I finished reading the Miracle Morning and am finishing reading a book I started some time ago called “The Rules of Life”. The book is really about common sense things that we already know but has articulated them into a framework that solidifies what we know intuitively into something we can see and remind ourselves of. The quote in the image (Rule 14) is one where I have room to grow. I mentioned in a previously post how I envy those who are ‘posh’ and ‘put together’ in a fashion sense with the right clothes, the right hair cut, not having mangled fingernails like mine, and the confidence to go with it.

Of course that shouldn’t matter as much as the character of the person in those clothes but being realistic people do make judgments based on the first impression you make and how you look is one of those aspects. How strongly this first impression matters depends on the situation you are in. For example one of my jobs is working in government where those things matter more and my other job is working in a chocolate factory where it doesn’t matter as much.

The lesson I need to learn better is that instead of being envious of others I should be looking to them as motivational tools. I absolutely can be as ‘presentable’ as others, I just need to write down the steps it will take me to get there and make them into goals. I can pick one or even a few people that I specifically feel present themselves well and let that motivate me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not some green eyed monster. I don’t let envy consume me, it is simply something I experience once in a blue moon as the expression goes.

I look forward to delving further into this book and reading those bits of common knowledge that sometimes I need to remind myself of.

Until next time… Envy is a slippery slope that can lead to resentment and resentment just puts barriers up that keep you from seeing the opportunities for growth that may lie ahead.

~ Crimson

 “Where you are is the result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be.” ~ Hal Elrod

I like to read this quote a lot as a reminder to myself that I have choices and that utilizing that gift of choice is vital to my growth as a person, mother, wife, daughter, friend, colleague, even as a brief acquaintance. The acquaintance one or even as a stranger may seem trivial but in some instances it is critical. You just never know where that person is in their life and the potential impact you can have. I believe it is important that we don’t reserve the best of ourselves only for the people we know and love, we should be our best selves for everyone we encounter.

I finished rereading the Miracle Morning today and plan to go through it a third time (albeit quicker) with a highlighter to highlight the points that resonate with me or that I need to remind myself of. One of which is the above quote.

It is day ten of my new routine and I have to say after driving H to work this morning (at 4:15am!) I was sorely tempted to go back to bed and snuggle with my nice warm blankets but I didn’t and I am proud of myself for that. My short term goal is to complete 30 days and then I will set my next goal.

In addition to Miracle Morning I am taking Gretchen Ruben’s 4 Tendencies course and her Happiness Project Experience course. I chose the option of being assigned to a small accountability group which as an ‘Obliger’ (find out which tendency you are) is ideal for me. Obligers are more likely to accomplish goals where there is an outside expectation rather than internal. It’s been only a few days so I won’t go into detail yet except to say I am happy with myself that I chose to invest in myself. I may have mentioned in a previous post I was all about jumping on a personal growth opportunity when it presented itself to me but now I am actively seeking out those opportunities and putting more value on myself, my growth, and my happiness to spend some actual money on it.

I will keep you posted on how things go and the things I learn from these two courses.

Until next time… you have yourself for the rest of your life, so you can choose to be your own liability or your own asset, personally I choose to be an asset.

~ Crimson

 I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~ Carl Jung

“Most people suffer from the self limiting dysfunction “rear-view mirror syndrome” driving through life with their subconscious mind constantly looking in their own self-limiting rear-view mirror. They filter every choice they make through the limitations of their past experiences. Always remember that your potential is TRULY unlimited, and that you are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of achieving everything you want as any other person on earth.” ~ Hal Elrod

I wanted to start today’s post with a couple of quotes that have a very deep meaning and impact for me. I am one amongst the millions, possibly billions, that have had a traumatic past and at one point I was mired in the memories and defeating self-talk that because of what happened in my past I would never truly overcome it and ‘it’ would control my future.

Eventually (with lots of help, counselling, and research) I found my way out of the conscious self-talk and despair but it was always there in the back of my mind, even when I was my most positive self. The insight in those two quotes and others like it helped me realize what I was doing and that I didn’t have to. I could make a life that was free from the restraints and limitations of the past. It was in fact a choice I was making each and every day. I realized and even more important ‘accepted’ that since I couldn’t change the past I shouldn’t let it change me now. It kind of falls in line with one of my personal philosophies which is when my feet touch the floor in the morning I choose my mood, I don’t wait and let others or circumstances choose my mood for me. When it comes to the past I won’t let it choose who I am today or who I will be tomorrow. I choose. I choose every day.

When I fully embraced and believed in that, the sense of freedom was so overwhelming. I was no longer chained to a concrete block struggling to move forward each day. I have to admit that even though I was saying it, it did take me time to truly believe in it, but it did happen. This is not to say I have zero struggles in the present but I have learned that once I overcome one I don’t have to let it become a part of my identity.

If you have a similar background or even if you don’t I hope you too make a choice.

Until next time… I am who I choose to be.

~ Crimson

I posted on my Instagram that my next post was going to be about finding your mission in life, well that was about six or seven posts ago. Here I am though going to share something that had helped me in so many ways, I wouldn’t even hesitate to say it has changed my life. The tool I stumbled across while trying to find a day planner for OneNote is the free Time Planner Template by Dean Gardiner. This tool isn’t simply a day planner, it is a life planner. It helps you figure out what your personal values and core beliefs are and from there to develop a mission statement for your life. When you have that mission statement you can plan your goals accordingly to support that mission. It helps you to say no to the things that don’t align with your purpose and to find the time for the things that do. It brings so much clarity and purpose that it is remarkable. It also has areas for formulating your goals that will support your mission.

He hasn’t updated the site since 2009 but don’t think that it is outdated, you can still download the template and it comes with in depth instructions on how to complete each section and how they relate to each other. Read on for the core values and mission statement I created. There are more sections such as questions to ask yourself daily to make sure you are on track, your daily state of being which are kind of like affirmations, and much more.

Crimson’s Core Values:

1. Happiness
2. Kindness
3. Community
4. Optimism
5. Evolvement
6. Wisdom
7. Creativity
8. Adventure

Crimson’s Mission Statement:

“My mission is to be happy by following my pillars of happiness which are love, kindness, gratitude, community, and evolvement. By practicing these pillars my mission is also to make others happy by sharing love, being kind and grateful and helping to build a sense of community in all that I do that affects others. I will strive to add positivity to the world on whatever scale opportunity provides. I will endeavor to change challenges into opportunities.”

I have found that when you know what your mission is, it becomes easier to focus on what is important and what eats away at your time that you can say no to. I could go on and on but that would make this blog post unbearably long. I simply encourage you to try it out for yourself.

Until next time…missions, visions, and values aren’t just for corporations they are for individuals too.

~ Crimson

Bound(less) – funny how four little letters can completely change the meaning of something.

I have been doing very well with my Miracle Morning routine until yesterday. I have a condition which one of the symptoms is chronic pain. Usually it only last five to ten minutes and I can get through without anyone else even noticing and then there are days like Wednesday where I had to leave work early (in a wheelchair no less) because it overcomes me or it is in a location in my body that impairs me from working. It’s easy to get lost in the depression that follows or feel tied down because I unreasonably see it as a weakness and that I am failing others by not being able to push through and complete my work. I felt even worse that I didn’t do my routine yesterday as I recovered.

This morning as I was reading there was a paragraph that really caught my attention. It described how oftentimes we focus on the points in the day where we find ourselves lacking rather then cheering ourselves for what we accomplished. We see those moments as gaps to our progress. So I have mentally reviewed that day to see the things that I did well and the areas where I had a positive impact in my workplace and I feel much better about it. I may not be able to control the pain I am going through but I can control how I feel about it afterwards and how I see myself. I must be my own best cheerleader (although I have other cheerleaders in my life who are invaluable) and cheer myself that I made it through with a shorter recovery time. I think that shorter recovery time is in part due to the affirmations I make to myself and the mindset I have chosen when it comes to challenges.

It is not always an easy lesson to keep in mind at the time but it is a vital one to remind myself of regularly.

Until next time… focus on the positive, cheer yourself on and you will turn those gaps into stepping stones.

~ Crimson

The little train that could had some pretty powerful insight ahead of its time.

As I was doing my morning exercise of taking my dog out for a walk I couldn’t get the quote in the image out of my head. Just like a song that gets stuck in your head it was playing over and over again in my mind. It’s an idea I have been pondering for a couple of weeks and trying to determine whether I feel there is truth to it and I have concluded that yes indeed there is, for me at least anyway. I have been practicing visualization in the morning and seeing myself at the end of the day having accomplished the goals I set out for myself and meeting the expectations of both others and myself. I see me with a cup of tea in hand and a smile on my face at how productive and accomplished I feel. I feel bold and organized in this vision and since ‘Organize’ is my work for the year it really aligns with my objectives.

So did it work? Did I have my cup of tea in hand and feel all those feelings at the end of the day? Yes and no. I did indeed feel bold and organized, productive and accomplished but I didn’t always have my sweet reward of a cup of tea…lol. Something I also learned is that you can visualize how you will be at the end of the work day, the end of the week, or even five years from now but you have to contemplate and go over what you need to do in order to get there. It’s setting out a big goal and breaking it down into smaller steps.

This year my visualization is an organized house, an active podcast, an active blog, and increased happiness. The smaller steps involve the daily tasks of organizing my day that support the bigger picture. An example of one of the tasks I set for myself daily is getting rid of five things from my house and if something new comes in then an additional item must go. I wouldn’t say I am a hoarder on a large scale but I do have a lot of ‘stuff’. I am a big ‘but I might need it or I have an idea on how I can use this in one of my craft projects later’ kind of thinker which is a significant part of the problem. One thing I sometimes mention is how tiny my house is (about 950 square feet) and I have to remind myself that if I got rid of the ‘stuff’ it wouldn’t feel so tiny.

So if you’re reading this and visualization isn’t a part of your daily routine I encourage you to try even if you simply see how you will feel and be at the end of the day after achieving what you have set out to do.

Until next time…I know I can, I know I can, I know I can

~ Crimson

“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
~ Chaim Potok, The Chosen

This quote truly reflects what I am trying to accomplish with my ten minutes of silence each morning and I have to admit it is the hardest part of my new routine. Quieting my mind and being fully present in the moment is something I struggle with. My mind races all the time with my internal dialogue and is also one of the reasons I have such a hard time falling asleep at night.

This morning I tried a new tactic by staring at a candle and watching the little flame dance around and where the tip of the wick glowed a dull reddish orange. I think it helped a bit and will simply take more practice but at the moment I can go about fifteen seconds before a random thought enters my head, typically something I want to work on, reminding myself of something I have to do that day, or just a string of random thoughts like a stream of consciousness. Afterwards I reread the chapter on Silence in Miracle Morning and one of the final thoughts the author has on the subject is that “There’s no single right way to spend time in Silence.” and he also suggests that the Silence could be mentally focusing on a short phrase while breathing in and out such as “I breathe in peace…” followed by “I breathe out love…”. I think this will be the next option I try.

Ultimately I think this activity of silence will help me be my most authentic self with myself and then I can be my most authentic self with others. As they say it will take practice, practice, practice.

Until next time…in silence we find our truest selves and we need to ask ourselves am I happy who with that person is.

~ Crimson

Over the last few days I have been working on my morning routine; the activities and thought processes that will be the template for my day. As I mentioned in a previous post I am first incorporating the lessons I have learned from reading The Miracle Morning but will be including more from other resources as soon as I am confident I have what I am currently doing down pat and not trying to recall in between each step ‘what was next or what was I just doing?’

I know so many people whose minds run a mile a minute all day long and mine is no exception so I am always thinking of three or four things at once but now my goal is to focus on one specific task before moving on to the next. By giving my full attention to each task or step and immersing myself into it wholly I feel I do it better and it has more impact and meaning for my morning routine as well as the rest of my day. How we start our day is typically the template for how the rest of our day will unfold.

So, how did I do this morning? I woke up at 3:45 am since H gets up then to get ready for work and instead of changing the alarm to what I used to call ‘a more reasonable hour’ I got up. I did a short meditation which is an area where I really need to skill myself up because as I inferred above, quieting my mind is an area I struggle with. Granted it is a challenge when you have a tiny house and every noise H makes getting ready sounds like it is right beside me. I have a plan for that though.

Anyway, after that I did my morning affirmations to set out what my day is going to look like and today’s were, “I am going to be happy, energized, and productive; I will be not procrastinate; I will achieve the goals I set for myself today; and I will be open to learning and growing”. After affirmations comes visualization where I mentally see myself how I look and feel after I have completed my goals and at the end of the day. I am going to create a sort of vision board to help me with this one. The fourth step is exercise but that one I am going to do last as I walk to work this morning (2km which takes about 25 minutes). The last two are reading and scribing (writing). I reread two chapters from Miracle Morning and here I am scribing right now. There are other complimentary things which I will include in a future post but these are the bigger things at the moment.

I have a few post ideas my brain is working out, one is about something John Travolta said which I will paraphrase; cynicism is meaningless and has no value.

Until next time…cynicism is meaningless and has no value.

~ Crimson

“I wonder why I don’t go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip an hour more of sleep and live.”
– Sylvia Plath

My favourite part of that quote is the ‘skip an hour of sleep and live’ as it fits in so well with my new morning routine which I would like to share a little bit more about as it pertains to sleep. My mindset until now has always been ‘I am simply not a morning person’ and leave it at that. I never thought to ask myself, ‘Okay, so how do I become a morning person then?’. I can’t say that what I have been doing is THE answer for me or anyone else for that matter but it is working so far. As suggested in the book ‘Miracle Morning’ I tell myself at bed time how I am going to wake up and how I am going to feel and not just in my thoughts. No, I tell myself out loud and repeat it with more and more resolve until I feel satisfied.

So if I know I will only get 5 hours of sleep because I have to get up at 3:45 am to drive H to work at 4:10 I tell myself ‘After 5 hours of sleep I am going to wake up energized, happy, productive and grateful for those 5 hours of sleep. Those 5 hours of sleep will be enough and I won’t require any more to have a productive day where I do not procrastinate and I achieve the goals I set out for the day’. I say it out loud and repeat it and believe it. That belief is so important. You must believe to achieve.

Low and behold it has been working for me. I do wake up feel exactly how I told myself I was going to feel. I also have my morning affirmations after I wake up about how my day will go and how I will feel which again has been working for me. One of the hardest parts of my evening affirmations was saying them out loud in front of my husband because I am sometimes self-conscious about myself but I have been doing them now whether or not he is in the room and after explaining to him what I was doing and how it helped me, I don’t feel self conscious about it anymore because he is always supportive of my endeavors.

And (I hate starting sentences with and but there it is)… And it doesn’t matter how many hours I know I have before my alarm will go off I feel just as happy and energized. I simply make sure to state how many hours it will be in my affirmation and I am good to go.

I have a saying that I can’t remember where I heard it from but here it is, ‘I choose my mood the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning. I don’t let my mood choose me’ and something I have recently added to that is ‘I won’t let others choose my mood either’. What I mean by that is I may not have control over a situation but I do have control over how I react to it. If someone is having a bad day and they are saying or doing things that make it clear they are having a bad day I choose how I react to that. I don’t let their mood affect my own. I don’t let a snarky person make me feel snarky or bad too. I have already chosen my mood for the morning and I am sticking to it. I choose to be happy. Not to say I have never had a snarky moment back, I am certainly not perfect but those are rare moments.

Until next time… I choose to be happy, I choose to be energized, I choose to have a productive day, I choose to accomplish my goals today, and I choose to smile.

~ Crimson

It’s a miracle! Okay, okay, I am not one to use the word miracle in its traditional sense since I am more a believer in coincidence, statistics, plausible explanations, and science. I am actually referring to a set of steps or principles outlined in the book “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. The premise of the book is that by waking up only one hour earlier than you would normally and going through six 10 minute activities you will be more productive and energized which will lead to a more productive and successful life. The six steps are called Life S.A.V.E.R.S. and consist of Silence (meditation), Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing.

So this is obviously the portion where I am ‘scribing’ or simply writing. I already did the other five steps, well sort of. When it got to exercise and I tried to do jumping jacks it woke my dogs who started barking up a storm and living in a semi-detached, well that does not a good neighbour make. I am walking to work today though which will take about 25 minutes so I will complete that portion then (you don’t have to do them in order just as long as you do them in the morning).

Anyway, I tried Miracle Morning last year after a lovely Manager at my work mentioned the book to me and it worked really well… for about 2 months. Until I got sick with pneumonia and was bed-ridden, gasping for breath for about 3 weeks. Well here it is just after Renewal (my own values based holiday tradition around the same time as Christmas) and as part of my goals (similar to New Year’s Resolutions) I am working for the miracle again. I almost wrote looking for the miracle but realized working for is a much better way of putting it because in most cases if you want a ‘miracle’ you really have to work for it. It’s not something handed to you on a silver platter even if it may sometimes happen by chance.

Until next time, I affirm that I will be productive today, I will achieve the 10 goals I have set out for myself today, I will be energized, and I will be happy.

~ Crimson