I’ve been reflecting on this past year, and thinking about
the lessons I’ve learned throughout 2012. Some were easier to learn and others
were a little more difficult. Here are my life lessons, what did you learn this
year??
If You Surround
Yourself With Positive, Creative, Hard Working People, You Are Inspired To Be A
More Positive, Creative And Hard Working Person Yourself.
It feels like this year Adrian and I had the privilege to
meet more and more creative, hard working and positive people. I want to be
wildly successful (there, I said it “out loud!” Announcing what you want to the
cyber world at large is always interesting!), and from what I can observe, in
order to succeed you must surround yourself with like-minded people.
Until You Decide To
Get Healthy And Loose Weight, You’re Not Going To Loose Any Weight.
I was always one of those people who was naturally thin. As
a child, my paternal grandmother used to try and make me eat fat because she
felt I was too skinny! I never had any problems loosing weight if I wanted to
and it didn’t seem to matter what I ate, I stayed skinny. And then I turned 23
and went through some weird hormonal imbalance where the side affect was
horrible acne and weight gain. Like 40 pounds of weight gain. Not cool at all,
I kind of freaked out. According to my family, and I hate to admit it but they
were right, I resembled a refrigerator, which is never a good thing. And then I
discovered what everyone else had been bitching about all this time. It was
hard to loose weight. This September, I made a conscious decision to get back
to where I had been before I went through that weird imbalance (140lbs) and
made a beginning goal to run 1 mile at a time, 3 days a week. Then I upped it
to 2 and now my goal is 3 miles. I’m back to my “cowboy days” weight and I want
to loose some more….anyone have any good tips?? I saw the best card the other
day, it said summer bodies are made in the winter. I’m inspired to work my butt
off this winter to have the healthiest, strongest body I’ve ever had for summer
2013! And this makes me think that this approach and mindset can be transferred
to other areas of my life.
Practicing Every Day
Will Radically Change You In Many Different Ways.
I started practicing the piano again. My mums signed Adrian
and I up for classical piano lessons when we moved to Scotland (I was 8 and
Adrian was 4), and I played until I was about 15 years old. For some reason I
decided to stop in high school and when I was cowboying I of course did not
travel with a baby-grand, so no practicing then either. This summer I decided to start playing again
and when we were home, practice an hour a day. I felt so….OFF and rusty at
first!! My fingers felt stiff, I was incredibly nervous for even my mums to
hear me practice and I was frequently frustrated. But I kept with it and a
change happened. I didn’t just get a little bit better, I got a LOT better. And
it keeps building. I’ve also seen this with my writing. For the last several
months I’ve been posting almost every day. The discipline to sit down, write about
something that personally means something to me, edit it, get someone else to
edit it for me and then post it has really stretched me as a writer. Adrian and
I have a copy of Buckaroo Barbie that I was rereading the other day and I was
amazed at how far I’ve come AS a writer, just in the last 6 weeks. Practice
makes perfect, and good practice every day makes excellent. I want to be
excellent, don’t you?!?!
Standing Up For You
Is Liberating. Don’t Allow People Who Are Consistently Mean To You And Enjoy Bringing
You Down To Be A Part Of Your Life.
Without going into a lot of sordid detail, I kicked someone
out of my life this year that’s been a part of it for a while now. I let that
person get away with a lot of flack that I shouldn’t have. I always made
excuses for their behavior in the past and probably would have continued to,
except that they crossed a line when they moved on to my sister. You might have
noticed that I’m rather fond of that girl, and that’s what brought me up short
in my tracks. The feeling is amazing. I don’t want to bad mouth or be negative
to anyone, but I don’t worry or wonder what’s going to happen between us now.
The little jabs and constant undermining aren’t a part of my life anymore, and
you know what? It feels pretty darn good!! Don’t allow someone to be a part of
your life if they’ve consistently shown they aren’t there because they love
you. Don’t make a big deal out of it, just remove yourself from the situation
and move on. It feels good.
When You Find Your
Groove, Stick To It!
I cut out gluten from my diet this year and most of my Lyme
symptoms have “magically” disappeared! Thanks to my diet and exercise I am able
to travel with Adrian, handle business details and remain healthy and
functioning through a lot of stress!! I tried a piece of my mums apple cake
(see picture HERE) on Christmas day, and almost immediately I started feeling
bad. My hips and knee joints hurt, I felt “shaky” and I had to take a nap. It
wasn’t fun to feel sick again, but it was a good reinforcement to stick with
the diet and exercise I had been for my optimum health. No more gluten for me!
Learning To
Effectively Communicate With People Is The Best Business Skill You Can Learn.
I’m not talking about communicating your deepest needs and
feelings to people, but being able to effectively communicate, calmly and
succinctly, in times of stress. If you can remain calm and logical under attack
and respond in a manner that’s not going to inflame your opponent further, you
have a skill that will help you succeed in life. My dad is the best negotiator
I’ve ever met, and I use him as a model for how I want to be able to better
communicate with people in my life.
In Order To Be
Your Personal Best, Discover Your Baseline Essentials.
Every body has some basic essentials that they need in order
to function. Mine are: clean, organic food, exercise, water, coffee and pen and
paper. If I have these 5 basic essentials, I can survive and it brings about
optimum results in all aspects of my life. For a while I tried to get by
without my basic needs because I thought it was silly that I would require such
specific things, but I just don’t get along as well without them as I do with
them! And I want to be the best I can be in all aspects of my life, so if
having good food, exercise, water, coffee and a means to write helps me be that
excellent version of me, then I’m gonna make sure they’re in my life!! What are
your essentials?
When You Think You’re Going To Break, You Learn That You Can Still Bend.
Our family went through some hard times this year, and I
honestly got to a place where I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to handle
one more thing. You get to a certain point and you feel like the only possible
outcome is for your heart, soul and body to shatter from stress and pain. And
the shocking thing is, it doesn’t. I discovered that right when I thought I
couldn’t handle any more and the stress was too much, I didn’t break, I could
bend. When we are faced with no other options we draw on reserves we didn't know we had. Many times, we are stronger than we ever would have realized unless we went through the bad times. Which led me right into my last lesson…
From Discomfort Comes
Change.
When I’m really, really uncomfortable, that’s when I’m
changing. If I’m exercising and my body hurts or it feels impossible to breath,
that’s when fat is burning and my heart is getting stronger. When I’m
uncomfortable in a business or family situation because I don’t have the proper
tools or experiences, that discomfort eventually brings about change for the
better. You either sink or swim and for me, sinking is just not an option. I’m
learning to take my moments of being awkward, frightened, uncomfortable and embarrassed
and using them to my advantage. I’m learning to look at them as learning
experiences and allow them to show me where I’m lacking and where I can improve
in life; be it in my exercise, business or becoming a better communicater with
my family. Discomfort brings about change. And change is a good thing. We can’t
succeed or grow in life if we’re stagnant…and we want to grow!!!
I’m looking forward to going through my goals from 2012 and
seeing how I’ve grown and where I fell short. I’m going to
approach 2013 from the viewpoint that this is going to be my best year yet and
I’m going to work my butt off to make it that way. I hope you do the same and
don’t let the trials and the road bumps (for some of us they may be more like
mountains than road bumps), slow you down or discourage you. March or twirl or
dance or ride smartly into 2013 with the best attitude you’ve got and
experience under your belt from the lessons you learned in 2012…go out there
and show ‘em how it’s done! I believe in you!!
xo xo Liz
