What to do when life gives you lemons – suck it up

I am sure you have heard the saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. 

How do you go about it then?  Firstly, you know that there is such a thing as lemonade.  Then you need to know what else you need besides the lemons – sugar being the obvious one (or a sweetener of some sort).   Of course, then you need to get the sugar/sweetening agent.   So far, so good.  But, what happens if you can’t get any sugar?  What if you can only have salt?  Oh well, preserved lemons then.  Or maybe there are other things you’ve got that you can add to the lemons (Ive included links at the end of this post to give you some ideas).

What I am trying to point out is that there is more than one solution to your life problems and it may be that you can deal with it with what you already have.   If you are not sure what to do and need help, ask someone, google it, get professional help.  There are heaps of options.   Some people only focus on the lemons in their lives and forget that they have sugar, salt, other fruit, etc.   Maybe your neighbours want lemons and you can barter with them. 

There are people who built their lives around their ‘lemons’.   There are people who use their ‘lemon’ experience to make something better.  Some people write books about the lemons in their lives, make careers out of it even.  Some people use their lemons to become inspirational. Check out the link below and when you have read it, have another think about how sweet your life is right now.

   http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/301049/20120219/inspiration-man-without-limbs-orator-author-nick.htm

I’d love to hear your (happy) thoughts on this one

Related articles

• Lemonade with a Twist (nosugaraddedblog.com)
• Ten Ways to Use Those Luscious Lemons (naturesbeautysecrets.me)
• Lemon Fix: A New Use for Lemons (dailysavings.allyou.com)
• cocktail copycat (birchandlace.wordpress.com)

Limiting beliefs, defeating self talk and fear

OK, so now you’ve had a couple of weeks to practice on 3 limiting beliefs.  How did you go?

I’ve already shared with you the other day about Delice Kennedy (INSERT LINK)  http://theattitudequeen.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/718/ and how not having limits can create success.

So, now I’d like to share with you what else I noticed while I was on the Gold Coast last weekend. 

The vibe at the seminar was about success and being positive, expanding the comfort zone.  A LOT of people there were out of their comfort zone – more that I would have imagined so I felt better than I had been feeling before I went.   I heard a lot of limiting beliefs and self defeating talk from many people. Also, we all had to face our fears of standing on stage in front of about 150 people.

Several times each day I had my own thoughts and beliefs come up which I had to get rid of and replace with more belief in myself.  What I noticed is that other people will have more faith and belief in what you can do than you do yourself.

Here are some defeating self-talk and limiting beliefs I lifted from Seth Godin’s blog

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/06/whats-on-your-list.html

“I have kids at home, I don’t have a manager, I need to pay off student debt, my boss never lets me, I’m really busy because of soccer season, my knee is acting up, there’s already five galas coming up, my RSI hurts when I type, I don’t have a degree, I have a degree and can’t waste it, I’m not good at that, I tried it before but it didn’t work, I’ve never tried it before, the weather is crazy, isn’t it, the election is right around the corner, it’s been too long at this job they won’t listen to me, I’m going to retire soon, I’m too young, I’ll never learn, it’s too risky…”

So I had an idea that would have been interesting to carry out at the seminar. The main purpose of the weekend was to develop a presentation for your own business, after clarifying the niche, but what I noticed was that some of us were more capable of coming up with ideas for someone else’s business.  The thing is that other people don’t see inside of our heads and what we are thinking.  My idea was that we could be placed into groups to develop a plan for another group member’s business. 

I wonder what would happen if we extended this to our personal lives; if we pretended that we were someone else looking at us.   What could we achieve? 

The only thing stoping you is not allowing yourself to indulge your imagination. 

http://theattitudequeen.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/want-to-have-a-wonderful-life-trust-your-imagination/

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A quick and easy way to solve all your mind problems (well, for some people)

You know, you can chose to look at your life as a mess or a drama

 

or,……….  just turn around and look in the opposite direction and find something peaceful

I recently came across an article about how people get stuck in ‘victim’ mode even when they are seeking psychological help and counselling.   Haven’t we all had a period where we got into the victim/helplessness way of thinking, even just for a split second? :)  For many people however, having the problem seems to give them significance and sometimes it defines their life.    

I posted the link to the article in some of the forums I belong to and got back a great reply for someone.  He included a link to a video of a comedy skit which had me laughing all day whenever I thought of it and have used those two words a few times – it works!!

Here is the link so you can enjoy it too and I’d love to hear what you think.  (You may have to copy and paste the link to view it.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE

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How to ask the right questions

You know, perspective is really important.  It is the way you look at something that makes the difference.    One way to do this is to shift focus. The best way to do that is to ask the right type of questions. 

Let’s look at this more closely.  Imagine that if you ask “how can I lose weight?” you will be finding ways to cut things out of your life – probably foods, and food that you enjoy,  and  getting more exercise – you’d probably see it as a chore.  If on the other hand, you asked yourself – “how can I get fitter and healthier (which is what you would end up if you dieted and exercised more anyway), you would be focussing more optimistically on how to make changes in your life to achieve that goal.  I’m sure you would find ways of exercising that you enjoy, you would perceive the food that you would be eating in a more positive manner and you ‘d enjoy it more as well. 

When I first started walking up the steep streets behind my place, I used to use a mantra as I walked – strong legs, tight butt – in time to my pace – one word per movement  - It worked for me and I found that my physiology changed as well when going uphill – going up seemed a whole lot easier.

There are many other areas in life to change the questions we ask ourselves. 

Instead of asking how can I feel less stressed, ask how can I feel calmer

Make it a question around something that has meaning for you. If you know what your values are, pick out one of those values and find a way to do something around that value. If you value timeout and solitude, ask yourself what can I do, or where can I go, for 15 minutes today –(I have an Art gallery about 2 minutes away and a rose garden about 5 mins down the road.

If fun is something you value ask, “What can I do today to laugh more?”

You’ve got it?

The thing that started this for me today was a video that was emailed to me by a marketing company pointing out that the questions we ask impact upon our results in business, and so it is for any area of our lives. 

The analogy used was that of a very large boat, one of those multi-million dollar ones you see in marinas, weighing tons, being propelled by a small propeller. In other words, it’s the little things that move us forward.  It can be just a small shift in attitude that can create a great day as opposed to a crappy one.

Hmmmmm………So, my question for tomorrow, Monday 6 February is going to be “What can I do to make my day more efficient?”

What will be your question for tomorrow?

Get over yourself

I heard this from someone yesterday as one of his 3 tips on how to have an amazing year.  Getting over yourself means being more playful, bringing more fun, more lightness into your life.  He stated that there was so much “terminal seriousness” going on in the world today and asked can we really afford to have another serious person on this planet.  The ultimate way of living life deeper, rather than faster, living a regret free life, accessing inner peace is to get over ourselves and stop taking ourselves so seriously and just enjoy the moment, laugh at ourselves when we do silly things.  Laugh at our little mistakes, the ones that don’t mean anything (like my usual thing – I trip over nothing on the street)

Someone else left a comment about a condition called Temporary Seriousness Infection (TSI). Don’t you just love it? I have decided to use the TSI label for those times when I am taking things too seriously. So, this week when you are finding that you are getting stressed about something, ask “Is this TSI?”

I would really love to hear how you go with this one

How to finish 2011 and look forward to 2012

The New Year is upon us and we all look towards 2012 with different expectations about what it will bring.  Some of us will look back at 2011 with sadness, some with relief, some with surprise, and some with happiness, some with contentment.   

I came across a great idea by Janet Beckers the other day. She and her family make a celebration board of things that they did, things that happened during the past year that they want to acknowledge and celebrate.  I was so impressed that I started looking for coloured pencils and my A3 art pad straight away.   I made my celebration board within 20 minutes of watching her video. 

It made so much more sense to recognise the good times, actions of which we are proud, events that challenged us and that we accepted, than to ruminate and berate ourselves over what went wrong.  

Now, if you have had a read of previous posts you will know that I don’t do New Year resolutions.  When I look at my celebration board the best things on there were either totally out of my control (Hello, Emily my new granddaughter!), or things that I didn’t know about until the year progressed, such as the Wealth Dynamics seminar in Bali, the meditation weekend in the mountains…   I think there are only 2 items on the board that I was aware of this time last year.

So, as we are about to have a couple of days public holiday, take time to grab some paper and coloured pencils, crayons or even biros and start your celebration board.   It’s about you and doesn’t have to be perfect or arty.  It’s something to have fun with.  If you have children that’s even better as they are a great inspiration with creativity and fun.  

To start you of here are a couple of pics of parts of my celebration board. 

Remember – it’s about FUN!!!

The Power of Imagination

I am a great believer in imagining, and an example of this is is one of my previous posts http://theattitudequeen.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/your-unconscious-mind-at-work/. 

I came across a short and very effective speech by Garion Bunn on You Tube which I absolutely love – it’s about imagination.   If you click on the link below you can watch it and then let me know what you think.  By the way, Garion does a bit of singing at the beginning and the speech is just after that – about 1 minute and 5 seconds into the start of the video.  Enjoy

 

 

The meaning of (your) Life – 4 easy questions to find the answer.

I come across so many people who struggle with balancing work and family.  It seems that work has become the priority. I was talking to someone today who works very long hours and has several children.  She said that she wanted to take a few days off in the next school holidays but was worried about asking for the time, and that if she worked through the holiday period she felt bad anyway about not spending time with her children.

This person tried to make a New Year resolution this year that she would take a few days every school holiday period (and her employment conditions include generous leave provisions) yet still felt guilty. 

Who do we work long hours for?  What is the point of having annual leave, flexi-time, banked leave, long service leave if we don’t use it?  OK, it is different if you have a special trip planned and want to take several weeks off so you hang in there and save your leave – that is a specific purpose.  But when it comes to quality of life, what is the purpose of not taking time to be with the people you love and to do the things you really enjoy?   What does that prove?

“Will this matter a year from now?”
Richard Carlson, writing in Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

I am sure you have read, or heard of, the exercise that involves writing your own eulogy.  If you haven’t, then it is very simple. The idea is to write down what someone would say about you at your funeral, what sort of person were you? what did they love about you?  what special qualities about you will they miss?  what made you so special? what memories do they have about you?

Hmmmmm……………….”Mum (or Dad or whoever) was a great worker and devoted so much time to her work.   She left in the morning while we were having breakfast and was home just in time to say good night.  Sometimes we had to go into the study where she was working to say good night because she often bought work home.  I think she had blue eyes but my sister said she thinks they were brown and our brother said they were hazel”

What matters the most to you? Who matters the most to you? What do you love doing the most? What are you choosing to worry about if you are not at work? And what do you choose to tell yourself about who you are if you take time off work?  Too confusing ????

Four simple questions to ask yourself to find out the meaning of YOUR life:

What will happen if I do?

What will happen if I don’t?  

What won’t happen if I do?

What won’t happen if I don’t?

These questions are good to use with any decisions you are hesitating over.   Try it and let me know how you go.  I am curious about what you come up with. 

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Abundance

Abundant thinking is a form of positive thinking.  It is about creating a mindset of positive values that allows you to see your life as one of abundance, not one of deficit.  It allows you to flip your mental attitude from negative to positive and appreciate how much you have in your life to be grateful for.

Abundant thinking is all about changing how you view your personal circumstances so that you can change how you view the world at large.  It is realizing that you can be the cause of your happiness and achievement in life through your focus on what you have, rather than on what you don’t have.

However, it does not mean that you to stop striving for more and just accept your lot in life; rather it teaches quite the opposite: that by acknowledging how abundant your life is already, your mind will embrace the concept that the good things in life are potentially unlimited.  The following quote is attributed to Kabir:

“Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert,
when all around you there is nothing but water!”

With an abundant mind-set, you start to notice opportunities where once you saw none, you may even realise that you already have that which you desired.

 

Abundant means to be richly supplied; to be overflowing, to have plenty.  This means that you should have no fear of asking for more.  Nor should you fear giving in case you may run out of whatever it is that you have.  Abundance is a store that never runs out of its goods, however, is not about greed.  It is taking what you need and not more just in case you may run out.  Wanting and taking more that you need is having the attitude of scarcity, the opposite of abundance.  It creates fear and limits around what can be achieved.

Abundant thinking is a life philosophy that encompasses your belief about yourself.  It is about expanding your comfort zone and getting rid of limiting beliefs about what it is possible to feel, to say and to do. 

Where money is the issue, it is viewed as a tool that allows a better quality of life, freeing you to do other things such as volunteer work, helping those who are less fortunate, spending time with you children, partner, friends, mentoring someone, providing employment to someone to do that which takes up your time better spent doing above.

How can you have an abundant lifestyle? 

Where can you find more time to do the things you enjoy the most?

How can you spend more time with the people you love?

What can you change in your life to live it the abundant way?

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this

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The law of attraction: what it can mean

The Law of Attraction – what is it really?  Some people think that if you think something, positive or negative, enough times, it will just happen.  One of my friends believes that.   

This morning she had a go at me about a statement I made – I said “I’m broke”.   I had a few unexpected bills come along – medical expenses – and I need to have them paid up shortly.   Coming so soon after Christmas, and I still haven’t got back on track after my holiday in France, Spain and Istanbul, I have put in place a fairly strict budget.  I didn’t mean that I had NO money, I do.  I want to make sure I am able to pay the bills and still have some left over (and I want to go away again in May).  So, I made some plans.

My friend was concerned about my statement as I had mentioned it once before.  She really believed that just by uttering the words “I am broke” I would attract some bad financial luck, that my finances would suffer.

That blew me away!  My idea of being “broke” and hers are probably very different.  I use “being broke” as a way of making sure I spend only that I need - no mindless consumerism (now, that’s got to be a good thing, don’t you agree?). 

I believe in positive thinking but that is not enough - action needs to be taken.  Hey, if you are standing on a beach and you see a tsunami coming, no amount of potitive thinking is going to prevent that wall of water from washing you away – you need to RUN, get out of there (as soon as you see the water recede!!!!!)

Planning for things , even worst case scenarios is not attracting negative events into your life.   Read my blog for 12/07/10 – I created this lifestyle I have now.  However, there was a point during that time when I left the only permanent job I had – it was part-time - and took on a full-time one that was on a temporary 6 month contract.  That was a real gamble – I had no idea at the beginning of that 6 months where I would be when I finished that contract.  So, I planned for the worst case scenario - being unemployed after the 6 months.  I made some financial decisions so I would be able to pay my bills etc,  in case there was a gap before I found more employment.  And I did -  the job I have now which I got just as my contract was finishing up – no gap at all -   the job that gives me the lifestyle I love.

It’s about risk assessment, a bit like mindfulness.  It is not about ignoring or avoiding thoughts and emotions that are negative, it is acknowledging what is happening, dealing with it, not getting attached to the supposed consequences of a perceived negativity. 

To me, the Law of Attraction is taking action to get the results you want. Think all the postitive thoughts you want; think and dream about your desires………..and then TAKE ACTION. 

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do”.    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe