YOUR LIFE A-Z: UNILATERAL

BE THE KING OF YOUR STUMP!

UNILATERAL

UNILATERAL is making a decision or plan in your own best interest or it can apply to a group of people making a UNILATERAL decision or action for the best interest of the group.  For instance, if you are president of a board and an executive decision must be made immediately, your power as president allows you to make a UNILATERAL decision in the best interest of the board for the time being.  The same applies to your personal life. Now how many things in your life are you waiting for someone else to decide for you? Or are you waiting on someone else to choose first?  Do you have unfinished business that you feel needs to be attended to and you are still waiting to for someone else to get back to you?  Take a strong look at what needs to be accomplished “now” and take back your UNILATERAL power of choice.  You are the person where the buck stops and you have no one to blame if your life is not where you want it to be.  Practice this simple but uncomfortable exercise to develop a sense of acting UNILATTERALLY.  Decide what you want to eat and make food choices for yourself.  Choosing what you want to eat is often a UNILATERAL choice you delegate to others. For instance, how often do you follow other people’s food choices rather than using your voice to ask for what you want to eat?  Do not remain silent when you want Chinese food and others want pizza.  Get my point? 

YOUR LIFE A-Z:TASK

The Path Up Can be Daunting 

TASK

Not surprising that TASK would follow Rigorous and Simplify uh?  If you want to lighten your load of things to do, it is important to work from a to-do-list.  A daily, weekly, and monthly to do list is a very helpful tool to assist you in getting necessary chores done. TASKS are part of life and there is no getting around that.  If you procrastinate, worry, moan, or whine, then you are wasting precious energy that would be better applied to getting necessary TASKS checked off of your to-do-list.  How fast can you check the bothersome TASKS from your list?  Don’t dawdle doing dishes or making the bed.  Speed up and get it done.  Daily TASKS don’t need to be as unpleasant as we often make them out to be.  Daily TASKS can be a way of challenging ourselves to have more play and leisure time. The faster we get the TASKS done the quicker we get to play.  Remember when you were a kid how motivated you were to finish your homework so that you could go out and play?  This is the same deal.  Do your TASKS and enjoy the zeal of using that red pen to check off or draw through the completed TASKS.  Then reward yourself with a leisure activity.  It is also a good idea to put leisure activities such as reading on your to do list in order that you do not do all work and no play.  All of this will help with time-management. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z SIMPLIFY

KEEP IT SIMPLE

SIMPLIFY

SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY.  It will be a lot easier to be Neat if you SIMPLIFY your life.  SIMPLIFY the thing in your life that is currently driving you crazy.  What is it?  We all have something that we keep grinding away at and never feel as if any progress is made.  Here is a short check-list to get you thinking:  budget, household chores; relationships (partner, child, family member, friend); spiritual life; hobby; cooking; and the list goes on and on.  Choose one thing to SIMPLIFY today.  For example, SIMPLIFY your schedule.  Take a look at what you try to cram into one day and organize it.  Prioritize what has to be done and then add what you would also like to get done today. Balance the list with some positive actions so that SIMPLIFY does not become a task–master.  Manage your time to make the things happen that must happen.  Where are you wasting time or adding just one more thing that is creating stress or chaos?  Eliminate it.  That unnecessary drive through Starbucks is going to cost you at least ten minutes if not longer depending on the line.  Skip it and stay focused so you free up some time rather than cram twelve hours of things to do into eight.  Slow down and take some things off of what you think of as “must–have, must-do” list.  That will SIMPLIFY your day.  Ask yourself how much of what is on this list do you dread.  Eliminate one of them and reframe the others into positives.  Doing this will help you enjoy the day more. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z: RIGOROUS

ATTENTION TO DETAILS

RIGOROUS

RIGOROUS seems to be the right R word to follow Own, Pride, and Quality.  RIGOROUS is defined as meticulous, exacting, scrupulous, demanding, and painstaking as well as many more synonyms.  Are you ready to step up in your life and Develop a RIGOROUS exploration of your life? Choose one goal you want to get RIGOROUS about and start changing it.  Some changes take a clear focus and painstaking plan that you must execute RIGOROUSLY in order to produce the change you want.  Old habits are really hard to break and the messages that those habits send fill your unconscious relentlessly.  You might often experience success and then immediately sabotage yourself by over-sleeping, speeding, or losing something very important.  Next your negative self-talk takes over and beats you up and your fortitude diminishes.  But with RIGOROUS attention to detail, determination, and attending to the goals of your dreams and passion, you will be back on track.  Be RIGOROUS and go forward with leaps and jumps.  Being RIGOROUS requires strength, courage, and determination.  Being RIGOROUS is not for sissies.  Being RIGOROUS is for the serious and those that really are being honest with his/herself!  How bad do you really want if?  If you really don't want it, then please do yourself a favor and let it go, toss that goal to the abyss.  Only be RIGOROUS about things that really matter.  Do not set yourself up for disappointment or failure.  Be RIGOROUS in real matters of your heart. 

YOUR LIFE A-Z:QUALITY

BREATHE DEEPLY

QUALITY

QUALITY seems to be subjective opinions based on personal likes and dislikes as well as some educational understanding of that object you are judging as good or bad QUALITY.  Art and architecture fall into the eye of a trained and educated eye, but if you don't like Picasso then QUALITY won't matter.  Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, drives himself and sometime me, the reader, to the brink of insanity trying to define QUALITY.  It seems simple to me.  We seem to recognize QUALITY and often produce QUALITY.  Allowing ourselves to take Pride in our work will empower us to continue to produce QUALITY.  If we are not invested in what we are doing we usually do not produce QUALITY.  If we care about what we are doing then we invest more energy and Pride in it, thus QUALITY.  As Pirsig points out, it is really impossible to have "more" QUALITY.  QUALITY either is or is not.  What is QUALITY in your life?  What do you do really well that you take Pride in?  Where are there places of QUALITY in your home?  What images come to your mind when you hear the word QUALITY?  Clearly, QUALITY is sought after by everyone, even a redneck seeks a QUALITY beer.  That QUALITY may not necessarily be judged by taste, but might be judged by inexpensive and cold.  See QUALITY is truly subjective!  

YOUR LIFE A-Z: PRIDE

Take Pride in Yourself!

PRIDE

Wikipedia says PRIDE is an inner directed emotion, from a positive connotation is a satisfied sense of attachment to ones Own choices or actions.  PRIDE is also a sense of belonging to a group or family where one's positive feelings of connection run deep within each other.  An example of that would be the GBLTQ community celebrations of Gay PRIDE.  Pride is a bubbling up of positive emotion   that naturally expresses itself through a wide smile and relaxed facial expression.  In yesterday's word, Own, I spoke about the PRIDE of ownership, taking responsibility for the decisions and choices you are making.  Today, I am asking you to dig deeper and allow a sense of belonging to yourself make you feel PRIDE deep within. It is true that when we feel PRIDE we Invest more self-care into whatever it is we feel PRIDE about.  A new car gets washed and waxed more often than an old beater car.  Take better self-care of your self today.  File your nails, get a new haircut, or take a bubble bath. Do something today to make yourself feel PRIDE in who you are.  Take a hot lunch to a homeless person or write a check to your favorite organization to Invest something of your success into the lives of others.  Allow yourself to take PRIDE in who you are, not just what you do.  Self-care and care of other are two sides of the whole, Invest in both to achieve PRIDE in yourself.   

YOUR LIFE A-Z:0WN

OWN TODAY!

OWN

OWN your life! OWN your story! OWN your choices. What you don't like, change it or quit whining about it.  OWN your decisions. It is possible to gather new energy and direction in your life by taking personal responsibility for your choices.  Once you decide that you are responsible for the situation you are currently in, the hopelessness and helplessness diminishes.  As the negative diminishes, new life and energy seep into the dry spaces in your life and a sense of urgency is born.  It is almost like you say to yourself, "where have you been?  I've missed you.  Let's get started."  OWN today and make new choices.

Each time you do something for yourself today in a positive manner say to yourself, "Yes, I am OWNING my OWN life.  I made that choice." Punctuating the positive goes a long way to giving us new energy and support to keep going.  Remember those feelings you had as a child when you OWNED your OWN bike and then remember what if felt like to OWN a new car or home?  Let that feeling bubble up inside of you because as an adult you OWN your life, your body, and your choices.  Enjoy the pride of OWNERSHIP and show off the new You.  Enjoy the flow of energy and vitality when You take responsibility to hold yourself accountable by choosing to OWN your decisions and choices.  OWN the direction in your life and drive to your next destination with pride.