Small Changes Big Results part I

I wanted to share an article I've been reading in my body & soul magazine. I felt very uplifted and encouraged when reading it. So, I will be sharing a different part of the article every day until it's complete. Along with some fun images I find. Enjoy.


What if you could master your goals, even the most ambitious ones, rather than just pine for them? you can. We consulted experts in the art of self -actualization to help us map out simple ways to get you further down the road toward your dreams. From cooking more often to saving money, from wasting less energy to reading more books, here's the breakdown on how to get clear, quantifiable results. Make this year the year you stopped dreaming- and started doing.

CHANGE YOUR STORY

Chances are good that for every goal you've got, you also have several reasons you don't think it could happen. ("How could I go back to school? We have only one car." "How could I learn the piano? I have no space for one in my apartment.") Problem is, when you trot out the same old reasons again and again, they slowly acquire the weight of truth- and you actually start to believe them. "We all have a library in our head of familiar stories," says Ariane de Bonvoisin, speaker and author of The First 30 days. "I had a story about why I couldn't lose weight, about why I hadn't yet found the relationship I was looking for. But none of those stories were really ture; they were just excuses."The best way to ditch those excuses? Don't think about why you can't do something. Focus on the fact that you will- even if you haven't quite figured out all the details. "Sometimes reaching your goals comes down to having the courage to make a different choice first thing in the morning," says de Bonvoisin. So make the choice, right now, to say "yes." Every time you lapse back into excuse mode, reaffirm that yes by taking some small action-any step-toward your goal.
An example: Eva Cummings hadn't taken yoga in ages, and she missed it-but she'd stockpiled excuses for why she hadn't taken a class (chief among them: a demanding full-time job and two small children). One day, while having lucnh, she noticed a new yoga studio across the street. She picked up schedule and found an hour-long session on Tuesdays. rather than allow her many reasons to run roughshod ove rher ("But won't I be all sweaty inthe office afterward?"), she showed up. And she's been there every week since. Success came with the decision to act instead of think. "If I'd left it to my brain to 'figure out' if it would work," she says, "I would have never have gone."