Posts Tagged ‘selfgrowth’

New Year’s Resolutions

Monday, January 4th, 2010

When I went to the gym on Saturday, January 2, it was great to see the place so full.  I am sure that many of these new people had made a New Year’s resolution to get serious about exercising.  Setting goals is important but the challenge is maintaining the resolution.

Several weeks ago I wrote about joining a 30 day challenge to blog daily.  I joined it impulsively without really thinking it through if I could do it.  Alas, I did not keep it up very long.  The timing was not right for me. I did feel badly when I terminated this challenge.  In contrast, I enjoyed doing a similar 30 day challenge last May and had not trouble completing it.

Yet I have managed to maintain a regular exercise schedule for a number of years now.  I think the difference is that I have made a commitment to myself that I have to do it.  My reason is that I want to be healthy and fit as I get older.  I have changed my goal to be healthy and fit into a life habit. Now when I miss some days I am eager to get back to my routine.  I do remember back that it took a while of trial and error til exercising became a regular part of my life.

This latest blogging challenge was not something I made a total commitment to.  I think that unless we truly own our goals it is hard to maintain the discipline to change the goal into a habit.  In terms of blogging my goal this year is to blog twice a week. Knowing my pattern, at first I will have to expect myself just to do it. I am eager to see how long it will take me to shift the expectation to blog twice a week into a regular writing habit.

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Posted in Grow With Kristina, Making Changes, growth mindset | No Comments »

Upgrade Your Relationships

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Whenever I use the term UPGRADE YOUR RELATIONSHIP I get interesting reactions. Some people do not seem to have much of an idea as to what I am talking about.  Others will say that is just what they want for themselves.

We all interact with people  on a daily basis either live, on the phone, or in our on line social networks. Ask yourself which of these relationships enhance your life and which  demand time and drain your energy. The ones that enhance your  life are the ones that do not need to be upgraded. Or you may choose to upgrade them to make them even better.

By upgrading your relationships I mean having people in your life  who positively add to your life and whom you enjoy.  If you have people in your life who pull you down you may have to ask yourself if the relationships can be upgraded. You may  even decide in some cases that these negative relationships are not worth keeping.   The key is to upgrade  so your relationships add to your life and eliminate the energy drainers who sap your vibrancy.

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Posted in Grow With Kristina, Making Changes, relationships | 2 Comments »

Self-Improvement Enhances Relationships

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

When someone comes to me with relationship issues the question invariably comes up:  how can our relationship get better if he/she refuses to come?  The answer I give is:   you will have to do the couple’s work yourself and I will teach you how to do it.  This immediately elicits varied responses depending on the life situation of the person I am talking to. I go on to explain that I have no control over the outcome of his/her relationship since that is for them to figure out.  I can,  however,  help with self-growth and as that gets stronger the confidence to bring up and work for solutions with the absent partner will increase.

I work from the premise that all people deserve the right to  full expression of who they are.  Relationships  encourage this full expression or hinder it.  I teach people to think of relationships as having a life of their own. To think in terms of there being three separate parts: I, you, and we. All three are engaged in the independence/dependence dance.   The balance in the relationship works the way it does because both people do their part.  By increasing self-growth skills of one person  the balance in the relationship changes.  The result is  that either  the relationship becomes enhanced or it becomes clear that it will not grow.

This fall I will be teaching a teleclass on Self-growth and Relationships. I am still looking for a catchy name.  Check back here for dates and times.

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Posted in relationship skills, self-growth | 2 Comments »

Open Yourself to Your Potential

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Self-growth and relationship secret #1 Open Yourself to Your Potential

In order to grow as individuals we have to open ourselves to our potential. We always know that we are capable of being more because there is a restless voice inside us that keeps reminding us. We stop growing when we ignore this voice or rationalize it away. What keeps so many of us from taking action to reach our potential? The answer is the demon: FEAR that invariably accompanies change. What we have to accept is that growth is always accompanied by a fear of the unknown that tries to hold us back. Learning to live with the contradiction becomes the key to bringing forth our potential.

How to bring forth your potential:

1. Get in touch with what you want for yourself
My friend Mary was unhappy with all the demands placed on her by others. Yet because she was a very giving person she found it hard to say no. The result was that she became resentful, felt hopelessly stuck, and bored. When she did the exercise of getting in touch with what she wanted for herself at first she came up with nothing. At last she zeroed in on a daydream she had held on to for the past 25 years. She wanted to write a book for the young adult audience and even had a plot figured out.

2. Trust your daydreams and inklings
The reason they exist is to nudge you to bring out your potential. If you don’t have anything specific in mind let that be OK. Appreciate your strength and trust that it will become clearer with time. My mother in her 80s was feeling useless. She tapped into her abilty to crochet and started designing and creating individual afghans for all her great grandchildren. The doing gave her enormous vitality and pleasure. My neighbor is passioned about creating habitats to attract varieties of birds into our neighborhood.

3. Take action on what you want for yourself
It is by taking action that you are really open to bringing forth your potential. Others may question what you want to do, you will get scared, but by keeping at it you will feel energized and engaged with your life. The road is invariably messy and uncertain but the reward is that you will feel proud of yourself.

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Posted in Grow With Kristina | No Comments »