Get Motivated!

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How To Be Confident

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Take Spring Cleaning to the Streets!

Spring has sprung! It’s time to clean out that clutter! Don’t know where to start? Start small – clean out your car! Here’s my advice on how to get your car in shape for those days when driving with the windows down is a must:

What you’ll need:

• Some sort of dusting cloth. {Personally, I just like to grab a Swiffer cloth (the ones you put on your Swiffer to clean the floor) and just use that as my dust rag. It’s quick, simple, and easy – plus, it really picks up that dust so you’re not just scooting it around your car.}

     

• Any kind of wet disinfectant wipes . {I tend to use Clorox wipes}

• A small, battery powered vacuum. {Actually a very good investment. There are lots to choose from, and most of them can be easily charged. Its a great thing to have for quick messes around the house, in the garage, or duh, in your car.}

• Garbage bags. {To clear out the clutter}
• Soap {Either dish soap or car soap, take your pick. Either works.}

• A car sponge

     

• A hose
• A bucket
• A few paper towels {for checking oil and wiping your hands}
• A clean soft rag {to dry your car with}
• Oil {depending on your findings in step 3}
• Coolant {depending on your findings in step 3}
• Windshield washing fluid {depending on your findings in step 3}
• An air freshener. {I’m in love with Bath & Body Works SCENTPORTABLES}

          

Step 1:

If you’re a college student like me, or well, just disorganized and busy, then your car probably looks like you live in it. My friends and I joke about living in our cars all the time because of the amount of our belonging strewn about in the backseat, trunk, floor, pockets, etc. Shoes, jackets, water bottles, food wrappers and school papers take up just about every inch of our vehicles. So to start off the cleaning process, it’d probably be best to clean out all the stuff that doesn’t need to be in the car. Throw all the trash, wrappers, bottles, and old papers into a garbage bag. Then take anything that belongs in your house like shoes, jackets, bags, etc, and take it inside and put them away. And don’t forget to check the trunk! Now that you’ve decluttered your car, you should be ready for step #2.

Step 2:

Take your dust rag, or whatever you choose to use, and dust off the dashboard, wheel, cup holders, and any hard dusty surface you can find. Then take your vacuum and vacuum up all the leaves, dirt, crumbs, and whatever else there may be on the floor. Make sure to lift the mats, move the seats to get underneath, and even vacuum the seats themselves and the trunk. Once you’ve gotten all the loose dirt, take some disinfectant wipes and wipe down the steering wheel, dashboard, emergency break, cup holders, ect. This way you can get off any sticky residue and wipe your car clean of those winter germs.

Step 3:

Next, pop the hood of your car and perform a routine check. Check the oil, coolant, windshield cleaning fluid, etc. Refill anything that is low with the correct fluid. Once that’s done, turn on your lights and check each one to make sure you don’t have any bulbs out. Last, but not least, check your tires. Make sure the air pressure is where it should be and touch up any tires that need a boost.

Step 4:

Now that the inside of your car is nice and clean and up to date, it’s time to give your baby a bath. Fill your bucket with soapy water, grab your sponge, and wash away all the dirt and grime your car picked up during those cold months. Once you’ve done that, make sure you dry off your car with a soft rag so there isn’t any streaking as the water dries.

Step 5:

Once that’s done, it’s time for the finishing touches. Restock your tissue/napkin supply in your glove compartment, make sure you have all of the appropriate records needed for and in your vehicle, add a fresh scent with a pretty new air freshener, and add in anything you keep in your car like a jacket (just one), an emergency kit, hand sanitizer (the mini ones are great to keep for when you’re on the go), a small nail file, etc.

Now you’re ready for a clean spring on the road!

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How to Clean Up Your Online Rep

You’ve got a killer resume and aced the interview, but according to a new survey, your future boss is judging you on your Google search results, too. Here’s how to make sure that what’s on the Web won’t come back to bite you in the butt.

By Mina Azodi

 

Early this summer, Katie Couric delivered the commencement address at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Her advice to graduates? “Clean up your Facebook page.” Okay, so those words aren’t exactly change-your-life inspiring, but she makes a (very) important point. According to a recent survey of HR professionals, 79 percent of employers review online information about job applicants—and 70 percent say they’ve rejected a candidate based on stuff they’ve found. Yikes. And get this: Only 7 percent of job seekers thought their online rep affected their job search. We asked a top career expert for tips on how you can take control of your online info, so you can get the job you deserve.

 

Go Private
You already know you should de-tag any unflattering pics of you on Facebook—that means any that show you drinking excessively, dancing on top of bars…pretty much any photo you wouldn’t print out and show to your boss in real life. But you also need to make sure you’ve set your profile privacy settings to “Friends Only” (the other options are “Friends of Friends,” “Friends and Networks,” and “Everyone”). This minimizes the chances that a potential employer (or your current boss) can take a peek at your profile. The same applies to Twitter—make those tweets for your followers’ eyes only by going to “Settings” and clicking on “Protect my updates.”

Still, you’re not totally in the clear. A Facebook status update or photo upload still can pop up on an employer’s news feed, if they’re friends with someone in your network who comments on your post. And with Twitter, any of your followers can retweet what you say, broadcasting it to a whole new network of people you have no control over. That’s why it’s smart to never post anything you wouldn’t be totally comfortable with a higher-up seeing…because there’s always a chance that they will.

 

Know What’s Being Said About You
It’s pretty much a given that a potential employer may Google you, so it’s crucial that you search for your own name to see what they’re judging. Before you do, be sure to log out of your gmail account if you have one (on the Google homepage, click “sign out” on the top right hand corner). Since Google keeps track of what you click, your results will be different than what an employer sees. By signing out, your results will appear as they would to a stranger who searches your name. Next, you’ll want to create a Google alert for your name to keep tabs via e-mail on any new results that may pop up. You can do this by signing back in and clicking “Settings” in the upper right hand corner of the Google homepage, and then selecting “Google Account Settings.” Next, click on “Alerts” under “My Products” to create one for you. Just type in your name with quotation marks, select how often you want to receive the notifications, and you’re done.

 

Bury the Bad Stuff…
Okay, so when you Googled yourself, you probably saw a link or two that you weren’t exactly thrilled about. And unfortunately, it can be difficult to get them removed. (You have to ask the Webmaster of the specific site, not Google, to delete the info—and since the site likely owns the content, they get the final say. That said, it’s always worth a shot!) For an even more proactive approach, you can hide those search results by creating new stuff that shows up first in a search. The easiest way to do that is to register for your own Website, like http://www.janedoe.com, or sign up for a blog on WordPress or LiveJournal that has your name in the URL. Almost always your site will show up first in a search, pushing anything negative down the list. You can also take advantage of social networking sites like LinkedIn, Flickr, and Vimeo, since their pages rank high in Google and will be at the top of search results of your name. Simply open an account, input the bare minimum amount of info, and set it so that it can be publicly searched—you don’t have to actively use the site.

 

…And Pump Up the Good.
When employers search for your name, they’re not just playing online cops—they also want to see evidence that you’re the kind of employee that would be the right fit for their company. So while you don’t have to actively use the personal webpage or LinkedIn profile you created to bury content, those sites are an awesome opportunity to show off what you’ve got. Fill in your LinkedIn profile with details from your resume, publish photos of your hiking trip to Flickr, or post videos from a recent 5K you ran to Vimeo—all of these things let an employer see you as the well-rounded, impressive job candidate they can’t pass up.

Source: Alexandra Levit, career expert and author of New Job, New You and MillennialTweet

source: www.cosmopolitan.com

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10 Days of Meditation – Day 1

Meditation is a great way to get inspiration. If you’re seeking comfort, peace, and calm, then meditation may be the right tactic for you. Meditation can help bring forward subconscience thoughts and feelings, as well and allowing you to get in tune with your inner self. Its used for relaxation, some medicinal purposes, and side by side with yoga. Give it a try and find the right kind of meditaiton for you sepecifically with my 10 Days of Meditation.

Dhyana (Big Mind Meditation)

Step by Step

1. If you already have a regular meditation routine, do a minute or two of it to get grounded and comfortable, and maintain your usual posture. If you’re new to meditation, find a comfortable upright position (sitting in a chair is sufficient), take a few deep breaths, and relax as much as you can. Set aside 25 minutes for the entire practice.

2. From your relaxed meditation position, ask yourself to speak with your Controller. (You’ll probably feel a bit strange speaking to yourself this way, but you’re simply giving voice to the running dialogue that already exists inside your head.) The Controller is essentially your ego. Its job, as its name implies, is to control. You’ve likely met and probably struggle with this aspect of yourself.

3. Ask the Controller about its job, then probe further and ask what it controls—your actions, your thoughts, other people? This is neither good nor bad; the Controller is just doing its job. A key component of the Big Mind process is gaining the Controller’s—the ego’s—cooperation and not threatening it with annihilation, as spiritual training often does.

4. Once you gain the Controller’s trust, you can ask it for permission to speak with your other voices; the ego is usually glad to temporarily step aside if it has been consulted.

5. Next up is the Skeptic. Before asking the Controller to speak with the Skeptic, however, take a deep breath; when you shift into another voice, it’s good to give the mental movement a physical correlation.

6. Let the Skeptic be what it is. It’s OK that a part of you is skeptical; it’s actually a good thing. If you didn’t have a skeptical voice, you might find yourself continually being hoodwinked. Ask the Skeptic what it has doubts about.

7. Now take a breath and ask to speak with Seeking Mind. Shift over to this new voice. Meditators often have a problem with Seeking Mind; they want to get rid of it, because it creates so much desire. But Seeking Mind is doing what it’s meant to do. It’s helpful to remember that without it, you might not be meditating in the first place.

8. Take another breath and shift to Nonseeking Mind. Nonseeking Mind is the state of meditation. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. Again, this is neither good nor bad; Nonseeking Mind simply doesn’t seek. Explore Nonseeking Mind.

9. Take a moment here to notice how easy or hard it is to shift from one voice to another. Moving among your different selves helps you realize the empty nature of the self—that is, you have no static identity; you are continually changing. You might think your identity is set in stone (I am shy, I am angry, I am spiritual), but these are just voices floating in space; they’re not you. You’re much bigger than you think.

10. Now take a breath and shift into Big Mind. This is the voice that contains all the other voices. It is known by various names: the ground of being, Buddha Mind, Universal Mind, God. By its very nature, it has no beginning and no end. There is nothing outside of Big Mind, but Big Mind is a voice inside of you. Big Mind’s job, you could say, is just to be.

11. Ask Big Mind what it does and doesn’t contain. Does it contain your birth? Your parents’ birth? Your death? Can you find its beginning or end? Does it contain your other voices? How does it see your daily problems?

12. Stay in Big Mind for as long as you can. In this state, you have surrendered your personal ego (with its permission) to your true and universal nature.

13. Next, find your voice of Big Heart. Explore what it does for you and others. Its job is to be compassionate. How does it respond when someone or something is hurting? Does it take the form of tough love or tender nurturing or both? Does it have any limits when faced with suffering? Sit with this voice for a while.

14. Now shift back into Nonseeking Mind and stay with it for a couple minutes to end the meditation. Though you might want to stay in Big Mind forever, the simple fact is that no single voice is the stopping place; there is no stopping place. Continually working with and accepting all of your voices will, in turn, help you accept the myriad voices of others.

Once learned, the Big Mind process can be used at any time during meditation practice or throughout the day. If you’re feeling particularly angry during meditation, you can connect with Angry Self, let it have its say, and move into Nonseeking Mind or Big Mind. Play with your various voices and see what you can find.

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