Tag Archives | Happiness

Do you suffer from torturing weekdays and depressing weekends?

By on December 24, 2012 in Change, Emotional Wellness

2012-09-02 17.00.37I regularly check the search terms people use to find this website, and one of the search terms that most stands out from this week is: “torturing weekdays and depressing weekends.” I’ve been there, and I know it’s not pretty. And I’m truly sorry that there are people out there who are going through “torturing weekdays and depressing weekends.”

For me, it happened primarily when I was in a dysfunctional relationship for many years. I wrote earlier about how I detached myself from the other person and worked to get free. But for the years I was in that relationship, everything felt dark and horrible and hopeless. Or, as the person searching online put it, I was suffering from “torturing weekdays and depressing weekends.”

In my specific case, I knew exactly what I needed to do to free myself from this downward spiral of hopeless living. But sometimes, when we’re trapped in a tortured and depressing lifestyle, we can be so lost in the murkiness of our depressing life that we have no clue what’s wrong and how to make it better. So what do you need to break free and make changes? Continue Reading →

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Are you happy on weekdays, or just on weekends?

By on November 16, 2012 in Change, Emotional Wellness, Growth, Holistic Wellness, Professional Wellness

The other day, I received an email from someone who ended the message with something like, “We’re one day closer to Friday.” There was a little smiley face at the end. Like it was a happy thing that this person had one less day in their life.

It made me a little sad to read this. Perhaps it was a simple work joke (I truly hope this is the case), but it gave me the sense that this person was actually hoping the week would speed by so Friday would come faster.

Have you ever felt like this?

Do you currently feel like this? Are you thrilled that today is Friday, because you know the weekend is just around the corner? Are you happy that your “real” life starts today at 5pm?

Continue Reading →

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Evolution

By on October 12, 2012 in Change

Ready to Bloom will be two years old next January, and it’s gone through a lot of changes along the way. It started out when I began my journey in coaching and NLP, and it gradually evolved into what it is today: a 30 day program to work toward authentic happiness. Most of my original posts focus on time management, primarily because one of my very first posts was picked up by Freshly Pressed and received an amazing amount of visits in just 24 hours. That post continues to be my top article to this day, with almost 7,500 views…even after changing the domain this year, meaning that the entire blog had to be re-indexed. I was fairly obsessed with time management at that time, and I continued to hone my techniques for prioritizing tasks and getting things done, sharing my experiences and tips here on this blog.

And then I focused on wellness or wellbeing, and what I saw as the nine aspects of wellness: emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, professional, social, spiritual, and sexual. You’ll still find that some of my blog posts are classified under one or more of these wellness categories. Continue Reading →

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Where am I? Habits

By on July 19, 2012 in Holistic Wellness

Habitual behavior can be a way of allowing ourselves to live on auto pilot, helping us to glide through life while paying little attention to what we really want to do. They are yet another survival mechanism. Part of getting to know ourselves and where we are in life involves becoming aware of our habits.

Habits can be as simple as packing the same lunch for work every day, doing the same exercise workout day after day, and walking or driving the same route to work. How many times have you caught yourself ordering the same meal for lunch yet again? Or do the restaurant staff already know what you’re going to ask for as soon as they see you walk in the door, so they get straight to work on it without even taking your order?

That’s happened to me. On more than one occasion, I’ve had café or restaurant staff see me walk in, and immediately start to prepare my usual order. One time, I sat down in a restaurant where I ate on a fairly regular basis. The staff wasn’t very busy, and they had greeted me when I walked in, but no one came by to take my order. I waited and waited for them to come by and take my order. Then, all of a sudden, a waiter came straight up to my table with my usual drink and my usual meal.

I was impressed, of course. And I was also stagnating in my own habitual behaviour. Time. To. Change!

Make a list of habits that you are already aware of: write down each and every repetitive thing that you do, whether it’s having the same kind of coffee at the same coffeeshop every day, preparing the same sandwich for lunch every day, or reading the same newspaper every morning.

For the next week, pay attention to your daily habits and make note of any new ones you haven’t already written down. At this point, it’s all about becoming aware of habitual behavior.

Once you have a complete list of your habits, think about how useful they are to you. Are they any that you want to change? Are there any that you might consider changing for just a week, to try something new? Are you 100% happy with any of these habits?

This is a useful exercise to do on a regular basis, as behavior changes and we often adopt new habits as we leave off old ones.

This is an adaptation of a previous post.

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Who am I? Taking a look at what the voices say

By on September 29, 2011 in Change, Emotional Wellness, Growth, Life Agility
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We’re onto week 2 of the Who am I? questions. How are the activities coming along?

Today it’s time to take a look at that little voice you  have in your head. You know which one I’m talking about, don’t you? It’s the voice that drags you down with negative talk and builds up the bricks in your ceiling. Today, it’s time to get to know that voice.

I’m going to repeat something I’ve said before: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare was right: everything in our lives, including our little voice, is neither positive or negative, it simply just is. Please don’t judge yourself by the things that come up in each exercise.

Negative self talk can hold us back from achieving our goals, by giving us excuses that we’re not able to do something, or that we’re not as good as someone else. Getting to know what the voices say is an important part of getting to know ourselves.

  1. Start by making note of what your little voice is saying. Record everything in your journal or notebook. Be sure to use something you can carry around with you and actually write down whatever comes up. If you don’t like the idea of carrying a notebook around all day, use a loose piece of paper or send yourself an email, then add the messages to your notebook at the end of the day.
  2. Keep this up for a week. At the end of the week, you should have a long list of mind chatter messages. Take the time to read through the entire list, noting general themes and recurring topics. What patterns show up? Take a blank page in your journal or notebook and group the chatter topics into sections. This will make it easier to catch them when they come up from now on.

Ask yourself some questions about your mind chatter:

  • Does your voice you belittle you?
  • Is it critical of your body, mind, or capabilities?
  • Does your voice tell you not to try new things because you won’t be good at them?
  • Does it say that others are better than you at something?
  • Does your voice tell you that you’re not worthy of something?
  • Does it tell you you’re a failure at something?
  • Does the voice tell you that you’ll never achieve your dreams?

This is just a sampling of things your voice could be saying. Write everything down that comes up. It’s important to acknowledge these things, as part of getting to know yourself. We’ve all had voices tell us things from time to time: negative self talk that can hold us back from achieving our goals. Once we face these voices, we can do something about them.

This is an adaptation of a previous post on the topic. 

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