A new year, and a new life.  That is why making resolutions about what you intend to accomplish THIS YEAR is important.  Whatever  you decide to add to your agenda, big goals or small ones setting things up right is essential for you to succeed.  Here are the secrets to make resolutions that you can achieve.

Start by creating a long wish list of what you would like to accomplish, be daring, think of all the things you really would love to succeed with this year.  Write down all your ideas.  Next, prioritize them, decide after analyzing your list which are most important to you.  For the ambitious individuals out there you may have a list of ten things, others may have only one, two or three items.  OK, now take a clean piece of paper and write down your list from most important down.  Under each item make a note, what is going to be your personal reward when you accomplish this goal and how you intend to punish yourself if you fail to make progress.  At the bottom of the page create a simple timeline noting when you expect to reach important goals you have set.  This is now your resolution list, things you see as your potential that you intend to reach.

Announce to the world your intentions.  Tell your family and friends what are your resolutions and when you want to achieve them.  Alright, to get yourself going, psych yourself up, visualize your achievements, build up your motivation and determination.  Put up your list where you can see it often and think about how to make progress.  Sometimes it’s good to find objects that symbolize your goals to be another reminder of what you plan to do. 

Resolutions are supposed to have an impact through all 365 days of the year.  The idea is that you have made a commitment to yourself (and perhaps others) to invest your energy to transform your potential into manifested realities.  These good intentions must be planned and monitored so they do not join the trash heap of lost fantasies. 

Follow rule number 1, never give up!  Keep your mind focused on your goals.  Remind yourself how important your plan is to you.  It may be difficult to break free of your old patterns sometimes, but it is always possible.  If you invest the right effort, you will succeed.

So, here is the summary to make your resolutions stick!

·         Write down your list and prioritize your goals, pin it up to look at it frequently.

·         Clearly identify how you will reward your success or punish your lack of progress.

·         Get support from friends and family, tell everyone about your plans and ask for encouragement along with your own motivation to succeed.

Wishing you great success in the New Year!

The first sign of true warmth since the new year began is Valentine’s Day.  The best thing about Valentine’s Day is that it is completely up to us to take advantage of it as we want to.  You are free to celebrate anyway you wish.  That is one reason I propose we make it a monthly holiday rather than a yearly one.  This is our opportunity to reconnect with that inner warmth, romance, and love.  Even if you are not in a relationship, at least you can recall good memories of loving times.  The fortunate people that are in a nice relationship, well this is the time to celebrate that bond and make it extra special. 

Let me wish you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day with lots of joy and merriment that will add many golden memories to your life.   I wrote a short article about Valentine’s Day which you can read below.  The article offers a variety of practical suggestions to have a great Valentine’s Day with your partner…

Visit  www.TheNewYorkOptimist.com   

  Remember - Think Positively…optimism is not seeing the glass half full, it is finding a way to fill the glass.

Start with a reality check.  If life is presenting extremely difficult challenges, give yourself some extra space and time to deal with the situation.  Our resilience is better dealing with one thing at a time than many.  Get rest and good food in you too.  When we are hungry or tired, stress takes a greater toll.

Next you must refocus on the positive.  Reflect on the conditions around you and search for any signs of hope, joy, future rewards, or at least what will this (bad) situation teach you so that you will be stronger in the future.  When you are bothered by the uncertainty of life, remember that there is only one thing you can be certain of, what you are feeling and thinking inside.  Even if your outside world is upside down, you can imagine and more importantly believe that your internal world is rightside up.  The key is to THINK POSITIVELY, that means to search for the best outcomes and ways to reach your goals.  When you believe in yourself, it all gets easier.

Refer to Chapter 23 in my book Positive Directions - The Gold Keys, this section gets into the details of dealing with adversity.  All the best!  JR

To focus on the bright side of life is a valuable skill.  Optimism is not just being positive, you must use the word “thinking” before “positive” as in planning, organizing, and exercising your mind to be optimistic.  When you THINK POSITIVELY you are actively searching for ways to remain in an optimistic frame of reference about the past, present and future.  The key to this skill is never let yourself be dragged down, instead find ways to go in Positive Directions, that is, be confident, believe in yourself, and secure that everything will work out just fine.  Imagine the results you really want to see.  Try to vividly create the images of what your desired outcome should be, how would that feel?  This is to help you keep your mind focused on the positive rather than the negative. 

Your experience of life already taught you that being optimistic is not always easy, in fact, sometimes it is very difficult.  Regardless of the ease or difficulty, research has demonstrated that otpimism makes people healthier, happier, more prosperous, and live longer.  There is no doubt that this is the right attitude to have.  The more you exercise your ability to think positively, the easier it will get for you!

Refer to the chapter on ENERGY in my book POSITIVE DIRECTIONS (page 216) you will find there an extensive description of how to be more positive and keep the positive energy flowing.   www.TakePositiveDirections.com

That is a normal trait of the human condition.  The less sleep, food, rest, we have the more irritable we become.  The more tension, stress, and uncertainty we have, the more irritable we become. 

Avoiding excessive stress and taking good care of our health can help minimize our irritabilty.  However, once we cross that threshold and feel irritated, we have to stop, decompress and regain balance inside.  The skill of relaxing and Letting Go are essential to escaping these nasty feelings.  If you practice these skills you enhance your ability to decrease that irritability and even turn it off.  The point is not to get caught up in the aggrivation, that usually does not help the situation in the first place and when you relax you will be more resourceful to deal with the problem causing the stress.  Try one of my programs to relax or learn the art with a professional. 

Tuesday September 16th 2008 is the official publication date by Morgan James Publishing.

If you would like to know more about psychology, how your mind works and what you can do to make life easier, then get my book. 

The book is available at AMAZON, BORDERS, and  BARNES & NOBLE  or at any bookstore.  If you order it through my website you will get a ton of great FREE Bonus gifts as well. 

Thanks very much and keep going in Positive Directions!

ORDER thru:  www.PositiveDirectionsBook.com

Can you imagine the physical fitness of an Olympic athlete?  Do you enjoy that kind of mental fitness, strong, flexible, agile, fast, resilient, creative, with a great memory?  Would you win the gold, silver, copper, or no medal at all?  

Your mental fitness means that you do not get irritated easily and are not irritating to others.  You do not cause stress and are not stressing.  You do not get offended and are not offensive.  The better you are at adapting to your surroundings the higher up the scale of mental fitness you climb. 

So how do you feel about your mental fitness? 

I have been nicknamed “The Mental Fitness Guru” because I do understand what goes wrong with our mind and how we can fix it.  The problem is that it is much easier for us to get STRESSED OUT than it is to UNWIND and RELAX.  As you begin to undestand how the system works you will be able to LET GO more often and easily.  That is one principle secret of becoming more fit. 

This is YOUR FORUM.  Go ahead ask a question about mental fitness and I will try to answer it.  To your health and progress!  

So what do you want to know?

Good Day!

Nearly every event we get involved in requires some degree of NETWORKING… organizing social connections, reaching out to old friends or trying to make new ones.  The digital age has dramatically changed the way this is done.  Instead of going over to visit someone or at least pick up a phone and speak with them, we are writing emails, text messages, blogging, posting our ideas on YouTube, MySpace, and so on.  we spend more time with our electronic gizmos in cyber space than we do connecting with people.  I too, use all of these modern systems, but I still prefer human contact. 

How about you, does digital communication bother you too, or is it the best way to reach out these days?

 In my opinion we are getting better at touching keyboards than each other.  Multi-tasking has taken on a whole new meaning, when you are ordering your mocha capuccino, texing a friend, and talking to your co-worker that decided to take a break with you.  On one hand, none of this technology is bad, but it is distracting, it takes our mind off what we are doing and puts it somewhere in cyberspace.  In order to promote a more productive and happy life, we need to exercise mindfulness, living in the now, and actually connecting face to face with people. 

There is a new challenge facing us, to juggle all these digital tools and our own flesh and blood reality.  I hear about people texting each other from upstairs to downstairs.  How will replacing the old fashioned face to face communication affect our world a generation from now?  When I am with people, I feel more hunger for more closeness and intimacy.   Lets see what will be in the future.

Our civilization is constantly getting more sophisticated, we have more possibilities than ever before, we have access to unlimited information but, has it made our life easier?  In reality, do you feel that most of what the modern world has given us is actually becoming part of the burden we carry.  Are you one of the people who wish for greater simplicity, is less better?

Our world has indeed become increasingly more and more complex, the problem is that our mind is designed to deal with simplicity better.  Although, it is possible to for us to deal with all the complexity, and some of us are really very good at it, there are many that become exhausted by all the pressure.

The endless complexity of life is stressful to all of us in some way.  Even if you deal with it effectively, it does require more work than less and consequently it takes a toll on all of us.  The question is what to do?

The answer is to simplify your own life as much as possible, find ways to keep the world around you simple enough and learn to enjoy the rest as much as you can.   This is what we all wish we could do easily but, it is something we can all learn to do eventually.  The key is to become aware of your intention and desire for that simplicity and work at creating more of it for yourself and others.