Friday, August 20, 2010

Divine Influence: My Interview w/Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter

 
 

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via Moptop Maven - Deliciously Opinionated Musings by Mop Top Maven on 8/20/10

Good Afternoon Dream Chasers!

Yesterday I had the honor of interviewing who I deem the Godmother of All Mixtresses; Lisa Price of the wildly popular Carol's Daughter brand. Lisa surprised me with her down-to-earth friendly demeanor, and willingness to divulge her recipe's to success. Lisa's honesty was truly refreshing, and her business acumen impressive; so it's no fluke she's landed coveted partnerships with HSN, Disney, and Sephora.

Read this interview and get inspired, empowered, and uplifted! -

MTM: Tell me about how Carol's Daughter started?
LP: Well, it started out as a hobby; initially I was making fragrances for myself, I have always been a fragrance lover and still am to this day. When I first started to do this as a hobby, I decided I was going to make my own fragrances because I didn't want to smell like everyone else on the train [laughs]. I found a place to buy oils, and I started blending fragrance oils, then I found essential oils, and I mixed those in with them. And initially I would put the oils into things that I would buy at the drugstore; bottles of lotion, baby oils etc. I would just shake the bottles up and try to make products with them, because fragrances last when you layer them; when you put the moisturizers on, when you use the shower gels, then you spray the perfume on, that's how it [fragrance] stays with you. I was trying to recreate that layering experience, yet it didn't always work when I was buying these pre-made things; they weren't always that moisturizing, and I always had dry skin so when I started, I started making body products, and adding my fragrances to them so that I could layer them.

My mom suggested that I sell at a flea market that her church was having one Saturday, and that was the beginning of it. I started by selling at flea markets and craft fairs, just earning some extra cash; then eventually my hobby started to turn into a second job. Through going out and doing these flea markets and craft fairs, women started to ask me for hair care products, and at first I didn't have any. Everything I did initially was body and fragrance related. I couldn't even get them to stay at the table; they would ask if I had hair care, I would say no; and they would leave. So then I said; "well at least if I make some hair care, they'll stick around a little bit longer" [laughs], so I started to make hair care in order to get the customer to stay.

MTM: How did you make the transition from mixing scents and products on your kitchen table to having a full fledged operation?
LP: Well, that took a lot of years, it started out with me in my kitchen making things. Then it grew from me making things by myself to having someone help me, then it grew from two somebody's, to three somebody's, to four somebody's; and at one point I think I had 10 people working in my home. Then I got a warehouse in order to produce more effiencetly, and I set up an industrial kitchen in the warehouse to have more space to produce bigger batches and have more people involved.

Eventually we outgrew the warehouse space, and we had to outsource the manufacturing of the product. So we started off with a certain number of products at a time, and over a two year period we were able to outsource everything. At the time we started outsourcing, the only preservatives that company's would use were parabens, so it took us a while to get the manufacturers to agree to alternative preservatives which was kind of like pulling teeth then [now it's a lot easier] because they didn't have enough history with alternative preservative systems. Once we started the outsource process, it was just a matter of time to get the fragrances perfected, and get the recipe's perfected; it took about to years to do that. 

MTM: Once you realized you could turn passion into profit, did you have any fears along the way? If so, how did you work to overcome them?
LP: I definitely had fears along the way, and still do to this day; they just change shape, change color, and change form. What I find is, as you overcome each one, it makes you stronger for the next time. Sometimes the challenges, and the fears becomes stronger as well, however in the end it all goes towards making you a stronger person. For me, I feel like my journey in entrepreneurship has been one that's been very, very personal; it involved me becoming a more stronger person, and more confident person then the person that I was before I started doing this. However that's isn't necessarily everyone's story, I think there are some people who go into entreprenuership and are extremely confident, and whatever it is that they are supposed to learn from their business is different. For me it has definitely about building confidence, because most of my obstacles are driven be me; my own fears, my own insecurities, my own doubts, and each time I overcome them I am better equipped to handle the next challenge. 

MTM: What were some of the challenges you faced initially?
LP: Learning things! You don't really get a manual per say when you start a business; you make accounting mistakes, you make employee mistakes, you didn't know about the Worker's Comp that you were supposed to pay for, so you get a letter, and have to pay a fines etc. Sometimes I wish there was a kit that arrived in the mail with all the boxes that you have to check because if you don't know, you don't know [laughs].

I remember I had a really funny conversation [well it's funny in retrospect] with a potential wholesaler, and she said; "we would love to carry your line, and I just need to know if you have insurance". I said; "insurance?" and she said: "yeah, do you have insurance?", and I said; "well, I have home owners insurance". I really didn't know what she was talking about, and she finally said; "General Liability Insurance, like for your products, in case someone sues you, you don't have insurance?". I was like 'Oh My God' [laughs], I got off the phone with her and I called my insurance agent to find out more about general liability insurance; and 10,000 later, I had insurance [laughs]. 

MTM: How involved are you in the Carol's Daughter operation today?
LP: Extremely involved, I am more involved in a creative sense, and in a product development sense; I am also in the office everyday except for when I'm traveling. When it comes to marketing the product, my team always comes to me for the story behind the product; they want to know why I picked particular ingredients, why I pick certain fragrances etc. I'm not necessarily involved with operations on a day-to-day level because that's not my area of expertise, so I can't tell you what happens when an order goes into the system; however I can tell you the ingredients in our products, why they're in there, and what we're going to be selling next spring. 

MTM: What is the Carol's Daughter Philosophy?
LP: We have few philosophies. However what first comes to mind is providing products to people that just make their lives better. A lot of times people think that someone in my business lives at the spa, yet I never get to go to a spa. The closest I get to a spa is our Hand & Foot Spa in Harlem to get manicures and pedicures, however going to get a salt scrub, or a hot stone massage; I never have time for that kind of stuff.

Whatever I can do in my own bathroom to have a spa experience, is so important to me. My shower is my spa experience, and I am sure there are tons of women just like me whether it's because of time and or finances that just don't have time to pamper themselves. Sometimes that 5-10 minutes that it takes to apply a salt scrub/sugar scrub, deep condition your hair, or apply a 3-step process on your face, represents that 'me time'. I thinking having 'me time' makes you more sane when you go out into the world, you are better able to function. To me that's something that's hugely important, because if you don't take proper care of yourself, you can't take care of anyone else.

MTM: Your story is very inspiring to a lot of us out there who wish to create our own destiny, what advice do you have for those future entrepreneurs out there?
LP: Finding that very delicate, and sometimes precarious balance between knowing what your vision is, and at the same time being open to change and direction from other places. Sometimes as entrepreneurs we can get very stuck in how we feel, and were not necesarily relevant with the rest of the world. For example; I'm 48 years old, I could care less if I tweet, but I know that tweeting is something that is important so I tweet, not as much as I should, but I'm getting better. You have to be open to the way that the world is changing, and what's going on so that you can remain relevant. You can have who you are at your core, but you always have to remain relevant within the world or eventually your brand will die.

MTM: For those of us that are new to the Carol's Daughter brand, what are some of the must-have products to get acquainted with the line?
LP: Our haircare is most popular; and most loved in haircare I would say is the Black Vanilla Shampoo & Smoothie, and the Hair Milk Lotion [this is the number one sku and has been for the past two years]. On the body side, I would say the Body Jelly is extremely popular; it's a non-petroleum, petroleum jelly. There's no petroleum or mineral oil in it, but it serves the purpose that a petroleum jelly would serve without the bad stuff!

We also have a Peppermint Foot Lotion that's very popular, and a bath salt called Body Ache's Bath Salt that's also very popular.

MTM: Do you have any advice out there for women who are natural or transitioning?
LP: Yes, we sell two products that together form this recipe we call the oil infusion. Right now if they went to the website they wouldn't find oil infusion, but we're working to change that. The oil infusion is Khoret Amen Hair Oil and Khoret Amen Smoothie, you apply them to the hair as a pre-shampoo/pre-conditioning treatment, and it really helps to improve the elasticity and moisture level of the hair. By doing this oil infusion process, your own hair grows in a bit softer while you're transitioning. It isn't going to relax it or take the kink out, it's just a deep conditioner that hydrates the hair, makes it easier to detangle, and easier to manage.

MTM: Carol's Daughter has a new product solution on the market [The Hair Milk Curl Collection]; Tell us a little more about it!
LP: The Hair Milk line is one of the biggest launches we've ever done, and definitely one of our most successful launches to date. The Hair Milk Lotion was one of the products I made for myself to define my curls, as I have always worn my hair curly but didn't necessarily have a product that helped me achieve a great look everyday. Hair Milk has been in our top 5 products for over 15 years, and we knew we could build a franchise out of it. Since the original Hair Milk Lotion was tailored to curls, we really wanted to explore the whole curl market. This also gave us an opportunity to get the product to more people because when you think of curly hair, it doesn't just pertain to African American hair, it can be anyone who has curly hair.

When we were working with the chemist to create the line, we wanted it to be sulfate free, we wanted it to detangle, we wanted for the conditioner to really boost the curls, as well as hydrate and detangle the hair. I got to test it for about 6 months before it hit the market and I loved it; even though I have always worn my hair curly, and people know me in the market for my curly hair, my hair is even easier to maintain having the system vs just having the lotion. My curls just keep longer, it's easier to revive them, and when I fall asleep and wake up in the morning my hair isn't as destroyed as it used to be. I also like co-washing with the Hair Milk Conditioner because I don't like to wash my hair a lot, and the conditioner makes a nice co-wash.

MTM: The Carol's Daughter brand is already associated with major companies like Disney, HSN, and Sephora respectively, where do you see your brand 10 years from now?
LP: Oh boy! It's always hard for me to say that because whenever I say where I think it's going to be, the brand surprises me, and surpasses that. What I always like to say is; "where I see it in the future is still relevant" which I think is really, really important.  I think we have done a really good job at continuing to evolve and grow, so I see us being around, still relevant, and with more legs.

This year we got to launch a sub-brand with Mary J Blige and the My Life fragrance, so My Life is it's own brand within the Carol's Daughter umbrella. It has it's own shows on HSN, it broke all kinds of records, [it launched on July 31rst on HSN], it's the first time that a fragrance was launched on television, and a celebrity fragrance at that. She [Mary J Blige] sold close to 52k units in one day, so it was a tremendous success. It was great as small as we are, to be able to launch a brand under our umbrella.

In November on HSN we'll be launching a line called Lisa's Kitchen which will be at home kits where you can make your own products. So I see us having more legs, where we aren't known just for one thing.

 
 

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Top Six Tips for Getting Things Done

 
 

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"A well-spent day brings happy sleep."

If you want tips on how to become more productive, one awesome source would be Leonardo da Vinci.

He painted a whole lot of classic paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. His journals contain ideas for inventions like hydraulic pumps, steam cannons, helicopters and hang gliders. He was also, among other things, an anatomist, sculptor, botanist and musician.

Da Vinci got stuff done. A lot of stuff.

How did he do it? Well, here is a guide with his tips for getting things done.

1. Do.

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."

If you want to get things done you have to do things. If you want big results you often have to take massive action. There is no way to get around taking action if you want real life results.

But it's easy to get stuck in a mindset where you in a way substitute thinking for action. You think and think and take action just once in a while.

One thing that gets you stuck in this mindset is that you may see other people doing the same thing. And so your habit of taking action once in a while gets reinforced since it feels like the "normal" thing to do. The fear of failure and what people might say if you try, fail or succeed are powerful factors too.

But to get what you want you need to break out of that. You need to take a lot of action. And if you are an overthinker or procrastinator like I was then there is probably room for a lot more action every week.

I think the first step to taking more action is just to be aware of how much action you are actually taking. To be aware how much time you are spending thinking or planning. And catch yourself when you get stuck in unproductive thought patterns. And then adjust to take more action.

How can you snap yourself into action? Two tips that works well for me are:

  • Pump up your enthusiasm. One way of doing that is to see what's positive in any situation. Then build on that to get your enthusiasm going. Perhaps it's just a thing or two. But that glimmer of positivity can be a starting point to change your perspective to a more positive one where you can find enthusiasm. And whatever the situation you are in will often be easier and more pleasurable to handle. Another way to pump up your enthusiasm is to get an enthusiastic vibe from other people. Listen to CDs with enthusiastic people – Brian Tracy and Wayne Dyer are two helpful guys – for perhaps 20 minutes. When you are done listening you'll probably feel a lot more enthusiastic. Or hang out with enthusiastic people and get them to talk about what they are enthusiastic about. Enthusiasm is contagious, so use that fact to help yourself.
  • Just do it anyway. If you don't feel like you could pump up your enthusiasm, just go and do what you want to do anyway. You may not want to go to the gym. But you do it anyway. And after you've been there for a while you are glad you went there, because now you are getting your workout done. And you are feeling proactive, enthusiastic and good about yourself.

2. Do. Experience. Understand.

"Experience does not ever err. It is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments."

"Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason."

If you take little action it's easy to overestimate the value of the results. A failure or a mistake might feel like the end of the world. You may perhaps you beat yourself up about it for the rest of the week.

That won't help much though. As you learn to take more action, the results contain less emotional power. You don't get overwhelmed or lost in a sad funk. You also realize that the world doesn't revolve around you. People will probably not care as much as you think if you try, fail or succeed with something. They have their own lives to worry about.

So instead learn to take the lessons from a mistake or failure. Do not take the failure so seriously but instead see it – just like everything else – as a valuable experience.

So dive into life. Get experiences, because it is only here you will get some real understanding.

3. Be consistent.

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."

It's easy to get riled up and get going with something new on an enthusiastic high. But that initial enthusiasm tends to dissipate. That's when you hit a plateau. That's when you need to keep moving. Doing everything in small spurts and then turning to the next thing when something loses it "newness" makes it hard to get what you want.

You have to be persistent. And consistent. Then you can get pretty much anything done. One of the big reasons why people don't get what they want is simply that they won't keep going. Or that they go, stop, go, stop. Persistence and consistency isn't exactly the sexiest things in personal growth. But they are ridiculously helpful.

Because the results you want may not come to you tomorrow or next week. Improving your life is often hinges on the ability to not go running around for new magic pills all the time or choosing the instant gratification option every time.

So, how do you become more consistent?

  • Be aware. Just by being aware of what you are doing – and not doing – you can stop and change how you think and act in your everyday life. This will take time, but little by little you can avoid your own pitfalls – such as for instance the instant gratification route – more and more.
  • Set the context for your day. What you do early in the day often sets the context for your day. And your days are your life. We have a tendency to want to be consistent with what we have done before. One thing that can give you a good start is to do the hardest and/or most important thing first. If you start your day like this then you don't have to worry about that special task for the rest of the day. Taking this route makes the day feel easier and you'll have less inner resistance to getting the rest of the tasks of the day done. Another way to use this tip is to work out early in the day. It will make you feel energized and more alert for the rest of the day.

4. Move over, through or around obstacles.

"Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind."

Obstacles are tricky. They can easily discourage you. But they are seldom as scary as they look. If you actually start to smash them or move around them you may find that it is easier than you may have thought. The biggest obstacles are often the ones you put up in your mind. Not just in the way that you perceive external obstacles and make them bigger than they are. But also in how you create obstacles that aren't even out there. They exist solely in your mind.

So be careful and reconsider your assumptions and perception. Realize that you may be making things a lot harder than they actually need to be. Realize that you to some part decide how hard or easy something is.

By diving into reality and taking action you get real life experience of how things are. Then you may see how the obstacles were just in your mind. Or how you can move over, under or through the obstacle by learning and adjusting. Or just by being persistent.

Look at an obstacle as a way for the world to test you and teach you. Instead of a solid brick wall.

5. Know what's important (for you).

"Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it."

There is always enough time. You have the same amount of hours in the day that da Vinci had. But the thing is to know what is important to you. And to take action based on that.

Knowing what you want and following that path is vital for the rest of the tips above. To be able to take all that action, to do it consistently and to crush internal or external obstacles you need to know what you want. That will give you the motivation to keep going. And I'm talking about what you really want. What is most important to you (not what your parents, teachers or society may tell is important).

How do you find out what you really want? I think you need to really think about it. But more importantly, I think you need to just experiment and try things. From all that doing and all those experiences you learn things. Not just about the world but also about yourself.

Experience makes it clearer in your mind if what you thought you wanted is really what you want. Over time your map of yourself and your life becomes more accurate. And by doing things you not only find what is most important to you. You also find the things you really enjoy doing and that makes it so much easier to keep going.

6. Focus.

"As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself."

You need to know what's important for you. You also need to focus on it. And focus on it consistently.

And this is not just about keeping your focus on what you are doing and what you want each and every day. It's also about the focus of your attitude. To for instance keep your focus on the positive, on your curiousness and your enthusiasm. On what gets you where you want to go.

Instead of negative doubts, beating yourself up or other things you may focus on from time to time for some reason. That stuff will seldom help you. Of course, if there is a real problem then that needs to be handled. But oftentimes it's easy to get stuck in negativity because of old habits, what other people may say or just to strengthen a victim identity and get a strange sense of satisfaction and familiarity out of the negativity.

So finally, here are three practical tips that I have found to be very helpful to improve my focus.

  • Exercise. This is so key. Regular exercise makes me more focused, positive and energized. The best way to make exercise a consistent part of your life each week is to try different things and find what you like doing and what fits you and your situation.
  • Singletask. Do just one thing at a time to get things done quicker and with less stress. For me at least it works a lot better than multitasking.
  • Work in a cone of silence. Try to minimize possible distractions. You could do that by for instance unplugging your internet cable, shutting off your phone and closing your door.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone on Facebook, Twitter and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Sunday, July 4, 2010

How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff

 
 

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via zen habits by guest on 7/2/10

"It all depends on whether you have things, or they have you." ~Robert A. Cook

Editor's note: This is a guest post by Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom.

Simplicity. It is a lovely ancient spiritual tradition that has seen a recent resurgence in popularity.  As we try to make sense of our erratic economy and the accompanying financial anxiety, it is natural to leap to a less risky lifestyle extreme — stop spending, scale back, live lean.

If you are a regular reader of Zen Habits, you are probably intrigued by the idea of simplifying. In fact, you may have even given up many material things and actively live a very simple life. People who have adopted this level of  simplicity, especially in the land of consumerism, are incredibly inspiring and fascinating.

But let's be real here. In spite of embracing the concept of simplicity, most people really love their stuff, and they love acquiring more stuff. Like our attitudes about a healthy diet, our feelings about material things are complicated. We know what's good for us, but we just don't want to give up what we like. Our stuff makes us feel good.

Is it possible to live a simple life and still love stuff? How much letting go of stuff really counts toward simplifying anyway?

Living simply and detaching from material things will make you happier. There is real research and lots of anecdotal evidence to support the truth of this. But is it possible that some material things can add to our happiness, sense of contentment and joy in life? If so, how do you go about deciding what's good stuff and what's bad?

Perhaps the deciding factor is motivation. Do the things that you own or wish to buy support your ego, or do they enliven your soul? Some material things can afford you a sense of warmth, coziness, beauty, fond memories, or comfort. There are other things that offer only that fleeting rush of acquisition.

If you infuse mindfulness into your ideas and actions around material things, you can create a gentle balance between loving stuff and living simply.

Here are some thoughts that might be useful.

1. Look around your house now.

Walk from room to room. Do you see things that you never use and don't really care about? Why not give them away or sell them? Clear physical and psychic space by removing the "dead wood" in your environment. Someone else might really need these things.

2. Examine why you are hanging on to something.

Is it truly useful or meaningful, or does it feed your ego in some way? Are you holding on to it just to impress others or to make yourself feel better or more important?

3. Look at how you spend your time.

Do you have things you own for hobbies that you never pursue? Do you have a kitchen full of gadgets but you rarely cook? If you truly think you will come back to a hobby or activity, box things up and put them out of sight until you do. Be realistic about how much time you have to use your extraneous stuff.

4. Are you in a career that is thing-focused?

Decorators, car dealers, retailers and others involved in creating, buying, selling and marketing merchandise, can have a hard time detaching from material things because they are always surrounded by the newest and best. There is beauty and art in many things, but consider this: you don't have to own them all to appreciate them. Eckhart Tolle once suggested to Oprah Winfrey that she not buy everything she likes or wants — just savor it for the moment in the store.

5. Consider experiences rather than things.

On the whole, experiential purchases provide far more pleasure than material purchases. The memory of experiences improves with time, but material purchases are harder to think about abstractly. Experiences also encourage social relationships which provide long-lasting happiness. If you are itching to spend, spend on a great experience with someone you enjoy.

6. When you think about your things or want to purchase something new, consider these parameters:

  • It brings beauty into your life and stirs your soul.
  • It supports a passion or hobby.
  • It helps bring family and friends together in a creative, meaningful way.
  • It educates and enlightens.
  • It makes life profoundly simpler so that you can pursue more meaningful things.
  • It helps someone who is sick or incapacitated.
  • It is useful and necessary for day-to-day life.
  • It's part of a meaningful tradition or a reminder of a special event.

7. You will know you are buying mindlessly if you:

  • Buy on a whim.
  • Buy to impress others.
  • Buy because you feel you deserve it.
  • Buy when you can't afford it.
  • Buy just to update something that still works or looks fine.
  • Buy because someone else has it and you want it too.
  • Buy because the advertisement seduced you.
  • Buy because you are bored.
  • It's purchased because buying soothes you.

It is possible to balance a simpler life with owning and acquiring material things. You can enjoy stuff without living the life of an aesthetic. The exact balance you create is a matter of personal preference. But realize there is a diminishing point of return with accumulation and materialism that undermines authentic joy and fulfillment in life.

Apply mindful purging to your current lifestyle and belongings, as well as thoughtful consideration to your future purchases. Carefully examine your motivations for keeping possessions or buying new things. Once you allow things to serve your soul, rather than you being a slave to your things, your life will evolve into an artful harmony between what you have and who you are.

Read more from Barrie at her blog, Live Bold and Bloom and download her free e-book, How to Live a Meaningful Life.


 
 

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Monday, May 3, 2010

9 Simple Tips for Getting Rid of a Bad Habit

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdegutt/ / CC BY 2.0

"Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow."
Yiddish Proverb

"Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them."
Confucius

Most of us have one or a few habits that we consider bad and we'd like to get rid of. But how do you do it?

I have a few suggestions that have helped me and people around me. Here are 9 tips that can help you to finally get rid of that bad habit once and for all.

  1. Tell your friends and family. If you tell people around you that you will stop smoking or start working out three times a week then they will check up on you. And you will feel a social pressure to keep up with your promise now that it is let out into the world. I would recommend only telling people who you think will support you or be neutral. Negative people make things so much more difficult.
  2. Make it painful to not go through with it. This may not be for everyone but you could consider making a promise to someone. For example, if you stray off the path to better health by having French fries or a cigarette then you will give your friend 100 or 500 dollars. The point is to add some possible pain to keep yourself in check on days when you may feel a bit tempted.
  3. Listen to those who have gone where you want to go. Not to people who have no practical or real idea about what your challenge entails. It is important to get the best advice that actually works in real life. Seek it out in people around you, in the best books on the topic (check for the number of stars and read reviews on a site like amazon.com) and on blogs and forums that seem reliable.
  4. What will this lead to in 5 and 10 years? See your future self vividly in your mind. Where are you going? Towards massive debt, a heart attack, serious illness and severe restrictions in your future? Do you want go to that place where it is very likely that you will wind up if you don't make a change? Then see your future self where you have made the positive change. What positive and awesome things has it brought you in 5 years and in 10 years? See it all in your mind. And remind yourself of the positive and negative consequences by writing them down and reviewing them whenever you feel like quitting and going back to your old ways.
  5. Avoid temptations. Know what usually triggers your bad habit. Places where you are likely to spend too much money. Things in your cupboard that will not help you to get healthier and you should not have at home at all. And people that drag you down and back into your old ways.
  6. Replace it. If you stop doing one thing then it can leave a vacuum in your life. It's easier to not relapse if you replace that space with a new habit. If you had chips and candy at home to snack on then have fruits and nuts to snack on when you feel the cravings. If you stopped checking social media and the internet for many hours each evening then replace that habit and space with reading more books or joining a club, sport or evening class.
  7. Don't remove more than one habit at a time. It may seem like a good idea to overhaul your life all at once. When regular life, stress and lack of energy interfere it usually leads to failure. Don't try to be Superman or Wonder Woman. Take it easy and remove one habit at a time to increase the odds of real life success dramatically.
  8. Don't make a huge deal out of it. If you think about it and talk about it all the time then it will feel like a huge deal to get rid of that habit. This will make each day much harder mentally and you may feel overwhelmed. Instead, keep it simple and realize that whatever habit you want to get rid of thousands if not millions of people have done so before. Yes, things do get tough from time to time. But there is no need to create a lot of extra drama around it and in the longer run make things more difficult than they need to be.
  9. If at first you don't succeed dust yourself off and try again. You will probably not succeed the first time you do it. It took me perhaps four tries before the habit of regular exercise stuck. You fail and you make mistakes when you make changes and try new things. That's just life and nothing to feel bad about or see as a reason to give up all together.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone on Twitter and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

8 Small Habits That Make My Daily Life Simpler, Easier and More Effective

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notsogoodphotography/ / CC BY 2.0

"First we make our habits, then our habits make us."
John C. Noble

I often write about making big changes in your life. So today I'd like to mix that up and just look at eight small habits that make my life simpler, easier and more effective.

Feel free to use the comments section below to share your own small daily or weekly habits that you have found improves your life, even if it's just a little bit.

  1. Keep everything in its place. If everything has its own place then it is whole lot easier to keep your home reasonably ordered and decluttered from day to day. This also helps you with your inner stillness as the outer environment affects how you feel on the inside. I also find it useful to always keep things in their place on me when I'm out and about. The wallet is always in the same pocket and my cell phone is always in the same place. If you have forgotten something and have this habit you'll quickly notice if something is not as usual and you can go back to fetch what you lost.
  2. Go food shopping once a week. You'll save time, perhaps some money and I find that I do less impulse buying of unhealthy things too compared to if I go shopping when I am getting hungry.
  3. Cook more food than you'll eat. I usually make two or three servings of what am about to eat. This cuts down on time that you spend on cooking and you'll have to do less washing up in general. Plus, it's good to have portions of food to bring to work to save some money. Or to have a meal that you can quickly reheat when you come home from school or work and you are starving.
  4. Declutter for a few minutes in the morning. Keeping everything in its place works for the most part. But there is still usually a bit of clutter. You can spend a few minutes in the morning (or after your work day is done) to clean up your workspace, remove old coffee cups and clean up papers and books and put them in their proper place.
  5. Write everything down. Otherwise you'll forget about your goals, great ideas or perhaps something funny or fascinating you heard. By writing things down you don't have to occupy your mind with having to remember everything. This lowers stress levels and gives you a clearer mind to use.
  6. Pack your bag the night before. This very simple habit can alleviate quite a bit of stress in the morning. If you pack your bag before you go to bed then you don't have to run around in your house half panicked tomorrow while looking for your books or some important papers.
  7. Reconnect each day with what you should be doing. On my wall there is a small white board. On the white board there are things written like "keep things extremely simple" and "stick to the schedule". These two reminders and a few more are always there. Whenever I lose my way during my day I can always just look at the wall to center myself and reconnect with what I should be doing and how I should go about it. I highly recommend doing this to stay on course.
  8. Be 10 or 5 minutes early. This is a very simple tip that transforms those traveling times during your day into relaxing breaks instead of passages of time and space that only up your levels of stress and other negative feelings.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone on Twitter and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Friday, April 23, 2010

6 Reasons to Focus on Liking Yourself, and How to Do It

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/insomnia90/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

"Nobody will think you're somebody if you don't think so yourself."
African-American proverb

"Self-love is not opposed to the love of others."
Dr. Karl Menninger

"Happiness is: Looking in a mirror and like what you see ."
Author Unknown

People have a need for affection and being liked. But it's very easy to make a mistake here and go about it the wrong way. Because while trying to get others to like you may seem like a simple and common solution there is an alternative. One that I find works better.

It is to focus on liking yourself more rather than trying to get people to like you.

Here are six reasons why I put my focus in that place. And after that a brief guide to how you can increase how much you like yourself.

1. Liking yourself gives you power and strength.

If you go for trying to get people to like you you'll most likely come off as needy and desperate a lot of the time. This is a bad position to put yourself in. Because liking and respecting yourself goes hand in hand with people liking and respecting you.

If you bend to other people all the time then they may like what you do for them. But they may not like you on a deeper level because there is a weakness and lack of confidence and personal power there.

2. People like people who like themselves.

What is attractive to a friend, an employer or a potential partner? To me, it seems like a lot of this boils down to people liking people who like themselves. Someone who likes him/herself is positive, confident, takes care of his/her health and opportunities in school/at work/in life.

3. More inner stability, much less of an emotional rollercoaster.

Getting compliments and being liked is wonderful. The problem is just that if you rely too much on validation from others then you let the outside world, other people, control how you feel. And that can be a real rollercoaster.

Because if you really need the positive validation from people then it's hard to avoid listening to their negative input. Or you may feel bad when there is a temporary lack in the validation. So what do you do? You let go of focusing on needing that input and replace it with focusing on validating and liking yourself instead.

4. Life becomes more fun and relaxing.

If you like yourself then it becomes natural to just be your best self and let people like the real you. Doing the opposite and trying to get people to like you leads to a lack of honesty in any kind of relationship and life becomes a like walking on egg shells while using different masks with different people.

5. What you think and feel about yourself flows over.

The more you like yourself, the easier it becomes to like, help and be kind to other people. How much you like or do not like yourself flows over into your world.

6. You minimize self sabotage.

If you don't like yourself, if you deep down don't really think you deserve what you go after then you will tend to sabotage for yourself. Perhaps in subtle ways. You may get a gut feeling that this success is wrong and so you start doing stuff that screws things up. If you like yourself there will be a lot less self made obstacles in your mind to overcome on your path to success.

How to like yourself more

So, the benefits sound pretty good. But how do you go about changing how you feel about yourself?

Here is a brief but in my experience very effective guide that works in real life.

Do the right thing.

I write about this a lot. That's because it's simple thing to keep in mind and if you live it then it can bring your awesome results.

When you do what you think is the right thing then your self esteem goes up. If you just coast then you tend to feel kinda lame about yourself. So do awesome stuff and you feel awesome about yourself. Do ok stuff and feel ok about yourself. This is not always an easy thing. But people who do the right thing get fine inner rewards (and often outer rewards too). What you do tends to correspond to what you get in the long run.

What is the right thing? Well, that's up to you to decide and it can vary from life to life and situation to situation. Some of the things I think is the right thing to do is to keep my life in order and organized, to workout regularly and take care of my health, to be positive and open, to spend time doing things I really like doing, to get out of my comfort zone and face fears and to be a person of action.

When you do the right thing you like yourself more and so the self sabotage decreases. The standards you set for yourself flows over to your world too. What you accept or don't accept from yourself is what you tend to accept or not accept from other people.

And what you think and do to the world around you – for example being judgmental or being open and kind – is how you tend to think about yourself and treat yourself too.

Don't take yourself for granted or focus on the wrong things. Appreciate yourself.

What you do or do not do has a huge effect on how you view yourself and how much you like yourself. But what you focus on in your mind is also important. Because if you do good things but then focus on small faults or failures then that won't help you.

So make a habit of focusing on appreciating the good things about yourself. Take two minutes right now to think about positive things about you or good things you have done and accomplished. Or take a few minutes tonight to write down five good things about yourself in a journal.

This extends to what you focus on in the world around you too. Because as I mentioned in the previous tip, what you focus on in the people around you tends to be how you see and treat yourself. So you may want to add five or ten things that you appreciate about the people around you to those journal entries and two minute appreciation sessions.

The more you do things like these, the more this kind of thinking will naturally pop up in your everyday life too. You are changing how you think about yourself and what you have a tendency to focus on.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone on Twitter and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

How to Finish What You Have Started

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/muffmuff/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Simply getting up from the chair, stopping all the theorizing and getting started is one of the biggest issues I believe people face. But to keep going until something is finished can also be a big issue (it has certainly been so at times for me at least).

I have however found a few solutions that work for me and help me to reach the finish line. Feel free to chime in with your own solutions that work for you in the comments.

Let go of perfectionism.

This has been a pretty big issue for me in the past. You want to polish everything until it is "perfect". The problem is just that such thinking often leads to many things not ever being finished.

So you have to find a balance for yourself where you do good work and don't slack off but at the same time don't get lost in trying to improve and polish something too much.

I have found that balance through experience.

It is also very important to be aware that nothing will ever be perfect. Striving for perfection can be pretty dangerous. Because you will never feel like you are good enough.

You have set the bar at an inhuman level. And so your self esteem stays low even though your results may be very good.

So just focus on gradually being more consistent instead trying to be perfect.

Realize that good enough is good enough. And that goes both for your work and for you.

Set a deadline.

A few months ago, I set a deadline for when my ebook should be finished. I had realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Sure, I still missed it by a few days but finally I did the last 30 percent of the work and was done with it.

Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.

Limit yourself in all kinds of ways.

The last part of a project or a task can often feel pretty hard and it's easy to get lost in procrastination. By setting limits for how often you check email each day, how much time you spend on social networks and forums, how much time you take to make small everyday decisions you can over a month or two develop these things into habits that run automatically most of the time.

By incorporating limits like these into your lifestyle you are less likely to get distracted during the last part of the work and you can keep
your eye on what's important.

Make it light, don't create a heavy cloud of drama, problems and complications in your mind.

Realize that much of this is in your head. Your perspective determines to a large degree what you see.

Your relationships to what you want to achieve are – just like your relationships to people – to a large extent just in your head. Try thinking that something is easy and simple instead of "heavy" and complicated and your perception of that external thing you want to achieve tends to change too. Experiment and find healthy and effective relationships to what you want to achieve instead of just seeing something like many people may do.

Bring awareness to you own thought patterns by asking yourself questions like:

"Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?" and
"What is the simplest and most straightforward solution to my problem?"

If you enjoyed this article, please share it on Stumbleupon and Twitter. Thank you very much! =P

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

How to Get to Know Yourself Better: 3 Great Tips

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/ / CC BY 2.0

"He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise."
Lao-tzu

Who are you? What is your daily and weekly life really about?

Those not always easy questions to answer. So today I'd like to share three tips that have helped me to get to know myself a bit better and to see my life more accurately.

1. What part of you do you see in them?

What we see in others is quite often what we see in ourselves. And what irritates us in people may be what we don't like in ourselves. What you judge in someone you are actually judging in yourself.

Therefore what you notice and what irritates you in others can teach you important things about yourself. Things you may not be aware of. In a way people can be like a mirror for you. A mirror that can help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself.

So, what people generally irritate you? What do you often judge or criticize people for?

What can that tell you about you?

2. Do the unusual thing.

When faced with a choice in your daily life, step back for a minute and think. Then take the option that is and feels unusual for you.

If you often back down just don't for this one time. If you often get into arguments with people then just this one time don't and instead just let it go or treat the other person with kindness. Do the opposite of what you usually do and see what happens (while using common sense of course). Do something new and something you wouldn't expect from yourself.

This is a fun and great way to get new experiences and to learn things about the world and about yourself that you wouldn't if you kept going like you usually do. It's also a great way to be surprised about life as things often turn out more positively than in your fear filled daydreams if you just take action.

Getting stuck in the same old routine until it becomes a rut can suck the life out of you. Doing the unusual thing in small and big situations, no matter how it goes, is a great way to feel alive again and to reveal aspects of yourself that may have been hidden from you.

3. Journal.

Journaling is a fine way to get a more accurate picture of yourself and your life. A few ways that I have used journaling to get to know myself and my life are:

  • Journal about how you use your time. Just write down what you do during one day. Or during one week. Write down what you spend your time on and how much time you spend on each thing. You may, as me, be surprised about how much time you waste on procrastinating and pretty pointless busy work. Even if you may have an image of yourself as an effective person.
  • Journal about what you think. What do you think about during a normal day? Or a week? Write it all down. By doing so you can find recurring patterns of thought such as fears or maybe that you spend a lot of time regretting what happened in the past. Or you may find that you are actually a more positive person than you may think. This is a really interesting exercise because it can help you spot both positive things and negative things about yourself and just how accurate your current image of yourself is. You'll probably run into some surprises.
  • Journal about what you eat. I used this to lose weight. If you want to lose weight you have to consume less calories that you use. So how do you know what to eat and how much? You got to monitor it in some way. I used the free and very simple Fitday.com to monitor what I eat during the day. This is essential stuff. Because the three normal and most of the time actually pretty healthy meals I ate in the past consisted of the same amount of calories I used during the day. So little progress was made. To keep things within effective and healthy limits I think it's important to monitor what you do. But not to get obsessed about these things though. The main point is to keep an eye on what you are actually doing instead of guesstimating a whole lot.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it on Stumbleupon and Twitter. Thank you very much! =)

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