What to Think about When You Are Setting Goals

Goal setting is an essential activity for a successful life. It won’t be wrong to say that people without goals in their life, merely exist. People who have goals are the ones who discover the real value in their life.

 

It so often happens that you decide to set some goals but then things do not go the way you want them to. Your goals falter and fumble, and you aren’t able to achieve the things that you expect. 

 

People would give anything if they knew how to set goals that they can achieve; goals that can add real meaning to their lives. Now, though the achievement of goals depends on several things, here are some points that you should consider.

 

1.  Do not aim too high too soon. Frankly speaking, there is no limitation to the goals you set, but if you are new to goal setting, then start with smaller goals first. Like, if you are trying to lose weight, just plan on losing one pound at the end of the week. This is not too difficult, and the best part is that when you achieve this smaller goal, you get motivated to chase bigger goals.

 

2.  Never cross the boundaries of your capacity. All right, you like to challenge yourself all the time, but that does not mean that you should become impractical. You should not set a goal that’s not your forte, or at least you should not be too rigid about it. Of course, you can learn a totally new thing, but there are things like determination, time, the willingness to put in effort, etc. that matter a lot.

 

3.  When you are setting a goal, remember to give it a reasonable timeframe. For example, if you have set a goal to learn Chinese, you must give it a reasonable amount of time, like say 4 months. Rushing too much with your goals means that you will not be able to achieve the things that you want and that will make you disillusioned from planning further.

 

4.  An important thing to consider when setting goals is the result that you will get from it. That’s your incentive. If the result is something that you badly want, then you will find that following the goal becomes much easier. That’s why, a very safe way to fashion a goal is to weave it around something you really want.

 

Keep these points in mind when you are setting goals. Though goal setting depends on so many different points, these are the ones that you cannot afford to miss out on.

Facing Life Challenges—Accepting Them or Changing Them

Do you sometimes feel that your life is going in the wrong direction and it is out of control? You know that things are happening you have no control over. When we face these types of situations, we have two choices. We can either accept that there are things in our life we cannot change, and there are things in life we can. 

 

When there are things in our life we can change, then we must not wait for things to change, but we must work at changing them. Many people know what needs to be done to change a situation but for reasons sometimes known only to them they procrastinate doing the things that can change their situation and improve it. 

 

Other things in our life we cannot change and these are the things that often cause us pain and distress. They often create a feeling of hopelessness and if we let them, they can control our life. Francis of Assisi once asked for the “courage to change the things that can be changed and to accept the things that can’t be changed and the ability to tell the difference.” 

 

Sometimes when things are happening in our life we can’t change, we need to deal with them by accepting them and learning to live with them with patience and not just surviving but thriving as we accept them. 

 

The prayer of Francis asked for the ability to tell the difference between the things we can change and the things we can’t change and for many people this is the first step towards finding the solution to a bad situation. We need to ask if the situation can change and if it can, what practical steps do we need to take to bring about the change.

 

Sometimes we can answer this question our self, sometimes we need the help of a professional counselor or advisor. Having determined the answer to that question we need to put steps into place to help us make the change, and the counselor may be able to help us give us advice in the best way to make the change. 

 

If we decide the change can’t be made, we need to try to see the situation in the bigger picture so we don’t focus on it. We need to accept the problem is here to stay and our goals must be on how to relegate the problem to the background and value the life we have apart from the problem. 

 

This maybe the more difficult path of the two choices, but which ever path we choose, we have taken steps that will ensure us a better life and personal growth. 

Feeling Down—What Is Your Diet Like?

For a long time, the effect of diet on children’s moods has been the subject of debate. Child Psychologists suggest that diet modification may be an effective way of helping to improve children’s behavior. The effect of diet on an adult’s well-being is being increasingly understood. 

 

Many adults feel depressed or have no energy to do the things they want to do. People blame their children, their heavy workload, and their lack of sleep. Most people don’t consider their diet as either a cause of their feelings of negativity or a way to reduce stress and understanding this can help many people find some relief from the stress related negative feelings. If you are struggling with negative thoughts and feeling tired and stressed try these diet changes and see if they help you.

 

1.  Green tea has been identified as an extremely effective stress relieving drink. Drinking green tea in preference to drinking caffeine may help to reduce the effects of caffeine as a stimulant. Reducing Caffeine intake and drinking green tea are both useful strategies to reduce feelings of stress and tension.

2.  One of the reasons why people instinctively reach for sweet and savory foods when they are feeling down is due to low serotonin levels in the body. Sweet and savory foods can create a sharp sudden spike in feelings of well being and then drop suddenly. They stimulate the production of a hormone called serotonin, which reduce stress and create a feeling of contentment and well-being. 

3.  A better option is food high in good carbohydrates eaten with a protein source. Eating adequate quantities of both carbohydrates and proteins provide the body with optimum opportunity to produce adequate sustained serotonin levels. Some of the best foods to produce high serration levels are flaxseed, turkey, dark chocolate, fish and seafood, flax seeds, cherries and bananas. 

4.  Restrict the amount of sweet foods in your diet and don’t go follow a low carbohydrate diet. Easting sweet foods and certain starchy foods create and immediate feeling of well-being that quickly disappears and leaves a feeling of fatigue and tiredness. 

 

Taking control of your diet and choosing to exercise regularly helps you regain a sense of control in your life. This can reverse the negative feelings that are associated with poor eating choices. Positive thinking can be the result of feeling in control, even as feeling out of control can create negative thinking. When a person feels in control, anxiety and stress levels and negative self-talk and thinking usually decreases.

If You Could Zoom in on Your Life

If you could take a photo of your life today and then zoom in on something special or important which part of your life would you choose? Would it be something that is causing you distress or something that is an exciting memory or a special relationship?

 

If your still picture was a movie, what title would you give it? Would you like the experience to continue or do you wish it had never happened? If you could relive this part of your life again, would you? If not, why wouldn’t you? 

 

Imagining our life as a movie or a photograph is a good way of examining our life and the things in it we like and the things in it we would like to see changed. When we give important life experiences a name, we can focus on the important events in our life and especially on those ones that continue to influence us today. 

 

Have you ever noticed when you take a wide angled shot of a scene, you see many pictures but very little detail and when you zoom in on one part of the picture you miss out on the big picture, though you get a very good view of one part of the picture that really interests you? 

 

We often look at life like this. We look at the big picture and forget the details that bring beauty and interest to our lives, or we focus on one thing and forget the bigger picture. Either way, we risk losing our perspective if we only look at life from one or the other perspective. We need both perspectives to understand our life experiences and that is the purpose of giving a name to the scene. 

 

Revisit your photograph memory again and rethink the situation you were thinking of earlier. How different does the picture look close up and how does it look at a distance. If the picture is distressing, close up, try to zoom back and look at the picture from a distance to give you a big picture perspective. Does it change the picture at all?

 

Sometimes when we focus on things in our life, we feel distressed, but when we see it as part of a bigger picture we can deal with it, even gain and learn something important from it. Similarly, if we focus only on our life from a distance, we forget to appreciate the individual and special things that make life unique for us.

Planning Your Day

If you have just woken up and are wondering how to spend your day, you probably know that you may or may not achieve much today. The luxury of waking up and having no plans for the day is something we all dream of and would love to do and probably make it a reality as much as we can on weekends and during the holidays. However, the most effective way to become a productive person is to not waste the day by having no goals or plans for it. 

 

In the current economic environment with its uncertainty and rising costs, economists and financial planners suggest that people take note of every cent they spend so they can see where their money goes each week. People can then use this information to help them plan where they can cut spending out of their budget and use that money to pay for unexpected bills or to save for when it’s needed. 

 

Prizing our time in the same way we do money will help us become effective in our work and our home life as we try to juggle the many responsibilities in our lives and still provide time left over for ourselves. Try to get into the habit of planning your days. Each night before you go to bed, make a mental note of the things you know you need to do and try to create a plan of action. Multi task where possible so you can achieve two or more things at once. Don’t forget to include you time in your plan. Taking care of yourself is as important as taking care of everyone else to achieve life balance. When you have made a mental note of these things, do try taking a few minutes to write them down on paper.

 

All this may seem unnecessarily laborious. There is however nothing more satisfying than to come to the end of the day and see what was on the to do list at the beginning of the day and see that list crossed out or ticked off, either on paper or in your mind. Creating an ordered life will actually give you more chance of free time rather than less time and you won’t find yourself forgetting things you promised to do for people. Taking 10 minutes to exercise when you didn’t think you had time to exercise becomes potentially possible when you have scheduled it into your day. If this is something you have never done before, try it for a few days and you will soon find it becomes a habit you won’t easily want to give up. 

The Lesson of the Tortoise

Do you remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare? One fast and self-assured, the other slow and steady. They set out to have a race and in the beginning, it was the hare that easily bounded ahead of the tortoise and almost made the finish line before the tortoise managed to go very far at all. Yet, the self-assured hare was just a little too self-assured and he decided to sleep before crossing the finishing line and he slept so long and so soundly, that the tortoise eventually crossed the finish line while he was still sleeping. Against all the odds, the tortoise had won the race. 

 

Why did the tortoise win the race? We are often told that “slow and steady wins the race” and there is truth in that. What is interesting about this story is that both the tortoise and the hare were using their natural talents and they used them to the best of their ability. From the point of view of Personal Development maybe we should take a closer look and see what happened in this story.

 

The tortoise, while not fast entered the race with the best of intentions. He knew he probably would not win, but that didn’t stop him participating. No doubt, he went full speed and put his heart and soul in the endeavor. He didn’t just set out on a walk in the park on a sunny day. He full utilized all his abilities and, in the end, it paid off and he won. No one was more surprised than he, to find he crossed the finish line first.

 

The hare likewise used all his abilities, and should have won the race, but he didn’t. He had yet to learn the value of not having too much faith in his own abilities. He became so self-assured that he became arrogant, that caused his downfall, and his ability to win what should have been the easiest of races. 

 

When we compare ourselves to the tortoise and the hare, we can learn some important life lessons that may help us in our endeavors. The tortoise did what he did best, to the best of his ability. He did not let circumstances overwhelm him, but instead he did what was asked of him and he eventually found success. The hare likewise did his best, but he let the circumstances get the better of him and they did overwhelm him and he rested on his laurels rather than continuing to the finish line and he found failure.

 

It is worth asking if in our endeavors we find our successes by having the attitude of the tortoise, or are more like the hare, and rely on our reputation and this explains our failure to succeed. 

BMI – How Effective Is It?

BMI (Body Mass Index) is basically the measurements of the body’s composition. This can be calculated by measuring someone’s height and weight, it is compared to the pre-computed scale. A body-weight scale, or BMI, will categorize your body weight into various different categories. The existing categories are; Normal weight, overweight and underweight. 

 

These scales are pretty accurate, at least in regards to a majority of the population but they can be somewhat less accurate for body builders or athletes. The scale is cost effective, and it is often used by personal trainers, dieticians, physicians or other organizations. 

 

The only things you need to measure your BMI is a tool to measure your height and a weight scale. The body weight scale is quite simple, because they measure only weight and height, they are un-intrusive instruments. Other tests can be quite embarrassing for people, like the skin fold test which requires that the doctor/practitioner has to pinch a person’s body on about thirteen different places. Another measurement method involves submerging the individual under water until the practitioner can read the measurements. So comparatively the BMI scales are much better. 

 

BMI scales are very convenient as anyone can measure their own BMI. All you need to do it is your height and weight. The equation which is used to measure the BMI is as follows; height in inches divided by weight in pounds. Then square that and multiply it by 703. 

 

Differences like, race, gender or age do not make any difference when you use this equation. The BMI scales have become very popular with different organizations because they are very quick to do and also very easy. 

 

BMI scales have proven to be an extremely efficient way of getting a very accurate measurement. It allows for changes in different people’s body composition over time periods.

 

A group called CDC has for a while now been keeping track of ever the rising levels of obesity in America. They use the BMI scale to chart their information effectively. It’s the most efficient way of conducting activities such as these. Any other methods would simply take too long. 

 

Calculating the BMI just takes a minute or two, which makes it by far the preferred method for the CDC. It is also the preferred method for many other organizations, as they try to keep track of people’s body composition. 

Give Your Health the Importance That It Deserves

Health is not a fad that will be over anytime soon, it is something that we are reminded every now and then, the commercial breaks, a short visit to the doctor, the leaflets given to us on the streets; seems like a lot of people are catching up with this health awareness issue. Even with all that information that we get do we ever follow it to the latter; do we really watch what we put into our mouths? Do we cautiously follow the recommended balanced diet? It really needs a lot of effort to be able to eat wisely and this can be achieved by setting goals to a healthy life. 

 

That desire should come from you, being forced to keep fit will do you no good because in other’s presence we will follow the whole diet thing but behind their backs we will do exactly the opposite. Trying to keep fit is not such an easy task especially if you are used to throw in just about anything into our stomachs and if we are not strong enough then we tend to go back two steps behind after making a step of progress. If you have a strong desire to make a difference then believe me you will go far with it.

 

They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away but that does not mean that by just eating an apple you will be healthy; you have to take in a balanced diet. Don’t you think by keeping a healthy lifestyle, you would keep the doctor away from you for the longest period ever and no more scary visits to the hospitals which many of us loathe or no more fears of being diagnosed with ‘incurable diseases? So how do you keep a healthy lifestyle? You first have to believe that you can truly do it or else you will not go far. You have to set your goals right, put them down on paper and make sure you are able to beat the deadline. 

 

You have to ensure you take a balanced diet containing the carbohydrates, proteins and the vitamins not forgetting the roughage or water. You should also exercise from time to time to ensure you don’t have excessive fat in your body system. Avoid the canned food and opt for fresh food, ditch the red meat and go for the white type of meat and also avoid fried and baked food as much as they are sweet, they will lead you to a premature death. With the gradual change that you make, your life will change too and get better in terms of health. 

Health of Body and Health of Mind

What does it really mean to be healthy? If you are fit and can do all your work reasonably well, then does it mean you are healthy? Is fitness health? 

 

Most people equate health with health of body. This is not exactly wrong, because until some years ago, that was the concept and meaning of health that we had in mind. We thought that health of body means that you are healthy. People believed that if you are free from disease, it meant they were healthy.

 

But these are old notions. In today’s world, it is not just enough to be free from disease to be healthy. The view has definitely widened.

 

Today, health has various aspects to it. Experts speak about the physical, the mental, the spiritual and even the social aspect of health. Health is no longer just absence from disease, but you have to be free from any mental, psychological and social disorders too to be counted as healthy.

 

Think about a criminal. A person who does something against society does so because they are not well in the mind. Though they may not have any disease hounding them, they are definitely not healthy. They need to be cured; and hence even corrective methods used by governments and law agencies are modes of treatment.

 

There are so many signs of ill-health that parents completely ignore in their growing children. They see things like sickness and disease, but they completely ignore their mental grown and development. A child who lies needs to be corrected. A child who finds happiness in troubling their parents and teachers need some kind of help. These are not issues of the body; they are issues of the mind. They need to be tackled early on, because like any other disease, they can grow to serious proportions.

 

In the past, health was something that was individual. If you did not take care of your health, it was only you who suffered. But, with this widened definition for health, the scope has definitely increased. If you don’t take care of your health now, it won’t be just you who suffer. Think about the child whose habits are difficult to control. Such a child probably grows up and becomes a torment to society in some way or the other.

 

Health and wellness do not mean the same thing as they did a decade ago. In fact, even medical practitioners include various interpersonal and social methods of treatment. It is all a part of a much larger game.