National Girlfriends Day

Have you  heard about National Girlfriends Day?   I didn’t realize there was such a day until someone brought it to my attention.   Apparently it is an annual celebration of friendships between women that is commemorated every year on August 1st.   I tried researching this to see when and where it originated but couldn’t find much, so if you know any further details, I would really be interested in finding out.

In our busy lives, we often forget to think about what is important to us, so it is good that we are reminded by special days set aside like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day and now Girlfriend’s Day.   We should celebrate the special people in our lives every day, so we need to try to focus on the people who are important to us each and every day.   Nothing in life is certain and we can lose a loved in an instant through illness or injury.

Tomorrow is National Girlfriend’s Day so let’s remember to cherish all the women in our lives.   There are many things we can do to celebrate:  have a party, go for lunch, go shopping or plan some other event, but let’s also consider thinking about our health and how important it is to live a healthy lifestyle.  Women often are so busy taking care of their families and other people, that they ignore looking after themselves and this can result in serious health issues.   We should start having regular conversations about the importance of having regular checkups, eating healthy foods and daily exercise.

Let’s encourage and remind each other to stay healthy and take care of ourselves properly. Oscar Health Insurance has created a list called “The Woman’s Roadmap to Health”.   Use it as a guideline to keep track of important issues. Oscar is also a great resource for all health information. They have a team of trusted nurses and professional on call for any questions or concerns you may have. Check out more on their New Jersey and New York health insurance plans.

Toxic people

What is a toxic person?  How can you tell if someone is toxic and how do you deal with it?

A toxic person is someone who has been badly hurt and are not able to take responsibility for their feelings and actions.  They will blame others for their problems and try to get their needs met in unhealthy ways.   They may be controlling, critical of themselves and others, complain constantly, harm themselves with substances or in other ways.  They may gossip and spread false rumours, bully or treat others badly.  Toxic people are stuck in bad behaviours and often aren’t even aware that they have a problem.

You can tell if someone is toxic by these signs:

• you are uncomfortable in their presence
• you feel like they are trying to control you
• your energy is drained
• you feel bad about yourself
• you feel like you have to try and help them
• you are affected negatively by their actions and words
• you don’t feel respected by them
• you want to leave as soon as possible

 

When you are in a toxic relationship:

• focus on your priorities and consider what you want to get out of the relationship
• don’t compromise your values just to make peace
• set realistic boundaries and make sure you stick to them
• try to talk to the person and tell them how you feel (I feel hurt when you say this.  I need you to think about why you act this way.  I would like our relationship to get better but we need to start talking about these issues.)
• stop trying to fix them
• start being a positive example
• encourage them to find professional help
• pray for them

If you have been trying to repair the relationship and nothing seems to be changing, you may have to end it.  Tell the person that you love them and want to be a part of their life, but for now you are unable to continue the relationship until they are willing to make some positive changes.  If possible, stay in touch with them from time to time and continue to be a positive example.

 

 

What do you do for fun?

I just watched a video that was very upsetting but didn’t really surprise me.  3 generations were asked the question,  ‘When you were a kid, what did you do for fun?”  Of course, when they asked the younger generation, it applied to what they did for fun right now.  The answers cut right into my heart.  Watch the video and then ask yourself these questions:

• How does this make me feel?
• Am I personally allowing my children to develop these behaviours?
• What can I do to be a better role model?
• How can I help make positive changes in  my children, grandchildren and other children around me?

 

ARE YOU LOGICAL ABOUT DIETING?

Gaining weight is a problem with many of us.  We like to eat and we aren’t always careful about eating healthy.  Why is it that junk food tastes good?  And then when we gain a few pounds, we feel bad and try to figure out how we can lose it as quickly as possible.

The problem is, we don’t look at dieting in a logical way.  Deep down, we know that we can’t lose months or years of added pounds in a few weeks but we still try anyway.  We look for the quick fix, the promise of looking good in a short time.  Then we try all sorts of stupid diets and buy equipment that doesn’t meet our expectations, which is just a waste of time and money because it won’t work.

If we took some time and set some realistic goals for healthy eating combined with regular exercise, we would soon start to notice some weight loss.  Of course, when I say soon, I don’t mean in a few days or weeks.  It takes months of commitment, patience and living a healthy lifestyle to lose any excess weight and maintain it.  Positive change does not come instantly no matter how much we want it to happen.

In setting realistic dieting goals we first need to determine what our ideal weight should be depending on our height and body shape.  Society tells us that we should strive to be skinny but this isn’t logical when people come in all shapes and sizes.  Everyone cannot be a size 5!  Then we have to create an action plan that includes healthy eating and daily exercise.  Meals should never be skipped and should include fresh fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy and grains.   Anyone with health issues or allergies should work on a diet plan with their doctor.

It takes discipline to lose weight.   Companies that sell diet products and equipment will promise you a quick fix knowing that it will likely not work, just so they can make money.  Don’t fall for their empty promises.  The fact is, 95% of the people who go on diets are NOT successful, so why waste your time and money on something that WILL FAIL and make you feel worse about yourself.  Eating healthy and exercising daily is the ONLY successful way to diet.

Use your energy to build confidence

Everything we do takes energy.  It takes energy to get up, get dressed, go to work/school, cook, eat, clean, take care of the family and the list could go on and on.   How we feel about ourselves also uses energy; emotional energy.  Feeling good about ourselves is positive energy and it will give us the confidence to move forward in life.  Feeling bad about ourselves and looking at life with a negative perspective takes an enormous amount of energy.  It literally sucks the energy right out of us and destroys our confidence.

Do you have positive energy or negative energy?  Answer these questions:

• Do you complain a lot?
• Are you critical about yourself and others?
• Do you blow little things way out of proportion?
• Do you look for the bad things instead of the good things?
• Do you believe that you can’t change or control your life?
• Do you blame others for what happens to you?
• Do you feel like nothing ever goes right in your life?

If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions, you have negative energy. Your confidence and self-esteem could use a good boost.  This can be done by changing your perspective.

Instead of using your energy to dwell on your problems and feel bad about yourself, use your energy to work on building confidence and increasing your self-esteem.  It takes the same amount of energy to feel good or bad about yourself but the results are much different.  Feeling bad results in stress.  Feeling good results in peace.  Try to surround yourself with positive people, places and things and focus on what is good in your life, not what is bad.

Visit my website at http://www.imconfident.com for ideas on how to build confidence and increase your self-esteem.

 

Becoming confident is hard in today’s world

Society has created a major road block that stops us from becoming confident.  Every day, we are told through the media and other people that there is something wrong with us.  We aren’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough.  We don’t measure up to society’s standards.  We lack something in our lives.  We need to improve ourselves.  We need to be happier and quicker.  We need to have more money, possessions, power so we can be happy and successful.  With all these unrealistic expectations, how can we possibly feel confident about ourselves?

We have to start looking at life with a proper perspective.  Life is NOT perfect and people are NOT perfect.  We can search for ways to reach the high expectations that the world places on us, and we will NEVER reach those expectations.  We can beat ourselves up every day for not measuring up to someone else’s standards and we will ALWAYS feel like a failure.  We need to look at our own life and set realistic goals and expectations that are attainable.

How can we become confident in today’s tough world?

• stop comparing ourselves to others and start working on becoming the best imperfect person we can be
• stop trying be perfect and start realizing that this just isn’t possible
• stop tearing ourselves down with negative self-talk and start building ourselves up with positive self-talk
• stop focusing on our flaws and imperfections and start focusing on our strengths and abilities
• stop thinking that we can’t change our lives and start working hard to make positive changes

We have the power to build our own confidence and increase our esteem.  It just takes a lot of hard work and patience.   For more ideas, visit www.imconfident.com.

Take responsibility for your own actions

Many of us tend to blame others when something goes wrong in our lives.  Children blame parents for not raising them properly.  Parents blame the schools for not educating their children properly.  Husbands blame their wives for not respecting them enough.  Wives blame their husbands for not loving them enough.  Employees blame employers for not treating them fairly.  Employers blame employees for not working hard enough.  We blame friends, neighbours, the government and everyone else instead of looking at ourselves and being responsible for our own actions.

Sometimes we cannot control what happens to us but unless we are a child, we do have the choice as to how we will respond.  We can choose to be a victim of circumstance and pass blame onto someone else, leaving us stuck in our problems.  Or we can choose to take responsibility for our own actions, take control of our emotions and respond in a positive way.

Nobody else can live our lives for us.   Nobody else can eat healthy foods for us.  Nobody else can exercise for us.  Nobody else can be happy for us.  When we get up in the morning, it is up to us to make good choices for the day so it will affect our lives in a positive way.  Passing blame onto others is a passive, negative way of living and it certainly won’t make us happy.

Stop playing the blame game and start taking responsibility for your own actions!

To Build (or Break) a Child’s Spirit – by Rachel Macy Stafford

A great post about how to build esteem in a child. We always need to be a positive role model and raise our children with love and respect.

Kindness Blog

If you needed to lose weight, what would be most motivating?

You’ve put on some pounds. I’m not buying you any more clothes until you lose weight.

Or:

Let’s take a walk after dinner.
I’ll let you make the salad.
I love you just the way you are, exactly as you are.

If you needed to learn how to swim, what would be most motivating?

I don’t want to hear your crying. Get in the water and swim! Don’t be a baby!

Or:

I’ll be right by your side.
You can do this. If not today, we’ll try again tomorrow.
I love you just the way you are, exactly as you are.

If you needed to practice better hygiene, what would be most motivating?

What is that awful smell? It’s a wonder you have any friends.

Or:

Let’s go to the store and pick out some deodorant.
Your hair smells…

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Teach from the heart

We are all teachers.  Some of us are good teachers, some of us are bad teachers.  We don’t have to go to college or university to become a teacher.  Teaching is something that we do consciously or unconsciously.  Everything we say and do is teaching something to someone.

Parents are always teaching their children through example.   Children are watching and learning from our words and actions.   When they are small, they look up to their parents, older siblings and other adults in their lives and will try to follow their example.   We need to be careful that we are teaching them how to become responsible, caring adults.

We can teach in different ways.

• We can teach children them by force, demanding that they follow our rules.   This will cause them to have low esteem, feel insecure, be unhappy, develop resentment for authority and possibly become a bully or a controlling adult.
• We can teach children by allowing them complete freedom to do whatever they want.  This will also cause low esteem and insecurities because they don’t have any boundaries or guidelines.  They won’t know how to make good choices and will struggle as an adult.
• We can teach children from the heart, showing love and encouragement but also setting reasonable boundaries and using fair discipline.  This builds esteem and a sense of value, leading to a responsible, caring adult.

How are you teaching your children?  By force, allowing them complete freedom or from the heart?  Take a close look at the relationship you have with your children and make sure you are providing them with a positive example.