A Simple Guide to Setting Goals and Sticking to Them

Goals are a very important part of improving yourself in healthy ways, as they allow you to have something to look forward to. With some goals in mind, you know which direction to go, instead of blindly looking for ways to be happier and more fulfilled in life. This simple guide lets you set your goals and stick to them.

Choose Your Goals Carefully

Sometimes, the difficulty with setting goals isn’t in following through, but choosing the wrong goals to begin with. These need to be attainable goals that will help you in your pursuit of happiness or fulfillment, but not so big that they would never be something you can achieve. If you tell yourself you will only be happy if you reach a certain weight, you might not ever achieve that weight, which makes you feel like a failure and causes you to stop trying. However, if you have a goal of becoming healthier, eating right, and exercising more, those are goals you can accomplish. They make you feel good about yourself, which in turn gives you motivation to continue.

Set a Specific Time Frame

This is a tricky one because you don’t want to rush and feel like you failed, but you still want to have something to look toward. When looking at your list of goals, choose some that would be better off with a specific time frame. While you can’t control some things, others do well with a time frame. For example, if you have a goal of organizing your office, you can start a to-do list of the different elements for that project, then set a time frame in which you want to complete each step of the list.

Focus on S.M.A.R.T.

A popular method for setting goals is to use the S.M.A.R.T. method. This is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive. It can help you when you are trying to figure out how best to set your goals in order to make them easier to achieve. You want to be specific with your goals, instead of being vague. You need to know what goals to achieve. They should be measurable, where you know when you achieve them. The goals need to be attainable and realistic as well, not completely out of reach. Finally, setting the time limit is important as previously mentioned.

Remain Accountable

A good way to stick to your goals is by becoming accountable. Don’t just keep them to yourself, but let others know about it. Tell your friends and family, post about it on social media, track your progress with a blog. These actions make you feel like you need to follow through because others are going to ask about it. It can be great motivation to continue working hard.

4 Ways to Relieve Stress Through Meditation

If you have been dealing with a lot of stress, and other remedies aren’t working to relieve it, it might be time to try meditation. This allows you to center yourself, clear your mind, and focus on nothing while letting your brain and body relax. Here are some tips for using meditation to relieve emotional stress.

Try a Simple Meditation Session

When you are using meditation as a way of relieving stress, it doesn’t need to be complicated or complex. If you are just starting out with meditation, simply give yourself a few minutes a day to yourself. Make sure it is completely quiet, or that you just have some light meditation music playing. Relax your body, close your eyes, and let your mind go blank as much as possible. Don’t think about the things causing you stress, but take these few minutes to find a silent peace.

Practice Your Breathing

Breathing exercises can also help you to find peace and relaxation while you are meditating. Instead of focusing on the thoughts causing you stress, you want to focus on your breathing. When working on your breathing, inhale through the nose, and out through the mouth. Feel every breath as you take in oxygen and it enters your body. When exhaling, focus on letting out all your negative energy to get it out of your head. You can lower your blood pressure with this simple task every day.

Use a Mantra

When you are meditating, it also helps to have some mantras memorized. These mantras will bring more focus to clearing your mind and easing stress, which helps when you have difficulty letting go of all that stress and anxiety. A popular mantra is simply “Om”, which is the sound of the universe. It represents birth, death, and re-birth. There is also an ancient mantra called “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” which means you want all beings to be happy and free. You can use these types of ancient mantras or create your own.

Focus on Parts of Your Body

Another easy method for learning to meditate is to focus on parts of your bod instead of your thoughts. For example, if you notice your mind wandering while meditating, start focusing on specific parts of the body and feeling sensations. You might focus on your heart and feel the steady heartbeat, feel the tingling in your feet, or the warmth in your hands.

Meditation takes practice, so don’t be discouraged if it is difficult in the beginning. Keep practicing, focus on your breathing, and find distractions.

Self Help 101: Start Exercising Today

When it comes to self-help, it is important that you move forward with your life and make positive changes that can impact you, but some of these have nothing to do with journaling or setting goals. Some changes need to be done to your physical self in order to have a more fulfilling life. Here are some things to know about exercising while improving yourself.

Exercise Reduces Stress

If you are having difficulty motivating yourself to get more exercise, think about the fact that it can reduce your stress. You might currently be a healthy weight and feel like exercise is only for losing weight. That is definitely not true! If you deal with emotional stress, which many people do, exercising can benefit you. You will release endorphins, which are your body’s natural happy chemicals. This allows you to find natural stress relief and live a happier life overall.

Exercise Relieves Anxiety

You can also get help for any level of anxiety with more physical activity. Whether you have regular, everyday anxiety, or debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, exercise can help. It fulfills the need to get away from your current situation, especially if you take up activities like walking or running. Even running on a treadmill can make you feel like you have more control over your actions, which then helps to reduce anxiety.

Exercise Improves Your Self-Esteem

You will also start feeling better about yourself when you begin exercising. This comes from losing weight, feeling fit and strong, and getting that rush of happy chemicals going through your brain and body. You may feel intimidated when you first start going to the gym with people who spend every day there, but before too long, you get used to the machines and feel confident in your movements. If you have decided to pick up jogging, soon you won’t be as tired and will feel more confident when you can jog for longer stretches of time without being winded.

Exercise Gets You Outside

When on a journey to personal development, you might have a goal of spending less time in the house while watching television or using your cell phone. Exercising takes away from these activities that aren’t productive, and gets you moving. Exercising outdoors is even more beneficial as you get oxygen, feel more in-tune with nature, and can get away from many of your life’s stresses. Even if you just spend 20 minutes a day waling outside, it can make a drastic difference in how you feel.

Tips For Staying On a Diet Through Self-Doubt

Remaining on a diet and weight loss journey is hard enough on its own, but when you start adding in self-doubt, it becomes almost impossible. However, if you have the right mindset, you can still accomplish your goals. These tips are going to help you get to where you need to be.

Stop Counting Pounds and Inches

This is perhaps one of the most important things you can do, but also one of the most difficult. You want to track your progress so you can see if your weight loss methods are working, but every time you step on a scale and it hasn’t moved, it completely ruins your day. This is why it is important to focus more on being healthy and making smart food choices than losing weight. Dieting is more of a healthy lifestyle, and if you lose weight in the process, great! But when that is your sole reason for changing your eating habits, it tends to create a lot of doubt and depression. Throw away the scale, stop measuring yourself, and just focus on eating better.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

Self-doubt also stems from what you see in other people and how it compares to your own life. No two bodies or situations are the same, so this is nothing but an unhealthy habit you need to break now. Just because someone else is losing weight faster, achieving their goals in a different way, or lives a life different from yours, doesn’t mean it is better or worse. Focus more on yourself and your own choices and less on what others are doing.

Reward Yourself For Small Changes

When you first start dieting or sticking to a healthy lifestyle, it will consist of making small changes. You might begin drinking more water, exercising more, adding fruits and vegetables to your diet, or switching to whole grains. These are all good, healthy choices that deserve rewards. Every time you commit to a change, such as opting for water instead of soda for a month, you should reward yourself! This makes you feel good about your accomplishments and gives you more motivation to continue.

Get Support as Needed

There is nothing wrong with seeking out emotional support during your journey, whether you need to attend a local overeaters anonymous group, want to see your doctor to discuss your progress, or feel like you need to see a counselor or therapist. Some people need to work on their mental or emotional state while sticking to a diet, and that can help you succeed.

Even if you feel feelings of doubt during your journey, don’t let it hold you back. Pick yourself back up and keep going.

Live Your Best Life With These Healthy Habits

So you want to improve your life and become the best version of yourself? If so, getting healthy is an important part of the process! Your physical and emotional wellbeing are at stake here and need to be tended to like a garden. That can be done with some of these healthy habits.

Start Getting Better Sleep

A really good habit to start having is getting better sleep. Even if it seems like you sleep restfully, you might discover that while you lay in bed for 9 hours a night, you sleep more like 4 or 5 hours. You can try a wrist band that tracks your activity, including how much sleep you get. Look to see how restless you are at night. If you find that you need better sleep, try keeping your cell phone and other devices in another room, don’t watch TV before bed, and start a nightly routine that your body can adjust to.

Set Small Goals

When you start improving your life, goals are a big part of achieving what you want. They can narrow your focus and give you something to work toward. However, if you set goals that are big and out of reach, it quickly leads to self-doubt, which then causes a downward spiral of self-sabotaging. Instead of doing that, try a healthy habit of setting small goals that are easier to reach. Reward yourself after meeting each goal, then begin setting bigger goals to work toward.

Get More Exercise

You may not want to hear it, but exercise is important when you want to live a better life. Exercise helps benefit you both mentally and physically. It helps you to lose or maintain your weight, lower blood pressure, and avoid more serious diseases. It can also help you mentally by reducing stress and anxiety, and giving you a sense of accomplishment when you meet your exercise goals. This is an easy health habit to implement, starting with just 20-30 minutes a day, a few days a week. Anything that gets your body moving will be beneficial, so find something you enjoy.

Start Eating Better

You also want to improve how you eat and what you eat. If you have a lot of processed foods, now is the time to stop! Processed foods can affect your physical and emotional state as well. Stick to fresh, whole foods, relying on lean protein that is organic and grass-fed, full-fat dairy products, and lots of fruits and vegetables. This combined with drinking more water and less soft drinks will make a big difference in how you feel.

5 Tips For Finding Your Focus

One thing many people struggle with on their path to self-discovery is finding the right focus. You might discover that you have a lot of distractions keeping you from your work, that your motivation is dwindling, or your physical self is affecting your mental capacity to learn and grow. With these tips, you will be on your way to finding proper focus to continue down this journey of self-improvement.

Remove Your Biggest Distractions

In order to become more focused, you need to identify the things that are taking away from your focus. Everyone has distractions that keep them from achieving what they want, but it is a matter of figuring out what yours are. You might find that you are most distracted when you have stress in your life. You might not be able to completely remove the stress, but you can work on simple stress relief remedies, such as meditation, exercise, aromatherapy, and reducing some of the stress triggers. Figure out what your distractions are, make a list, and figure out how to eliminate them.

Try Working in Different Environments

Another excellent way to become more focused is by working in different environments. Perhaps you are trying to work on other projects while at home, which can be difficult with family, pets, and housekeeping responsibilities. This creates a very distracted mind that is hard to focus. Instead of working at home, bring your journal, notebook, or computer to a local lake or beach, park, coffee shop, or library. These different environments provide a lot of benefits.

Focus on Physical Health

Your physical health is also very important to improving yourself and helping to find your focus. Make sure you are drinking plenty of water, eating healthy, and getting enough exercise. This allows you to get all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs for a healthy mind, and offers you endorphins from exercising regularly.

Master the To-Do List

To-do lists are important in nearly every facet of your life, including when you are having difficulty focusing. Self-improvement is not simply about reading self-help books, though that it is a great place to start. You also need to set goals for each area of your life you want to improve, which requires setting goals and making a to-do list. The list should include actionable steps you can take to improve the aspects of your life you are not currently happy with.

Reward Yourself For Getting Things Done

Every small thing you accomplish should be rewarded, as it brings you one step closer to fulfillment in your life. Don’t let even the small things go unnoticed and start rewarding yourself for these steps you have taken.

How to Eliminate Your Bad Habits For Good

While everyone has bad habits, not everyone knows how to
recognize them or how to put a stop to them. During the self-
improvement process, it is vital that you find your bad habits
and work to end them before they keep you from having the life
you know you can have.

Make a List of Your Bad Habits

To start the process of eliminating your bad habits, you need to
know what they are. You might know about the big ones, such as
smoking or biting your nails, but there might also be some
smaller habits you haven’t considered. Get out your journal and
make a list of all habits, big and small, you can think of. As
you do this, try to envision your day from beginning to end and
what you do during the day. This can also help other bad habits
come to light. For example, you might press the Snooze button 5
times every morning before you wake up. This might be a small
habit, but it affects the rest of your day, from being late to
work, to increasing your stress levels.

Switch Bad Habits For Good Ones

Now that you have a good list started with your bad habits, you
can start getting rid of them. An easy way to do this is by
replacing the bad habits with good habits. For example, many
people who are trying to quit smoking keep carrot sticks in
their purse to munch on every time they want a cigarette. While
quitting smoking isn’t always so easy, it is a good example of
how to switch out the bad for the good. Here are some more
ideas:

Get a manicure regularly – This is great for the health of your
nails and can help reduce how often you bite them.
Keep your alarm away from your bed – Instead of having the alarm
within arms’ reach, move it across the room. When you physically
get up to turn it off, you don’t have a habit of hitting the
snooze button.
Don’t bring your phone in your room – When you are getting ready
for bed, keep your cell phone and other devices plugged in, but
in another room. This prevents you from losing sleep due to
checking your phone or watching videos at night when you should
be sleeping.

Try to Eliminate One Habit at a Time

It can become overwhelming when you are trying to stop all of
your bad habits at one time. If you have some bigger bad habits,
such as drinking a little too much or smoking cigarettes, stop
just one habit at a time. Start with the smaller habits, such as
always running late. Begin setting your alarm a little earlier
and creating a reasonable morning schedule to get you out of the
door on time. Once that becomes routine, you can move on to the
next one.

In addition to these tips for ending your bad habits, don’t
forget to reward yourself. This can be excellent motivation to
continue on a path to a better future.

The Mental and Physical Benefits of Weight Loss

You likely already know the benefits many people think of when
they consider losing weight, such as being able to buy your
favorite clothes and being more confident in how you look.
However, there are also a number of other physical and mental
benefits tied into losing weight. Here are some things you can
accomplish just by managing your weight.

Mental Benefits

Exercise is often known for the physical benefits, but it helps
to first understand how it can help you on a mental and
emotional level. If you are dealing with a lot of stress and
anxiety, you should know that exercise is one of the best
natural ways to remedy those emotions. When you get in a lot of
exercise, you release happy chemicals, such as endorphins. This
can give you an immediate boost in your attitude and mood, which
really helps you when you are working on self-improvement and
personal development. It also doesn’t take a lot; just 30
minutes of moderate exercise releases those happy feelings!

Exercising more often can also help to give your brain power a
little boost. There are proteins in the body that help to
improve your brain function, which get a nice boost of energy
when you start sticking to a regular fitness regimen. Some other
brain-related benefits of working out include better memory,
higher brain function, and increased critical thinking. It can
also help with creative thinking, which helps you get all those
projects done.

Physical Benefits

Naturally, there are many physical benefits to exercising as
well. Aside from being able to get in shape and lose weight,
exercising can also improve your energy and increase your
metabolism. When you start working out regularly, it might be
hard at first, but then you become addicted to the mood and
energy boost you get. Some other physical benefits of exercise
include:

* Breathing easier
* Finding it easier to move around
* Not having as many aches and pains
* Reducing the risk of disease
* Getting better sleep
* Being able to relax more easily
* Stronger immune system

There are an endless amount of reasons to start losing weight.
Instead of focusing on the inches or pounds, focus more on
healthy changes, and you will soon be losing weight at a
reasonable rate without too much added stress.

4 Healthy Ways to Improve Your Life

When you start working on self-improvement and really wanting to
live a better, happier life, health should be a top priority. So
it makes sense that healthy changes will be at the top of your
list. These healthy changes will make a drastic improvement in
nearly every facet of your life.

Become More Active

An excellent way to improve your life is with more exercise and
regular activity. It is time to get up from the couch, stop
playing video games, and get some fresh air! Any type of
physical activity can benefit you, whether you have a treadmill
or elliptical in your home, like to workout at the gym, or want
to take your dogs for a walk. Walking with your family in the
evenings after dinner helps to get everyone moving, burns
calories, and provides you with a fun and healthy family
activity. Everyone’s moods and energy are improved with just a
little bit of exercise each day.

Drink More Water

Hydrating your body is more important than you might think! Not
only is water great when you are trying to lose weight since it
helps to curb your appetite, but it is important for overall
health. Water helps to keep you hydrated, which improves the
health of your hair, skin, and nails. It can keep you from
certain illnesses related to dehydration, and even provides you
with a sharper mind and better motor skills.

Focus On Your Mental Health

Your mental health is also very important to living a happier
and more fulfilling life. Don’t underestimate how much your
anxiety, stress, depression, and other mental issues are
affecting you. You might have severe social anxiety that keeps
you from truly achieving your goals, or you may have depression
that reduces your energy and motivation and makes it hard to
work on what you hope to achieve. It is important that you take
good care of yourself, including your mental health.

Make More Time For Yourself

Finally, make sure you have plenty of time to yourself. While it
is great to have a lot of family and friends, to work a lot, and
keep up with responsibilities, this should not take up 100
percent of your time. Even those that work the hardest still
need time to themselves. Think of some solo activities that
bring you happiness and peace, and schedule them in so you don’t
miss out on “Me” time.

If you need to, keep reminders in your calendar or on your
refrigerator that it is time to do something for YOU.

Reduce Your Anxiety With These Healthy Habits

Everybody deals with some sort of anxiety, whether it is general, everyday anxiety, or you have a condition like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The problem with anxiety is that it can cripple you, sap your motivation, and make it very difficult to work on improving your life. Here are some tips for getting a better handle on your anxiety.

Put a Stop to Caffeine and Alcohol

If you are struggling with anxiety, the first thing you should do is stop bad habits that tend to trigger it. This can be helpful for anyone, but especially people with anxiety disorder or panic attack disorders. You probably know that there is caffeine in your coffee (even a small amount in decaf) and soft drinks, but did you know many teas also have caffeine? There are also even more surprising sources of caffeine, such as in chocolate, ice cream, and even weight loss pills. Caffeine is a major contributor to anxiety and panic attacks, so try to reduce your caffeine consumption now.

Alcohol can also be a very bad habit. You might use alcohol as a way of dealing with your anxiety and stressful life, but while it covers it up temporarily, it is hurting more than helping in the long-term. Since alcohol is a depressant, once you are sober, it makes you feel worse. This starts a really dangerous downward spiral.

Start Fueling Your Body With Healthy Foods

Now that you have eliminated the caffeine and alcohol, it is time to re-think the foods you eat. You want to be as healthy as possible if you are going to battle anxiety the natural way. Once your anxiety is taken care of, you will be ready to improve your life in other ways. Start by replacing bad foods with good ones. Get rid of all the cookies, chips, and processed foods in your refrigerator and pantry. Replace it with whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean protein.

Encourage Endorphins With Regular Exercise

With nearly every issue you have in your life, you will notice that exercise is often recommended. There is a reason for this! Not only does exercise help with metabolism, energy, and weight loss, but the endorphins you get can help improve your mood. These endorphins also help to reduce your overall stress and anxiety. If you are feeling anxious or feel a panic attack coming on, re-focus your mind and body by going for a walk. The fresh air and body movement can really help you.

Reduce Anxiety and Stress Triggers

There are certain triggers that can increase your anxiety and panic attacks. You need to know what they are, then try to avoid them. Many of these are personal, so it helps to log your anxiety and panic attacks in a journal, then look back on it after a week or two to see where the similarities are. You might have increased anxiety when you are driving, have social anxiety, or deal with panic attacks when you are participating in a certain activity.

By choosing healthy ways of getting rid of your anxiety, you are improving your mental and physical health, while also working on practical self-improvement methods.