Month: December 2018

Good Habits = Success

I am sitting in my living room at 7:30 in the morning looking at my nicely decorated Christmas tree. My honey is sleeping and Fenway is waiting patiently by the front door, a sure sign she is ready to go out for a walk. I love a quiet, lazy morning with time to reflect, relax and strategize. After the walk that is!

I am not a technical person, but have been experimenting with a new app called Productive. The free version let me track 3 habits that I wanted to incorporate into my life and I had so much fun (and success) doing that, that I asked for a 1 year subscription for Christmas. So now I can track unlimited habits and am enjoying the process. This is not a review of Productive, there are a bunch of apps available to help develop good habits and increase productivity; this is just the one I stumbled upon, liked the look of and decided to check out.

Still learning to embrace technology!

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Flip The Switch

In the past, I tended to get in a groove and just flowed from one activity to the next. I would go to work and stress out about it. I would grab a beer with friends and complain about it. But I wouldn’t spend much time thinking about what I wanted or how I could make life better. There is something to be said for being in the groove but it can lead to complacency.

Even now, I get comfortable working a few shifts, doing my yard work on the side, cooking awesome meals for my honey, helping Child #1 and her honey with some small projects and writing my blog posts. I like my life and tend to get comfortable sitting on my couch. But as we know, life doesn’t get better while simply sitting on the couch.

To keep from getting too comfy on the couch, I have been spending some time thinking lately. Can you smell the smoke? See the flames? Hear the crackling?

For me, thinking is a powerful but underutilized tool!

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The Hell with Being Perfect!

You know that saying “practice makes perfect”? The idea being that if you keep working at something you will get better and as you get better you near perfection.  I don’t totally agree with this idea as there are plenty of things that I do frequently but don’t  get better at. For instance, I have been tying my shoes for over 45 years but still find that they come undone during the day. I played squash for several years; playing in a league, practicing drills and playing with others but I never felt competent. I could practice drawing a picture of my dog for the next decade but the picture would always look like it was drawn by a 3 year-old. 

If only I could draw this good!

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Time to Get Assertive – Pick Up The Phone!

For the last few years, I have managed to live solidly in the middle class but only had to work part-time. I call this my semi-retirement and the joy that it brings me never gets old. It gives me the flexibility I crave with plenty of time to spend with my loved ones doing activities I enjoy. I just got home from a 3 hour shift at the Nursing home and now am getting ready to go out to lunch with my honey. Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon!

My part-time, flexible schedule works for me because several years ago, I decided to choose wealth. I got out of debt, stopped shopping for fun, cut my cable and got assertive with my money. You can learn more about how this has worked for me here and here.

As money doesn’t actually grow on trees and winning the lottery hasn’t worked for me – How does one actually choose wealth?

Wouldn’t this be nice?

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