Create Your Successful Life
I have found that a successful life is built upon four core elements:
Love and Relationships
Peace and Happiness
Healthy Body
Success Strategies
Love and Relationships give purpose and meaning to your efforts.
Peace and Happiness creates fulfillment along your journey.
A Healthy Body expands your opportunities and allows you to enjoy life’s adventures.
Success Strategies gives you the most efficient and effective ways to execute your systems and processes so that you are free to spend your time enjoying life’s journey with the people you love and care about.
All successful people who are healthy, wealthy, and happy have integrated these four core elements into their lives.
A successful life is rarely created alone.
I am here to help you create the successful life you deserve and desire. All of my books, programs, and articles have been carefully crafted and designed to include these four core elements for creating a successful life.
Together we can create the loving relationships you desire in your personal and professional relationships. With my guidance you will experience feelings of peace, joy, and fulfillment in all areas of your life. My programs will assist you in developing balance, productivity, and motivation in your time, energy and commitments. Together you will achieve a body and life that is full of energy, vitality, and happiness.
I believe all women deserve to have successful lives filled with peace, joy, and fulfillment. I am committed to helping you create the successful life you deserve and desire.
You deserve to be healthy, wealthy, and happy too!
What does a successful life mean to you? Share in the comments below what your life would look like if you had a successful life.
By Carolyn Almendarez
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How Do You Want To Feel?
When you set your goals and New Year’s resolutions did you ask yourself, “How do I want to feel this year?”
Probably not.
When grown-ups asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, did they also ask you how you wanted to feel when you grew up?
Probably not.
These may sound like silly questions, but Danielle Laporte, author of “The Desire Map” suggests that when we set goals and strive to fulfill dreams we are actually striving to fulfill a desired feeling, not a desired goal destination or achievement.
This is why you can reach a goal or desired accomplishment and still feel unsuccessful, unhappy, or unfulfilled. You reached the goal, but what you were “really seeking” is still missing.
She argues that we have goal setting backwards. Instead of starting with a goal and driving full force ahead to achieve it, we should start with the feelings we desire to feel and then create our world and our goals around the desired feelings.
Danielle Laporte shares her thoughts on letting your feelings and desires drive your goals in this interview with Marie Forleo:
To use your desired feelings to create your goals start by looking inside yourself and asking yourself, “How do I want to feel?”
For many of you this question may make you feel uncomfortable or leave an empty void in your mind and heart. There is nothing wrong with you if that is your experience.
Because the truth is, most of us have feeling gardens that have been trampled by well-meaning adults trying to groom us into the adults they thought we should be.
As a child how often were you told your laughter was too loud, or your giggles were inappropriate. Or told to wipe away your tears, and ‘chin up’ when you were feeling sad. Anger outbursts and temper-tantrums were surely met with glaring disdain and disapproval.
As good little children we quickly learned to suppress and subdue the expression of our feelings and transform into well-behaved goal driven adults.
So now I’m giving you permission to return to your inner garden and let those feeling flowers blossom.
Start by asking yourself, “What do I want?”. Then ask yourself, “Why do I want that?” and “How do I hope that will make me feel?”
Spend some time every day asking yourself, “How do I want to feel?”
Be patient with yourself as you explore your inner feelings and desires. Danielle said it took her five years to identify her core desired feelings.
Start with the feelings you identify now and then continue to probe and check-in with yourself as you re-grow your feelings garden. Your identified feelings may change as you get clearer at uncovering the core desires within you.
Once you have identified 3-5 core feelings then ask yourself, “What can I do today to create these feelings?”
Then ask yourself, “What do I need to do, have, or experience to have these feelings in my life?”
These two questions will help you to create a fulfilling life you love, both in the present and the future. You do not have to wait for the accomplishment of your goals to have a full and happy life.
Instead of working towards achieving goals and accomplishments you are now creating your life day by day.
My core desired feelings are:
Delight
Serene
Expansive
Light
Free
What are your core desired feelings? Share in the comments below.
By Carolyn Almendarez
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If you desire to feel happy, reduce stress, and lose weight then you’ll want to check out the upcoming program Happy, Healthy & Fit. Click here to learn more.
Cleanse Your Life
Does shifting into Spring inspire you to clean out and lighten up?
If you’re feeling that cleansing urge, it’s the perfect time to join the upcoming Cleanse Your Life course beginning April 7th hosted by my friend and colleague, Lisa Byrne of WellGrounded Life.
Lisa has worked with hundreds of women and mothers who are at the end of their energy bank accounts. They want to feel energized and engaged in their life. She’s worked with women who are having a hard time losing that last amount of weight and want to feel healthy, light and strong in their body.
She has designed the Cleanse Your Life program specifically for busy mothers.
Her whole-body cleanse reminds your cells just how good it feels to be fed healthy, cleansing, high energy foods and it kick-starts habits of healthy eating and healthy living that you can bring back into your daily life.
She’ll be taking a group through the full process of learning a whole new way to use and enjoy foods that cleanse, scrub and renew from the inside out and she’ll teach you how to soothe and cleanse through your self care, personal care products, kitchen/pantry organization, and home flow and function.
Lisa will guide you through creating a cleansing plan that addresses a whole cleanse: body, mind, spirit and your environment. She provides a full manual including recipes and her personal 7-day cleanse plan as well as support through Q&A calls and an online community.
Are you ready for a major kick-start to feeling lighter, clearer and more energized?
Click here to get all the details.
Cleanse Your Life starts Monday, April 7, 2014
Cleanse Your Life self study program is available year round click here to learn more
31 Romantic Ideas For Love
Every day is a great day to celebrate your love and tell him/her how much you love them.
Celebrate your love relationship with these 31 ideas for romance.
1. Give romantic flowers just because you love her/him
2. Make her/him breakfast in bed
3. Write a love poem for your sweetheart
4. Fly a kite together
5. Feed each other chocolate covered strawberries
6. Watch the sunset together
7. Have a candlelight bath for two
8. Share a cup of love – hot chocolate, coffee, or whatever warms your heart
9. Play footsies during dinner
10. Have a picnic at the park or on your living room floor
11. Go Salsa Dancing
12. Hold hands at the movies
13. Train for a marathon together
14. Make spaghetti and watch Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp”
15. Read a romance novel together
16. Give her/him a peppermint foot massage
17. Share a bowl of ice cream
18. Send your lover a love note
19. Have a backwards dinner. Start with dessert first.
20. Go on an outdoor adventure together
21. Tell him/her how much you love and appreciate him/her
22. Bring a picnic lunch to his/her work
23. Make homemade pizza together
24. Send a sexy photo
25. Watch the sunrise with hot chocolate, orange juice, muffins and bagels
26. Ride bikes together
27. Have a romantic comedy movie marathon night
28. Go on a romantic walk together and look for signs of Spring
29. Kiss in the moonlight
30. Buy sexy lingerie
31. Snuggle in bed together
By Carolyn Almendarez
What are your favorite romantic ideas?
Share how you will show your love this month in the comments below.
Flickr photo by Astig!!
Are Your Relationships Making You Fat?
By Carolyn Almendarez
One of the most vulnerable dangers for gaining unwanted excess weight is relationship conflict.
Relationship conflict is any form of friction, discord, struggle, incompatibility, dissonance, disagreement, argument, or debate between two people.
Anyone who’s had a fight or argument with their spouse or significant other knows first hand the spiral of highly charged negative thoughts, feelings and actions that often follow in response to the environmental stressor or person you are engaging with.
The negative thoughts and emotions from relationship conflict can trigger emotional eating, stress-eating, and sleep deprivation. They can also hog up a lot of emotional and psychological energy impairing your ability to think clearly and work productively.
A single conflict can trigger an avalanche of unhealthy reactions in your thoughts and behaviors, and trigger a cascade of stress-reactions within your body, all of which will contribute to impaired sleep, poor eating habits, increased weight, and decreased work performance and productivity.
In your emotional pain you might turn to Ben and Jerry, Orville Redenbacher, or the Red Baron to soothe your emotional wounds. While these men might give you some temporary comfort, they will also leave you with a lot of unwanted baggage that’s hard to get rid of.
Emotional eating can compound the negative effects of relationship conflict with additional feelings of guilt and negativity about yourself and your body for indulging in high-fat, sugary or processed foods.
In addition, women tend to think in terms of relationships, so it is especially unsettling and distracting to our minds and thought processes when there is conflict in our primary relationships.
But what happens physiologically when you experience relationship conflict?
When you have conflict with your spouse, significant other, or other important relationship your body triggers the internal emergency stress-response system, physically preparing you to fight or flee the danger-provoking situation. But most relationship conflicts are emotional and verbal, not physical. So what does this mean?
When the body detects any kind of perceived threat or stress it triggers a cascade of emergency hormonal and neurotransmitter signals sending your blood and energy to your outer limbs and increasing the production and storage of fat so that you have plenty of energy to fight or flee the stress-producing situation.
The whole stress-response process is designed to give the body the maximum amount of fuel and energy to fight or flee. This was a great survival technique when we were up against saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths. But our modern society of constant emotional and psychological stress requires a clear thinking mind to resolve the stressors, not extra fat for fuel.
So the more stress you are under the more fat your body is producing and retaining in an effort to protect you from the perceived threats and dangers. Relationship conflict always triggers the stress-response system and the production of extra fat. Professional women are especially vulnerable to stress-related weight gain from professional and personal relationship conflicts.
Balancing work and relationships can be an emotional challenge for the success driven professional woman. Conflict, arguments, not feeling heard, and lack of support from your spouse or significant other can really put a strain on your love life, your business success, and your weight.
In the SMART Relationship Communication program I walk you though the steps to resolve relationship conflict, get your feelings heard, and build trust and intimacy in your relationship. All of these processes provide ways to de-stress and give your body the all-clear message to release unwanted excess weight.
No one is immune to the affects of relationship conflict and stress, but with training and practice you can minimize the negative impact they can have on your life, relationships, waistline, and business. The SMART Relationship Communication program teaches you the skills and tools to vanquish the negative effects of relationship conflict.
The SMART Relationship Communication Program will not only help you to prevent excessive weight gain, but it can help you improve your sleep, improve your eating patterns, and most importantly improve your relationships.
Go to http://CarolynAlmendarez.com/smart to learn more and start improving your waistline and relationships today!
Valentine’s bonus gift with purchase disappears on February 14, 2014 midnight Pacific Time