Success in 2015 and Beyond

If you are like most people, you probably have some sort of change you’d like to make in 2015 to be happier this year.

Trying to create happiness by changing something in your life can be frustrating and often futile. Even if you do succeed, these changes often don’t last for more than a few months, at best.

I’m a full believer in shifting your life from the inside out.

When you shift yourself from the inside, your outer life reflects this inner shift. When you become more grounded, focused, centered, and calm, the world around you becomes easier. Those irritating things like unhealthy relationships, work, weight and health problems, just naturally fade away.

What helps you to become grounded, focused, centered, and calm?

I believe, to shift your life from the inside out, you must commit to using certain “tools” on a regular and daily basis.

Below are a few important tools my clients and I use on a daily basis to help us navigate our lives from a place of positive expectation, happiness, calm, ease and trust:

• Time alone in silence
• Time in nature
• Focusing on the breath
• Yoga, Thai Chi or Chi Gong
• Journaling
• Anything creative and inspiring
• A quiet walk alone
• Listening to beautiful music
• Positive affirmations
• Guided visualizations or mediations
• Oracle cards
• Prayer
• Asking for help from unseen friends
• Reading inspiring books or daily pages
• Allowing your body and spirit to connect to “living words” such a beauty, abundance, love, trust, freedom, powerful, receiving, joy, and flow.
• Creating, adding to and reviewing a vision board or gratitude journal
• Getting clear with what you desire and imagining how it’s going to feel once you’re there

If you were to begin each day with just 1 or 2 things on this list, how might your life be different 1 year from now?

Yet, for many of us, that’s easier said than done. For years I struggled with sticking to my commitment of daily meditation. Upon awakening in the morning, both sides of my brain would begin an ongoing debate.

Filled with images of peaceful breathing, solitude and inner bliss, the right side would eagerly try to pull my body into the direction of my mediation room. While that was happening, the left side would scream, “What are you thinking?! We are FAR too busy for this kind of airy-fairy nonsense. We barely have time to get the all important “action” items ticked off our list as it is.”

Seven out of ten times I would succumb to the domination of my linear, left-brain and begin getting into action. This would usually consist of putting dishes or clothes away from the evening before. Once I got started, there was no turning back as I went about my day jumping through one hoop after the other, until I fell into bed at the end of the day exhausted, often frustrated and disappointed, only to repeat the pattern the following morning.

Sound familiar? How many times have you promised yourself a fresh new start of a daily mediation or yoga practice, only to succumb to the voice in your head and fall back into old patterns of the past?

What’s going to make this year any different?

Below are some ideas to help you stay focused and on track in 2015.

• Make a commitment to yourself to practice using your inner tools daily.
• Find a friend to share this commitment with to help you to be accountable.
• Take inventory. Write out a list of your tools and put it where you can access it easily.
• Make it attractive and simple. Create a place in your home where you can keep your tools in one place so they are accessable.
• Create an alter. Collect and place inspiring items such as a candle, crystal or incense on a small table to center, calm and connect you.
• Keep it fresh and creative. Mix it up. For example, go to yoga on Mondays and Thursdays, guided visualizations and mediations on Tuesday, Wednesday Saturdays. Walk in nature on Fridays and Sundays. If it’s easier for you, create a routine.
• Do your inner work at a regular time in the day, preferably first thing in the morning before you get “busy” because once you get busy, there’s usually no turning back. For example, get up, go pee, have a drink of water and go within.
• Begin small. Start with 5-10 minutes at first and slowly lengthen your time each week. I suggest adding 5 minutes a week until you reach 30 minutes.
• Enjoy longer periods at least once a month. Examples of this are hour-long mediations, a weekend art project, or attending a retreat.
• Consistency is more important than duration. When you’re about ready to give into the voice in your head remember, you always have time to pause and think of 5 things you are grateful for.
• Find help. Classes, communities, mentors and support are all around you!

What inspires you to stay connected to your inner practice? I’d love to hear from you. Please share your wisdom and questions.