Posts Tagged ‘goals’

giveaway : online class

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Sounds simple, right? As we all know, setting goals is the easy part. Achieving them? Not always so easy. That’s why I’m happy to share with you this online workshop – How to Achieve Your Goals and Create a Life You Love!

If you are here on my blog, then it’s likely that you share my passion for cultivating a good life, and so do my friends at simplify 101! That’s why I am so excited about today’s giveaway. One of my blog readers will win a spot in this online workshop, taught by professional organizer Aby Garvey, co-author of The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker. She gives you the foundation, ideas and inspiration you need to dream about a life you love and take steps to make it happen!

In this four-lesson, five-week workshop, you will:


- Learn how to dream. As crazy as this may sound, many of us have forgotten how to dream! Faced with the realities of the “real world” dreaming about what we truly want is becoming a lost art. In this workshop you’ll learn how to free yourself from anything that’s holding you back from allowing yourself to dream, which is the first step in creating a life you love.

- Learn how to turn your dreams into goals. Find out how to create an effective goal statement for all the key areas of your life. Plus, learn how to make your goal statements super compelling so you can’t help but take action on them!

- Learn how to make it happen! Find out how to turn your goals into simple action steps and begin taking action on your goals during the workshop. With the support and encouragement of your instructor and the workshop’s online community, you’ll be well on your way to creating a life you love before the workshop ends.

- Learn how to track your progress and celebrate your achievements. Monitoring your progress and celebrating your victories are keys to making goal-setting and accomplishment of those goals a habitual part of your life.

- Learn on your time schedule in a format that works for you. Class materials are presented online, via a printable PDF document, and via audio files you can listen to on your computer or MP3 player. Select the method (or methods) that work best for you!

- Get the support you need to succeed! Up through the workshop end date, you’ll have direct access to me via the private workshop forum. Plus, you’ll get inspiration and support from your classmates via the private online community and photo gallery for up to one year!

- Stay connected! NEW in this session of How to Achieve Your Goals and Create a Life You Love, you will have ongoing, exclusive access to the simplify 101 online community.

- Have fun! This workshop includes bonus, creative organizing project downloads, with colorful, step-by-step instructions. These optional projects give you hands-on projects that make it even more fun to take action on the workshop concepts and make them part of your daily life.

Aby only runs this workshop once a year and the 2012 session begins tomorrow – Thursday January 5, and one of my lucky readers gets a free spot! Plus, simplify 101 is offering my readers 15% off enrollment in any of their open workshops! To take advantage of this offer, enter BH15 during checkout. This coupon is good through January 6, 2012 and may not be combined with any other offers.

Simply leave a comment on this post telling me your first name, city, state or country, and one of your goals for 2012. I’ll announce the winner (adding the winner’s name to this actual blog post) by Thursday morning.

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***Added Thursday morning: We have a randomly chosen winner! Congratulations to Tanath in Karoonda, South Australia who said that one of her goals in 2012 is to “be present with my 4 children”. I love that. All the best to you as you prioritize what’s most important. Karoonda, email jay@simplify101.com and they’ll get you all set up in the online class. Enjoy!

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Posted in organization | 400 Comments »

Yes, I’m blogging about Justin Bieber.

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Porter and I had an opportunity to have a little one-on-one date over the weekend. When looking at our movie options, it was down to 2 choices:  Gnomeo & Juliet (neither one of us was really interested) or Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.

Justin who?

Okay, I’m kidding. I mean, I’ve heard of Justin Bieber. But that’s about it. A) There are no pre-teens in our home and B) I am so not up on current music lately. I hardly listen to the radio or watch tv in this phase of my life. It is what it is.

So … we saw Justin Bieber.

And guess what? Within the first two minutes, I was pretty happy about those 3D glasses on my face because my eyes welled up with tears. I kid you not. And that was the first of several times that my emotions got the best of me.

What the heck? What is this about, right? (No. I’m not pregnant.)

It wasn’t about Justin’s music, although no one can deny the 16-year-old is crazy talented. It wasn’t about about how cute he is, although for sure he is adorable. And this is certainly not about movie reviews because I am so not a movie critic.

I’ll tell you what it was about for me. This kid is in the middle of an incredible journey of ups & downs like the rest of us (just on a much more public level) … and the way they connected his past with where he is today, was remarkable. His mother & grandparents not only dedicated their best efforts in raising him but they recognized his natural talents and interests and they cultivated that growth.

It was about appreciating the fact that they had home video along the way, even back to when he was 2 and 3 years old, hitting wooden spoons to a kitchen chair and there was actual rhythm. They were documenting life. They were able to tell a great story in this movie because they put all those little pieces (pictures + home video) together.

It was about generosity. The way his manager & team went out amongst the people and passed out concert tickets to unsuspecting fans. The way he connected with his little girl fans. (Although if Claire ever acts like these screeching, squealing girls … over ANY pop star … EVER … oh, we will be having a serious talk.)

It was about entrepreneurship. It was about believing in yourself and knowing that anyone — ANYone — can take that little seed of a dream and foster growth if you put forth the effort and are willing to face bumps in the road.

In the end, I think my connection with this movie was my already-firm belief that everyone should cultivate a good life and record it. That does not have to have anything to do with becoming “rich & famous”. It’s about each of us taking what we believe is a good life — it’s different for everyone — and going for it.

And … along the way, make the effort to document and record the journey. The good, the bad, the ugly. Because when we do this, we are honoring our past, our progression, and our passion.

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I created Project Life because I wanted to simplify the process of keeping memories so that more and more people will enjoy the satisfaction of doing something with their pictures and documenting their stories. I deeply care about helping people bring all their “pieces” together to tell their story.

So this week, thanks to the added inspiration I found in a teen-bopper movie on a date with my 8-year-old … I am giving away a Project Life kit every day this week! In the comments, please share what “cultivating a good life” means to you personally, in a sentence or two. Or share one of your dreams or passions or something you’re working toward right now. Or nominate a friend. And mention where you live.

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Posted in giving | 1,325 Comments »

lessons from a bike ride.

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Background: I have recently embarked on a little quest to somehow do some sort of exercise almost every day. Could be a class. Could be a bike ride. Could be the elliptical machine in my bedroom or even a walk. Whatever. Just do something. And yet, it seems that I am faced with roadblock after roadblock every time I try. But I am making progress.

This morning: I am challenged to even get out the door this morning let alone squeeze in a workout. For several reasons. But I am doing this. No matter what. It’s the only time today that will work and nothing is getting in my way.

So I go. We go. Me on the bike, pulling the trailer with 2 of my kidlets snuggled & strapped in. So I don’t even know how much weight that adds, but let’s just pretend it’s 500 pounds so I can feel better about myself.

We go. We chat and ride and I petal. The route is almost entirely uphill to our destination (Claire’s preschool). It’s slight but ever-so-challenging for this out-of-shape body of mine. And by the way, Crew took Claire’s lunchbox and threw it out of the trailer at one point. Let me remind you that I was on this slight hill. My thighs were already getting numb from the workout and I had to stop, get off, get the lunchbox, get back on and start pedaling … on. the. hill. Not really a hill, but an incline. Doesn’t matter. Can you feel the burn?

Okay, so all is well and I’m working hard and asking Claire to cheer me on with her little “Go, Mama, go!” chants that I taught her.

And then.

I turned that corner to the hill. The hill. This is the one I didn’t make it up last time. Just too hard. Last time I had to walk my bike up most of the hill, but I was okay with that. I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things and my body has forgotten how to feel athletic. So no big deal. But that was a few days ago.

Back to this morning. I start up the hill, knowing that I wouldn’t make it up the hill. I was okay with that. Again. I had already decided it was okay and I would do the best I could do. But then something inside of me just snapped. Why was I settling for that? Why couldn’t I make it to the top?

I’ll tell you why: Because I had already decided that I wasn’t going to make it.

So that “snap” I’m referring to? It suddenly dawned on me to visualize the result. I needed to visualize biking to the top of this hill, completely and totally focused on nothing other than getting to the top. And so I did. It was so. very. hard. But I kept that image of me biking all the way to the top in my mind. And I required Claire to keep up with her chants. And … AND …

I made it. I made it!

This may come off as a little melodramatic for a little hill-defeating situation. But for me, this was big. This experience reminded me of a principle that has worked time and time again. Begin with the end in mind. (Thank you, Stephen R. Covey.)

So if you find yourself a little unsure about a goal you’re working on, do yourself a favor. Picture yourself having already accomplished the goal. See yourself at the top of the hill. You’re a whole lot more likely to reach that point if you can see it.

Speaking of goals, these are two of my amazing friends, Bri & Tina, who just climbed “The Incline” (Manitou Springs, Colorado) together. It is a strenuous, mile-long trail of railroad tie stairs, straight up.

A few more bike rides like today and I’m ready to join them.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »