These are my friends Betsy and Warren.

Wait, no, those are some penguins in Antartica that were photographed by my friends Betsy and Warren.

That's Betsy and Warren . . . in Antartica.

Here they are in England.

And, in Scotland.

In Argentina.  I don't think they were drunk here, but I guess it's possible.

Here's Warren in Scotland taking over a bar.  See what I mean?

All jokes aside, Betsy and Warren are living a pretty good life.

They've been all over the world - to Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Argentina, Ushuaia, Antarctica, across the Atlantic on a 37-day cruise to Norway then England, to Scotland, Belgium, Germany, house-sitting on a boat in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, to France, and to Thailand - all in one year!

Not long ago, it was an entirely different story - in their words, "climbing the corporate ladder, getting married, buying a house, getting divorced, climbing the ladder some more, getting married again, accumulating more crap, and keeping repeating the process like hamsters on a wheel."

Then, after a serious wakeup call and several margaritas, Betsy and Warren decided to jump off the hamster wheel and embark on an open-ended trip around the world.  They originally set a goal of traveling for a year, but ended up accumulating enough cash for five!

But, here's the best part.

They're sharing their strategy so that you, too, can live your dream life!

Dream. Save. Do.

Imagine waking up every day knowing that you are living the life you always wanted.  Your bills are paid off, you are living where and how you want, and pursuing the work or activities that bring you the most satisfaction.

Betsy and Warren have just released Dream, Save, Do: A Step-by-Step Guide to Amass the Cash to Live Your Dream, which shares their proven strategy for saving big bucks in a short period of time for your own specific dream: travel, starting a business, creating something like a book or an invention, or even buying a house or starting a family.

Take my word for it.  As Betsy's accountability partner for five years, I've personally witnessed this entire dream come to life, from the Monday morning after their margarita-filled dreamfest when they decided to travel the world, to this very day when their new book is released showing you how to do it, too.

If you're ready to live the good life, it's waiting for you. Dream. Save. Do.

About Married With Luggage

Want to learn more about Betsy and Warren's travels?

• Check out their website Married With Luggage.
• See all their photos on Flickr.
• Follow them on Twitter: @BetsyTalbot and @WarrenTalbot.
• Follow them on Facebook.

Images courtesy of Warren and Betsy Talbot's Flickr photo stream.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is "How can I add more ROMANCE to my bedroom without it being all red and pink or looking like something out of the Playboy Mansion?" It is very easy to utilize basic Feng Shui and interior design principles into your bedroom to create the perfect atmosphere for rest AND romance.

First off, you should locate the "relationship" area of your home and/or bedroom. This area is the FAR RIGHT corner of the home/room, when standing at the doorway looking into the space. This is the area you really want to pay attention to if you’d like to attract/keep relationship in your life. (It should also be noted that relationships can mean friendships or business partnerships as well, but for the purpose of this article, we're referring to romantic relationships.)

Once you’ve identified this area, here are tips to "amp up" your romantic sanctuary.

• Display items IN PAIRS (think, a couple). If things are displayed in ONES (solitary) or in THREES (a third person will come between you and your partner, literally or figuratively), change it!
• Think about what symbolizes ROMANCE to you in your accessory and artwork choices. This will differ for each person (what’s romantic for me might not mean romance for you). Here you can place romantic pictures, fabrics, flowers - create a romantic vignette.
• Color: Use RED if you are in a committed/legal relationship, PINK if you are single and looking to attract a relationship, or PEACH/CORAL if you are single and looking, but not for a relationship (be careful with peach!). It should be noted that any tone, tint, or shade of the above mentioned colors will work. Bring the color in with flowers, fabric, artwork, candles, and be creative.
• In Feng Shui, the relationship area is represented by EARTH energy. Items made from the earth symbolize this: tile, stone, terra cotta, or by earth-tones or square-shaped items. For an added boost, add the FIRE element (great for "special" nights!). An example of this is: two pink/red candles lit in a square holder.

The bedroom in general should be a place of refuge and sanctuary from the rest of the world. There should be no TVs, computers, or exercise equipment in this room! There should only be two things going on in the bedroom, and watching TV or working on the computer is not on the list. Think of the two R’s in terms of bedroom activity as REST AND ROMANCE - that’s IT!

Other “bedroom sanctuary” tips include: 

• If you can’t move TVs or computer items to another location, cover them with a screen or fabric panels to disguise them.
• Lie down on your bed and look at what you see from this position. This is the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see before you drift off to sleep, so make sure the view is good! Is it the bathroom? Close the door. Is it a blank wall? Hang some artwork. Get the idea?
• Speaking of artwork, the bedroom is not the place for pictures of your kids, family, and/or friends - the only people in pictures should be of you and your current partner (and no old boyfriends, please!).
• Think LUXURY! Buy the most expensive sheets, blankets, and/or pillows that you can afford. We spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, so we should get the most out of it. Buy organic cotton, bamboo, jute, or eucalyptus, if possible, especially if allergies or environmental sensitivities are an issue.
• Clutter should not exist in this room - PERIOD. The rules are: if you don’t use it, wear it, or love it, get rid of it. It doesn’t matter how much it cost or who gave it to you, if it doesn’t serve a useful, positive purpose, it must go. Donate it, sell it, or toss it. Clutter also collects dust and is hard to maintain - again, counter productive to the mood of the bedroom.

The bedroom is the most important room of the home and should be treated as such, from starting and ending our day, to a restful and romantic sanctuary for yourself or you and your significant other. Give this room the attention it deserves and enjoy the restful results!

DeAnna Radaj, owner of Bante Design LLC, can enter a space and help to tweak (or remodel, re-design) the space to work better to suit its function AND the lifestyle of the occupants of the space. Using ILD, life quality can be increased AND be supportive to any transitions occuring, lifestyle changes, or health challenges. DeAnna is also an "Eco-Shui" designer, writer, and consultant who helps those who are looking to lead a more healthy, balanced, and proactive lifestyle.

Flickr image from Tim Crowe

What's hot in nutrition these days? Chia seeds, the same stuff that grows hair on those cute little "Chia Pet" pottery figurines, is the new edible super food. Native to Mexico and Guatemala and revered by the Aztecs as an energy power food, this small seed is derived from the Salvia hispanica plant. What's so hot about this seed? It has a truly remarkable nutrient profile that rivals flaxseeds in terms of its omega-3 ALA and fiber content. The seeds are literally bursting with fiber and protein (a complete protein at that): two nutrients that are very helpful for weight management. Here's the breakdown of this nutritional wonder grain:

1 ounce (28 g) of dried Chia seeds contains: 137 calories; 9 grams fat (5 g ALA); 0 chol; 5 mg sodium; 11 g dietary fiber; 4 grams protein and 18% of your DV for calcium.

Available in most health food stores and some supermarkets-sprinkle some on your morning bowl of oatmeal for a protein and fiber boost. Both the ALA omega-3 fat and the fiber have been scientifically proven to benefit your heart health. I urge all of you to embrace this ancient seed to enhance your daily nutrition and fitness!

Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D., is a registered dietitian, licensed dietitian/nutritionist and author of Cholesterol Down: 10 Simple Steps to Lower Your Cholesterol in 4 Weeks-Without Prescription Drugs and Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 foods, 8 Weeks to Reverse Heart Disease.  She is a nationally recognized nutrition, health, and fitness expert, specializing in cardiovascular disease prevention.  Learn more at DrJanet.com.

Flickr image from uberculture

Stress is cumulative, and so is peace. According to the American Institute of Stress, American workplaces pay $300 billion for the stress that employees accumulate.  For this reason, some companies actively encourage activities that accumulate peace.  It is rumored that Apple has a meditation room in its Cupertino headquarters, and each employee can use 2.5 hours per week for silent contemplation, stretching, or prayer in their afternoon wellness breaks.

What is not a rumor is that Tribe Inc, a company that designs employee engagement programs for corporate clients, also has a meditation room plus an ice hockey rink for its own employees.  Each employee can slip out of the office for healthy activities at any time until they reach a grand total of three "wellness hours" for the week.  Some employees follow along with guided meditation CDs, and others play hockey or take a stroll along the riverbank.

I have had the privilege of interviewing Tribe's president, Jennifer Bull, and two employees.  Each of them were very enthusiastic when telling me about the effects of this policy on their energy levels, absence rates, and overall productivity.  In fact, I've never experienced a higher level of employee morale at any workplace, or so it seemed when speaking to them.

Create Your Own Wellness Breaks

Your company may not have such policies.  In such a case, it is recommended that you make your own wellness breaks.  Stretch breaks can be great peace accumulators.  You can use the down times of your day for this or commit to at least 30 seconds out of each hour.  Try some head rolls and shoulder rolls.  Shake out the tension in your joints.  Bend over, touch your toes, and stretch the hamstrings.  This will anchor you in your body and in the present moment.  Keep a momentum in your stretch breaks, and you will notice profound results in your sense of peace and productivity.

Maybe you don't want to be the freak who gets up and starts stretching every hour.  There are less conspicuous things you can do in your wellness breaks.  Simple chair stretches are good for this.  The simple act of giving thanks for all the blessings in your life is another way to accumulate peace.  Some people naturally close their eyes and take a few deep breaths once in a while.  The possibilities are endless when designing your regimen of wellness breaks and stretch breaks at work.

Here's your challenge.  Make a list of activities, both conspicuous and subtle, that are grounding, relaxing, and centering.  Include some stretching exercises and physical activities in this list.  Create a system of wellness and stretch breaks at work that last between 30 seconds and 5 minutes a piece.  Try it for 30 days, then write down the difference you feel in energy levels, productivity, and the amount of times you feel like calling in sick.  You'll be surprised by the power of these brief intermissions, as they add up to huge results.

Tom Von Deck is an international corporate meditation trainer, speaker, and author of Oceanic Mind - The Deeper Meditation Training Course.  Tom specializes in making meditation a much easier process for busy people and a more customized process for people of all religious backgrounds, lifestyles, and temperaments.  One of the methods he employs to make meditation easier is to take stretch breaks at work because it works.  Learn more about Tom at DeeperMeditation.net.

Flickr image from lululemon athletica

Historically referred to as the drawing room or the parlour, these quaint appellations were given to the space where hosts greeted their guests and served a cup of tea or glass of wine, while catching up on news or gossip.  Today, it’s called "the living room," and it’s probably the only room left in the house for real time conversation, because the computer and the TV are now elsewhere in the home.  It may be a lost art, but the conversation is desperate for a space of its own.

Even if your living room does include a TV, working that TV in tastefully, without compromising the conversation, should be your goal.  Until recently, we not only had to make room for the large tube TV, but the enormous armoires that hid them.  Luckily, those tube televisions are being phased out with flat screens, and the conversation area can reclaim its importance.

Tips for Creating Your Conversation Area

• Define your conversation area with a rug.  Furniture can either sit on or off the rug, but make sure to take accurate measurements so that the rug provides the right footprint for the furniture you select.
• Combine two love seats and a chair or a sofa with two chairs to anchor your conversation area and create a comfortable and intimate environment.
• If there is a TV in the room, it should not take center stage.  Furniture can move away from the walls, and TV’s can be either wall-hung, with an articulating arm for viewing, on top of a console, or in a wall unit that complements the conversation area.
• The size of your TV should be determined by the size of the room and the distance between your conversation area and the TV, so don’t buy the TV first and retro-fit your seating, or you’ll end up with a "man cave" instead of a conversation area.
• An ottoman is a living room MUST! Ottomans double as seating and as coffee tables, come in all shapes and sizes, and can be moved in, out, or around your room easily.  Tucked under a sofa table, in a corner, or under a window, ottomans can be used for storage, and when done in bold colors, totally spice up a neutral palette and draw the eye away from the TV and back to the conversation.

Joanna Cohlan, owner of Fresh Eyes For Your Home, is an interior decorator and home stager serving Westchester County and NYC.  She specializes in creating real rooms for real people - creatively, quickly, and affordably, and what you always get from Joanna is design outside the box.

Flickr image from Amy Guth

Chocolate tastes so decadent that we think it must be bad for us, but as it turns out, the right type of chocolate consumed in the right amount may actually have health benefits.

First, all chocolates are not created equal.  Milk chocolates, such as in the popular candy bars, are only about 10% to 20% cacao bean solids, the rest being milk and sugar.  Semi-sweet chocolate has a higher cocoa content, and dark chocolates are higher still.

Second, the higher cocoa content is important because the compounds thought to be healthy – part of group of plant-derived chemical compounds called flavonoids – are in cocoa.  These are the compounds that impart dark chocolate with its bitter taste and astringent mouth-feel.  The same compounds are found in red wine, green tea, dark-colored berries, and fruits, and the skins of bitter-tasting nuts, such as pecans and hazelnuts.  Two servings a day of most of these foods is enough to deliver a health benefit.

Third, what these compounds do in the body is relax arteries and make blood-clotting platelets less sticky.  Evidence for dark chocolate lowering blood pressure was most recently summarized by Karin Ried in "Does chocolate reduce blood pressure? A meta-analysis," published in the June 2010 issue of BMC Medicine.  For patients with hypertension, the average decreases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure were 5 and 3 mmHg, respectively.

Finally, hypertension is one condition for which medical science has many solutions – drugs that can be used singly or in combination to control elevated blood pressure with manageable side effects.  Any diagnosis of hypertension should be discussed with your doctor and acted on based on your doctor’s advice.  If you intend to start a habit of daily consumption of dark chocolate, mention this to your doctor, and understand that the expected effect is modest.  This should be viewed as a complementary approach, not one used as an alternative to drugs that are proven to work and are safe to use.

David A. Mark, PhD, is president of dmark consulting LLC, a Boston-area science consulting firm.  His many years of industry R&D experience include functional foods, dietary supplements, and sports nutrition products.

Flickr image from EverJean

Everyone knows that if you can delegate a task to someone else, savings follow.  Yet, if you're like most busy managers, you find yourself torn because you feel that you're too busy to give the needed instructions to someone else.  If it will take longer to train someone than to do it yourself, you simply won’t delegate.  That’s usually a mistake.

Instead, ask yourself how much time you will spend doing the task over the next year.  If it’s only 15 minutes a week, that’s still 13 hours a year.  If someone else can be trained to perform the task in 3 hours, that’s a clear time saving within 4 months and over many months thereafter.  Even if the person leaves the organization, that person can train his or her replacement.

Delegating might enhance other parts of your work as well.  One example, a busy CFO used to spend 40 days a year negotiating budgets.  After he delegated that task to his controller, he saved 37 days a year, and he had more influence with operating executives, because he hadn’t used up all of his credibility with them during budgeting.

Schedule 2 hours a week to delegate tasks that will save the most time, and then just keep delegating!  After just a few months, more hours can be allocated to starting new delegations, so take advantage of that.

Donald W. Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company and the founder of the 400 Year Project to increase the rate of making improvements by 20 times while spending no more effort, hours, or money.  You can read more about the 400 Year Project at FastForward400.com.  Donald is also co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution describing how to be much more productive.

Flickr image from nkeppol

The biggest way to make a haven at home is to indulge!  Here are a few ideas and ways to make your home a special retreat that makes you feel cozy, while still showing off your own unique personality and style.

In order to avoid the impersonal, generic hotel look, don't be in a rush to decorate and don't buy everything from the same place.  Go for a gathered and thoughtfully collected look - even if that means having empty spots here and there until you find the right piece.

Room by room, go through every object and ask yourself, "Do I absolutely love it?  Does it uplift me?  Do I really use it?  Does it make me feel good?"  If there are any "no's," give it away, donate it, let it go.  Ideally, you want to surround yourself with only objects, collectibles, furniture, and artwork that truly make you feel good.

Do not feel obligated to keep stuff you don't want.  Time and time again, as I go into clients' homes, they show me all the stuff they feel obliged to hold on to, just because it was a gift or handed down to them or used to belong to their parents, and they hate it.  This can cause guilt, frustration, and anger.  It's OK to let it go and give it away.

If you are going to indulge in only one area, make it the bedroom.  The bed is where the foundation of a haven is born.  You spend a third of your life sleeping.  Go for feather beds, high thread counts, lavender sheet spray, black out curtains, and anything else that inspires a good night's sleep ensconced in luxury!  Get rid of the TV and as much of the electronic devices as you can.  Studies suggest that being bombarded by electronic magnetic fields (EMF's) from appliances and devices can hinder a good night's sleep and make you feel anxious.

Purchase a comfortable couch.  Nothing irks me more than going into a home and seeing an uncomfortable, rigidly traditional, or too small couch.  How can you really relax?  Extra deep couches are perfect for snuggling or watching movies!

Hippocrates called olive oil "the great therapeutic."  Homer referred to it as "liquid gold."  Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is key to heart health because it contains three components: monounsaturated fat (oleic acid), polyphenol antioxidant compounds (hydroxytyrosol and oleuropein), and the antioxidant vitamin, Vitamin E.  Studies show that people who eat an EVOO-rich diet are less likely to suffer a fatal heart attack.

The Good Fat

EVOO stands apart from all other types of fat for several reasons:

• It provides the highest percentage of the extremely cardio-protective, monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid.
• It is packed with powerful plant antioxidants called "polyphenols," known to soothe inflammation and curb oxidative stress.
• It is also an excellent source of vitamin E, a major dietary antioxidant vitamin.

For Heart Health

Daily intake of EVOO can boost your heart disease defense system by:

• Increasing your body's antioxidant level,
• Immunizing "bad" LDL cholesterol against free radical attack,
• Controlling your cholesterol,
• Fighting inflammation,
• Lowering your blood pressure,
• Improving your blood sugar level, and
• Thinning your blood.

In the Kitchen

One additional advantage of frequent use of EVOO in the kitchen is that it is loaded with flavor and encourages the consumption of large amounts of vegetables and legumes, antioxidant and fiber-rich foods that many Americans find difficult to fit into their diet.  Use EVOO in cooking to add taste and nutrition to your favorite dishes.  You may be surprised at how some foods truly come alive with the addition of this "liquid gold."

Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D., is a registered dietitian, licensed dietitian/nutritionist and author of Cholesterol Down: 10 Simple Steps to Lower Your Cholesterol in 4 Weeks-Without Prescription Drugs and Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 foods, 8 Weeks to Reverse Heart Disease.  She is a nationally recognized nutrition, health, and fitness expert, specializing in cardiovascular disease prevention.  Learn more at DrJanet.com.

Flickr image from trix0r

Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing.  - Helen Keller

It's interesting that you mentioned getting out of your own way, because that's precisely why I feel many people do to sabotage themselves.  Life is about choices and action.  You just cannot sit there and complain about how horrible your life is and do nothing about it.

The perfect job, business opportunity, mate, vacation, or whatever it is that you want will not just come to you.  You have to go out and make it happen.

An adventurous life is waiting for everyone, and I have just the five steps that can help anyone get out of their own way.

1) Be careful the company you keep.

Negative people can drain you of your joy.  In order to associate with happier and successful people (the type of person you want to be), join networking groups, Meetup.com, or just do a search online for clubs and hobbies that you are interested in.

Stop making so many friends with people online that you will NEVER, EVER meet.  Those numbers don't mean anything, if you don't really know them and they don't know you!

Being social in the real world will change you, because the other people's positive energy will influence you, educate you, and make you become the person you always wanted to be.

2) Follow up with the people you meet.

Now that you're going out and meeting new people, be sure to get a business card, email address, or phone number.  Even a user name on a social networking site is good, as long as you keep in contact.  Remember, what if that new business contact or friend has a new job, opportunity, or could even introduce you to your future spouse?!

Everyone I meet, whether in person or a conference call, I send an email and a nice "thank you" card, too.  I call it the "Double Whammy Thank You."  You would be surprised how happy it makes a person to actually FEEL that someone was happy to meet them, learn about them, and wants to go for coffee, tea, or frappuccino to get to know more about them.  It was Oprah Winfrey who said on her last show that people NEED validation, and she's 100% right!

3) Stop telling yourself the same old story.

If all you talk about is being broke, how your kids drive you crazy, and the fact that your significant other isn't treating you well, it will only get WORSE!  Buy yourself a notebook, get out a pen, and start writing out your new story -- life as you want it to be, as you FEEL it should be.  Don't start complaining about what you don't have.  Begin by writing out your day from beginning to the end.  Be specific from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed:

When will you wake up?  What will you wear?  Where will you work?  Where will you go?  What type of friends do you have?  What type of mate do you want, or how will you treat each other in your current relationship/marriage?

This is a script for your dreams.  It's going to push you to go toward what you really want.  If you find yourself depressed and thinking you can't feel good while doing this, then stop and do power words.  Power words are a list of happy words (use a thesaurus if you can't think of any).  I happen to have over 200 words that make me happy.  It can be a place, a thing, or someone, just one word that makes you happy, and continue from there to up lift your feelings so that you can then focus on what you want.

4) Create a bucket list.

Start small and then let the list grow.  Life is always going to give more to achieve, more to learn, more to grow.  For example, if you always wanted to be an author, but don't know how to write a book, learn to write with an online class.

5) Pay attention to what you are listening to or seeing.

Make it a point to ONLY listen to happy music or see happy things.  Don't sit there and agree with a song or movie because you feel like the character or singer is pathetic!  STOP!  There happens to be happy music in almost every genre of music.  Sad music, movies, or TV shows seep into your subconscious and help make you feel bad about yourself.  Why do you want that in your life?

See things where the good guys win, the guy gets the girl, the hero saves the day, the movie is hysterically funny, or the romance makes you feel warm and tingly and makes you want that type of love.  If it depresses you, it's not good for you.

Life is about CREATING, not going along and letting things happen to you!  Don't sit on the sidelines watching others live their dreams.  Find a mentor.  Read about people you admire.  Be inspired!  You DO have some control, some choices, so START LIVING YOUR DREAMS!

Shirley Jusino is of Adventure Realty Experience in New York City.  You can look her up on Twitter @AdventureRealEX or on Facebook.

Flickr image from Bohari Adventures

This week I stumbled on a very simple trick for maintaining focus on the most important tasks of the day: done by ten.

I started out the week lacking motivation (after spending four relaxing days on the beach).  After too much fun in the sun, I just didn't want to get back to work.

I knew I had to get it in gear, and since motivation was the missing link, I gave myself a motivating deadline:

Finish the most important stuff by ten o'clock, and then you can do whatever you want.

Easy enough, and since it was a way to cheat a little and extend my vacation, I quickly jumped into action so that I didn't waste a single second of "free time" on work-related tasks.  I wanted to be done by ten o'clock, no later.

The first day was a success.  I moved all the big rocks of the day and even managed to wash a load or two of laundry post-trip.

The second day, even though I stayed up until 2 AM the previous night, I was still motivated to do my best to be done by ten, so I didn't allow myself to oversleep.  I jumped in again and got my list knocked out in no time.

The next few days were a bit of a stretch.  The tasks I had on tap were much more complex, so I finished between 1-4 PM, but the advantage was that my mindset had changed, so instead of wasting time surfing the Net or doing anything I could to keep myself occupied and away from work, I was diving head first into the most important thing.

Plus, there are no charts to memorize, no tight schedules to maintain, or overwhelming to-do lists to priortize.  I just think to myself, "I want to be done by ten," and that gives me an amazing super-power that somehow managed to elude me all this time: the ability to zoom right in on the most important priorities in my life and business.  Easy peasy.  No muss, no fuss.  Just done by ten, and then I can do whatever my distracted little heart desires, which (oddly enough) has been improving other areas of my life and business, so the sudden burst in productivity is a motivator all its own.

What's your simple trick for staying motivated and productive?

Flickr image from Mi Pah

1) Resisting the Truth

"Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, resistance will unfailingly point to true North - that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing." - Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

With the obvious exception of times when we’re absolutely new to a problem, we generally know what we need to do; if we’re honest with ourselves, we know how to fix it, but we resist.

We resist because the solution seems too simple, because we want to delay dealing with or accepting the truth, because it’s easier or there’s some payoff to maintaining the status quo, because we expect it to be hard, or because we’re afraid.

While there’s always some element of risk with almost any change, by constantly settling or cowering in the face of resistance, we’re avoiding the truth -- our truth -- and are eliminating even the most remote chance of moving forward with our lives or businesses.

2) Avoiding Constraints

"Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above.  Don’t fence me in." - Cole Porter

Many times, we want to “keep our options open,” so we avoid choosing one thing or another in order to avoid being fenced in.  Eventually, we come to realize that NOT making a choice is, in fact, a choice, and it’s actually possible to resist labels, boxes, and fences so much that we leave ourselves open to nothing.

At some point, we just have to make the best decision possible, based on the information in front of us and on what feels like the right thing to do at the time (not the easiest or the least painful, but the one we know in our heart of hearts to be right).  Then, as Maya Angelou once said, “when you know better, you do better.”

3) Avoiding Responsibility

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else."  - Ivern Ball

It’s often much easier to blame others for our failures, setbacks, and shortcomings than to take responsibility and ownership for the results we’re achieving in our lives.  Instead of holding ourselves personally accountable for the way our world looks (or at least for fixing it when things go wrong), we pass the buck and avoid the work (or the hit to our pride) that might come with owning it.

There will certainly be times when bad things happen that are outside our control or have nothing to do with the choices we’ve made for ourselves, but even in those times, we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work cleaning up the mess.  It’s not always easy, pleasant, or immediately beneficial or gratifying stepping up to that job, but it’s absolutely necessary, if we ever hope to succeed at finding contentment and happiness.

There will always be challenges that present themselves as we try to succeed at climbing whatever mountain it is we need to climb, but if we can at least overcome the mental obstacles that threaten to hold us back, we stand a much better chance of making it to the other side.

What mental obstacles do you think hold us back from success and happiness?

She was curly-haired, blond, thin, fashionable for a middle-schooler (she wore Abercrombie and Fitch), and funny and graceful and pretty and all that.  It seemed rational that I should ask myself before getting dressed each morning whether Alice would wear this outfit and, at school, whether Alice would laugh this way or whether Alice would make that joke.

I waited and waited, but Mike's attentions would fluctuate back and forth from Alice to others and routinely skip over me, so one day, I woke up and felt different.  I thought, “Mike already likes Alice -- why would he like me just because I'm similar?  Aren't I the lesser version?  Oh my god -- I'm pseudo-Alice!”

I opened my drawer and saw the neon orange pants I'd begged my mother for and then had shoved into the abyss.  I put the pants on.  I went to school.  I let my hyena-like laughter crash uninhibited into classrooms, and guess whose crush landed on me a week later?  Mike's!

Okay, I know it wasn't necessarily the orange pants, but this was a huge sign for me.  The world didn't need another Alice, it needed me, and it was thanking me by tilting in my favor.  I've got my quirks; sometimes I can charm the pants off of somebody, and sometimes I elicit narrowed eyes or just plain silence, but fine.  These are the sacred moments, when we stop thinking about others, forget our insecurities and fears, and, in essence, free ourselves to watch the world settle into its natural order -- in which you are truly what you are.

It's not easy, but there are some odd experiments I've tried that have helped me personally, and I'd love to share them with you.  They involve skewing what you might think is the truth about reality, like that we can't predict the future or that people make fun of other people, blah, blah, blah, but if your experiences go well, you'll have gained indispensable knowledge - like who you are, how you want to be, and that you should be that way always.

Don't Try These at Home! (They'll Work Better in the Real World)

By the way, it's important to dedicate these experiments completely to yourself, as it helps to justify them sometimes.  Tell yourself it's purely intellectual, it's only for a day, etc.  These are special exceptions to caring about consequences or thinking before doing, so technically, you are taking it slow, and during that time, you can go all out, whatever that may mean for you.

1)  Live among the brainless.  Say you must weave through a crowded cafeteria on crutches covered with Dora the Explorer stickers (which happens to be my current situation), or say you want to dance, but you don't know anybody at the party.  “What ever will they think of me?,” your brain says quietly -- the only thing keeping you from feeling totally comfortable crutching, or dancing.  Obviously, the only logical solution is to remember that whoever might be watching cannot think at all and, indeed, has no brain.  You are the only real person in the world.  The dance floor just got a lot more fun.

2) Tell your own fortune.  Before having an interaction with somebody important, envision it going really well.  Again, the experiment is to take this vision as fact -- what if the world were structured differently, where your positive vision was a prophecy bound to come true, no matter what you fumble at the interview or even BECAUSE you fumble?  Have fun with your reasoning.  Then see how the interview goes -- what did you say that you might not have said otherwise?  How did it feel?  Did you do well?  I bet you did.

3) TRY and get noticed.  Sometimes subtle changes won't cause your day to unfold differently or cause you to feel more alive, so the third experiment is to be a caricature of yourself.  If you're loud, be louder.  If you want to push yourself to participate during class, answer what others may consider way too many questions.  Let your brain whir.  Am I annoying people by participating this much?!  It doesn't matter!  They don't exist.

Genuinely disregarding the thoughts of others can lead to a significantly more fulfilling life.  If you are naturally shy and you decide that other people have no thoughts during that awkward group chat, guess what?  Your insecurities about being shy will dissolve away, and maybe this will work for your insecurities one by one. 

And remember, as corny as it is, our unique traits make us special - so true, it's almost redundant.

This is a post by interning writer, Danielle ("Dani") Ferrara, a student at Marist College.

Flickr image by Jessica Garro

Life's Big Questions

Lately, I've been asking myself a lot of REALLY BIG questions, questions that have to do with marriage and where I want to live, if I want to travel (or how extensively, I should say) and if I want to have kids.

Depending on the day I ask myself, I answer with a different response, which makes me wonder, can I possibly know what I want if I can answer with a 100% YES one day and with a 100% NO the very next?

I had the good fortune recently of speaking with Stever Robbins (you know, the Get-It-Done Guy, who just released an awesome book, by the way), and he told me about a three-year experiment he had done.  That's his story to tell, but our conversation got me thinking about the time frames we put on ourselves when it comes to making decisions.

The Blur of the 20's

In our instant-gratification-seeking world, we always want things to happen yesterday, so it's no wonder we're pushed to make decisions so early in many areas of our lives.

• Our job and career path.  If you think about it, when we're just going into college and even in high school, at a point in which we've had very little real-life experience (except for what's been set for us by our parents), we're expected to know what it is that we want to do with the rest of our lives.  We're supposed to "declare" a major and pick a career path, when we have no idea what those careers entail or whether or not they're even a good fit for us.

• Dating and marriage.  Not long after college, we're expected to "settle down" and get married, but do we really know enough at that point to say who our soulmates are (assuming we would ultimately believe in soulmates) or if we even want to get married - ever?

• Kids and family.  Then we're expected to have kids, and if you don't, people assume there must be something wrong with you, when maybe you wouldn't have even wanted kids or you would've had a different number of kids or, in whatever way, you would have approached having a family differently.

• Where we live.  We're expected to know where we want to live (or, more likely, just live wherever our parents live), when we haven't even seen the world.  How could we possibly know what place is right for us, when the only reason we are where we are is because of our parents?

• How much money we make.  We're told to become doctors or lawyers so that we can make a lot of money.  Money becomes the driver for everything, when maybe, after a little experience, we might see that money doesn't buy happiness and that, if we could ever get our wants in check, we might be more satisfied with a smaller life, financially speaking.

Patience with Answers

My conversation with Stever got me thinking about how, just maybe, we should give ourselves more room to find the answers to life's big questions.

In the recent year or so, I've been beating myself up trying to figure out what I want, especially when it comes to having kids and deciding where to live, but today I asked myself, "What's the rush?"

My rush shouldn't be to decide on things when my heart doesn't immediately know the answer.  Instead, maybe the rush should be to just enjoy my life . . . as it is . . . right now.

Life's big questions come around, and we find ourselves answering, "Definitely, maybe."

Should I take this job?  Do I want to take this direction with my career?  Should I keep my job or start a business?  Should I move to that new city or stay where I am?  Do I pursue this business idea or something else?  Do I want to have [a/another] child?  Is this what I want for my life?

Sometimes the answer to these kinds of questions isn't so obvious or even based on logic or reason, and to add even more confusion to our already overloaded hearts and minds, we can often see ourselves going more than one direction or having more than one response.

What do you do when you have no idea what you want?  How do you figure out if you're choosing the right path, and how do you get over the feelings of anxiety around making the right decision?  More importantly, how do you stop making decisions half-heartedly and start being "all in" instead of straddling the fence of life and never really living?

The short answer: find what motivates you, what lights you up, and what gets you excited about the possibilities for what your life could look like.

While reading The Life Organizer by Jennifer Louden, I came across a quote that sums it up nicely: "Trust and investigate your desires.  Engage with them as a way to identify your gifts and contributions to the world."

Maybe we don't have to have all the answers right away.  Maybe we don't need to worry so much about outcomes or what lies at the end of a given path, because really, what's the likelihood that the ending we have pictured in our minds will even happen exactly as we see it?

No matter what path we choose, there will be detours and new opportunities that come along with it, and there's just no telling where those choices might take us, and how exciting and unnerving is that?

(Makes you feel more alive, doesn't it?)

Further Reading (& Watching)

Here's some inspiration and recommended reading (and watching) to get you back on track and moving forward with strong momentum and purpose!

The Shift - DVD by Wayne Dyer (streaming video available here) is my favorite, go-to source of inspiration when I need to realign with my purpose.  One of my favorite points in the movie, "You get to a place in your life where you start to be guided by something that's larger than yourself.  Just stay aligned with what you're here for.  Stay there, and as you stay there, the meaning phase of your life begins to take over."

The 4-Hour Workweek - Book by Timothy Ferriss is great for getting direction in both life and business.  One of the best pieces of advice offered on the topic of finding happiness is this, "Most people will never know what they want.  Happiness has become ambiguous through overuse.  Excitement is a more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase."

I wrote recently about how metrics can change everything, but today I realized another advantage to using them: the ability to exceed your own expectations.

For the new year, I sat down and made plans for what I wanted to accomplish.  This included revenue goals for my business, as well as the projects that I planned to have generate that revenue.

Now, I have a bad tendency of setting goals for myself and then not tracking them to ensure that I am, in fact, achieving them or even not achieving them, since at least then I could correct course (now that I think about it, that's probably why it's so hard for us to want to track our goals - not wanting to let ourselves down).

Today, though, I made sure to note my progress with one of my goals and was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered.  Not quite halfway through January, I've already achieved double the total I set for myself with one of my income sources, which was definitely motivation to keep going!

Sure, there will probably be times throughout this coming year that I'll be way short on my goals, too, but that's really the point.  By tracking the things you want to accomplish, you're better able to see where you are at any point in the game, including times you fall short, as well as times you surprise yourself and learn that you're actually exceeding your own expectations.

In the end, it's all about steering the runaway train of life (or business) so that it stays somewhere between the lines.

I'm continuing on with The 4-Hour Body, and at this point, Tim Ferriss is talking about tracking and how "if you are very overweight, very weak, very inflexible, or very anything negative, tracking even a mediocre variable will help you develop awareness that leads to the right behavioral changes."  I actually know this to be true, but hadn't thought about it this way until just now.

Over the years, I've experimented with changing a variety of circumstances and outcomes in my life and business, and each and every time, I've had success.  The techniques and strategies used to change those circumstances and outcomes were often considerably different, but there was one thing that was the same with every single attempt (at least the ones that worked): I was tracking something.

This is a very powerful observation, and it gives us an easy method for effecting change in our lives.

If you're like me, you continuously focus on or complain about one or two key areas in your life - maybe you're overweight, maybe you're not as comfortable as you'd like to be financially, or maybe your relationships are not as strong as you'd like them to be.  Whatever the case, if you could change that one thing, it would have a huge impact on the rest of your life, your overall satisfaction, and the way you feel about yourself.

Think about the thing you would like to change about your life.  Is there something you could track about it?

• If you're overweight, you could track the number of times you eat or what you eat in a given day.

• If you're not comfortable with where you are financially, you could track your spending or the amount of money you earn in a given month.

• If your relationships are not where you want them to be, you could track the number of phone calls, emails, and in-person contacts you make with family members and friends each week.

The point is, find something to track about the thing you dislike about your life right now.  If you track that one metric consistently for a given time frame, say one month, I'm willing to bet that you'll find some way to move that metric in your favor.  If you're trying to improve your relationships, for instance, and see that you rarely pick up the phone and call your loved ones and even more rarely get together with them in person, it's a lot more likely that you'll be more proactive about increasing the number of calls and in-person visits you have with the people who are important to you.

A very empowering strategy and definitely one worth trying.

I finally started reading the new book The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss.  I'm only on page 12, and I'm already inspired.  Here are two quotes that have my wheels turning.

This [approach] could be totally wrong, but it's a hypothesis worth disproving. - Timothy Noakes, PhD

It's important to look for hypotheses worth disproving.  - Timothy Ferriss

This has me thinking - about fear, about avoidance, and about how so many of us sit on the sidelines and never truly live our lives.  Here's an example of my very own life-avoidance opportunity that presented itself recently. 

The week or so before Christmas, I got this crazy good business idea, and I almost wanted to kick myself since it had been right under my nose for at least six years.  That idea led me to dreaming again about one of my lifelong goals: moving to Hawaii (or at least spending extended amounts of time there each year). 

For fun (but partly as hopeful research), I went on Craigslist and started searching for rental properties there, and would you believe that I found a place with decent ocean and mountain views for only $425 more per month than I spend on my current home?! 

Now, I know, depending on your perspective at the moment, $425 isn't a drop in the bucket, or is it?  To me, I could relatively easily find ways to generate and/or save $425 each month with the right kind of motivation (and Hawaii is enough for me). 

The whole thing got me thinking about how far off we think we are from our goals and dreams, when really they're just a small reach.  That was scary.  How many of us go through our lives never doing the things we want to do, simply because we never even check to see how close they are to us? 

The scarier part, though?  Now that I knew just how close that big, audacious, lifelong goal was to me, would I have the nerve to go for it? 

The thing was, there were many variables within my plan, and without just going for it, I had no way of knowing whether or not they would work out.  There were unknowns that, without just laying it out there that this was what I was going to attempt, I had no way of even identifying, and how unnerving would that be - laying everything on the line and then failing, or worse succeeding and then having to follow through ON MY OWN?! 

It was all one giant hypothesis to prove or disprove, but the even bigger question was, did I have the nerve to take on this life experiment? 

The verdict?  I'm still biting my lip, trying to decide, but I'm thinking 2011 might be a good year for a science fair.  You in?

I've been finding myself increasingly frustrated lately and even more easily agitated, and I know these feelings stem more from my lack of NOT doing than from any amount of doing.  What I mean is, I know that I need more space - space to breathe, space to do nothing, space to be aware and fully present.

I think about several occasions over the last few weeks.  One of many examples, I'm on a call, and by the time I get off the call, I have three more to return, in addition to several text messages.  I start returning calls, but by the time I wrap up the last one, I have three more to return.  On and on it goes, until it's late (late) evening, and I'm spent.

This problem isn't unique to me.  I think we all have a tendency to leave too little space in our lives.  We're frazzled and exhausted and can't manage a complete thought most of the time, all because we leave ourselves no room.

What could we do with that extra space?

• Have a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, or tea,
• Sit in silence for twenty minutes,
• Have breakfast, lunch, or dinner at the table, without watching television or checking news feeds or email,
• Take the time to cook a nice meal for ourselves, instead of grabbing the fastest and most convenient thing available,
• Go for a walk without the mp3 player,
• Meditate or do yoga first thing in the morning, before starting anything else,
• Read a good book without music or television going in the background,
• Take a nap mid-day without reason or guilt,
• Take a few minutes to spend time with pets, or
• Simply be still and do nothing.

We all know this already, but modern conveniences are only making it more convenient to never turn off.  I work 100% remotely and via the Web, and as I told someone just recently, Internet would be one of the hardest things for me to have to give up, but at the same time, I know it makes it to where, as a society, we're always on.  That's no good.  It's no good for creativity, for our health, for our emotional and mental stamina, nor is it good for our relationships.  Everything suffers if we don't allow ourselves time to rest and recharge.

This is the perfect time of year to take a little extra space.  The holidays can add a lot of additional stress, and I find that we all have a tendency to feel the need to make one final work push for the year.  The combination makes it all the more likely to feel tense and on edge.  This is a good time to set up expectations and intentions for the coming year, and what better way to start things off than with a little more breathing room to create, experience, and live?

iStockphoto image from Gannet77

Many of us long to create a life by design rather than default.  We know we're not satisfied with the status quo, and we have a strong feeling that we were meant to do something else, something more, but when we sit down to map out what that ideal life might look like, that's where we run into problems.

If you're like me, you're certainly not completely in the dark when it comes to knowing what you want out of life.  For me, there are definitely things I enjoy, things I'd like to see happen, or that I'd like to see more of in my life, but at the same time, it's hard not to feel, what would be a good word, compelled when I think of how my way might look.

Case in point, when I got out of bed yesterday, I tried to be very purposeful with how I approached the day, so as to avoid falling into more established and undesired habits of recent years.  Soon after I got up, I realized that I would need to define what my ideal day looked like, if I ever hoped to create it (Chris Guillebeau talks about this in The Art of Non-Conformity), so I started thinking, "What would my ideal day look like?"

I've tried working through this exercise on several different occasions over the last couple of months, and while I can easily think of a lot of things I do want out of an ideal day, I can't help but also think things like:

• "I need to work a certain number of hours each day."
• "I need to be available at [time], in case [x, y, z] happens."
• "I need to finish up some of those 'mid-stream' projects."
• "I need to follow up with [person] about that [not-so-important-to-me] project."
• "I should be dressed by [time]..." or "I should do [x, y, z] at [such and such time]."

On and on, the list grows, until eventually, I become overwhelmed by feeling compelled to do so many things based on preconditioned ideas of what one should do in a given day.

This is the tricky part, and Chris Guillebeau actually spoke of this at the The Art of Non-Conformity book tour event - how to live an unconventional life in a conventional world, something I think Gretchen Rubin talked about at The Happiness Project.

When you're trying to create the life of your dreams, how do you stop feeling compelled to do things in a prescribed way?

• If you're a night owl by nature, how do you stop feeling guilty about not being up by 7 AM every morning?
• If you work better in the afternoons, how do you arrange your day to support that and not feel lazy about not working in the mornings?
• If you prefer working first and then getting ready for the afternoon or evening, how do you avoid feeling like a slob for being in your pajamas until noon or later?

The list could go on forever, and despite the chides anyone more comfortable with bucking the system might throw out, if you're new to the whole non-conformity thing, it can be more than a little unnerving.

So, how do you stop feeling so guilty about your choices?  How do you stop feeling so compelled?  My thoughts: lots of practice and resolve.

Kind of like a smoker learning to quit, it's not always easy, and "cold turkey" doesn't work for everyone.  You might have feelings of guilt, of not being "normal," or find that certain "triggers" (to use stop-smoking speak) cause you to slip back into old habits.

I think that's all okay, and over time, with practice and consistency, you'll get more and more comfortable living your life your own way.

Don't worry about being perfect or "getting it right."  Just always come back to that underlying purpose you want for your life, and let that steer you closer and closer to the person you aspire to be.