Sound familiar? Before you know it an hour or two goes by and your to-do list has nothing crossed of it.

We all know how to waste time!  Sociologist W. Edward Deming states that the “average worker has more than fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.”  If you’re a have an email, twitter or facebook account the odds are stacked against you from the start!

“The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words- ‘I did not have time’” Franklin Field

So what can you do?

The first step is to identify your time wasting habits.  Are you guilty of any of the following?

• Constantly checking your email or facebook?
• Taking phone calls when you’re working?
• Surfing the net when you’re working?
• Replying to most of your sms’s immediately even when you’re working, in the cinema or at a restaurant?
• Incapable of saying no?
• Lack of daily or weekly planning?
• Under or over estimating the time to complete tasks?
• A constant stream of ideas or offers that distract you and lead you ‘astray’?
• General time wasting?

If you haven’t a clue where all your time goes.  Try keeping an activity log for one week to help you to understand how you spend your time.  Write down everything from eating, exercising and working to sending texts, emails and watching tv.

Then for each time stealer that you identified ask yourself what can you do to overcome this.

For example:

• Set your phone to silent or turn it off when you’re working on something important.
• Set aside certain times of the day to check emails/ facebook/ the internet etc and stop when your time is up?
• Prioritise your goals from being a better parent to increasing your income and allocate your time according to their importance to you.
• Spend 10 minutes at the end of the night to plan the following day.
  • Eg list the top 5 items in order of importance to be completed the next day.  The next day, start on task 1 and finish this task before moving to task 2, finish this then move to task 3 etc?
• When someone asks you to do something when you’re busy let them know you’re working on something else and ask can you get back to them later.

I literally wrote that last line and had someone call me to do something really fun now, talk about being tested on walking my talk.  It took willpower to say No but I said it- hurray!

Developing strategies for overcoming your time wasting habits can not only give you hours of your time back each week but will minimise your stress, make you more productive and free you up to do more of what you love.

Now isn’t that worth it?

What an inspiring day.. Over one thousand people of all ages pushing themselves mentally, physically and emotionally.  When I first arrived the category that was racing were people mainly in their 60s!!

How cool is that?  I know people in their twenties who moan if they’ve to walk more than 10 minutes and these people were 60+ doing a triathlon!

However, the main message I took from being there was the power of encouragement.  Seeing people line the streets to shout competitors on, sometimes people they knew and a lot of the time people they didn’t.

I was clapping like a lunatic (on my own at one stage while the others were racing) for everyone that went by me because I could see the lift they got from encouragement.  During his cycle stage I shouted out to my fiancé that he was doing great.  He then sped up and passed lots of other bikes when he heard his name.  Afterward he said he got a real boost from it which helped him speed up!

It reminded me of our mate Craig who ran the New York marathon last year.  There was one stage that he ‘hit the wall’ and didn’t think he’d be able to finish the marathon.  He said it was a horrible feeling and he was terrified he’d have to stop. Suddenly lots of spectators shouted out his name (as his name was on his shirt).  Craig said it changed everything for him- he went from feeling exhausted and that he was unable to make it to feeling great and running his way to the finish line.

How powerful are words of encouragement?

We don’t realise how our simple words of encouragement can positively impact those we speak them to.

Think back on your own life, how many times have words of encouragement helped you or even changed your life?

How many people can you encourage more- from yourself, to family, friends and co-workers?

Here are some wise words to ponder:

“A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success” Anon

“Nine tenths of education is encouragement.” Anatole France

“You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.” Jim Stovall

“One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul.” Therese of Lisieux

“There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend” Katharine Butler Hathaway

The most common scenarios are:

Scenario 1: It seems that they are doing every ‘right’, exercising daily, eating healthily and cutting out junk and still not getting the results they want. This is obviously very disheartening for the person trying to lose weight and when their hard efforts return no results they often quit their new health/weight loss regime.

Scenario 2: It seems they have ‘tried’ for one or two weeks and did well but life got in the way and they stopped. They often feel like a failure and say things like ‘I really want to lose weight, I don’t know why I cant seem to stick to it.. I must be a loser and destined to stay this weight’.

From my personal experience and coaching weightloss clients, I find that most people are usually very close to their goal and that just a few tweaks will help them get the results they want.

Lets look some solutions..

In scenario 1, one or more of these things are usually happening:

1: The person is eating healthier and exercising however.. is actually not eating enough! Yes, this may sound crazy but often people change their diets and start to eat so little that their metabolism slows down so much that they stop losing weight.

Solution: Ensure you are eating enough everyday. 3 low GI meals and 2 low GI snacks are recommended with foods across all food groups. Sample foods and recipes can be found at www.LowGIWeightLoss.com/day4.html

2: Again, the person is eating healthier and exercising however.. is actually still eating too much and not accounting for all they eat. What do we mean?

Well, all the little extras throughout the day, a spoonful of yougart here, a handful of chips there, a few mouthfuls of the kids lunch/ leftovers.. the old ‘it doesn’t count if its on someone else’s plate’ scenario. Sound familiar?

Solution: The solution here is to stick to the 3 meals and 2 snacks and do not pick throughout the day.. Keep a food diary and bring it with you everywhere you go. Note EVERYTHING you eat, even the odd chip here and there, you’ll be surprised at what you’re eating.

3: The person is eating healthier and exercising however.. is still eating very large portions of food.

Solution: Look at the servings listed on the nutrition panel of what you’re eating. If it contains 4 servings and you’re eating half or even the whole package then you’re eating 2-4 times more than you need to. Most serving sizes shouldn’t be larger than your fist.
Some tips are:

* Fill up on vegetables and salad.

* A portion of meat should be around the size of a deck of cards.
* ½ cup of rice or pasta is the same as a tennis ball.
* Don’t eat straight from the package, if applicable.
* Eat from a smaller plate, studies show this can be a simple and effective way to reduce your portion sizes.

Lets look at scenario 2:

At a glance it would seem this personally is not really ‘motivated’ enough, when the truth is there is usually more to it than that. One of these things may be happening:

1: The persons weight loss is not a priority and bad habits are too easily fallen back into. This is often the case for busy mums & stressed workers.

Solution: A mindset change is needed.. for example make a healthy lifestyle your priority and see it as something that will help your life not add stress to it.
Realistically it is a lot less stressful to be healthy and happy with your weight than not!

Tips

* Buy only healthy, nutritious food each week so there’s no option for junk in the house.
* Premake lunch/ dinners during the week.. again some recipes at www.LowGIWeightLoss.com/day4.html take 15- 20 mins to prepare.
* Make extra servings to last 2 days if you forsee busy days ahead.
* Try good quality replacement meals or shakes, we always recommend Usana as these are certified low GI AND meal replacements.

Remember ‘I cant’ is a victim way of saying ‘I wont’

2: The person subconsciously doesn’t want to lose weight or feels that if they lose it that something bad will come of it.. Ok this sounds very ‘deep’ but in reality we’re all doing our best and underneath it all if we believe losing weight will not benefit us we wont lose it.

Solution: Ask yourself, what do I stand to lose if I become my desired weight?

We have heard people say..
I’ll have nothing to moan about anymore.
I’ll be attractive and will gain male attention again.. what if I stray?
I’ll have no excuse to say no to going out anymore.

If you think you need extra help in this area, talk to someone who can help you discuss whats really going on.

Do you see yourself in any of the scenarios above?
Put a solution in place, either one suggested here or something you know will help you.

Have a great week, be nice to yourself and remember its up to you to choose to have the health and body of your dreams!

Click Here for a Free 7 day email course designed to help you lose weight healthily using the Low GI system so that you can keep it off.

It works on a credit system, where the more credits you have the more times you can display your ads.

You get credits for

1: Having TrafficSwarm as your start page- you get one credit each time you open your home page.

2: Clicking and reading other ads on TrafficSwarm.

3: Using TrafficSwarms search facility.

4: Putting a TrafficSwarm link on your own website.

5. Referring others to TrafficSwarm.

You can upgrade to their pro-version too for $30 too.

If you want to generate your ads for free then my advice is to use TrafficSwarm as your home page and spend a few minutes each day clicking on the other ads on their site.

Again the free link is http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?699903

Fact: Google works and there are businesses making millions from using Google adwords.

Fact: There are also many people who’ve received huge Google bills for little returns.

Heres some tips to make Google work for you.

1: Google has a daily budget and/or you can make a payment upfront so if youre new or have a small budget- USE THESE.

2: Get educated on how to make Google work for you, a great course is PPC Domination by Mike Dillard a multi millionaire who uses Google as his main advertising source.

3. Buy Perry Marshalls book on adwords.

4. Research your keywords first using Overture and/or wordtracker

5. Create adgroups and match your ads to those adgroups for example have an adgroup for Sales leads and one for Sales training both have different keywords and different ads related to that keyword.

6. Make sure your capture page delivers what your ad says it will.. this will improve your sales rate and ensure your clicks are more qualified.

7. Use negative keywords for example if youre campaign is for Health a negative keyword may include scam.  This means your ad will get shown less and therefore increase the ratio of impressions to click.

8.  Use area specific locations if your product isn’t available worldwide.

A good tip for Google.. it’s a great way to determine if there’s a market for your product.

For example you can generate a survey about an upcoming product launch and for figuring out the keywords/phrases you can optimise your pages on.. You can then send people to the site as part of your market research.
You can also test which keywords are searched for and clicked on for your site on Google for a small amount of money.  This can prevent you wasting time doing SEO with the wrong keywords.

When in reality, its one of the only really useful concepts we were taught at school to actually make money for us rather than us work for it til were 65-75!!

Let me explain how compound interest, as little as $50 per week and 24-35 years (interest from 20% to 11.4%) can make you a millionaire.

‘From January 1970 to December 2007, the average compounded rate of return for the S&P 500, including reinvestment of dividends, was approximately 11.4% per year ‘(source: www.standardandpoors.com). So taking that example of an average interest rate return of 11.4% lets look at what we can do with $50 and some time..

Using the calculators at http://www.dinkytown.net/java/CompoundSavings.html

If you save $50 per week your savings may grow to $1,030,653 after 35 years. This includes a starting balance of $0 and a 11.40% annual rate of return.

So that’s $50 per week which is 10% of the earnings of a household earning $500 per week or 5% of a household earning $500 per week.,, Manageable for most people eh?

Lets look at $100

If you save $100 per week your savings may grow to $1,181,367 after 30 years. This includes a starting balance of $0 and a 11.40% annual rate of return.

Make compound interest sound a little more interesting now.

So some questions to ask yourself..

Assuming most 30 year olds are paying $50 into the super/pensions per week until age 65.. why aren’t the people who are earning the average wage of $580 per week (paying super at 9%) millionaires when they retire and draw their super/pension?

In fact why aren’t most people earning double this by the time they retire??

I don’t know about you but it makes me think that we cannot rely on our super/pension.  We must take action ourselves and teach others too.

And that even if we don’t learn to generate wealth from property, shares, business or the Internet we can become millionaires and enjoy our golden years from as little as $50 per week with this method.

That also means that most people drawing the dole (incidentally in most western countries drawing the dole puts you at the top 10% of the most wealthiest people in the world) can become millionaires by age 65!!

So if you don’t see yourself running a business or investing, this is your chance.

Don’t become one of the 50% of the population whose retirement plan is to win the lottery.

95% of people are dead or dead broke by age 65.. What can you do today to be in the 5%?

Realistically most of us buy far too many things we don’t need and often waste thousands of dollars per year… (think of all those shoes/outfits/magazines/books/cosmetics/food items you don’t use)

This article is for anyone who is at the stage where they need to cut back some bad habits and keep more money in their pocket- here are some ideas.

• Shop once a week and in a supermarket or even better a low price one (many of these are brilliant quality). This can reduce your bill by up to 50%.
• Plan your weekly meals to avoid having to go back to the shops or buying take out.
• For food, clothes or any type of shopping write a list first and only buy what you need.
• Don’t buy something just because its on sale!  This is false savings unless you purposely set out to buy it!
• Shop around to see if you can get a better deal on your phone, electricity, interest rates etc.
• Turn off your water heating system during the day or at times when it wont be used.
• Learn to do your own nails, hair etc.
• Go on holidays low or mid season.
• Put loose change into a money jar until its full.
• Cancel any subscriptions you don’t use- gym, magazines, tv.
• Go to the cinema on cheap Tuesdays.
• Use money off vouchers.
• Buy your petrol during the week or on the days when its lowest.
• Plan your money in advance so you avoid having to use another banks atm and the $2-$5 charge.
• Change your mortgage repayments to weekly or fortnightly.
• If you cant afford something, save for it- don’t put it on the credit card.
• Join the library instead of buying books.
• Don’t open a new packet or box of an item if you still have some left in another box/packet. Ie use your bread, sauces, food items, cosmetics until they run out.
• Invite friends over for dinner/drinks instead of going out.
• Fill your water bottle before leaving the house so you avoid having to buy one.
• When you get a pay rise, instead of upgrading your debt by upgrading your car/house etc- upgrade your savings!!
• Shop around for the best insurance for your home, car etc.  Don’t cut necessities but make sure you’re getting the best deal.
• Instead of buying a new outfit, mix n match accessories or buy new accessories instead of a new outfit.

The important thing we must learn about money is that its not how much you make but how much you keep.  Like health and anything in life there’s a discipline and consciousness required regarding money that needs to be learned in order for it to work for you rather than the other way around.

]]> http://louisegreally.com/?feed=rss2&p=33 0 http://louisegreally.com/?p=31 http://louisegreally.com/?p=31#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:38:37 +0000 Louise Greally http://louisegreally.com/?p=31 I am very passionate about eating healthy and tasty food.
At the request of some of you, I am posting some recipes here.
I will add more as times goes on

Noodle Stir Fry

Ingredients

200g Frozen or fresh stir fry veg

1 onion

1 Capsicum (pepper)

250g chicken/prawns/tofu

250g rice noodles

Sauce

2 cloves of garlic

Chilli, fresh or packaged (no preservatives)

½ lime

Sweet chilli sauce

1-teaspoon sesame seed oil (optional)

Heat wow or big frying pan with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Cook chicken for 5 mins (if prawns or tofu cook after the veg)

Add onion and pepper for 2 mins

Add remainder of veg

In the meantime pour the noodles into boiling water (hint boil water in kettle then add to a big bowl) Allow 2-5 mins to soften (depending on thickness)

Mix sauce ingredients together

When veg appear almost cooked add noodles and sauce.

To speed up use frozen veg and thinner noodles

Should take 15-30 mins max from preparation to serving

I’m not sure of the GI index of the meal, the rice noodles may be medium to high but coupled with the veg n meat the GI load will be fairly good.

Can also change the noodles for a low GI rice such as brown long grain or basmati.  Start to cook this before you start the stir-fry

Salmon, Sweet Potato & Capsicum Salad

Ingredients

1 small piece of salmon or any fish per person

½ Red or yellow Capsicum (pepper) per person

Handful of baby spinach leaves per person

Optional: avocado, red onion, courgette (zucchini)

Dressing

½ lemon squeezed

100ml of white wine vinegar

1 clove of garlic
Sprinkle of fresh or packaged (no preservatives) mint

1-2 tablespoons of honey

Preheat oven to 180C

Wrap fish in tin foil sprayed with olive oil, leaving enough of a gap to steam.  Cook for 20 mins

Chop up ½ sweet potato per person and steam/boil for 15 mins

Chop capsicum and cook in the oven beside the fish for 10 mins

Mix spinach and other veg into a bowl.

When fish is done, cut into large bite size pieces, mix with veg, capsicum, sweet potato and dressing into a large bowl.

Serve alone or with rye/wholemeal pittas

Very low gi!!

Beetroot, Sweet Potato and Feta Salad

Ingredients

200g Beetroot
1 large sweet potato
50g feta cheese
100g baby spinach/ mixed lettuce/ rocket

1/2 small red onion
½ avocado

** Add any salad you wish

Chop the sweet potato into bite size pieces and steam for 15-20 mins or until done

Chop the beetroot into bite size pieces

Chop the feta into bite size pieces

Chop the avocado into bite size pieces

Slice the onion

Add the above into a large bowl, stir and add dressing.

Dressing examples:

Some mayonnaise with added pesto.. my fav with this

Some mayonnaise with added lemon or

Some balsamic vinegar with olive/flaxseed oil

Some lemon, white wine vinegar and garlic- v low fat!

Do you know that more people have heart attacks on a Monday morning than on any other day in the week and that newborn babies who don’t receive any love (or in medical terms kinaesthetic tactile stimulation) will die within a few days even if they are well nourished and healthy? Deepak Chopra mentions these facts in his audio Perfect Health.

The mind/body/emotional connection within disease, in particular the role the immune system plays is recognised within many health care systems.
Psychoneuroimmunology is the medical term for this connection between the mind, the immune system and the nervous system.

In her best seller “You Can Heal Your Life” by the acclaimed therapist and author Louise Hay, Louise states that all illness is caused by an imbalance of mind, body or soul.
There is a percentage of disease caused in the body due to outside influences such as our diet, our environment we live in, chemicals we ingest in our area, food and toiletries and all these have an affect in the body.  Importantly though so do our emotions.  There is more and more evidence linking emotions to health.  Stress being the most talked about and advertised example.

So if our emotions and emotional health is a huge contributing factor for good health.  Doesn’t it make sense that we look after emotional health in order to live an all round healthy life?

My friend and mentor Paul Blackburn, who is the co founder of Beyond Success tells a story of a client of his who had terminal cancer.  She came to Paul as her last hope.
During their time together Paul tried to discover the feelings around this client being overweight.  She seemed reluctant to talk about it and said she’d been overweight for years, had tried everything and nothing worked. However, as being overweight is usually a sign of trying to protect ourselves, Paul felt there were probably emotions not dealt with here that were linked to the terminal illness.  Eventually the client confessed she had been raped at age 13, hadn’t dealt with it and had been overweight since…
Paul guided his client through the healing process and helped her to deal with the anger and various intense emotions around this incident.   Months later she was disease free, was still alive at the time of writing his book (Beyond Success) and was finally at a healthy weight.  In fact she was on a new diet, she called the ‘eat whatever you like’ diet.. because she ate what she liked and still stayed slim.
The emotions were felt and faced, her disease disappeared as did her weight problems.

There are more and more cases like this being documented and its becoming undeniable that its an area we need to address in order to have both emotional and physical health.
“The immune system, like the central nervous system, has a memory and the capacity to learn. Thus, it could be said that intelligence is located in literally every cell of the body, and that the traditional separation of mind and body no longer applies.” http://www.alternativemedicine.com/A…rapyDetail.xsl.

Not convinced?  Neither was I initially, however if we analyse it in the following way we can come to the same conclusion.

Person A:
Emotionally healthy, would tend to look after themselves and have a lifestyle that leaned towards good health. For example would be less likely to have any addictions or habits like smoking/drinking/over-working that would impact their health.  Would be more likely to eat, exercise and sleep well.

Person B:
Emotionally unhealthy.  Would tend to look after themselves less.  Would be more prone to addictions, irregular sleep, unhealthy eating, little exercise.  All of these factors continuously impacting the body will most likely manifest a disease.

Conclusion:
There are many things that contribute to our health; emotions being a huge factor.
Whether you believe that illnesses can manifest from the mind and our emotions or even if you don’t believe that.. its undeniable that a person in a good state of emotional health will eat better, exercise, sleep better and do the things necessary to ensure they are healthy.
The solution for us all is to look after ourselves physically as well as emotionally.
There are many things we can do to improve our emotional health- self development, coaching, meditation, exercise and yoga are a few tools that can help improve your emotional health.

What steps can you take today?

Louise Hay lists conditions and the emotions around these diseases in You Can Heal Your Life.  Louise’s research states that these links are found in 80% of cases.  You can find the list here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/359921/Louise-L-Hay-Heal-Your-Body

Resources:
The Psychology of Winning. Dr Dennis Waitley.
Perfect Health. Audio. Dr Deepak Chopra.
You Can Heal Your Life. Louise Hay
Beyond Success. Paul Blackburn

‘Want to Be the Best You Can Be and
Have Heaps of Fun in the Process?’

Ever wake up with the feeling that:

You can be even more than you are now, that you’re capable of so much more but just not sure how to make it happen for you?

That you’re taking yourself or your life too seriously these days.. and nostalgically remembering times when you were having fun most of the time?

Or that you’re in the process of achieving your goals but it all seems like such hard work?

My name is Louise Greally and I’m a Success coach, with Beyond Success, a leading company in the personal development field.  I have helped many people to improve their lives in a fun and simple way.

Whilst I’m young- I’ve packed lots in. I believe in living life to the full and bringing the best out in myself.  I moved from Ireland in 2002 to Australia with my fiance, and have spent many months traveling the world. I’ve lived in 5 different countries since 1997 experiencing many adventures (some may say surviving), built a successful IT career, health business etc

So what?

Yep, that’s what I started to think a few years ago. I began to realise that there had to be more to life than achieving my next goal or constantly pushing myself.  So I embarked on my biggest challenge yet.. to figure out what I truly wanted for myself and to smash through any blockages holding me back. I love empowering others to do the same for their lives.

I’m here to help you to be the best that you can be and to have lots of fun in your life too!

**Special Online Offer: FREE Exploratory Session Valued at $197 (Includes Personality Profiling).
Contact Me At: Louise@LouiseGreally.com or Call  0405 366612 Today

Heres what some of my clients have said:

” To be honest, I was a little skeptical about having a life coach as I considered myself to be open minded and self aware. I’m glad I gave it a try as I was really burntout and unbalanced emotionally, physically and mentally. The insight and break-throughs I achieved with Lou were amazing, it was so much easier than I expected. Lou has been easy to connect with and very professional, she kept me focussed, accountable and on track to pursue my dream life. I have now started my own business in a completely different industry, something I never would have done before. I have gained insight in how to overcome the obstacles in my life quickly and simply. I highly recommend Lou’s services to anyone who genuinely desires something better in their life and is struggling to change. Thanks Lou, you are truly awesome.”
Meg Supel, Melbourne.


“Louise , I would like you to know that I have benefited greatly from the coaching sessions we had together. You have done an outstanding job in helping me discover what it is I want out of life and how to get it. You have helped me to put everything in the right perspective . You have a great positive attitude which is so refreshing and contagious. You are an outstanding coach. I am very thankful and greatful to have worked with you.”
Violet, VIC

“My journey with Louise G. has been nothing but positive. I have found her to be insightful, respectful and indeed empowering. Her wisdom for her age is remarkable, as are her communication skills.

I felt very accepted at all times despite some troubling personal issues. Louise proposed regularly ideas that could assist me materially, emotionally and practically towards my goals. I will carry some of those ideas for the rest of my life. Now that is just one example of how valuable her service has been.

I, without any hesitation would highly recommend Louise as a Life Coach.”
Louise M, Brisbane

Hi Lou,

I would like you to know that I have benefited greatly from all your guidance and inspirational wisdom.
You have been a huge help in assisting me work through blockages that have held me back in the past. I couldn’t have asked for a more genuine and supportive coach. I am very blessed and grateful to have worked with you.

Thanks again Lou and I wish you all the very best!
Roula, Sydney