Lisa Shamblen

What’s not to love about a long autumn weekend focused on gratitude?

I’m always down for another slice of pumpkin pie or watching my Dallas Cowboys play football, but my all time favorite tradition this time of year is eating with the family and just hanging out together.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

We live in a noisy world and often feel like we need some sort of background noise going. Being in total silence has become uncomfortable. But why should we sit in silence for a moment? Let’s talk about the benefits of spending time in silence and getting comfortable with it.

As much as you may enjoy having music constantly playing in the background or the TV always on, that constant noise can wear on you. Even if you don’t realize it, your brain is working extra hard to process that noise along with your current task. Yes, it’s okay to allow yourself that music or TV or even conversation with others while performing some tasks and duties. However, you want to make sure you are also setting aside special “quiet time” for yourself throughout the day.

🌟Finding Calm

Setting aside time to embrace the silence and enjoy peace and quiet will help your mind find the calm. You want to give your brain and body that time to rest and reset. A calm and peaceful environment allows you to rest. You will find that after some quiet time, your mind will feel more rested and ready to take on new challenges.

🌟Thinking Clearly

Oftentimes, the stress and noise of our everyday activities can fog our brains. Setting aside a time during your day – even 5 minutes – of quiet reflection will help to clear your mind and organize your thoughts. Meditation will also benefit you in this area.

🌟Being Mindful

Sitting in quiet reflection time also allows you to practice mindfulness. You are being intentional with your time and with your thoughts. This brings about a huge benefit and will help immensely with de-stressing.

Sitting and relaxing in complete silence does amazing things for your mind and body. You can really get in tune with your thoughts, emotions, and intentions. It may be uncomfortable at first or feel weird. But as you practice more and more, you will find that embracing the silence leads you to deeply reconnect with yourself.

Try it and let me know how it goes!

These days, the world often seems to be a terrible place, with one disaster happening after another. In the last few months, the world has experienced a pandemic, massive protests, and never-ending news stories about politics, sickness, and death. Then there is today, Election Day.

I know for myself I will have to prioritize taking care of me and my family. The need to take care of our mental health is vital today.

Meditations will be played and a lot of deep breathing will be logged today.

Despite the uncertainty of today, I remind myself that opportunities for more joy in life do exist. How do you find more joy in your life, even now in times of fear and chaos?

According to psychologists and researchers, there are five simple ways to help you find more joy in your life. These five ways work, no matter what state the world is in right now. I remind you that successfully finding more joy in your life depends on what state *your* mindset is in, *not* on what is happening in the world.

**Don’t Wait to Be Happy**

> “There is no time like the present.”

If you wait for something to happen to make you happy, you will spend your life waiting, not finding joy.

When you delay joy for a future event, you miss countless opportunities for joy every day. Finding more joy means living in the present and appreciating the good you see all around you.

**Practice Gratitude**

> “It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude. It’s gratitude that brings us happiness.” – Anonymous

When you practice gratitude, the world becomes a much more joyful place. Even when things are difficult and seem out of control, gratitude helps you keep a positive mindset. Being grateful for what you have improves your resilience against obstacles in life.

**Self-Care**

> “The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.” – Diane von Furstenberg

Don’t let what happens in the world keep you from taking care of yourself. Your self-esteem and mindset depend on self-care. Simple pleasures, quiet moments, hobbies, and taking care of your health are ways to practice self-care, improve your emotional strength, and find more joy in your life.

**Surround Yourself with Positive People**

> “Surround yourself with positive people and you’ll be a positive person.” – Kellie Pickler

Who you spend time with affects how you see yourself and how you see the world. By surrounding yourself with positive people, you boost your positive feelings about life. Positive people help keep you on track, support you, and help you practice gratitude.

**Stop Worrying**

> “You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.” – Janis Joplin

Most of what people worry about never happens. Worry comes from fears inside your mind about what could happen, not about what will happen. Worry often involves being upset about the worst-case scenario, which rarely happens.

And even if something terrible does happen in the future, worrying won’t stop or change it. Worry focuses your attention on negative outcomes, not on the opportunities for joy in your life. You will find more joy when you stop worrying about the chaos in the world and focus on the goodness in your life.

Find more joy in your life by focusing on the good that surrounds you. No matter what is happening in the world, your happiness and joy depend on having a positive outlook and mindset.

How are you doing today? Let me know how I can support you!

Do you struggle to keep yourself motivated? (I'm raising my hand!) If so, you’re definitely not alone!

It’s easy to find the initial motivation to change something. When you first set out a goal, you’ll find you’re excited and highly motivated to achieve it. However, fast forward a week or two and that motivation slowly starts to dwindle away.

Getting motivated is easy, but keeping it is not.

The good news is, there are ways you can boost your motivation when you feel it starting to dissipate. I want to share with you these tips to boost motivation right now.


**1. Make a Public Commitment**

It’s easy to give up on your goals and lose motivation if you keep them to yourself. However, when you share your goals publicly, you’ll be more motivated to achieve them.

This is because when you involve other people, you don’t want to let them down. You’ll also find they frequently ask you how it’s going, providing consistent motivation, not to mention that accountability factor to carry on.

So, let people know what you’re working towards. Another suggestion is to partner up with someone who has the same goal as you do? That way, you can motivate each other.

**2. Remember the Purpose Behind the Motivation**

When you start working towards your goals, you have what feels like an endless amount of motivation. This is because you’re right in the moment where something has spurred you on to make a change. However, as time goes by, it’s easy to lose sight of why you started in the first place.

So, the key is to remember why you’re working towards your goals. Say you want to lose weight for example. You can either hang up a piece of clothing you’re desperate to get back into, within eyesight. Or, you could pin up a picture that motivates you to carry on with your weight loss goals.

Or if you want to go live on video for the first time. You could announce it on social media or tell your email list about it. Then it's out there! Not much you can do to go backward or stop from there.

**3. Break your Goals Down**

A common motivation mistake is to create goals that are too broad. The longer it takes to reach a goal, the more chance there is of losing motivation along the way.

Instead, you’ll want to be setting smaller goals that are easily achievable. As you achieve them, that boosts your motivation to reach the next goal. Nothing feels better than ticking off little goals that you’ve set yourself.

Remember that nothing is too small or not worthy of tracking. If you're going to go live and you decide the topic of your live, that's a checkmark right there! Picking out what you are going to wear on video is another checkmark. Every checkmark gets you closer and closer to your goals.

These are 3 of the best ways to boost your motivation right now. What you need to remember is that motivation takes work. It’s not something that’s magically going to come to you. You need to push yourself to get motivated and using the tips I shared will help!

The more you work at it, the more it will pay off.

What do you do to keep your motivation fire going?