1.    Be inventive – change one thing every day to make your life better

• Choose a positive attitude
• Take the scenic way to work

2.    Be healthy – make improved choices with food, friends, time; you know what that means

• Limit or stop spending time with the nay-sayers
• Grilled chicken instead of processed chicken fingers

3.    Be calm – spend 5 minutes doing nothing but breathing (no thinking)

• Go sit in your car if that is the only place you can find to do this
• Breathe deeply

4.    Be loving – hug everyone that will let you

• Start with those you love most
• Call someone who wants to hear from you and ‘hug’ them over the phone

5.    Be grateful – appreciate the little things

• Notice how easy you got to work today
• Quietly thank the flowers or the gorgeous white snow that creates amazing art

6.    Be kind – to everyone, including you

• Open the door for a stranger because it feels good – not for the thank you
• Overlook your mistakes for the day, five minutes late? So what – move on

7.    Be smart – commit to your very best every day

• Shoot for 100%, but 80% could be your best some days – that’s ok – really, it is.
• Choose the action that tracks back to your best – this feels amazing!

8.    Be trusting – allow change to occur

• Flat tires, leaky faucets, lay-offs…they will happen. Choose a positive reaction and trust that with effort and patience, it will be ok.
• Change is another way of opportunity dropping in your lap!

9.    Be playful – get moving and go play!

• Use music when you clean the house
• Let your kids decide the menu one day a week and teach them to cook

10.    Be joyful – look around, find the beauty, stand in awe (sunsets are great for this one!)

• Joy is everywhere – You will find whatever it is you look for; it might as well be joy!
• Close your eyes and remember joy as a child – find ways to recreate that experience
• Choose one or two of these per week and begin to practice the life you want to create.

These are two things I find annoying and practice daily to avoid.

• Panty lines are manageable by the choice of undies you wear or, on some occasions, not wear.  Panty lines lead to wedgies which are simply unbearable. I’m baffled by those who haven’t yet figured this out.

• Perfectionism is like a brain wedgie; you stay stuck and uncomfortable because neither it nor you are ever ‘perfect’.  Nothing gets finished or it takes five times as long to finish it because it just isn’t ‘right’

I’ll tell you a secret….nothing is perfect because everything is perfect.  What’s perfect to me is anathema to another.  Another secret, those of us with the perfectionism gene have a few control issues as well. I know because I have it too.

 Every day I remember that sometimes 80% is good enough – this took practice – and then it became fun because I realized I was the only one who actually cared about my personal pursuit of perfectionism. Those that loved me and those that mattered were thrilled with my 80% because the remaining 20% they were getting was the real me; the authentic me.  I’m working on an even greater percentage because I’ve discovered – I’m already perfect.

Now…your turn.

Yeah, you know, that thing, that bad habit which is accompanied by every expletive you know while your inner-voice is repeating that you will NEVER change.  Sound familiar? We’ve all been there and many of us still are.

When you find yourself in that state of mind – stop whatever it is you’re doing, take a deep breath - and look at where you are and what you’re doing.

Are you in the present?

Are you giving attention to the current moment you’ve been given?

Are you living with intention in every moment?

Now that you’ve been given another moment, start over with another choice in the very next breath…and begin to quiet that voice.

When we live our lives with intention, we allow opportunities for improvement. We create awareness for ourselves which gives us a choice in all things.

This also frees up the f-word for other uses.

 Every day, you and every other person on our planet have 1440 minutes to make life great. Why 1440?

Because every day has 1440 minutes in it and every minute of every day is yours to do with as you see fit.

Not so you say?  Hmm….read on.