MaXIMIze - The Greatest Love

It has been said that there can be no greater love than the one that compels one to lay down his or her life for another.

I would posit, however, that the greatest love we have is the one we have for our Self, for how we love our Selves is how we love others.

If we feel we are capable of following our dreams and bringing our visions to life, then we can encourage others to do so as well. If we feel like no matter what we do, we hit roadblock after roadblock and our dreams and visions become so much dust on the windowpane, then we cannot encourage others - in fact, we end up discouraging them instead.

The best way we can love our Selves is by practicing extreme self-care. I've hit on this time and again over the last four years, and will continue to do so. If you can't take care of yourself - love yourself, believe in yourself, push yourself - then you can't take care of others.

My book, MaXIMIze: Take Your Life in Your Arms and Kiss It! covers a lot about developing your relationship with yourself.

We see the world through the lens of ourselves - our thoughts, our feelings, our view of the world - so it makes sense that to be the best person we can truly be, we need to know ourselves as intimately as we think we know our lovers.

We need to truly understand what motivates us, what stalls us, what truly lies beneath the way we react and respond to the world around us.

So the first question I have for you to ponder is - are you treating yourself the way you treat others?

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" is one of the tenets of the New Testament, and as I often people-watch I wonder - do the people I watch truly love themselves?

What we put out in the world is a reflection of what we have and who we are inside. Do you really know who you are? Do you know the root cause of your reactions to people, places, and things?

I challenge you for the next week to take note of your reactions and to apply the 5 Whys to each one to get to the true root of that particular response. If you don't have at least one "Ah Ha!" moment doing this, either you know yourself very well - in which case, great! - or you are not going deep enough. Whichever it is is up to you to know.

CALL TO ACTION: What can you do right here, right now, to better take care of your Self?

CHECK IN: We had two Calls to Action last month:

• Breaking one resolution you made for the new year down into clear, concise, achievable goals - and then moving out on those goals.

• Identifying the impetus for change in your life - is it coming from within you or from an outside force?

How are you doing with these Calls to Action?

I can tell you that I am working my resolution to eat better hard and heavy by packing a salad for lunch during the work week. I have also cut my soda consumption from nearly daily during the work week to 3-4 in the last month. I have also dropped four pounds since the start of the New Year - baby steps, but steps forward for sure!

NEXT TIME: We will continue with the theme of Relationships. The exact topic, however, has not come to me yet.

If you have a specific topic that relates to the theme of the month you would like to see addressed, please feel free to post about it in the comments or send me an e-mail about it.

Until next time, Namaste!

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Questions? Comments: Feel free to contact me at the e-mail address below.

Beth Henderson, MaXIMIzer
maximize.beth@gmail.com

MaXIMIze - Resolutions versus Goals

Well, we are now 10 days into the new year - how are you doing with your New Year's resolutions?

One thing I noticed when I used to go to the gym was that during January, the gym would be packed with people. By mid-February, though, the crowds would thin out again and we regulars could use our favorite machines in peace once more. I noticed the same thing at the start of every semester when I was in college. The parking lot and the classrooms would be full to the gills at the beginning and then a few weeks into it, you could actually get a parking space and a desk without a problem.

You'll notice the title of this blog is Resolutions versus Goals. Resolutions are great, however, in order to follow through on them, you need to set clear, concise, achievable goals.

We've discussed this topic before in this blog, most notably in the post from January 26, 2014, titled Values, Goal Setting, and the Five Whys.

If you make a resolution or set a goal without a clear reason as to why you are doing so, and I mean why YOU are doing so, not why someone else wants you to do so, then you are setting yourself up for failure.

I'll give you an example from my own life.

I've touched on the fact that dealing with my financial piece of life has been a struggle for me. Well, I worked through getting out of debt - except to myself - over the last two years, and am currently debt-free, have money in the bank, and am getting funds back on my taxes for the first time in the last four years.

Why did I do this - what was MY reason for doing so, not someone else's? Freedom, pure and simple. That, and not leaving a mess for my children to clean up. Which is why I am following through on the last goal to meet my resolution of having my financial life in order - getting all my financial paperwork - rental agreement on my apartment, credit card statements, bank statement, insurance policies, titles to my cars, annual benefits information, etc. - in one place and getting my wishes recorded and codified.

I found a Trapper Keeper binder on clearance at Office Depot, and lined up my paperwork in the plastic document protectors you can put in binders. I still have some things to do (make copies of my credit and debit cards to put in the binder, for example), but I have made major strides towards moving my rating of my financial health from a 5 last year to an 8 or higher by the end of this year.

CALL TO ACTION: Take one resolution you made for the new year and break it down into clear, concise, achievable goals. Then, move out on those goals.

Next time, we will discuss moving from Bitching to Bragging, how to move from a place of lack to a place of abundance.

Until then, Namaste!

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Questions, comments? Feel free to contact me at the email address below.

Beth Henderson, MaXIMIzer
maximize.beth@gmail.com