How To Be Confident

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Put the Pep Back in Your Step!

Lately I find it hard to keep my eyes open while studying, and difficult to stop from yawning in the middle of work. How can a girl concentrate on anything while wishing she was snuggled up in bed falling fast asleep? She can’t! It has become clear that I need more energy, so I decided to do a little research to see what I can do to give myself a boost. Here are some of the best tips I came up with – I guarantee you’ve heard some of these before, but some of them, or the ways some of them are meant to be done, were certainly new to me.

1. Get Enough Sleep
   We’ve all heard this one. The “you need your rest” mantra we hated as kids, but now miss oh so much. Seriously though, get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. You’d be surprised how much it helps.
2. Eat Breakfast
   Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. Don’t skip it. Even if it’s just grabbing a granola bar as you race out the door, or grabbing an apple or banana from the break room at work. It’ll make a difference to how you get your day going.
3. Drink Enough Water
   8 glasses a day ladies! 6 of those glasses are supposedly best to drink before 3pm because that’s when your body does most of it’s flushing out of your systems, so re-hydrating will help that process, as well as keep you ready for action AND (this is always a plus) help keep your skin looking great.
4. Rub/Tug On Your Earlobes
   According to Chinese medicine, stimulating your earlobes also sends stimulation to the rest of your body. It also helps draw blood to your head and gets it flowing. So give your ears a little massage and a few gentle tugs when you’re feeling drowsy.
5. Stretch
   Sitting around all day is enough to make anyone drowsy. Get up and stretch, let your body get some movement. You’ll notice that you perk up a bit.
6. Work Out
   Working out releases endorphins, which in turn, release energy into your body. That pumped up feeling you get after working out? That would be those endorphins.
7. Try Deep Breathing & Meditation
   Deep breathing allows more oxygen to get into your system, giving your body more to work with. Let your stomach inflate as you inhale slowly and deeply through your nose, and deflate as you exhale slowly through your mouth, pushing out the air until you can’t anymore. Meditation and visualization can help bring you to a place where you feel fresher and are ready to tackle anything at hand. Meditation however, does take practice. But don’t give up! I promise you that once you master it, it is well worth it.
8. Take Power Naps
   No, not hour-long ones. Believe it or not, the perfect power nap lasts only 15-20 minutes. This way, your body only has time to go into the first stage of sleep, rather than going deeper and not having enough time to come out of it properly. Anything over 20 minutes can lead to waking up more exhausted than before. So set that alarm!
9. Eat Healthy, Balanced Meals
   Making sure to eat healthy and regularly is an important life skill. It helps to nourish your body and get the right nutrients into your system as the day goes on. Choose healthy snacks as well, to ensure that you are getting your energy from the correct places, and also to help you keep up your energy longer.
10. Play
    Remember how you could run around for hours as a kid? Well that’s because you loved it! Get out daily and play – literally. Do something fun with your kids, your pet, or a friend. Do something you enjoy. Make time for you to have some fun.
11. Re-evaluate Your Relationships
    Relationships can easily drain you of your energy. If you constantly have to argue with someone, work hard at keeping up a relationship, or give and not get anything back, you need to take a long hard look at those relationships. There’s a fine line between putting in the effort, and being taken advantage of or being worn down. Be careful.
12. Take Your Vitamins 
    Taking a vitamin supplement can help boost your energy (whether you have a vitamin deficiency or not) and make you healthier overall.

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Great Dream

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How to Keep a Healthy Level of Insanity

I found this on a site I browse, and thought it was absolutely delightful. We all need a little bit more fun in our lives, so start with this. Send it to everyone you know, pick things on this list and do them, laugh, smile, enjoy life.

Love, love, love you all. 

1. Page yourself over the intercom. (Don’t disguise your voice.)
2. Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Always wear them one day after your boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is a different gender than you are.)
3. Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. “That’s a good point, Sparky”. “No I’m sorry I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Sport.”
4. Send email to the rest of the company telling them what you’re doing. For example “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom.”
5. “Hi-lite” your shoes. Tell people that you haven’t lost your shoes since you did this.
6. While sitting at your desk, soak your fingers in “Palmolive.”
7. Put mosquito netting around your cubicle. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
8. Put a chair facing a printer, sit there all day and tell people you’re waiting for your document.
9. Arrive at a meeting late, say you’re sorry, but you didn’t have time for lunch, and you’re going to be nibbling during the meeting. During the meeting eat 5 entire raw potatoes.
10. Insist that your e-mail address be: zena_goddess_of_fire@companyname.com or Elvis_the_King@companyname.com
11. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask him or her if they want fries with that.
12. Send email to yourself engaging yourself in an intelligent debate about the direction of one of your company’s products. Forward the mail to a co-worker and ask her to settle the disagreement.
13. Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
14. Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it “IN.”
15. Determine how many cups of coffee are “too many.”
16. Develop an unnatural fear of staplers.
17. Decorate your office with pictures of Cindy Brady and Danny Partridge. Try to pass them off as your children.
18. For a relaxing break, get away from it all with a mask and snorkel in the fish tank. If no one notices, take out your snorkel and see how many you can catch in your mouth.
19. Send e-mail messages saying free pizza, free donuts etc… in the lunchroom, when people complain that there was none… Just lean back, pat your stomach, and say, “Oh you’ve got to be faster than that.”
20. Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire work area. Insist to others that you like it that way.
21. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addiction, switch to espresso.
22. Send e-mail to the rest of the company to tell them what you’re doing. For example, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom, in Stall # 3.”
23. Reply to everything someone says with, “That’s what you think.”
24. Finish all your sentences with “in accordance with the prophecy.”
25. Adjust the tint on your monitor so that the brightness level lights up the entire working area. Insist to others that you like it that way.
26. In the memo field of all your checks, write ‘for sexual favors’.
27. Dont use any punctuation
28. Use, too…much; punctuation!
29. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
30. Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
31. Specify that your drive-through order is ‘to go’.
32. Sing along at the opera.
33. Call the psychic hotline and don’t say anything.
34. At lunch time, sit in your parked car w/sunglasses on and point a hairdryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
35. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don’t rhyme.
36. Call 911 and ask if 911 is for emergencies. (warning: you can get arrested for this, but that can be instructive too)
37. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can’t attend their party because you’re not in the mood.
38. Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, “Rock Hard.”
39. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream “I Won!”, “I Won!” “3rd time this week!!!”
40. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling “Run for your lives, they’re loose!”
41. Tell your boss, “It’s not the voices in my head that bother me, its the voices in your head that do.”
42. Tell your children over dinner. “Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.”
43. Send this e-mail to everyone in your address book, even if they sent it to you or have asked you not to send them stuff like that.

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Little rules to follow throughout life:

 

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Perfect Pick-Me-Up: Music Mayhem

This morning on my way to school I was exhausted, to say the least. I needed a boost, some energy, a revival of some sort. But what…? As I drove on I got to thinking and it hit me:

We all have those mornings where we can barely drag ourselves out of bed, or the afternoons where all we want to do is collapse when there is still a million things to be done. And I know that we all have those moments in our lives where we’re feeling down, or tired, or just plain worn out in general. Well I have the perfect pick-me-up for that!

Rules: This can be done alone or with any number of friends or family members – in a car, kitchen, park, room – just about anywhere safe – BUT the key is to ONLY do it in an environment in which YOU are COMPLETELY COMFORTABLE.

Step 1: Find your favorite song.

Step 2: Find a music player of some sort.

Step 3: Turn volume up high – preferably loud enough to where you can’t hear yourself sing, or you can only hear your voice in sync with the singer(s). (This may best be done once the music has started to avoid hurting your ears.

Step 4: Sing your heart out. And I mean it. Sing loud, sing from your stomach, sing with feeling and passion and give it all you’ve got.

Step 5: If you feel like it, dance.

Step 6: Continue to rock out until your mood has improved. :)

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10 Reasons to Smile

1. It makes you attractive.
2. It changes your mood.
3. It is contagious.
4. It relieves stress.
5. It boosts your immune system.
6. It lowers your blood pressure.
7. It releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin – a natural antidepressant.
8. It lifts the face and makes you look younger.
9. It makes you seem successful.
10. It helps you stay positive.

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Today

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Little Ways to Find Happiness

Find out 10 things you can do that will bring a smile to your face

By Suzanne Beecher Posted August 20, 2010 from Glo.com

1. Own at least two bubble machines. There is nothing more fun than turning on a bubble machine in my front yard — friends, neighbors, even strangers stop and want to play. One time, a mother and her two young children walked by my house. They couldn’t see me, but I overheard the mom say to her kids, “Oh, look! This is the house of the lady who has a bubble machine. That lady is so cool!"

2. Create your own traditions. Why eat Thanksgiving dinner just once a year? Everyone always says, “We should do this more often.” So, we do it at my house three times annually: turkey with all the trimmings, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberries, coleslaw, skunk beans, shrimp salad, deviled eggs, green beans jazzed with tomatoes, cherry and pumpkin pie with whipped cream — all served on my antique turkey dinner plates.

3. Bake chocolate chip cookies and give them away to a stranger — just because. When you step out of your comfort zone, you can discover some of the most precious moments of your life. The most memorable gift is unexpected. When I hand someone a bag of cookies, the smile on their face is amazing. We talk and laugh, and it’s a moment that neither of us will ever forget.

4. Make fun of yourself. The next time something embarrassing happens, don’t hide it. I was at a New Year’s Eve party — brand new friends, brand new black velvet dress. But when I looked down at the white rug in the bathroom, pieces of my dress covered the floor. When I went back into the kitchen, there was my dress — everywhere. I was shedding. How does a girl gracefully clean her dress off the floor, without folks noticing? Take it from me, it’s tricky. But if you very carefully shuffle your foot along the floor, while chatting with other party guests along the way, you can gather up enough of your dress to return it to the store the next day. At least it worked for me.

5. Be your own biggest and loudest cheerleader. I wrote myself a letter, listing my good qualities and why I would be a great catch, if someone were looking for a good friend. At first, it felt shameful to do a little bragging. But if I don’t appreciate myself, how can I expect other folks to see the wonderful things inside of me?

6. Don’t let the boogeyman hang out underneath your bed. Stop the “what ifs” in their tracks: If I’m going to tangle with the boogeyman at 3 a.m., I need to practice (similar to the fire drills we used to do in school, when the building wasn’t on fire). When fear and anxiety strike, I recite this simple sentence as the antidote: “Somebody should have told me about this when I was a kid.” This mantra doesn’t have anything to do with my fear, but it stops my worrying cycle, because I’ve rehearsed it before the crisis and assigned it the job of interrupting fearful thinking.

7. Let go of the old, so you can make room for something new. I live in a 1926 historical home. This sounds romantic, and it is, until you need to find a place to store something. With only four tiny closets and no basement, everything has its place — literally. My maxim is: “If I buy something new, something old has to go.” It’s a formula that helps keep my life in balance, too, because it forces me to ask the question, “What’s really important to me?"

8. Embrace the quirks in your personality. I’ve discovered I’m a little strange — stranger than the average Suzanne. There are many wacky things about my personality, and sometimes, I consider chasing them away. But then I recall the words Leonard Cohen so mindfully wrote, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” So, even though some people might consider the peculiar parts of me “cracks” in my personality, in my case, that light coming in makes me creative, and, I think, a pretty interesting person.

9. Pass somebody a note. Letting a friend know that you’re thinking about them will bring a smile to their face — and yours. Frequently, I’ll send a spur-of-the-moment email to a friend saying something like, "I saw a gorgeous blue shirt when I was shopping yesterday. It reminded me of the one you were wearing the last time we had lunch together. Blue is definitely your color — wear it more often!" I admit, I do feel a bit strange hitting the send key after drafting one of my "little nothing" notes. But writing them brings a smile to my face, and I know reading them will do the same for my friends.

10. It’s okay to break the rules sometimes. A rule in my house growing up was: “If you start something, you have to finish it.” Consequently, I only checked out thin books from the library. But now I’m all grown up, so if I’m not loving a book, I just stop reading. If I desperately want to find out "whodunit," I give myself permission to skip over parts of the story and speed read to “The End.” Dog-eared pages, writing notes in margins — if the book belongs to me, why not? No rules. I simply read for what I need at the moment, and enjoy losing myself in the fun of it.

source: www.womansday.com

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Taylor Swift’s ‘Speak Now’ Album Cover

Check out Taylor Swift’s new album cover! The album is called Speak Now and comes out on October 25th!

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