in a state of 'I don't know'.  That is to say, I can't yet envision how the scene will work without the features I originally wrote in.  However, it just occurred to me that I never write in a state of 'know', I write all my books and articles like this, in a state of 'faith'. I just trust that as I start writing, the exact 'how' will be revealed.

25 Principals of Enduring Success

People are often confused and confounded about why they aren't further ahead in some aspect of their life.  We tend to think of 'success' as something elusive or something for someone more talented, richer, better-looking or lucky than ourselves.   As if 'success' was handed out by life like a lottery.  'Oh, you're talented, I'll give success to you'.  In real life there are a great many talented, rich, great looking and 'lucky' people who are in the exact same boat at least in some aspect of their lives. 

Success is achieved through certain specific mindsets and actions.  There's no magic to it, only a matter of determining what those mindsets and actions are and then adhering to them religiously.

Here are 25 principals that are foundational in achieving and maintaining the lifestyle you want.  We will look at them all in depth over the coming weeks but for now lets just do a quick overview.

Made Perfect in Weakness

I was listening to an inspirational audio recording yesterday with my wife when I heard something that really resonated.  It's not a particularly new idea and in fact I've blogged on this here already but simply the way the speaker put it struck a cord.

The idea is fairly simple.   We get too caught up in trying to be perfect when it's our imperfections that give us character.  

He gave the examples of wood, marble, and jade.   You don't look at the lines on a wooden surface and think 'Oh, those should be straighter' or that the lines on a marble counter should be more equally spaced.   Of course not!  There's beauty in it's imperfection.  

Your Time is Worth Money

By Preston Squire 2012

Yesterday my wife, Cathy Morenzie, had one of her clients cancel (she's a personal trainer) so she did what any number of women would do - went shopping!

Initially she went for a necessary specific item but then got to browsing.   She felt bad afterwards, as her time could have been better spent but she did find an awesome deal - classy napkin holders for a mere $.59! Only problem is the store didn't have enough to complete a set.

So, knowing I work near another location of the same store chain, she asked if I'd mind taking a look for more to complete the set.  Always happy to please my wife, I agreed.

So there I am on my lunch going through a store that encompasses an entire city block looking fruitlessly for these napkin holders and a thought comes into my mind.

'This is not a good investment of my time.' 

Put Money Where Your Mouth Is

by Preston Squire 2012

Do you know someone who always talks a great talk, but never seems to be able to walk the walk?

We all do and we all do it, at least in some aspect of our lives.  Either always talking about what you're going to do - someday, but certainly not today - or constantly acknowledging that you need to work on some aspect of your life, maybe promising to change, but instead of actually changing, you just end up acknowledging you're still committing the same behaviour later on.

Understanding why we fall into this pattern and understanding how to break it are key to finally stop talking about being successful and actually starting to 'put money where your mouth is'. 

There's Magic in the Air!

There's magic in the air!

At least that's how it feels.  Like God's favour is just on everything we're doing.

Being a personal fitness trainer, January is usually a slow month for my wife as many of her clients go south for the winter months.  However, without offering any deals or special promotions, she has been blessed with a rash of new business - several from referrals, some from her online presence and others from long term prospectives finally coming for fruition.  It's turned into a very good month indeed.   Of course, as her regulars return from their winter hideouts, that will only increase even further.

We've had new sign-ups for our Isagenix business and more interest of her e-book and online programs - again, without us doing any special promotions at the moment (although those are in the works).   Two people have come forward to promote her e-book through their channels as well as part of campaigns they are doing which should just escalate the numbers further.   It's just amazing!

My Centennial Post - What I've Learned

This is a momentous occasion for me.

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from having achieved this milestone, although this is not the first of my blogs that I have achieved it on.   It shows conviction and stick-to-it-tiveness.   Key ingredients for success.

When I first began planning for this centennial post I thought I'd plot out the next 100 blogs and what direction I'd want to take.   Problem is, I change over time and the nature of this blog has changed along with me.  

Unless I decide to 'clean' it up at some point, you can go back and find some posts where I talk about the future of this blog.   What it is now isn't what I had envisioned then.   Know what?  That's okay.

I do have a plan and this blog is just one part of that.   However the great thing about a blog is it's a part of a journey.    It's always a reflection of where I am now.   In general, I get wiser and better as I go along.

So, after 100 posts - what have I learned?

Isagenix - Is It For Real?

I'm going to do something a little different today.


If you're a follower of this blog, then you know I normally discuss self-motivation, Law of Attraction or perhaps God and Faith. Today though I thought I'd share on one of the things I'm doing to improve my life and why I've stuck with it.

For those who may be have found this on a Google search, this is not an advertisement, I'm not interested in selling you on Isagenix. If you're researching it, almost certainly someone has brought Isagenix to your attention and I wouldn't want to try to 'scoop' their credit.

Isagenix

What is it: Isagenix is a multi-level marketing company that sells health products, with a primary focus on cleansing and longevity.

Now before you start rolling your eyes over another 'sucker' caught up in MLM schemes, here's a few facts to consider.

You Are Exactly Where You Choose To Be.

Do you look at some aspect of your life and wonder why you're there?   Or perhaps there's all sorts of reasons why you're there.   People and circumstance have conspired against you to put you there.

That may be true in the short term, but if you're still there a year later, you've only yourself to blame.

Some will accept that with a sad sort of resignation, others will openly refute it but it's still the case 99% of the time.   

You are exactly where you choose to be.  

Stop Reading - Start Doing

Here I am staring at a blank white text box, slowly watching letter after letter appear as I ponder what to write about in today's installment.   The trouble with being a blogger of an inspirational site is having some fresh inspirational thing to say every time.

As I think about it, all the inspiration quotes in the world did not make a whit of difference in my life, except to maybe temporarily brighten my mood (and take up some memory space).  For that matter 25 years of studying about success did little to help me either.

In the end, it's not about the 'knowing'.  It's about the 'doing'.   Fact of the matter is a lot of people who are doing right now, what you want to be doing, didn't get there from reading any inspiration material like this.  They simply took the necessary actions.  But how did they know what actions to take you ask?   They didn't!  Not initially.  They either figured it out through trial and error or sought the advice of those who had carved out the path ahead of them.

Doing it - God's Way

One of the realization's I've had is that my life runs best when I get in line with God's plan for my life.

I find there's three ways of running your life.

Doing it MY Way:

This is of course a very popular option, especially in today's day and age of independent, agnostic, thinking.   It also feeds one's pride and ego to say, 'I did it - myyyyyy wayyyy'.   I certainly was a follower of this phylosophy myself up until late last year.

Love Yourself

He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" ~ Luke 10:27


Ever notice that before you can truly love your 'neighbor' (and be loved by them), you must first have a healthy love of self.