When I tried growing a garden for the first time I discovered two things about gardening pretty quickly. One, I am not a gardener and two if you let the weeds get out of control they will soon take over your garden. It is pretty easy to use that analogy when it comes to thoughts too. If you keep letting the negative ones in they will choke out the positive ones PDQ. It is not so much that negative thoughts have that much power as they are quite low on the energy scale but enough of them piled up day after day it becomes harder and harder to get through the weeds to the flowers. By flowers I mean the good stuff, the wonderful things about you and your life.
I had to learn that the hard way and try and teach that to my children on a daily basis so that they won't have to wait until they are in their forties to have the same AHA moment.
Apologies on anyone who reads our blogs and has noticed a bit of a lag since the last one. No excuses just life gets the best of you at times and all the good intentions of blogging on a daily basis kind of go to the wayside. Actually for 2007 Cassie and I were pretty good about keeping up on the blogs so I am not going to say too much about this year. We all do what we can and sometimes a break is needed.
Happy Goal Setting,
Monicka
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Support and Friendship
Thank goodness for my dear friend Cassie. She is always there to make me start believing again when I am having doubts and to prop me up when I feel like I can no longer stand on my own two feet without help. Just recently she helped me through a rough patch where I was having a lot of doubts. Our friendship means the world to me and I would be lost without it. She offers me support and guidance and sometimes just lets me vent.
Friendship is also vital to your children. Most children especially teens will not necessarily confide in their parents or other family members if they are having problems, but will usually tell a good friend. Your kids need to know that you are there for them if they are ever in trouble but some kids just keep secrets from their parents and it is not because you are a bad parent. It is just what kids do. That is why it is so imperative for them to have a friend they can lay their troubles on.
If you think that your children may be having problems making friends it is a good idea to ask them if they are happy with the friendships in their lives? If you word it that way they will feel better about telling you if they are having problems rather than asking them if they have any friends, which will make them feel like something is wrong with them if they don't have any friends to speak of. There are many things that you can do as a parent to help in this area, but if nothing seems to work it may be time to talk to your child's teacher or even to seek professional help as it may be a self esteem issue, that needs to be dealt with. Check out this article on How to Help Your Child Make Friends!
Happy Friendships,
Monicka
Friendship is also vital to your children. Most children especially teens will not necessarily confide in their parents or other family members if they are having problems, but will usually tell a good friend. Your kids need to know that you are there for them if they are ever in trouble but some kids just keep secrets from their parents and it is not because you are a bad parent. It is just what kids do. That is why it is so imperative for them to have a friend they can lay their troubles on.
If you think that your children may be having problems making friends it is a good idea to ask them if they are happy with the friendships in their lives? If you word it that way they will feel better about telling you if they are having problems rather than asking them if they have any friends, which will make them feel like something is wrong with them if they don't have any friends to speak of. There are many things that you can do as a parent to help in this area, but if nothing seems to work it may be time to talk to your child's teacher or even to seek professional help as it may be a self esteem issue, that needs to be dealt with. Check out this article on How to Help Your Child Make Friends!
Happy Friendships,
Monicka
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Tips to end procrastination
In Monday's blog I wrote about the connection between procrastination and low self esteem and how negative feelings about yourself can affect how your child feels about himself. Today we are going to deal with ways to help you stop putting things off, which will not only benefit you, but also your children so can will become little people that will walk their talk.
If you tend to procrastinate because of fear of failure it is vital that you learn not to let the fear paralyze you; instead feel the fear and do it anyway. Try to concentrate on the outcome you want and picture that exactly how you want it to be. Fear is only false evidence appearing real in your mind, but it can keep you from moving forward because it is not a comfortable feeling by any means. If you can just nudge yourself past it a tiny bit, there are always lots of goodies on the other side.
If you have been avoiding things for quite awhile you may have a backlog of things piled up that are weighing you down and you do not know where to even begin. Take the time to write down each one and once that is done, prioritize them. What is most important to you or what needs to be done first or even what can I do first so that I can get the ball rolling. It doesn't matter how you prioritize your list, what is important is to make it doable for you. Now that you have done that do the first thing on the list. Don't think about it just do it, then move onto the next one on the list. You will find that as you start accomplishing things on your list you will start feeling better about yourself and before you know it the list will be fait accompli.
Finally don't delay. When you delay with your plans, worry and doubt start settling in and that can be detrimental to your self esteem. The best solution is to act on it without thought and just like any muscle you haven't used in awhile, the more you use it the stronger it gets and procrastination will be a thing of the past.
Happy Follow Through,
Monicka
If you tend to procrastinate because of fear of failure it is vital that you learn not to let the fear paralyze you; instead feel the fear and do it anyway. Try to concentrate on the outcome you want and picture that exactly how you want it to be. Fear is only false evidence appearing real in your mind, but it can keep you from moving forward because it is not a comfortable feeling by any means. If you can just nudge yourself past it a tiny bit, there are always lots of goodies on the other side.
If you have been avoiding things for quite awhile you may have a backlog of things piled up that are weighing you down and you do not know where to even begin. Take the time to write down each one and once that is done, prioritize them. What is most important to you or what needs to be done first or even what can I do first so that I can get the ball rolling. It doesn't matter how you prioritize your list, what is important is to make it doable for you. Now that you have done that do the first thing on the list. Don't think about it just do it, then move onto the next one on the list. You will find that as you start accomplishing things on your list you will start feeling better about yourself and before you know it the list will be fait accompli.
Finally don't delay. When you delay with your plans, worry and doubt start settling in and that can be detrimental to your self esteem. The best solution is to act on it without thought and just like any muscle you haven't used in awhile, the more you use it the stronger it gets and procrastination will be a thing of the past.
Happy Follow Through,
Monicka
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