If your self-confidence is low, can you do things to change that? Do you control your own self-confidence?

I believe you can take steps to increase your confidence. You weren’t born with low self-confidence and you don’t have to rely on others to increase your self-confidence. If you feel you are not competent, smart, attractive or whatever it may be… that can be changed.

Here are four steps to help build your confidence:

Accept yourself

Imagine what your life would be like if you could just be yourself, without thinking twice about other people’s perceptions of you. The first step is to accept yourself. Nobody is perfect, so why spend time worrying about the things you can’t do?

You’re probably familiar with the voice in your head saying you’re never good enough. Instead of listening to that voice; focus on your successes. Use them as an example to drive you forward.

Do something you enjoy

Decide what work brings you joy. This may seem obvious, but how much time do you spend thinking about the work you enjoy doing? It’s easy to get caught up in checking things off that to-do list or rushing off to yet another meeting. Take a few minutes this week, and make a list of all the work that jazzes you.

Don’t forget those non-work things that give you pleasure:

• time for family and friends
• look after your health
• pursue hobbies and interests
• stretch your mind

Find your peers

Building and maintaining self-confidence is not a solo effort. You need the support of like-minded people. It is easier when you are among people who are share the same interests mind-set as you. They will understand you and vice versa. This creates conditions for healthy conversations. You will feel more secure in your ideas when others want to hear and appreciate what you have to say.

Set Goals

Setting goals is not complicated. It can be challenging, but the process of goal setting can be of value to you in building excitement and commitment, which are important factors in achieving success.

The idea is to begin with a small single step that can then further developed into giant strides. Learn to do the work at hand rather than to overwhelm oneself by looking at the whole of a large task.

Break a big task into a list of small tasks. Check off each step you complete. A completed task, no matter how small, gives a sense of achievement that boosts self-confidence and gives more drive to try a bigger task.

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This self-management checklist can be applied to any area of your life where you need to gain some control.

1. Set specific goals. You can’t measure achievement if you don’t know where you’re going. Set specific goals such as: I’ll walk for 30 minutes per day; or I’ll write a 1,000 words each day; or I’ll lose 20 pounds.
2. Set specific times. You need to determine when you are going to accomplish your goals. Work with specific times; whether it’s a deadline for a one-off project or regular times for on-going behaviour.
3. Track your progress. Write it down. You can use a journal, a calendar, a graph or any other form that works for you. Make sure you track both your successes and failures so you can refine your systems.
4. Set rewards or penalties. You’ll need some motivation to help you move forward. Set small rewards to mark the completion of small steps. Set larger rewards to mark major accomplishments. You might even set penalties for not reaching goals. You could, for example, make a donation to a food bank every time your weight went up instead of down.
5. Take small steps. If you’ve been sitting in front of the TV for ten years, don’t try and run a marathon tomorrow. Changing a habit takes time and you need to start slowly.
6. Break it down into pieces. Regardless of your readiness, if the task seems overwhelming, you may never get started. Break down large tasks in to small, logical and manageable pieces.
7. Monitor time increments. Use a timer to help you stay on track. Set it to the best interval to help you measure your progress.
8. Share your goals. Telling someone what you hope to accomplish can add another level of motivation. It’s easier to fool ourselves than to fool others. Tell someone what your goals and your deadlines are; get them to check on you to see if you met the goal.
9. Have a work buddy. It’s not just enough to share your goals with someone, you need to have a buddy that can meet with regularly. Keep your goals on someone else’s agenda. This should give you an added sense of responsibility and motivation to reach your goals.
10. Review with your buddy. Have your buddy do more than review accomplishment. Review the written track of your regular progress. They might spot patterns you don’t see and give you some help for getting back or keeping on track.
11. Eliminate distractions. Reading through e-mail may seem productive, but it’s not going to help you read three chapters of a book. If need be, turn off the phone, shut down the computer and throw the television in the garbage.
12. Review and rework your system. Your self-management plan may not work the first time you try it. There will be times when your self-management process falls apart. These steps are not static, but need to change and grow with you. Make time to review your process and see what changes can be made.

Some people look at self-management techniques as cumbersome, getting in the way of productivity. The truth is, if you look at successful and productive people, you’ll find some type of system guiding them. Give it a try.

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by John P. Strelecky — International Best-selling Author of The Why Cafe: A Story

If you walk around a Walt Disney World resort or theme park, you are likely to witness something that in most other settings would seem bizarre. Not the presence of a large animated character, although you may witness that also. Rather, at any given moment, a person in dress clothes will be walking from one destination to another and will stop, pick up a piece of paper, a cup, or other piece of trash someone dropped, and throw it in a trash can. Executives do it, front line managers do it, hourly employees do it, everybody does it.

There is no special monetary compensation for this behavior. No point system exists where $5 bonuses are given out for every fifteen pieces of trash that someone picks up. There is also no special monitoring system in place which watches for people who don’t do it and then issues penalty points or demerits. Yet, people are motivated to do it anyway.

Now picking up trash may not be your top concern, but are there other things in your department, division, or company that you would like your employees to do? Are you looking for ways to motivate your people?

The answer is not pixie dust or magic. The key is being very good at employing five essential motivation steps.

To some leaders these steps can seem intimidating. First time managers in particular, who were promoted because of their individual skills are often uncomfortable with these ideas. Many times they feel people should just do what needs to be done “Because that is what they get paid for.” Or they believe the only way to motivate people is to give them more money.

Successful motivators don’t think that way. They know that by following the five steps, people can be motivated far beyond what they get paid for, and far more effectively than when money is the only incentive.

Step #1 Clearly Articulate What Needs to be Accomplished and Why
Often the problem with getting people to accomplish things is not that they are unmotivated, it is that they are uninformed. Leaders discuss goals with their peers and superiors on a regular basis and are therefore intimately familiar with them. Because of this familiarity, they mistakenly assume all of their employees also know them. Usually this is not the case.

Take time to explain to all of your employees exactly what needs to be accomplished and the reasons why. Don’t forget the “Why?” Knowing that enables people to make educated choices in their day to day decisions. For example, the output from a team at a market research company whose goal is to launch three new products, will vary greatly depending on if they know that the “Why?” is because the company is losing market share to competitors with products that can be downloaded from the Internet.

Goals should always include specific numeric objectives and timelines. A goal of “Improve Customer Service” is nebulous and people won’t know how they are doing in their efforts to achieve it. However, “Decrease customer wait times to 10 seconds by June 1st” is something people can visualize and work toward.

Step #2 Involve People in Finding the Solutions
People are more motivated to succeed at something if they personally choose to attempt it. Therefore, managers should involve their people in choosing the goals the group needs to accomplish. If this is not possible, then involving people in the creation of how to achieve the goals is the next best thing. Their involvement will generate buy in and also opens up the opportunity for an optimal solution.

Successful coaches use this technique on a regular basis. While it is true they watch hours and hours of game films looking for weaknesses in their own team as well as their competitors, they also involve their players in finding the best way to win. They do it because no matter how much film they watch, or how close they are to the game, they aren’t in the game. The perspectives of players or employees who are in the midst of the action can be drastically different from a coach or a manager who is near the action.

If those perspectives aren’t incorporated into the solution, two things will happen. First, those in the midst of the action will feel that no-one is listening to them, and they will become unmotivated. Second, decisions will be made without incorporating all the relevant data. Both of these will negatively impact progress toward the goals.

Step #3 Explain the Rules of the Game
Have you ever played a new sport or game against people who are experienced players? In the early stages of learning how to play, every few minutes you do something which you think is correct only to be told that it is illegal, or against the rules. It can be exceptionally frustrating. This scenario often plays out in the workplace. Employees are given a task, but are not told all the parameters or rules. Weeks into a project they present their work to someone only to be informed that they need to change direction because of something they were never told about. This is particularly demoralizing and should be avoided at all costs. People can find solutions to almost any problem, but they need to know the rules of the game.

Step #4 Link People’s Personal Goals with the Organizations Goals
There is a reason that each employee goes to work. Successful motivators know what that reason is for every person who works for them. Each day they help their employees fulfill those reasons. Really successful motivators understand not only the reason, but how the reason ties into the person’s bigger life goals. When necessary, they help their people think about and articulate those bigger life goals. When a person no longer thinks “I work so that I can make money,” and instead thinks “I work so that I can enable my daughter to attend a school that will give her a chance to go do what she wants in life,” there is a significant mental and motivational shift that occurs.

Understanding that someone comes to work because they thrive on personal interaction, are trying to gain experience so they can run their own corner deli, or whatever is their personal goal, enables a manager to talk in that person’s language. It also enables the manager to assign responsibilities in that person’s area of interest, and remind them of how what they are doing is tied to their bigger goals.

Managers who enable people to fulfill their life goals through work never have to worry about how to motivate their people. The act of fulfilling their life goals is enough to keep them motivated. All the manager has to do is find the links between those goals, and the organization’s needs, and match the two up.

Step #5 Move Negative People off the Team
Nothing can halt progress like someone who is discontent simply for the sake of being discontent. It is demoralizing to others and it draws energy and time from the tasks being attempted. That doesn’t mean you don’t want good “counter-point” people on your team. Someone who says “Look, I know what we are all trying to do, and I think there is a better way,” can be a valuable resource to help make sure the team is on the right track. However, someone who just regularly says “We’ll never get there,” will just hold everyone back. Move them off the team, and bring in someone who will assist and support the group’s efforts.

Whether you are trying to motivate people to help create a clean environment for guests, or something more pertinent to your organization, remember that anyone can be a great motivator. All it takes is an understanding of the appropriate steps to take and a willingness to do them. This article contains the steps. The willingness is up to you.

Copyright © 2006 John P. Strelecky

Author
John P. Strelecky is the international best selling author of “The Why Café” (Da Capo Press; April 2006; $12.95US/$16.95CAN; 0-7382-1063-3) and a highly sought after inspirational speaker on; “How to Achieve Maximum Success with Minimal Effort.” His CD series of the same name has received rave reviews from listeners. A graduate of NorthwesternUniversity’s MBA program, John has served as a business strategist for numerous Fortune 500 companies. Through his book, CDs, articles, and appearances on television and radio, he has positively impacted the lives of millions of people. John can be reached through his website at www.whycafe.com, or by calling 407-342-4181.

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A successful life doesn’t happen by accident. A successful life is the result of deliberate focus of your time, energy and thoughts towards what you want to accomplish. Rather than accepting what comes along as unavoidable use these seven keys to create a successful life today.

1. Simplicity – Simplify your life. Having “too much” takes energy from productive actions. Whether it’s too many commitments, too many possessions, or too many calories, you need to trim these things back to a manageable level. The you will have more energy and time for the goals you are trying to accomplish. In order to create a successful life, you will have to make room for it first.
2. Excellence – Always give your best your best effort. Don’t settle for second best in your endeavours. You may have to evaluate how you spend your time or money. You might have to redirect the extra energy freed up by simplifying life.
3. Priorities – You can spend your days responding to the next crisis that grabs your attention or you can set priorities to using your time effectively. You need to know what is important in moving your towards your goals. Then, eliminate those things that prevent you from meeting your priorities.
4. Energy – A lack of energy will hold you back. Once you have simplified, build on that. For example, once you have eliminated any unnecessary tasks, see which of the remaining tasks can be delegated to someone else. Look from the most efficient ways to process all that must be completed.
5. Focus – Get rid of distractions. Up to 75% of your mental energy can be tied up in things that are draining and distracting you. Reading through e-mail may seem productive, but it’s not going to help if your goal is to three chapters of a book. If need be, turn off the phone, shut down the computer and throw the television in the garbage. Free up your mental energy for the things that are important to you.
6. Think – Eliminate negative thinking. Control your thoughts to accept the possibility that what you are working toward will happen to you. Your belief in the outcome dictates how successful you are. Highly motivated people have goals and work to achieve them. Whatever you think, you accomplish. Listen to your self-talk and, if necessary, change what is being said.
7. Begin – Just do it. The old adage says, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You have to start. You can dream, think and plan, but if you don’t get moving, it will never happen. There’s no better time to start than today. Don’t wait for circumstances to improve or become “just right” start your journey to success today.

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This year, she’s turning them into a series of short posts at Tumblr celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas. The first four days are posted:

1. Prayer
2. Vitality
3. Grace
4. Peace

Rosa is also compiling a gallery of photos at Flickr to accompany the 12 virtues. As is often the case, the pictures say much about each virtue.

The best was to keep up with the balance of her posts would be to subscribe to the RSS feed for her Tumblr.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!

One source of personal motivation comes from the experience and teaching of others. Here are ten books (not new, but with a proven track record) to help kick-start your self improvement.

1. 21 Indispensable Qualities Of A Leader: Becoming The Person Others Will Want To Follow

“Everything rises and falls on leadership,” says Dr. Maxwell, “but knowing how to lead is only half the battle. Understanding leadership and actually leading are two different activities.” Dr. Maxwell explains that the key to transforming yourself from someone who understands leadership to a person who successfully leads in the real world is character. Your character qualities activate and empower your leadership ability, or they can stand in the way of your success! In his latest book, Dr. Maxwell discusses several other key attributes to being a good leader including:

• Charisma: The First Impression Can Seal the Deal
• Courage: One Person With Courage Is a Majority
• Problem Solving: You Can’t Let Your Problems Be a Problem
• Teachability: To Keep Leading, Keep Learning
• Vision: You can Seize Only What You Can See

If you look at all great leaders of the past and present, you’ll find that they possess the 21 qualities that are discussed in The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. If you can become the leader you ought to be on the inside, you will be able to become the leader that you want to be on the outside. “If you are able to do that,” says Maxwell, “you’ll find there’s nothing in this world you cannot do.”

2. Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Build Your Strengths and the Strengths of Every Person in Your Organization

Effectively managing personnel–as well as one’s own behavior–is an extraordinarily complex task that, not surprisingly, has been the subject of countless books touting what each claims is the true path to success. That said, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton’s Now, Discover Your Strengths does indeed propose a unique approach: focusing on enhancing people’s strengths rather than eliminating their weaknesses. Following up on the coauthors’ popular previous book, “First, Break All the Rules,” it fully describes 34 positive personality themes the two have formulated (such as Achiever, Developer, Learner, and Maximizer) and explains how to build a “strengths-based organization” by capitalizing on the fact that such traits are already present among those within it.

3. The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers: The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction

Aside from some perfunctory tips on job searching, resume writing and interviewing, the authors, both consultants with the head-hunting firm Spencer Stuart, approach careers as problems in psychology and group dynamics. They urge mid-career executives with suppressed feelings of anxiety and helplessness to view a career as a free-form project of self-actualization that should fit with their personalities and inspire passion. More pragmatically, career building is also an exercise in image-management that should convey potential and experience to employers and their head-hunting consultants. This partly involves canny career moves allowing talent to shine. But climbing the ladder also requires consummate office politics-manipulating perceptions, networking with the powerful, strategic quid pro quos, gaining power by “masquerading as the leader”-all accomplished without stepping on toes, stifling subordinates or “sucking up.” The authors convey these lessons in a sometimes turgid mixture of opaque managementese (“successful executives… literally achieve positive impact at an accelerating rate”), squishy survey data (“extraordinary executives… leverage both their strengths and their passions more than six times as often as average employees”) and case studies in which executives move from industry to industry in a meteoric, triumphal procession of nebulous jobs in consulting, marketing and finance. The blend of motivational therapeutics and softly Machiavellian tactics may help some executives get out of their rut, but the generic, almost contentless corporate work experiences on display seem far from extraordinary.

4. Who Moved My Cheese

Full of modern day insight, the story of Who Moved My Cheese? invites individuals and organizations to enjoy less stress and more success by learning to deal with the inevitable change.

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges.

6. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

Here’s a personal growth guidebook that’s won the admiration and recommendation of Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of England. He calls this “a brilliant, practical guide to awakening and training our vast, unused resources of intelligence and ability.” Author Michael Gelb, founder of High Performance Learning and consultant for companies including AT&T and National Public Radio, says that we all can unlock the “da Vincian” genius inside us. Gelb says there are seven critical principles that need to be followed for success, whether you’re learning a new language, studying to be a gourmet chef, or just hoping to be more effective on the job:

• Curiosita: An insatiably curious approach to life.
• Dimonstratzione: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
• Sensazione: The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to clarify experience.
• Sfumato: A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
• Arte/Scienza: The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination (“whole-brain thinking”).
• Corporalita: The cultivation of ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
• Connessione: A recognition and appreciation for the connectedness of all things and phenomena; “systems thinking.”

Gelb discusses each of these principles in relation to what da Vinci accomplished, thereby giving this book a built-in history lesson. The illustrations from the master’s work and time add a nice warmth to the work. As the president of NPR said after working with Gelb, this is a program recommended for “anyone who wants to experience a personal and professional Renaissance.”

7. The Brand You 50 (Reinventing Work): Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an “Employee” into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

Tom Peters takes you through 50 distinct yet interrelated concepts about work as it exists amid international business, technology and the Internet. He maintains that only the white-collar workers who brand and “Inc.” themselves will survive the changes that he anticipates in the next 15 years. And then he tells you how. As Peters says himself, the revolution has started; it is time to get on board. Given that call to arms, getAbstract.com recommends this hands-on book about how to take control of the rest of your career.

8. What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

In What Should I Do with My Life? Po Bronson manages to create a career book that is a page-turner. His 50 vivid profiles of people searching for “their soft spot–their true calling” will engage readers because Bronson is asking himself the same question. He explores his premise, that “nothing is braver than people facing up to their own identity,” as an anthropologist and autobiographer. He tackles thorny, nuanced issues about self-determination. Among them: paradoxes of money and meaning, authorship and destiny, brain candy and novelty versus soul food. Bronson’s stories, limited to professional people and complete with photos, are gems. They include a Los Angeles lawyer who became a priest, a Harvard MBA catfish farmer turned biotech executive, and a Silicon Valley real estate agent who opened a leather crafts factory in Costa Rica.

9. Rhinoceros Success

Rhinoceros Success is packed with insightful tips on how to improve in all the key areas of your life: social, spiritual, work, financial, family and physical. Imagine having two-inch-thick skin, charging at every opportunity with the unstoppable belief that you will become successful! With that mindset, what would your business look like in six months?

10. Advanced Rhinocerology

A nice sequel to Rhinocerous Success that you will also enjoy. A few things it reminded me of is that leaders are often under attack from all sides, and it’s important to watch your own back because often nobody else will.

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It’s traditional to mark the beginning of the year with commitments to change, and goals to be accomplished in the next twelve months. However, it doesn’t take long to discover at the end of the year that we came no closer to achieving those resolutions than when we made them.

Here are four useful suggestions to increase the probability that your New Year’s resolutions will stick this year.

1. Be specific. A resolution such as, “I want to lose weight this year” will probably fail. It is too vague. Be specific: your ideal weight, minus what you weigh now, is your weight-loss goal. Your resolution would then be, “I want to lose 30 pounds.”
2. Make them time specific. Don’t make resolutions that fit the “someday/maybe” category. “As soon as possible” generally means never. A deadline is a commitment. It’s easy to put off getting started, without a deadline as a self-imposed pressure point. Deadlines are also useful for breaking the resolution down into smaller steps. If your goal is to lose 30 pounds by the end of June, that works out to 5 pounds per month, or 1.25 pound per week. Setting a deadline and breaking it down to its smaller requirements makes the resolution more attainable.
3. Take small steps. Change is uncomfortable to start with. The more behaviours we try to change, the more likely we will fail. Pick a couple of things that are most important to you and focus on them. When you reach one or both goals, start a new one. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much change all at once.
4. Be realistic. We get motivated to change at the start of the year and we think we are ready for anything and everything. Be realistic: there is only so much you can accomplish within a period of time. If the doctor tells you to lose 100 pounds, don’t expect to accomplish that in six months. If you set the bar too high, you are most likely to fail and find it discouraging to get started again.

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Why?

Mostly because we lose sight of the celebration and worry about impressing friends and family. Here are five ways to help keep things in perspective.

1. Focus on the reason you’re celebrating

It doesn’t make any difference what your tradition, there is sgnificance attached to every holiday. When things feel like they’re getting out of hand, take a moment to remember why you’re observing the holiday.

2. Have a plan

Have you been a bit stressed during past Christmas seasons? Does it seem like the holidays bring too much to do? By organizing Christmas you can make this a low-stress holiday.

3. Budget wisely

If you’re going to spend the next year paying off the debts you’ve accumulated by over-giving, it’s going to add to your stress. Create a sensible budget up front and stick to it. Don’t spend what you don’t have.

4. Help others

During the season of giving, the most precious gift we can give is the gift of our time. Find a way to help the less fortunate. Volunteering is a great way to take our minds off of ourselves.

5. Don’t over-indulge

Too much of food, beverages, spending, celebrating, etc. may feel good at the time, but it can produce severe consequences. Celebrate the season in moderation. Make sure, when the holiday ends, you’ll be able to enjoy the coming months.

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Being alone for the holidays is a major challenge for many people. Holidays often conjure images of family, of warmth and the sharing of special time. Loneliness can be overwhelming when you have no one with whom to share holiday time.

Many people, however, miss the point of what holidays are really about and what makes them special. Holidays are not about what you GET – they are about what you GIVE. Many people are under the misconception that the joy of holidays is about what you receive rather than about what you share. Our hearts get filled with love when we give and share love, rather than from getting love.

This may seem like a paradox. Many people spend their time with others attempting to get love, attention and approval, thinking that this is what makes them feel happy and worthy. But getting attention from others to fill ourselves is like eating chocolate when you are lonely – it works for the moment but then you need more and more of it. Eventually it becomes an addiction.

What really fills the emptiness is the giving of love. If you are alone over the holidays, the question becomes, “How can I give love in ways that will bring me joy?”

Below are some suggestions for sharing your love and caring over the holidays:

• Gather toys from friends and store donations and bring them to children who would not otherwise have toys. You can find these children through schools, churches and various other organizations.
• Find a battered women’s shelter in your area and help to create the holiday there – preparing food, decorating the tree, and just spending time with them. Last year a friend of mine organized a number of her local markets to donate food over Christmas to the local shelter that housed mothers and their children who had left abusive husbands. She got to know the mothers and children and received great fulfilment in providing them with an abundant Christmas.
• Spend time with old people in nursing homes, especially those who have no family. Spending time caring about another lonely person will go a long way toward taking away your loneliness!
• Volunteer to help with serving food to the needy over Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many churches and other charitable organizations welcome volunteers to help in food lines over the holidays.
• Locate a retreat centre near you that has a special event over the holidays and share your time with other people who are also alone for the holidays. Last year a friend of mine, who had just left her husband and was alone for the first time with no family around her, went to a beautiful retreat centre on the East Coast. Twenty people gathered there to share Thanksgiving together. There was a wonderful ceremony of gratitude that she said filled her heart, and she enjoyed sharing time with new people.
• Find a church, temple or 12-step group in your area that has special events for singles over the holidays. Go to these events with the intention of sharing your caring with others, which you can do just by being interested in listening to another person. We all love being listened to and understood, and all of us have the capacity to give this to another.

One of my all-time favourite movies is “A Christmas Carol,” – the one starring Alistair Sim. I just love the scene on Christmas morning when Scrooge realizes that no time has passed and he has the opportunity to give. He feels such joy at the prospect of giving, that he can hardly stand it! He dances around and stands on his head and laughs and laughs with the joy of giving! In one night he went from being a miserable old man concerned only with getting, to a man now focused only on giving, and he became a joyful person.

While you might not have money to give, we all have caring to give. You have no idea how much you might enrich your own life as well as another person’s life just by giving your time, your attention, your interest, your smile, your understanding. Whatever your life circumstances, you always have the opportunity to give your caring. You will discover that giving your caring to others, especially over the holidays, is a profound way of caring about yourself.

About the Author

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.

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Black Friday is almost here. Have you started your Christmas shopping? What will the gift list look like in another month?

Retailers would have us believe we need to spend, spend, spend to avoid comparisons to Ebenezer Scrooge. However, we can give a gift that requires not cash outlay, but is priceless.

Give the gift of time to family, friends and the community.

• Commit to doing things with family. As much as your kids will like a new game for the Wii, they will treasure the time you commit to their lives. Whether it’s showing up at the school play or heading out on a family picnic, you’re building memories that will last a lifetime.
• Devote a few hours per month to improving your community. Unless you live on a desert island, your community will have numerous volunteer opportunities. The arts, health, sports, social services and more all depend on volunteers to deliver programs. Your commitment to such organizations helps make your community a better place to live.
• Get together with friends regularly. As I have previously posted, the speed at which society moves can get in the way of spending quality time with friends. Make it a point to schedule time for friends: have a meal, go to a movie, do something together.

Don’t confuse free with no-cost. There is cost in making your time available to others. However, as well as bringing benefit to the recipient, you will notice significant improvements in your own well-being.

Recommended: The Zen Habits Handbook for Life!