Why Do People Set Goals For Themselves?

This year, I’ve kept the goal setting small, yet difficult to achieve. However, I fully intend to use self perserverence adhere to and accomplish my goals which are to switch to vegetarianism, become accomplished at yoga, and maintain an inspired frame of mind as well as attempt to remove any sort of resentments which I feel are toxic to our systems. I came across a great article about how to formally set ones goals and get moving on them by Mark David Peters:

All successful people set goals, so goal setting must be a worthwhile activity to do. One of the main reasons why people set goals is because goals focus the mind and give it something to work towards. Goals are therefore like having a destination in life, and the things you do to achieve those goals are how you get there.

Without goals you will have no destination to go to, and so will be blown around like a leaf in the wind, never really going anywhere.

How To Write Goals?

When you have decided exactly what you want to achieve in certain areas of your life, such as romantic or financial, your next step is to write this in goal format.

Goal format simply means writing goals beginning with “I have” or “I am”, so they are written as if you have already accomplished them. This tells the mind exactly what you want to do so it can start working on achieve those goals.

However if you were to write goals beginning with “I will” or “I want” then it is unlikely you will achieve those goals, as to the mind these statements will always be in the future and so will never come.

Set A Deadline

Once you have your goals written down, you must then create a deadline for you to do them by. Without a deadline you will not be motivated to achieve them, and so will most likely give up on them after awhile.

Make A Plan

After your goals have been written down you should then create a plan as to how you are going to do them. For example if your goal is to loose a certain amount of weight, then your plan would include activities you must do to loose that weight.

This can include things like exercising 4 days a week and eating healthy foods. But whatever you do, try to make your plan as specific as possible. Although don’t worry about getting it right the first time round. You can always add to it later on.

Overview

Well that’s really all there is to setting goals. It’s nothing complicated, but it does require some initial time to be set aside so you can decide what goals you want to go after, and then how you will achieve them. These are the main principles of goal setting, and if you can follow these simple steps you will be well on your way to achieving them!

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Vegetarian Diet – 7 Tips to Becoming Vegetarian

I am slowly but surely moving in on my desire to become vegetarian in 2008, and am taking the attitude that the evolution will not occur overnight. I read a great article on becoming vegetarian by Kathy Ferneau that helps walk one through the evolution step by step:

Why go vegetarian?

• Your health. Vegetarianism ranks as one the best ways to eat a healthy diet–as simple as eating more salads and another apple every day.
• Want to follow a trend? For instance, Hollywood stars jumping on the bandwagon.
• Fanatic devotion, near religious status. Deeply into the animal rights movement, some dedicated vegetarians won’t even eat in restaurants that serve animal products.

Getting started
A vegetarian diet produces benefits no matter how you approach it, so don’t worry about doing it wrong.

Your body will appreciate any fruit or vegetable you send down! Just take that all-important first step!

If you currently consume lots of high-fat, high-sugar junk food, it doesn’t make sense to debate the merits of vegetables versus meat.

The typical vegetarian diet meets or exceeds the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals, anyway.

Tips for success

1. Decide what version of vegetarianism suits you:
   • Vegan or total vegetarian – Includes only foods from plants: fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, seeds, and nuts.
   • Lactovegetarian – Adds cheese, milk, yogurt, and other dairy products.
   • Lacto-ovovegetarian – Also includes eggs.
   • Semi-vegetarians – No red meat, but includes chicken and fish.
2. Start all at once or gradually – totally your choice. Sick and tired of meat? Just dump it all together! Or, gradually eliminate meat products, starting first with red meat.Try switching your meat and vegetable portions. Make meat the side dish and feature vegetables as the main course. Asians typically eat this way, especially in stir fry dishes.
3. Watch total calories – limit sweets and fats. Don’t let your veggies swim in cream sauce or your fruits smother in sugary syrups.
4. Plan your menu. Either:
   • Simple–stick with basic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains. Three vegetable side dishes make a meal. Eat a large salad with shredded vegetables. Serve fresh fruit in a fancy dish for dessert. or
   • Complicated–experiment with exotic items such as tempeh, tofu, wheat gluten, or seitan.
5. Buy most of your groceries in the produce aisle. Visit the dairy aisle if you decide to consume cheese, milk, eggs, or yogurt.
6. Serve a colorful plate:
   • yellow corn
   • green spinach salad with red tomatoes
   • light brown whole grain bread
   • red cherries
   • orange oranges
7. Find out if your community hosts a farmer’s market.
   • Farmer’s markets create a fun shopping experience, almost carnival-like.
   • You’ll find the freshest produce available – probably just picked that day.
   • Feel good about supporting your local economy.

See, that wasn’t so hard! Start today–your body will thank you!

Looking for diet and weight loss tips? Kathy Ferneau has created an excellent resource for information on diets, healthy eating, and exercise. Click here: http://www.lose-weight-diets.com

Dream Job Or Daydreaming?

One’s 18th year of life signifies alot in our society. A person’s 18th year carries alot of weight with it. Too often, it seems, it carries the weight for an entire lifetime; a weight that can often turn into a burden which is difficult to bare.

Honestly, at the age of 18, with so many expectations, how many young adults are truely prepared to make liflong commitments, goals, and careers? It seems fairly clear that at 18, one still seems to be in late adolescence, and not nearly ready to make decisions that will last a lifetime.

Yet, how many of us at 18 did make decisions for ourselves which carry over into the effect we now feel throughout our daily life. Many of us did not have the opportunity to review, take a good look at, and act upon true aspirastions and instead, in a sense, therefore, our lives have been diluted in meaning, and we have likely made many sacrifices to maintain achievements we really don’t care about at all.

Alot of people a decade or two, three or even four later realize that the life created is not the life desired. This fact mirrors itself in the glum, blank staring faces one encounters on mass transit, in elevators etc. People going places they don’t really want to, and spending a large percentage of their lives sacrificing themselves to preserve and earn the money necessary to survive.

However, at this latter date, nearly everyone has found things they feel passionate about, or hobbies and interests that may  feel more fully express who one really is. Expansion of these passions, interests, and hobbies could lead one how far? I would speculate that few have put much thought to the subject.

Yet, it seems, the first step would be to set aside a little time every day simply to follow one’s interests in detail, and even begin to take a little public action pertaining to ones interests. Do you wich you had spent more time in school, or have totally different career interests which require education you don’t have?  The internet has multiple online universites and classes covering nearly every topic. You can train on the net for your career to place your dreams into action. Do you like to cook, sew, to write or do you have any one of the thousands of interests that you wish you could do more work with? Check with your local area’s regulations and then perhaps try  to slowly market your interests to friends and the community or put them on the market on Ebay. Enjoy writing? There are hundreds of ways to give meaning and a purpose to your writing. Browse through google pertaining to writing. Politics a passion? Work for and act for those candidates you feel akin to.

We don’t need to remain trapped in that which was imposed on us at the too early age of 18. We have any choices for the full and enriching life we deserve.

Peb

Parents And Role Reversal

As a child, did I have any notion that we were fortunate? I had no clue, which would not be so different than anyone else growing up under different circumstances. I believe one, particularly as a child, just accepts one’s surroundings without question.

 A mother and father, both dependable and loving. How easy it was to overlook that blessing and to even be rebellious during teen years. A sister, distant, yet always kind, thoughtful and never unwilling to listen.

They were unusual times in our country’s history when I was a child…the late 1960’s. The chaos and change that was chruning through  our society and culture were distant to us, only touching our lives through images on the television. Was that good, naive, or even avoidant? Who is to say at this juncture? We were happy, and not only that, we knew we were happy.

Our  life allowed us to travel, and as children, my sister and I had the opportunity to visit a large portion of this earth, being clueless as to the rareity of what we were experiencing.

A mother who saw homemaking as an art. It revealed itself thorough our lovely surroundings and meals that were put together and placed before us as if by a sculpter. She provided loving arms, a willing ear, and truely unconditional love pervaded everything.

A father who was an intellectual, who expressed himself eloquently and had an illustrious career.

I only know at this late juncture, the rareity of our good fortune. Years have passed and time has taken its inevitable toll. It is now my sister’s and my turn to reverse the role and assume “parenthood” to our ageing parents.

What we know will be the inevitable is gut wrenching yet there is nothing to be done as in the well known serenity prayer which takes on new meaning as we step into these roles: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can and to have the wisdom to know the difference”

We are enjoying this time of role reversal as, even though it is imposed and required to some degree, it gives us a chance to gather together as we haven’t for years, to count our blessings, and to remember that which was, and that which we can pass down to our own decendents in memory.

Peb

No Scrooges Here

Trees, lights and elves adorning the shopping malls in August? Ok, well perhaps that is a stretch. Yet, house by house, street by street, small changes are currently taking place. The excerpt from the old Christmas Carol “Making Spirits Light” applies.

There is a different “sense”, as strangers pass by one another. There is a sense of togetherness,  peace and brotherhood. Even people, who ordinarly look glum and unhappy have a little extra spring in their step.

Our world transformed for a shimmering moment of peace, brotherhood and goodwill worldwide, as colorful lights beam from home to home. The warm scent of cinnamin and ginger wafts from kitchens, as the smell of pine and the otherwoldly look of fragile ornaments alight the home with a new and magical manner.

Must this moment only appear for a fleeting moment before the lights darken, and the world returns to it’s “same old self”?

What about global transormation 24 hours a day 365 days per year? Could the magic of peace and worldwide brotherhood be sustained? Why must it flicker, then vanish as quickly as it arouse. What or whom would stop the magic from eternal continuance?

Not I!

Peb

Darkness Or Daybreak?

It was  still dark outside. A peacefully quiet time of day 4:45 a.m.  I awoke, slowly, in a natural and relaxed manner, rather than one of those startling awakenings from a bad dream or a sudden noise. The peace of the environment both internal and external was sublime. It was one of those moments when one stretches somewhat blissfully from under the covers, a bit like sensing the pleasure exuding from a cat when it performs a long stretch, head to toe, with eyes closed and a smile to it’s face.  A quiet moment in the stillness pervades my mind and all seems well during that fleeting moment.

Awakening, however, nearly instantly thoughts intrude of bills to pay, work to do, errands that must be run. I run through the items that I forgot to  do yesterday. The peaceful stillness is shattered by the necessities and obligations of the day and items left undone in the past. Bliss evolves rapidly into irritation and a sense of hopelessness. Another bleak and exhausting day seems to begin to loom before me.

Yet, what of that fleeting moment of utter contentedness that I experienced only moments prior. I angrily punish myself internally with deep self criticism for letting the moment slip away and alter the present into banality bordering on unhappiness.

Could it be possible to maintain that moment of bliss even given obligations both past and future? I shut my eyes so as to see within. Deep within I feel a flickering tentative spark like a pilot light attempting to ignite against the elements.

Could this day, even given its obsticales, be lived in happiness and hopefullness? A full day of gratitude despite the weight of the future moments or the burden of moments past? Could I try with simple resolve, a seemingley sensible answer to it all?

Living from moment to peaceful moment without overexamining the burdens of the future or the errors of the past. Accomplishing while remaining at peace. A day of bliss ending in resful sleep in lieu of a bleak day followed by restlessness and uncertainty.

I think I will try.

Peb

Hello world!

I am new to the world of blogging and look forward to taking a few minutes from each day in order to put to words the world from my experience.  My hope is to keep the arena involved in hope, faith, and positive thinking and I hope perhaps some others out there would  take something from or simply enjoy what comes from my mind to the computer screen.