Easter Sunday…Toogood Arm!
What a great name or a small Newfoundland fishing village!
April 17, 2021
Simple 2-step formula to achieve your goals
When it comes to making changes, achieving goals and realizing your dreams, you must become the master of the following two tasks:
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- Make time: You have to book time with yourself to do what needs to be done. If you’re trying to get in better shape, you have to schedule time for movement, meal prep, etc. If you’re trying to build a business, you have to book the time to plan, assess, evaluate and implement.
- Take a 5-minute action: You have to do a very small action, every day, that move you toward your goals.
You see, these are the tasks that make everything else possible.
For instance, making time declares that YOU matter. It’s a commitment to YOU and YOUR values, priorities and goals.
Making time is a crucial survival habit: if you don’t make time, time will be taken from you. You’ll be pushed and pulled by other obligations. Something will always come up, and there’s never a “perfect time”.
Whether it’s for your education, health, fitness, business or what have you, practicing making time also helps you practice valuable life skills, such as:
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- Identifying what’s important to you
- Asking or negotiating for what you need and want
- Realistically assessing your own capacity
- Looking ahead, planning and preparing
- Anticipating obstacles
- Treating unexpected challenges as normal
Taking a 5-minute action helps you get moving.
It’s so easy to get stuck in “analysis paralysis”, procrastination and the “shoulds”. None of that helps us unless we do something. For example, as Jim Kwik says, “Don’t let your self-help books become shelf-help.”
Like making time, taking a 5-minute action teaches us valuable life skills and truths:
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- Action comes before motivation, not the other way around.
- A tiny action helps us bust out of procrastination and “feeling stuck”.
- Often, all we need to do is push through the first few minutes of resistance, and we’re rolling.
- Small actions create momentum.
- Action is empowering.
- Action is satisfying.
- Action is evidence.
So, what are YOU waiting for? Book time with yourself and commit to taking a 5-minute action toward your top priority.
To great goal setting!
April 17, 2020
Good morning.
“I’d say we’ve milked our products for all they’re worth.”
I find it really interesting that Bank CEOs and regional Federal Reserve presidents have so much knowledge of microbiology and how we should proceed as a nation to “flatten the curve.” I find that they have a difficult time even knowing where we are in the cycle.
If you look back the 180º policy shifts in the past two years, you get the sense that they are rolling the dice on policy. I would rather not roll the dice with my health or my freedom. Is that possible?
April 17, 2019
You Are Your Own Worst Enemy!
Let’s face it, most of us are our own worst enemies. That is, we’re highly self-critical. We consistently beat ourselves up, we constantly sell ourselves short, and we don’t give ourselves enough credit for the good that we’re doing in our lives. This self-critical pattern of behavior can hold us back from achieving our goals and tapping our full potential.
Another important note about being self-critical — it really gets on the nerves of those people around us. It sucks the life right out of them and brings about negative emotions. It has a detrimental effect on them in their lives, and it negatively influences how they look at you. Simply put, nobody likes a “Debbie Downer.”
In essence, being self-critical is the exact opposite of being self-compassionate. Compared to self-critical individuals, self-compassionate folks:
- Perform better
- Are more resilient
- Feel less depressed and/or anxious
- Have better relationships, feel more secure in relationships, get along with people more effectively
- Are more emotionally intelligent and less egocentric
- Are more satisfied with life
- Are better able to take risks, are less afraid of failure
- Learn, grow, and develop more effectively
- Are better at providing social support
- Are psychologically healthier overall
According to compassion research, self-compassion involves three parts:
- Self-kindness: a conscious attitude of kindness; being understanding and nurturing to yourself instead of harshly critical and judgmental. It is not self-indulgence or self-destructive pleasure seeking; you do things that truly make you feel better and sustain you.
- Common humanity: you realize it’s not just you; everyone has challenges, makes mistakes, and feels down and inadequate; see yourself as part of a larger whole.
- Mindfulness: state of nonjudgmental, conscious awareness and self-observation.
Call yourself out when you notice that you’re being self-critical. The first step in not doing something is recognizing when you are. From there, try to implement the three elements above. Here are some examples of being self-compassionate:
- Give yourself a break (Note that this doesn’t mean giving yourself a “get out of jail free” card all the time)
- Be kind to yourself
- Choose to be genuinely kind
- Have “crucial conversations” and say difficult things when you need to
- Practice mindfulness
- Practice self-forgiveness
- Have common decency and empathy
- Be honest and look at the big picture
- Recognize your needs and balance them with others’
- Focus on the process — on consistently trying to live according to your deeper values and principles, accepting that it won’t be perfect
To the BEST of You … I know you will. 😉
April 17, 2018
How do I begin?
Keep a good eye on your money! Reason? Because rules, laws, and undermining-ideologies will destroy its worth as a medium of value or financial exchange. I’ll not protect the names, as they are the focus of my disgust.
Withdrawing cash, you know those pieces of paper we were once able to exchange for GOLD, and later, held THE TRUST we now own in the countries “we serve” … YAH, that stuff … with fifteen-crisp-100-dollar-bills … $1500, I quickly walk across the street and placed them in an envelope to immediately be sucked for deposit into my private-savings & personal-chequing account.
But doesn’t CASH mean anything?
Yes! Friday! It is a non-holiday week, followed by a regular weekend, then another non-holiday week … and yes, knowing things are different when dealing with 
an On-line accounts versus bricks & mortar facilities; WTF?
Changing times?
Even with a “great history” with the ING_Bank for several years, [now named TANGERINE], one might have thought now as I did at this moment. Yes … anything or nothing may have been in that envelope slipping into the Instant Teller Machine, but over the weekend, they would surely realize its authenticity, and clear my $500 overdraft-protected balance and keep, NOT HOLD, the remaining amount for a $700 cheque coming due on Tuesday. [I had an EFT, (Electronic Bank Transfer) that was initiated on the Wednesday before, for around $1000, but I knew those could take 2-3 business days, hence the hasty cash deposit at Tangerine.
IMAGINE MY HORROR…
When with NO text message, NO phone conversation, NO e_mail, or … to NOT even hold cheque #134 that was being presented, and with a balance showing online of $1321.69 was the item returned & prompted an additional $40 to be charged to my overdraft.
Co-Op is not the only company serving its customers “EVERYDAY AWESOME!” poorly…
REW
April 17, 2017
I always laugh at this … too much work … Why? Because most good things in life require work!
To achieve great results in any walk of life, you have to do some work (often a great deal of it). To get a high-paying job, you have to learn a useful skill. To start a great business, you have to learn how to provide customers with useful services or products.
In order to achieve better results in anything, you have to learn… And you have to do extra work.
Tonight I take my wife for dinner … big results … little work!
REW
