Have you ever been labeled?Maybe your parents always said you were the “naughty one” or the “quiet one” or the “clever one”. Maybe your classmates called you a “geek”. Maybe your friends expected you to live up to a particular reputation (even when you thought you’d outgrown it).
You almost certainly have labels that you give yourself – whether you realize it or not. Perhaps you think you’re “lazy” or “bad with money”. Or you resist other descriptions – you think you could never be “musical” or “artistic” or “creative”.
The truth is, we can all change. In fact you have changed, gradually, throughout your life. You’ve probably been through times when you realized that you were capable of much more than you gave yourself credit for.
Plenty of qualities – like your creativity, intelligence, physical strength, and more – aren’t fixed. You can actively improve them, through practice, and sometimes just by changing the way you think about yourself.
Three Stories About Change
When I was in college, I got a lot of vacation time – and I wasted plenty of it playing computer games. On a good day, I managed to write a thousand words or so.Now, I work for myself, and while I could play games all day, I never do. I often write three or four thousand words, and I’m much more focused and self-disciplined than I used to be.
This didn’t happen overnight. I gradually built up the habit of writing (and worked to break bad habits – like thinking that I needed to idly surf the net while I “woke up properly” every morning).
My change hasn’t been dramatic or overnight, just a gradual process of trying to become more and more the person who I want to be. I’m not there yet (I’m not sure anyone ever reaches that goal!) but I’m definitely moving in the right direction.
Sometimes, people change in more dramatic ways – life-changing, even life-saving, ways. I want to very briefly share a couple of inspiring stories from two bloggers who I’ve admired for a long time.
Shauna Reid, aka Dietgirl, lost half her body-weight and wrote all about it on her blog. She had a book published about her dieting journey. (Along the way, she moved from Australia to Scotland, and got married.) She’s a fantastic writer, and her story shows that you really can change your life.
Trent Hamm, who writes The Simple Dollar, was mired deep in financial problems when his first son was born. In 2006, he began a financial turnaround which led to a very successful blog, two book deals, and a much more stable life. I’ve been particularly struck when he writes about his previous attitudes to money (or other aspects of life, like leisure time) compared with his current ones: proof that you can change, radically, at a really fundamental level.
How You Can Change Too
The first step to changing who you are is to recognize that it’s in your power to change. Sure, most of us don’t change overnight – though health and financial wake-up calls can prompt sudden focused action. But we can all take steps, slowly and gradually, to change ourselves into the people who we want to be.You might want to think about:
- Habits that are holding you back. Perhaps you keep procrastinating, or you constantly overspend.
Lack of confidence or other psychological issues. Health issues – like being overweight, struggling to manage a health condition, or being chronically unfit. Your skills and abilities – is there something you’d love to do or learn, but which you keep telling yourself you’re not capable of? I wouldn’t recommend trying to change everything at once. Instead, pick one area and focus wholeheartedly on improving at that particular thing. You might like to check out some recent posts on Dumb Little Man for inspiration:Whatever you choose to change, good luck! You really can do it. Give yourself plenty of time, and work in small steps: this time next year, your life could look radically different.
- How to Prove That You Are Worthy of a Raise
- 14 Simple Ways to Convert Your Sedentary Lifestyle
- How to Curb Your Unnecessary Spending
Written on 4/6/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing. Photo Credit: Lynn Pernille Photography
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
You Know, You Can Change Who You Are
Saturday, April 2, 2011
How to Find Time For Yourself
Today our lives are busier than ever before. Our time is pressed by career, family, friends and sometimes even the things we took on as being “for me” become a chore that saps our precious time. I mean, while your iphone addiction may be considered 'a break', is it really relaxing and does it really do anything to recharge your batteries? Doubtful.So how do we successfully take time out for ourselves? Where can we look for those little nuggets of time in a world of perpetual task lists? It sounds simple but we all know it's not. Here are some tips for addressing issues related to the time in our lives and some advice to help you find some time for yourself in your hectic schedule.
- Complete a Time Audit
It might sound silly but we often actually don’t know where our time goes. Over the course of a normal week, make an attempt to keep track of what you do with your time. Carry a small notebook and check your watch when you start different tasks at home and at work.What were the surprises? Do you spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, responding to phone calls, completing tasks you thought were a minor part of your workload? Try to think about why these things take longer than you thought they would. Are you completely focused on them or, because they are minor tasks, are you doing something else at the same time? As we’ve been aware for a while now, multitasking is not always the best way to go.
If tasks take longer in reality than you expected or allowed for, you will always feel as if you are behind schedule and ‘playing catch-up’. Knowing where your time goes is the first step to finding some time for yourself.
HINT: Allow more than enough time for tasks, including driving to and from various places. Use your audit results and be realistic about the time you’ll need to complete tasks. If it suits the way you work, use your audit results to create a timetable or schedule for your day and don’t forget to include coffee breaks and downtime in your plan.
Complete a Priorities Audit
This will work in conjunction with you time audit to help you determine whether you are spending your time on the things that are actually most important to you.
- Start by brainstorming all the commitments you spend your time on (use your time audit to help you) including your spare time.
- Check your list and see if there’s anything missing eg. it’s important that you visit your great aunt every month but your time audit wasn’t completed in the week that you have you visit.
- Rank your commitments in order of importance.
- Compare the ranking with your time audit – you have to be a little flexible here. For example, ‘work’ may rank down your list a little but take up a huge amount of time, you need to take into account the fact that without work many of the leisure time commitments are not possible. Of course, make sure to acknowledge and address whether the time commitment required by you job is worth it.
Plan a Break In summary, know your time usage; know your priorities; and plan time for yourself. You’ll be more productive in the long run and, besides, you’re worth it!
Plan breaks in your daily schedule but also in your leisure time. We sometime fill our weekends with as much socializing or home duties as possible because our hectic working lives leaves little time during the week to chat with a friend, catch up for a coffee or get the clothes washed. When we pack our lives so fully, we leave no down time and we tend to feel as if we are rushing from one thing to another – from work to drinks with friends to a dinner out to a family birthday…Regularly (perhaps once a month or two) block out a weekend in your diary or calendar. Give it a title like “My Time” or “VIP Weekend”. Don’t accept invitations on these weekends. And don’t wait for a free weekend to present itself because last minute invitations can easily swallow up your time or, if you do actually get the weekend to yourself, you’re not ready for it. In your scheduled time off from your life, plan something that you want to do. Spend the weekend catching up on some reading, watching some DVDs, wandering around a market, gardening, playing in the park with your kids… whatever it is that you will enjoy and will make you feel as if you have used your time in a decadent manner. You’ll feel more refreshed and ready for your working week if you’ve actually treated yourself and allowed yourself the time you need to start feeling human again.
Written on 4/2/2011 by Deb Wain. Deb is a freelancer writer, poet, short story author and marriage celebrant. You can read more of her work or find out more about Deb’s weddings. Photo Credit: Public Domain
Southwest grounds planes after roof rips open on Phoenix flight
Southwest Airlines will ground 79 of its Boeing 737 planes for inspection after the roof ripped open on one of its flights, the company said this morning.
"The safety of our Customers and Employees is our primary concern, and we are grateful there were no serious injuries," said Mike Van de Ven, Southwest's executive vice president and chief operating officer, in a statement.
Southwest expects to cancel about 300 flights today nationwide. Customers should check the status of their flight online before heading to the airport, said Southwest spokesperson Brandy King.
It is unclear how long the inspections will take, she said.
So far, eight flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport -- six departures and two arrivals -- were affected by the cancellations, according to an airport spokesman.
Southwest Flight 812 from Phoenix to Sacramento made an emergency landing in Yuma after the roof ripped open Friday, passengers said.
The flight left Sky Harbor Airport around 3:25 p.m. and landed safely at Yuma Marine Corps. Air Station at 4:07 p.m., said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
There were 118 passengers and five Phoenix-based crew members on board Flight 812. A flight attendant and one passenger received minor injuries, according to a Southwest Airlines statement. All passengers will receive a full refund along with an apology and two complimentary roundtrip passes on Southwest for future flights, the company said.
Passenger Brenda Reese said the top of the Boeing 737 ripped open, leaving a gaping hole between 5 to 6 feet long.
Reese said it sounded like an explosion when the top of the plane "popped off" and that passengers only had a few seconds to put their oxygen masks on. She said a few people passed out because they couldn't get to oxygen fast enough.
"The noise woke me up and instantly the mask dropped," Reese told 12 News. When she realized there was a hole in the plane, Reese thought, "God, bring me safely home to my three children."
Reese told The Republic that the pilot handled the emergency well, and passengers applauded him when he left the cockpit after the landing. Around 6 p.m. Reese said she was still on the plane at 6 p.m., awaiting another Southwest aircraft from Phoenix scheduled to take passengers to Sacramento by 8:30 p.m.
Another passenger, Larry Downey, told 12 News he was directly below the hole when it opened up.
"You could look out and see blue sky," Downey said.
He said a flight attendant didn't get an oxygen mask on fast enough and the man fell and hit his head. "It was pandemonium," Downey said.
The FAA reported pilot made a rapid descent from 36,000 feet to 11,000 feet after the hole opened.
Jim Tilman, an aviation consultant and longtime pilot, told 12 News the plane had to make a rapid descent to bring the passengers to breathable air. He said the hole in the plane would not have affected the pilot's ability to control the aircraft and that crew would have had plenty of time to get the plane down.
"The crews are very well trained to handle this," Tilman said.
An inspector from the FAA was on scene Friday night, Gregor said. Teams from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the hole.
A similar incident on a Southwest plane to Baltimore in July 2009 also forced an emergency landing when a foot-long hole opened in the cabin.
Four months earlier, the Dallas-based airline had agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage. The airline, which flies Boeing 737s, inspected nearly 200 of its planes back then, found no cracks and put them back in the sky.
Includes information by the Associated Press.
