More Than 60 Ways to Make Your Life Amazingby Lynda Field
Random House UK 2001
ISBN: 009185735X
A practical guide for women who want to live life to the fullest. Through exercises and over 120 motivational "power points," this guide will help you develop a new sense of personal strength and a positive approach to life.
Also see Reader Reviews at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Please note: I have included the Table of Contents for this book below, as it was not available on Amazon.
Tweet
Intention - Decision - Action
IDA is a simple formula, which you can use whenever you are uncertain about what to decide and therefore how to act. IDA represents the following process: intention > decision > option.
Smile
Feel-good chemicals are released into the body within 10 seconds of smiling; even if you don't really feel happy this process still works! As you approach an important meeting, a difficult situation, even a tricky phone call, just smile, it could make all the difference.
Negativity
Whenever negativity strikes, strike back with positive affirmations and visions: you don't have to fall into a negative downward spiral.
Imagination
Your imagination is so powerful that if you fill your mind with negative thoughts and pictures about yourself you will surely become the losers that you believe you are.
Stress
If you see a situation or person as threatening, your mind, body, spirit and emotions will register stress. But stress is in the eye of the beholder; nothing is intrinsically stressful. This may be hard to believe, but it is true. By changing the way you see negative situations, you can de-stress your life.
Make a list of all the things that are negatively stressful to you. Think carefully about each stressor. Can you let go of it, change it or accept it in some way?
Remember that stress is not an outside influence but an inner feeling. If you can change the way you see your negative situations you can take the stress from your life.
Stress is in the eye of the beholder. This is an empowering relaxation.
Releasing
The next time you become annoyed over a minor detail, take a breather and think again. Ask yourself, 'Does it really matter?' and if the answer is 'no' then say to yourself, 'This doesn't really matter', let go and move on.
Action
Procrastination creates low self-respect and takes up a lot of your time. How many times a day do you think of that task that you keep putting off? (letter that needs writing, phone call to make, desk that needs sorting...?) If you had used the time you spent thinking about the things that you needed to do you could probably have done them all and had time to put your feet up!
Individuality
Enhance your originality. Whenever you feel the urge to try to 'fit' in some way, look closely at what ever you feel makes you different. Accept and make the most of your differences. They are what make you a unique and original person with your own special place in the world.
Self-esteem
When your self-belief disappears and your confidence falls remind yourself of your amazingness! Remember that you are unique and utterly original. Focus on your strengths and you will find that there is always plenty of good news about yourself.
If you can change your individual consciousness to one of prosperity instead of scarcity, you will attract empowering new energy into your life. Think prosperous and you will start to feel prosperous; feel prosperous and you will affect the energy of those around you.
Balance
To feel harmonious, happy and at one with our lives we need to balance our 'being' and our 'doing'. Many of us are extreme doers for extreme be-ers. We are out of balance. in some way and this will be reflected in our dissatisfaction with our lives.
Spirit
Taking time for yourself is very important. If you want to develop your spiritual nature it is absolutely vital to allocate yourself some regular time to pursue this activity. As you find time to relax and to do things 'just for you', you will become increasingly aware of your spirituality. As you develop spiritually you will balance your being and doing activities. This balance will increase yourself self-esteem and enhance your relationships.
Reinventing Yourself
If your image is neat, quiet and respectable, it's difficult suddenly to decide to go a bit wild. Our friends and loved ones get alarmed when we behave out of character and so, if it gets too uncomfortable to make a change, we just slip back into our usual image.
Start with small changes and you will be amazed by how these will affect you. If being different is difficult at first, just keep practicing. Change is like a breath of fresh air.
Change the way that you think and talk about yourself and your life will change. Many of the negative beliefs you hold about yourself are only things that you have learned to believe as you were growing up. Beliefs are only thoughts and thoughts can be changed.
Go for a positive self-image and noticed that people treat you with greater respect. Become a new you: reinvent yourself. Forget about what other people might think and discover some new dimensions within yourself.
Relationships
If your happiness depends upon the action of others you have to become a victim, you are disempowered, you have lost direction and self respect. We become trapped when we look for fulfillment anywhere outside ourselves.
Treat yourself well and others will do the same... When a relationship becomes difficult always ask yourself this question: 'How have I attracted this behavior into my life?' Stop trying to blame others for your poor relationships and turn the focus of your attention on yourself.
Goals
Whatever your goals you can bring them closer by writing an action plan. When we commit ourselves to paper we take ourselves much more seriously.
Confidence
'No' is such a small word, but it seems to be one of the hardest words for us to say... Practice saying 'no': say it out loud to yourself when there's no one around, just get used to saying it.
Self belief is the key ingredient of a successful and happy life. When we have it we feel all tough up the world: calm, confidence and in control... We feel good about ourselves, we feel we deserve the best and we attract good fortune into our lives. When we lose our self-belief we lose all these marvelous feelings and everything starts to go wrong.
Intuition
Your intuition gives you important information and speaks to you through urges, feelings and flashes of insight and the more you use it more information it will give you.
Releasing
Forgiveness does not mean that we think it's OK for anybody to do anything to us. Forgiveness is all about letting go.
And to do we find hardest to forgive? Why, ourselves of course. We are our own hardest critics: can we ever be good enough, clever enough, talented enough...? When we are low in confidence we become our own worst enemy and as we heap on the self-criticism we enter a negative spiral which makes us feel worse and worse. Self-forgiveness is the key to empowerment. When we can love and value ourselves, despite our shortcomings, we become free to be ourselves and to reach our highest potential.
Whenever you hang on to old, hurtful memories your life becomes slow, stuck, routinized and boring. Anger and disempowerment go hand in hand. Stop living in the past or it will ruin your life. Stop reacting and start acting. Undo your painful past by giving up and letting go of the hurt and your future will be clearer, lighter and brighter.
Habits
Addictions enchant us by appearing to enhance our lives and numb our pain: this is an illusion. Addictions enslave us, wreck our lives and keep us at rock-bottom. Releasing addictions requires dedication, focus and high motivation, but the rewards are priceless. Forgive yourself, let go of blame and climb out of your negative patterning. You can do this!
Courage
Terrible things do happen to people and there's nothing unusual about having to face a big setback. The important question is not 'why has this happened to me?' but 'how can I learn to bounce back from adversity?'
Accept the reality of what has happened. Don't allow your mind to keep replaying the event. Wondering what you did wrong and dwelling on 'if only's' will not give you anything except sleepless nights. Visualize yourself coping well and moving on into your new future. Try to stop blaming yourself or anyone else for your misfortune: bad things happen.
Health
When we are balanced, our energy is flowing freely and we feel wonderful: our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energies are in harmony and we are 'at ease.' If, for some reason, there is a block in the circuit, and this can be in any one or more of the levels, then we become out of balance and this affects every part of our being. When we are out of balance we are dis-eased (not at ease) with ourselves and eventually we become diseased in some way.
Ask yourself if you really want to be healthy. This is an important question. Sometimes there may be something in it for us to be sick. We can use illness as a way to avoid responsibilities and/or we can use our sickness as a way to say 'no' in a situation where we find it difficult to assert ourselves.
Short quotes worth noting:
Anything in life is possible: whenever you think that you can, know that you can.
Winning has as much to do with mental toughness, as it has with ability.
If you lead a busy life and don't organize your time, then sooner or later your busyness will overwhelm you.
Prioritize your jobs and let go of the ones that don't really need to be done.
You are what you believe you are, you will become what you expect to become - the choice is yours
Reflect on your positive qualities. Remember that whatever you think about grows.
Feel rich in the good things of life and they will be attracted to you. Feel poor in your resources and that's the way you will stay.
Ask yourself this question: if my universe over flowing and abundant or is it impoverished and marked by scarcity?
Our daily habits help us to keep things together but sometimes they can stop us from having new experiences and expanding our lives.
The ways people treat us are reflections of the ways that we treat ourselves.
We can only enjoy balanced relationships and be confident to express our feelings and ideas when our own energies are balanced.
* * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS
YOU
- Being a Winner
- De-stressing Your Life
- Managing Your Time
- Becoming Confident
- Enjoying the Good Things in Life
- Devleoping Your Spirituality
YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
- Checking Your Relationships - Are They Healthy?
- Changing Yourself
- Changing Your Personal Relationships
- Balancing Your Male and Femail Energy
- Trusting Yourself and Others
- Having Sexual Confidence
- Getting Men to Talk
- Forgiving Yourself and Others
- Being a 'Good Enoug' Mother
HEALING
- Letting Go of Addicitons
- Awakening Your Inner Child
- Receiving Angelic Blessings
- Bouncing Back
- Healing Your Life
