Personal Mission Statement

"The Key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about, and what you value."
Stephen R. Covey

As I come to realize how much order correlates to sanity and peace in my life, I reached for a book that's been on my shelf for a while but haven't paid much attention to. You've probably seen it, or maybe you have it on your shelf. The book is, The 7 habits of highly effective people. I recommend this book, when you are ready to take action with organizing your life. The book is framed in a way that you can apply it's strategies to your work, your home, your partnership and yourself of course.

The first thing I began to take action upon was creating a personal mission statement. Which Covey describes as basically the vision and the values by which you live your life. A personal mission statement gives you direction and helps you through decisions. As you look at your mission statement you will be able set your goals and based on your principles, focus your time and energy in that direction. As I see it, this can also be used in a similar way to the law of attraction in which you begin to attract what you focus upon. It helps to create this mission statement so you can get a clear vision as to what it is you want to attract into your life.

I have started my personal mission statement that I am still tweaking, so here's what I've got so far:

I am creating beauty around me
I am inspiring
I am living my life proactively and passionately
I am giving to and connecting with people wherever I am
I am using love as a verb in my life
I am living simply
I am laughing freely
I am visualizing and attracting unlimited abundance
I am remembering always that anything is possible
I am open to learn something new everyday
I am evolving and continually focusing on being the best version of me
I am sharing what the best version of me has to offer to the world.

So that's what I have so far. I will print it out once I'm completely happy with it and frame it on my dresser! And the journey continues....

My Vision Book

Hi...I'm Tammy...and I'm a "mag"aholic... I admit that I have subscriptions to 5 different magazines because it will "save me money" and I wont have to buy them at the check-out. However, somehow those glossy magazines that I don't yet have a subscription to always seem to fall in my cart. Magazines are often a really quick "high", often times so filled with useless ads that within 10 mins, it's over. I have piles and piles of magazines. Martha Stewart's (1999-present) beautiful covers line my shelf and I can't seem to part with them. There is such joy that comes, when I open that mailbox to that perfectly wrapped in plastic magazine. The best part is that because I have five different subscriptions they all come at staggered times during the month. It's like presents keep arriving in the mail just for me! I believe that getting stuff in the mail (snail mail) is still far more exciting than receiving an email. I've always found use for my magazines when I've created my vision boards, clipping out things that I am hoping to attract into my life and pasting them to a canvas. This is a great way to send your intentions out to the universe. However, even after using some bits and pieces for my 8 X 10 vision board, I am still left with piles and piles of magazines! Then my friend Sunshine told me about this "scrapbook" that she started, in order to make use of all the magazines. She started clipping out any idea, recipe, design idea, craft or fashion that she liked from the magazine and glued them into the scrapbook in categories. She enjoyed it so much, she gave me a freshly recovered scrapbook for Christmas this year. I believe the vision book or scrapbook if you prefer, has several great purposes. First of all it's a great way to use the magazines, secondly it's a great way to get to know the things that you love and third it's a great resource for ideas (like recipes and crafts) and lastly its a wonderful way to send your intentions out to the universe. That's why I've decided to call it my vision book. I have a whole section on Christmas ideas that I love, kitchen and dining, bedroom ideas, hallways, crafts and gardening. The best part is that there are no rules so I can add new categories and paste anything I want into my vision book. Here's what you need to start your own vision book: 1. Get yourself a spiral bound sketch book 2. Recover it with beautiful bright wrapping paper or scrap booking paper (optional step) 3. Find some quiet time, I find that right before I go to sleep is a good time, I take even just one magazine and go through it for ideas I want to clip out. 4. Cut out images, glue or tape them in your book 5. Enjoy looking back at all the beautiful images you have compiled over time!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Song: You and I-Ingrid Michaelson

Law of attraction and affirmations

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

-Wayne Dyer

Most people go about their days in an semi-conscious state. Not fully paying attention to what their minds are telling them all day long. There is scienctific evidence that 90% of our thoughts are exactly the same thoughts you had yesterday. Just what are we telling ourselves? What is the non-stop regurgitated chatter going on in there, and is it helping or is it harming our days? Thoughts like "There's never enough time..." "I'm always so tired"..."There's nothing to do..." "I'm so stressed out..." "I wonder if I said that wrong?..." "I'm broke..." All of these sound like excuses...excuses that hold us back from living a full and rich life.

If you read the book or saw the movie "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne than you'd know that through the law of attraction thoughts become things and what you focus on will be what you attract more of into your life. The very concept of this blog is based on this fact...if I focus on joy, I will attract more joy. If I focus on beauty, then beauty will expand in my life. Long before "The Secret" I read Wayne W. Dyer's book "The Power of Intention" and it helped me see things in a different way. I realized that I was in control of how my life ended up by setting my intentions for attracting abundance, peace, love and success. A little while ago Dr. W.W.D. was talking about his book "Excuses be Gone" on a PBS special (which I recorded) and I sat down with my pen (actually my favourite crayola markers) and took note of some affirmations that he suggests will replace all the useless counterproductive "excuses" we give ourselves to hold us back from living the life we were meant to. I also created a few of my own. Here is a list I've compiled to inspire others to change their thoughts and in turn change their lives:

*My life is handled with ease and grace

*I am strong and have unlimited energy

*I am open and willing to attract all that I desire beginning here and now

*I can accomplish anything I put my mind to

*Being myself involves no risks. Its my ultimate truth and I live fearlessly

*I have infinite patience (good one for mommies)

*I'd rather be loathed for who I am than loved for who I am not (I like this one alot)

*I am connected to an unlimited source of abundance

*The right circumstances and the right people are already here and will show up on time

*I am passionate about my life and this passion fills me with excitement and energy

Here are a few of my favourite books by Dr.Wayne W. Dyer:

Joy Blog...Pleasure Journal

"The secret to happiness is simple: Find out what you truly love to do and direct all of your energy towards doing it. Once you do this, abundance flows into your life and all your desires are fulfilled with ease and grace."-unknown

Sarah Ban Breathnach swears by a gratitude journal in her book "Simple Abundance." I agree with her when she says "the more you have and are grateful for the more will be given to you." So it is suggested that after each days end you reflect upon your day and consider all the things that you have to be grateful for that day. For me personally, gratitude is great for days when I'm feeling negative or in a slump. The days when I feel my life is a total mess, my relationships are a disaster, my finances are a sad state. Basically, on the days when I feel hopeless. Being grateful for the big things helps me to feel hope and remind me that my life is more abundant than I can remember at that moment. When I say being grateful for the big things I mean:

*My children

*My partner

*My health

*The health of my family

* Our house

*Our 2 cars

*My friends

*Our jobs

Those to me are the big things in life I am grateful for and most days even if I'm angry at the children and husband or I'm hating my house because it is "too small" I can recognize them as blessings, even through a negative filter. The big things convince me keep going...
A pleasure journal convinces me that life is filled with joys that make life worth living. Now, like I said, you can't be in a mood as discussed above when you sit down to write this. This is for days when I'm are feeling okay, or the days when I am feeling happy! Its appreciating the little things that bring me pleasure and focusing on those things in my day.

I like to consider all 5 senses (or somedays 6 senses) when I sit down to write in my pleasure journal. Here's an example of an entry in my own personal journal:

*Sipping strong hot coffee, along with my journals, my favourite books in the early a.m.

*Hearing Alex say "I love you" spontaneously

*Using colourful markers for anything possible

*Hot lemon water before bed

*Playing with Jalen and Ruby while they giggle hysterically

*Chatting up market vendors on Saturday morning.

*Buying my first pair of skinny jeans

When you begin to focus on these pleasures you realize what you should have more of in your life, like love and laughter and coffee out of polkadot mugs and you realize that if you brought more of these simple pleasures to your everyday life you would feel more joy. And isn't that what we all ultimately want...happiness.