As I got up this morning and started what I plan to make my new habit (actually am signing up for the course in October included in the The Power of Baby Steps article), and thought I’d go ahead and start with what I’m passionate about first thing this morning.
Writing. Then some time in the Ocean. After all, I live in Hawaii and GET TO swim with dolphin regularly.
What am I realizing I don’t need to be doing anymore? Where have I been wasting A LOT of time? (You can find out where you waste your time by participating in the make time mini mission)
Facebook. As I read the 114th post about hating the new format, suddenly I woke up. Who cares really? Is this what my life is about?
This is my life. Is Facebook what I’m going to look back on and reflect about how much fun it was, even possibly wish I had spent more time doing, or would I be better off spending my time doing more of this….
This is your life.
Do what you love.
Do it often.
If you don’t like something; change it.
If you don’t like your job; quit.
If you don’t have enough time stop watching tv.
If you are looking for the love of your life; stop.
They will be waiting for you when you start doing the things you love.
Stop over analyzing. Life is simple.
All emotions are beautiful.
When you eat appreciate every last bite.
Open your mind heart and arms to new things and people.
We are united in our differences.
Ask the next person you see what their passion is.
Share your inspiring dream with them.
Travel often.
Getting lost will help you find yourself.
Some opportunities only come once.
Seize them.
Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them.
So go out out and start creating.
Life is short.
Live your dream.
And share your passion.
This is your life. What are you doing with it?
Thanks for reading. My hope is to give you inspiration and thought provoking ideas to take your very next step in creating your own paradise from where you are now! Please subscribe to Big Island Dog and follow me on twitter, Facebook and Google+
Now that I live in Hawaii and am finding myself fully immersed in the lifestyle and the Aloha of Hawaii, the deeper meaning of many simple things in life are revealing themselves.
I’ve adopted the terms Aloha and Mahalo as a greeting and thank you on most of my articles and blog posts. It feels really good to say it when I sign on or off of something I write. It definitely feels like I’ve made sure to put the intent to live a pure simple life filled mostly with happiness out there.
Aloha and Mahalo Wags
Dogs have been my great teachers of behavior. To live in the moment is a wonderful experience. It does not matter what happened earlier in the day, or what may happen tomorrow. Instead, dogs greet you every single time with a wagging tail and pure gratitude to see you.
Aloha and Mahalo wags are my way of including the joy of my dogs in my thoughts to you so we can all start practicing a journey in creating our own paradise wherever we are.
How To Give Aloha and Mahalo
Aloha and Mahalo are among the most sacred and powerful of all the Hawaiian words. Speaking them is said to have the power to transform and heal your life, as well as protect your life’s journey.
Aloha recognizes a warm and receptive space for greeting and supporting the well-being of another and is like offering a breath of fresh air.
Aloha is used as a farewell or a salutation. It is also commonly used to mean love. It can also be used to express compassion, regret or sympathy.
Mahalo is a Divine breath of gratitude and thanks giving for all that is.
I’m going to commit to do this one starting today (always the best time to start) and in the meantime create my own Mahalo Wag Project. If you have ideas on what you would do to create your own feeling of Mahalo Wags every day, send them to me. This is going to be a fun project with Wag all You Want cards given as gifts to all those around you when it’s done! You can tweet it with #MahaloWags too!
*Note it’s now 2012, or maybe you might find this post in 2103… or beyond. You can still do the Mahalo Wag Project. Its good no matter what year it is.
Aloha Wags!
Thanks for reading. My hope is to give you inspiration and thought provoking ideas to take your very next step in creating your happy healthy life of paradise from where you are now… your dog too! Please subscribe to Maui Dog Remedies and follow me on twitter, Facebook and Google+
If you are on Maui Hawaii and want to me to be your you and your dog’s trainer or want help with home made cooking for dogs and natural remedies for dogs find me at Maui Dog Remedies Dogs or K9 Coach.
It’s probably been your goal at some time this past year, last month or even last week:
I’m going to eat healthier, I’m going to eat more vegetables, drink less coffee, quit picking up food filled with sugar (even though it’s packaged to look healthy) at the Starbucks counter, drink less alcohol, and maybe even exercise more.
So you head off to the grocery store, straight to the fruit and vegetables section, throw a few things that you know you should be eating in the cart, then head to the rest of the store to get your real food. Something that you can eat real quick like and fill you up while not being too bad for you.
It’s Processed
The truth of the matter is much of the “health food” we buy in even some of the natural food stores is really not doing anything about our weight, the way we feel or the underlying issue, our long term health. Most of the things we buy are processed.
It’s easy and it’s a habit. And we can kid ourselves that it’s really super healthy. Granted it’s much healthier than driving through the Big M and getting a quarter pounder and fries, but that is where the danger lies in our education. We think we are making healthy choices and we are not.
Consciousness | Keep it Local (in this case)
We eat the way we do out of habit. To form a new one, like eating healthier for instance, takes a commitment to change. To do something different. To learn something new and stop kidding ourselves. To quit saying we’ll start tomorrow when it’s today that counts.
Set a Radical Goal Today
Setting a goal or giving yourself a purpose and starting today to do something new is the best way without risking your friends or family rolling their eyes when you mention you want to lose weight, get in shape, or find the love of your life. So many times if we could hear ourselves we’d roll our eyes too since we keep talking about it. Months and years roll by and we are still talking about it.
Signing up for a 5K is pretty easy because there are tons available. But how about food events? These are few and far between unless you are talking one that is usually serving a lot of food that in fact does satisfy our processed food addictions but does nothing for our education or bodies in actually making healthy eating choices.
21 Day Eat Local Food Challenge
I first saw the “Eat Local Food” challenge earlier this month through Andrea Dean’s Blog and was enticed to create my own sense of purpose in the project. Check it out to see her great videos and information on how to eat local and what it does for the community.
Though I truthfully believe it takes 6 weeks to really establish a habit so that it begins to be automatic, many studies claim that it takes 21 days. 21 days is much easier to think about doing and no one can get to 6 weeks if you don’t make it through 21 days.
Our household here on the Big Island Hawaii has committed to eating only local for 21 days. We are in day 3 and already feeling better about what we are eating, how we are spending our money and realizing just how much we kid ourselves about the foods we have been choosing and how good they are for us.
Please join us in our 21 days of eating local by creating your own food purpose:
It means you’ll probably have to pack food with you instead of stopping at Starbucks, eating at most restaurants, going through any drive threw food take out joints, or spending any money on happy hours.
If you make a mistake or just plain buy something that doesn’t qualify consciously don’t stop your 21 day challenge. Get right back on horse and keep heading towards the 21 days.
We live in Hawaii and access to fruit and vegetables grown locally, fresh local fish and local grass fed beef are all options. We’ve decided not to eat meat or beef after watching Forks over Knives so our challenge is going to be more like most anyone in the country.
Imagine what it would be like to eat real whole food and what that might feel like. Imagine the feeling of actually doing it and not saying it by jabbering about going on a diet to any one who you start feeling self conscious around. Imagine not being really pissed that summer is over, you are bigger than last year and the holidays are already on their way.
Ever find yourself in a situation where you just don’t even want to be hanging out with the person who has nabbed you as “my best friend”? Yet there you are, not even a week after the last time you said you weren’t going to do that again, sitting at a coffee house, wasting time away, listening to diatribe you really don’t even care about, or worse yet smack about someone else.
Blah. Blah. Blah. No substance. Not creating a better feeling about anything in life.
Or, your cell goes off and when the name flashes on the screen you let it go to voice mail so you can text back avoiding the awful feeling of wasting time speaking to the person, about nothing, or about something negative, or about nothing at all. And it happens with this same person a lot?
Still you find yourself not long after listening to the message sending a text back. Again wasting your time as the thoughts steal more of your time. Out of some unknown reason you feel obligated to respond.
That text you sent wasted time you could have used to create your dreams, more of what you want, or even the space to invite someone into your life that contributes and is moving forward to more of good and less bitching, complaining, gossiping, and just plain taking the time you have to do something worth feeling really great about.
The People You Spend Time With
If either of those scenarios happen to you it shouldn’t be a big surprise at this point – you have dream smashers in your life. Time to move on.
You tend to emulate the conglomeration of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
List those 5 people right now and then take a good realistic look at what they are contributing to your life. As well, what do you contribute to their life? Do these people even have time to listen to your contribution or is most of your time together spent criticizing other people? Are these people active or do they constantly talk about what they used to do?
Create Your List of Reasons
The first step to get rid of your dream smashers and move towards creating more of who you want to be and what you really want is to begin your mission to say no. For some reason these dream smasher type people are really good at the guilt factor so prepare yourself to exit gracefully.
Make a list of things you’d rather being doing than listening to some downer person stealing your time to create your best self. Have the list handy so when you are caught off guard in snare like questions…. what are you doing? Do you wanna go to? I called your cell but you didn’t pick up, why? You have some automatic authentic come backs.
It won’t be long and you won’t need the list of “good” excuses. You’ll start finding other people and things to fill your time with that match more of what you really want to do. You’ll find the time to do those things when the dream smashers start falling off the radar. It doesn’t take long when you don’t buy into the complaining negative program for these people to find others to sign on. Just don’t let it be you any more.
There is way too much good to be gotten out there to keep wasting your precious time on dream smashers. Not that they are bad people, they just aren’t part of your ideal dream life.
Thanks for reading. My hope is to give you inspiration and thought provoking ideas to take your very next step in creating your own paradise from where you are now! Please subscribe to Big Island Dog and follow me on twitter, Facebook and Google+
The Keauhou Lavaman Triathlon went off without a hitch. The beauty of this race is the wonderful sense of community that evolves in the midst of the most sought after triathlon mecca; the Ironman World Championships.
There are always parts of each race which makes it special above and beyond the finish line clock or what place you finished in your age division. These are the things that keep it feeling like family and weaving lifelong memories for those who participate.
You Don’t Have To Have the Latest of Everything to Join
Triathlon started as a sport that attracted those who really went about life beating to their own drum rhythm. There really wasn’t a certain look and you didn’t have to fit into a certain type of gear to be part of the sport in days gone by.
It all really started as a way to have a whole lotta fun, be who you are and not take life so seriously. In recent times triathlon can become another thing people tend to put too much pressure on themselves about. Too much “gotta have” beats out “enjoy doing it your way now”. Focus on what we don’t have stops us from using what we already have to actually do what we want today.
Inspiration to Be Who You Are
The lesson of our economic times speaks loudly and clearly of simplifying. Spending our time focusing on the important moments in seizing the day rather than all the small details of worry that can stop one from even beginning to live life on your own terms today.
One of the participants in the Keahou Lavaman once again was Cowman. What you have to love about Cowman is he lives his life doing what he loves in his own style. It’s a great lesson.
Watch the video and picture what you’d do to live life doing what you want in your own way. Though this video was done in 2006 Cowman is still going strong in 2011, doing life his way.
Love to hear your version of what you pictured as doing life your way in the comments!
Aloha Wags
Special thank you to Gerry Rott, owner and race director of the Lavaman Triathlons. She not only contributes in significant tremendous ways to her community, but she does life her way and it shows in her pure enjoyment and relaxed style of life on the Island.
What you do, think and feel first thing in the morning is a good indication of the way the rest of your day will in fact transpire.
For years I ignored this essential fact and let every morning just happen in its own way, usually leading me down a subconscious path I really didn’t want to travel, starting with a bunch of junk e-mail and the noise of Facebook!
I know it may sound simplistic but think about the way a dog gets up in the morning and their intent for the day.
First thing, a big stretch waking up their body with gentle movement.
Next thing. Wag. Happy for the next moment whatever it might be.
Run around a little bit getting warmed up for all the great things that are going to happen today. No expectations. Just looking forward to it all.
Eat a simple breakfast. Not too much. Hopefully a holistic variety, though dogs are usually happy about whatever comes there way.
With the bliss of a dog’s life as a model here are 4 things you can do to drastically improve your every day happiness quotient.
Practice Yoga or Simply Stretch
This is one you can easily end up with the excuse, “I’ll do it after I get the chance to go to 3 more yoga classes.” What you do everyday counts so start with 10 minutes a morning and soon you’ll find it is a habit.
Meditate, Affirmations, Say What You Want
Self talk is a huge part of what shapes every day. What goes on in your head is what ends up coming to fruition in a physical way throughout your day, week, month and years. The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day and studies show that of these more than 80% are negative.
With that in mind start thinking about what you really want more of.
Say what you want for the day out loud.
Start with your 3 top things: about your life, about your passion, about your livelihood.
Practice imagining 6 impossible things before breakfast.
Exercise
Bleh. A word that has come to be known with a negative connotation. Why has this one come to be such a huge problem?
In my experience working with those who have decided to take the next step and get to where they want to be from where they are now, exercise has become fun through making it a game and using things you already have available to you. Make it simple. Make it easy.
If you are a dog owner this is a great time to develop an awesome relationship with your dog that follow the simple guidelines of fun and easy. Find a 5K fun run and sign up for it. There are tons of dog friendly races out there these days as well.
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
Another duh…. you’ve heard this one before. I know I know. BUT again, get some fresh ideas of what to eat and it becomes easier. Buy only the foods for a healthy recipe and that will also become your default choice. It’s the only thing you have in the house.
For your best race, get away to the Big Island Dog Race Retreat Ohana. Your stay includes…
Private getaway with the comforts of home that include a private guide to the race and the Kona Coast.
Avoid the confusion, add on costs and hustle & bustle of a hotel or resort.
Enjoy fresh Island organic fruit, Kona Coffee and fresh water, provided in your Ohana
Save money on dining out and dial in your pre-race food and recovery meals in your own kitchen.
Save time cooking by ordering to go lunches or dinners from Island Naturals. All organic food, from vegan to grass fed meat grown on the Island.
Local grocery stores for fresh food to cook or refrigerate in your Ohana saving the high cost of eating all your meals out. Even make the secret smoothie concoctions you are used to drinking all the time. Or ask us for our favorite recipe.
A guide to local farmers markets for organic local food, coffee, gifts, jewelry and one of a kind made in Hawaii authentic goods.
A guide the best local restaurants.
A schedule of events, times and places to be for the Lavaman Triathlon 2011
Information on places you can swim, ride, run by yourself or with a local group to accommodate your pre race needs.
Boogie boards and snorkeling gear.
Experience racing in one of the most beautiful, magical places in the world, yet feel as if you were at home and living the lifestyle that finds you at your best, most confident self.
Triathlon Race Retreat Ohana Fees & Details
$125 per night. 3 night minimum. Race Retreat Ohana located 5 miles from race start.
Contact Jt Clough at 760-644-2658 or e-mail me at BigIslandDog (@) gmail.com for more information and to schedule in room massage* or reserve a relaxing “recover from everything” by slipping into a bubbling spring of purified water hot tub session with a massage to follow.
*massage fees are paid to your therapist.
Have the time of your life, local style at Lavaman Triathlon 2011
What are you doing with it?
