© iQoncept – Fotolia.com

Success does not come easy, and the empire, which we are attempting to build, does not happen over night.

In order to achieve success, you must start out small and create a snowball of accomplishments.  I am convinced creating those steps to success allows you to see your growth, achievements and all it entails to reach your version of “the top”.

Achieving success and being successful in our craft is what we all want to amass in our careers.  Unfortunately, we often feel we are not worthy or do not deserve the success and sabotage ourselves slowly watching what we worked so hard to acquire come crumbling down.

Fearing success and fearing failure are good for nothing thoughts that do not deserve an ounce of our energy.  Below are just a few ways in which we may be  sabotaging  our success and not even realize it.

1. Negative thinking. If you want to be successful you must see it, believe it, dream it and live in a successful moment. You can not be a pessimist and think positive things will come your way. Create a smooth path to success by having a positive state of mind.

2. Having no support. Not having a strong support system makes it extra difficult to succeed. You need your cheerleaders by your side reminding you how phenomenal you truly are. When we don’t have any support we begin to doubt ourselves, which leads us to self-sabotage.

3. Making poor choices. When you make poor choices, you are ultimately sabotaging your own success. You need to make those good calls and use your better judgment based on where you want to go and what you want to accomplish.

4. Use of money. Money may not bring happiness but it does bring what we need. You want to know how to manage your money when you are headed toward success. You want to create and stick to your budget, so you know exactly where your money is going and if any adjustments are necessary.

5. Relax.  As difficult as it is to do what the word means, we must do it. Sometimes we just have to unplug. Many times we rush things and they end up not turning out how we intended.  We need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and ask ourselves what is it that we want to achieve.  Being over-stressed or not in the right state of mind will not lead you to success.

6. No organizational skills.  Organization is one of the many keys to success. You want to be able to organize your thoughts and most importantly organize your focus. For me, not being organized drives me insane. Many believe they work better under ‘controlled chaos’, but the fact of the matter is that always scrambling to get things done does not contribute to your success.  Getting organized is beneficial for your work ethic as well as your sanity.

7. Not being focused. Staying focused is an important component of remaining successful. Again, you need to have a clear goal and know what your end result will be.  If your thoughts are scattered, things become difficult, and the success you have accomplished may begin to deteriorate.

8. Not driven/persistent. When aiming for success you MUST be driven and persistent. There will be many obstacles that may “make an attempt” to hinder your success.  Remind yourself you are the only one responsible for the decisions and choices that shape the life you want to live and success you want to achieve. You must remind yourself, your success it worth every tear, sweat, and headache. 

9. Not setting goals. I have heard of many say they do not bother setting goals because it feels as if they have failed if they are not met.  I like to believe it is the other way around. I rather set goals, so I know what I am working toward. I know what my end result will be, and I know what I need to work toward it. Plus, there is nothing sweeter than working hard toward a goal and being successful at achieving it because you have had your eye on the prize all along.

10. S-U-C-C-E-S-S.  By not making this word a part of your vocabulary you are sabotaging yourself and your self worth. Make the word a part of your daily vocabulary and create a mantra around it.  Say to yourself, “I am going to succeed!” and mean it!

Everyone is born to succeed–it is your choice to make it happen! Punto!

Allergies aren’t always pretty. In fact, two-thirds (66%) of women with allergies feel ugly or unattractive because of their ALLERGY FACE™. It’s also noted that 81% of women with allergies think they can never fully cover up their ALLERGY FACE™. But there is hope! Seventy five #LatinaBlogggers have been asked to share their beauty tips as well over the next few months. Make sure you follow the #ALLERGYFACE hashtag on Twitter to read tips and share stories.

For more information, visit ZYRTEC® on Facebook – http://on.fb.me/10zeUgt

Hola Blogueras!

We have plenty of news items for you today that you’re going to want to check out. First up, The American Latino Heritage Fund (ALHF) of the National Park Foundation, announced the @American_Latino Expedition “to further engage diverse audiences to explore America’s national parks.” They are currently conducting a national search for bloggers! For details or to apply for the opportunity to participate in a national park adventure, visit the website.

In other news, The College Chica event presented by Latinitas and L.I.V.E will be held in Dallas on May 25th and Mamiverse announced the launch of Mamiverse Jobs. (You can check that out at Jobs.Mamiverse.com.)

Las Noticias:

• The ladies of Muy Bueno Cookbook are now brand ambassadors for California Strawberries and their Muy Bueno cookbook is one of the finalists for an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award.

• Carmen of Viva Fashion was featured on Univision’s Despierta America sharing tips for tackling ALLERGY FACE on behalf of ZYRTEC this week. She was also featured in an advertorial for John Frieda in the June issue of People en Español Magazine.

• The Wise Latina Club‘s Viviana was invited to appear on MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts Show, joining a panel of journalists to discuss immigration, the minority vote, and student loan debt. Watch here.

• Sujeiry of Love Sujeiry will be writing for Babble starting in June as one of their relationship writers.

• Eliana of ElianaTardio.com was on WGCU News/NPR discussing Writing about Parenting Children with Down Syndrome.

• Melanie of Ella Media hosted a blogger social for the launch of Aio Wireless in Orlando. Sili of My Mamihood attended along with other local bloggers.

Okay Latinas, ¿qué pasa con ustedes? What have you been up to? Do you have exciting noticias about yourself or one of our amigas? We want to know about it! E-mail us with the latest happenings in our Latina community and links to stories that feature our fellow blogueras. We may share it here on Latina Bloggers Weekly Round-up next week!

Sigan logrando!

image courtesy of PeopleEnEspanol.com

Great news for all music and entertainment aficionados!!

Festival PEOPLE EN ESPAÑOL is looking for a blogger to report on the most coveted event coming to Texas.

The weekend’s activities will include performances by Gloria Estefan, Alejandro Fernandez, Wisin y Yandel, Bobby Pulido, Jencarlos Canela among other talents celebrating Latino entertainment and culture.

The weekend filled event will take place Labor Day weekend (Saturday, August 31 and Sunday, September 1) in San Antonio, Texas.  The festival will showcase the best of music and entertainment, and you can have the opportunity to be a part of it all.  To enter, tweet @peopleenespanol along with the #FestivalPESPBlogger and a link to your blog.

A winner will be chosen by the PeopleEnEspanol.com‘s editorial team and will receive:

• a trip for two to the festival including hotel accommodations and airfare
• two concert tickets for each night of the festival
• front of stage access to live tweet the event
• one video interview with a selected artist which will be posted on PeopleEnEspanol.com
• one press Credential granting access to Festival PEOPLE EN ESPAÑOL Press Room to conduct red carpet interviews

Full details including rules and regulations regarding the blogger contest can be found here.

© Scanrail – Fotolia.com

As bloggers, we all rely heavily on email to run our sites/businesses and yet it continues to be the main source contributing to the clutter of our minds and physical space.

Created nearly two decades ago,  email allows communication to flow quicker, and for us to be more efficient yet the biggest issue we continue to face is the handling of large amounts of data in our inbox’s every single day. Making the challenge of organizing, filtering, deleting, etc that much more overwhelming.

If you feel like you will never see your inbox completely clear, here are a few tips that will help you manage the amount of emails you receive.

1. Limit how often you check-in. Decide when you will process your emails, how often and how long you will dedicate to emptying it out your inbox.  
2. Take immediate action.  Make the decision what you will do with the email as soon as you open it.  Reply, delete, archive, add to your calendar or to-do list, etc.
3. Filter. Get rid of what you don’t need.  Unsubscribe to those newsletters you do not read cut the noise and simplify the process. Only keep unread emails in your inbox.
4. Keep it short.  Keep your email replies short, simple and to the point.
5. Close it.  Once you have processed your emails, close it and only open it when you intend to dedicate the time to it.

Keeping your tasks organized and simple will help you feel less stressed and allow you to become more efficient.

Share: How do you manage your emails throughout the day? 

I was lucky enough to be there again this year with my family for the second time in a row. I’ll be writing a lot more about the speakers and the Disney news here, on SpanglishBaby and my Babble Voices column. But now I want to share the big news that the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration will be traveling to four U.S. cities this year to bring the magic to more social media moms! If you live in or near San Francisco, Seattle, NYC or DC  you should apply to attend the Disney SMMC “On-the-Road” and get a chance to experience a lot of what makes this event so fabulous!

Per the official announcement:

During this delightful half-day event, the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration “On-the-Road” will:

• Highlight a dynamic line-up of motivational speakers, who will empower you to take your business to the next level
• Deliver educational content focused on business growth
• Create an exciting networking forum with influencers in your community

It really is fantastic and the learning and connecting is at a high level. You’ll also get to meet in person the people that make Disney SMMC happen every year.

I highly encourage #LatinaBloggers in the cities where #DisneyOnTheRoad will be this year to apply by clicking here.

If you do get to attend, please let us know so we can follow your tweets, instagrams and so more! Here are some pics with some of the Latina bloggers in Walt Disney World this year.

From L to R: Divina, Denisse Icaza, Silvia Martinez, Cristy Clavijo-Kish, Ana Flores, Zelma Rivera

From L to R: Silvia Martinez, Liz Cerezo, Storm Trooper, Tiany Lindemann Davis

Jeannette Kaplun, Ana Flores, Ana Roca Castro

Liz Cerezo, Ana Flores, Silvia Martinez

Ana Flores and Tiany Lindemann Davis

Silvia Martinez, Denisse Icaza, Ana Flores

Hola Blogueras!

Before we get to the Latina blogger news, here’s a mini round-up of social media and general blogging news you may have missed!

• Mom Bloggers Build a Network for Activism and Change on Forbes.com

• Seven steps to staying safe on social media sites on usatoday.com

• The Six Major Anxieties of Social Media on NYmag.com

Las Noticias:

• The following bloggers attended the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration Conference at Disney World this year: Ana of SpanglishBaby, Lorraine of Mamiverse, Denisse of Ahorros Para Mamá, Zelma of Yo Soy Mami, Jeannette of Hispana Global, Liz of Thoughts of a Mommy, Silvia of Mama Latina Tips, Pilar of One Mom Media, Helena of Pink Guayoyo, Christy of Los Tweens, Ana of LATISM, Eliana of ElianaTardio.com, and Divina of Dancing Hotdogs.

• Yvette of Muy Bueno Cookbook is a Food Editor over at Clabber Girl and Veronica and Yvette are both Kraft Tastemakers.

• Romina of Mamá XXI and Yoly of Cuponeando were invited last week to a live tweet in Spanish from the Mom+Social Global Summit by the United Nations Foundation. You can see Romina’s post about the experience HERE.

• Yoly of Cuponeando, Jeannette of Hispana Global, Yolanda of Sassy Mama in LA, and Ana of Traveling Latina are proud ambassadors for the Orgullosa Project – They are representing non-profits in their area while garnering votes for them.

• Eliana of ElianaTardio.com was interviewed by Thalia for Mother’s Day on her radio show, Conexión Thalia and had one of her articles on raising children with special needs, shared by Sheryl Sandberg.

• Lisa of Autism Wonderland has been selected as one of the 12 Latinas Think Big Event Twitter Ambassadors and will be live tweeting. Lisa says, “You can follow all of the fabulous #LATINASTHINKBIG Twitter Ambassadors to see live updates & photos during the event in NYC.“

Alexandra – @AlliChasesBliss
Catarina – @CatarinaRivera
Chantilly – @BiculturalMom
Francesca – @WAOFrancesca
Lisa – @LaliQuin
Lisa – @LisaTalksLove
Patti – @PattieCordova
Raquel – @RachlWhite
Tanisha – @TanishaLove
Vicglamar – @vicglamar
Vicky – @DocSabia

Okay Latinas, ¿qué pasa con ustedes? What have you been up to? Do you have exciting noticias about yourself or one of our amigas? We want to know about it! E-mail us with the latest happenings in our Latina community and links to stories that feature our fellow blogueras. We may share it here on Latina Bloggers Weekly Round-up next week!

Sigan logrando!

Image source: Buster Benson

I am part of the Windows Champions Program. As a Windows Champion, I have been loaned a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 Windows 8 convertible Ultrabook, and, on occasion, Microsoft products such as software to assist me in developing content for my blog posts. All opinions are my own.

This month I promised to explain how you add apps from the Microsoft App Store in Windows 8 and how to remove pre-installed apps you don’t like, or ones you’ve decided aren’t for you. I also said I would cover some awesome apps for blogueras to make the most of your time online and off – more on that in a minute!

So, you have a Windows 8 device and you want to download some new apps – This is one of the easiest things to do in Windows 8. Ready? Here we go, in 3 easy steps:

Installing Windows 8 Apps

1. First you need to go to the Microsoft App “Store” – you do this by simply tapping or clicking the Store tile on the Start screen.

2. You can look for apps by categories including “Top free” (which are the most popular free apps), or if you’ve been around the store a lot, you may simply want to check out “New releases” once in awhile. If you’re looking for a specific app, you can open Start and type the name – apps that match your search will appear in results.

3. When you find an app you’re interested in, tap or click “Buy” or “Try” (free trial if it’s a paid app), or “Install” if it’s free – Windows 8 will automatically install the app and when it’s finished downloading, the tile will automatically appear on your Start screen. Easy, right?

Now, if there’s a Windows app you’ve decided you don’t use or don’t like, removing it is just as easy as installing it. If you’re using a mouse, right-click the app tile you want to remove and then select “Uninstall” from the toolbar that you now see at the bottom of the screen.

Removing Windows 8 Apps

If you’re using Windows 8 with a touchscreen and want to remove an app, tap and hold a tile, dragging it downward a little, then release. A checkmark appears in the corner of the tile. At the bottom of the screen, select “Uninstall.”

Now for my awesome app recommendations for blogueras. I’ll give you a few today, and more in the next post!

Awesome Windows 8 Apps for Blogueras

#1. A lot of people use and love Evernote and OneNote, both of which are available for Windows 8. They’re powerful apps for organizing blog post ideas, conference notes and more.

#2. Todo – If you’re anything like me, all the options available in Evernote and OneNote are a little overwhelming when you just want to make yourself simple reminders. If you want a basic to-do list, “Todo” is for you.

#3. Fitbit – Life is a balancing act, especially for those of us who work online. If you have trouble finding time to exercise, give Fitbit a try. There is a small device you keep on you (one is pictured in the photo at the top of this post and there are different models to choose from), which tracks how many steps you take per day along with other information depending on the model you use. The Fitbit app for Windows 8 makes the information easily available right on your Start screen.

That’s it for now – As usual, if you have any Windows 8 questions, feel free to comment here or tweet me. If I don’t know the answer to your question, I’ll be happy to find out for you!

Who knew soy sauce and its history could be so fascinating? I sure didn’t, but after a half-day visit to the Kikkoman Kitchen with Chef Helen Roberts I am now a soy sauce devotee!

Last month the three winners of the #KikkomanSabor challenge we hosted were flown out to the Kikkoman U.S. headquarters in San Francisco to learn more about the brand and for a unique opportunity to recreate their winning recipes in the Kikkoman test kitchen along with Chef Helen Roberts.

The day kicked off with a viewing of Kikkoman’s “Make Haste Slowly” docu-short which beautifully portrays the rich history and tradition surrounding the humble beginnings of Kikkoman’s soy sauce. Did you know Kikkoman was essentially started by a woman?

Check out the short here and you’ll be fascinated as well.

We then headed to the kitchen amidst views of the San Francisco bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Chef Helen Roberts had at hand all the ingredients the bloggers had used for their recipes and joined them as they got to work to recreate their winning dishes.

Mayra won us all over with her Sushi Caribeño.

Sandra had everyone talking about her Tacos de Lechuga.

Nancy and her Carne Deshilachada proved to be so tasty and melt-in-your-mouth good.

To see more pictures and recipes by many of our #LatinaBloggers, visit the Kikkoman Sabor site.

With so many fabulous #LatinaBloggers in the blogosphere, we’re beyond excited about our collaboration to create recipes using Real California Milk products. The California Milk Advisory Board, on behalf of California’s more than 1600 dairy families, wants to be a part of our special occasions with a variety of Hispanic Dairy Products that will be sure to add sabor to any of our family dishes. California is the country’s leading producer of Hispanic dairy products and produces more than 25 varieties and styles of Hispanic-style cheeses bearing the Real California Cheese seal. It’s time to set the table and pour the refreshments, we’re serving up more amazing recipes this month!

Forty #LatinaBloggers have been asked to create a recipe using a Real California dairy product in celebration of upcoming Spring and Summertime family occasions. To see these delicious recipes ideas, follow the hashtag #VivaCADairy on Twitter and Instagram. If Pinterest is more your thing, check out our board. We will be pinning as recipes come through!