Veronica Bettencourt

Archive for the ‘Self Improvement’ Category

Valentine’s Day is a special time of year to share with those we love. It’s not just for boyfriends and girlfriends or husbands and wives.

I’m making this a quick post just so I can share with you that I have just put together something special for you for Valentine’s Day. It’s a short 6 page report with some fun ideas for the whole family and  little romance ideas after the kids go to bed too.

It’s absolutely free as a thank you for being my subscriber.

Go ahead and download it here:

http://www.veronicabettencourt.com/valentines-report.pdf

Enjoy!!

Veronica Bettencourt

P.S You need Adobe Reader to view this file. You can download Adobe Reader here at

http://get.adobe.com/reader/

If you are like many other Americans, you may opt for a New Year’s resolution. It’s never to late to start one..whether it is January, February, March, or any month of the year for that matter. But, what should your new year’s resolution be?  How can you choose the perfect New Year’s resolution?

Here are some tips for choosing a New Year’s resolution:

Look at the main aspects of your life. These aspects are health, family, and finances.  Closely examine each and you may automatically get your New Year’s resolution. Have you been letting your health slip?  If so, make a quest to eat healthy and visit the doctor more.  Have you been focusing too much on work?  If so, make your New Year’s resolution spending more time with family.  Are you in debt?  Make this your year to get out from under it.

Consider your stress sources. We all have stress.  Unfortunately, many individuals mistakenly believe that stress in unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to be.  Look at what causes you stress.  It is an unclean house, long hours at work, or limited financial resources?  In most cases, New Year’s resolutions are designed to change and improve one’s life.  Now is your chance to do so.  Examine your sources of stress and see what ones you can change.  For example, you can lose weight, improve your productivity at work so you don’t have to work late, and spend more time with your family.

Pick one New Year’s resolution at a time. As previously stated, you should look at the main aspects of your life and stress sources to decide on a New Years resolution.  Since stress is common and a lot causes it, you may automatically come up with three different New Years resolutions.  This is nice, but pick one and stick with it.  It is easy to get out of debt or lose weight, but you may find it too difficult to do both at the same time.  To increase your chances of making your New Year’s resolution true, don’t put too much on your plate.

Write down your options. As mentioned above, it is common for many Americans to have many aspects of their lives they want to change.  Most want to have better relationships with their families, lose weight, quit a bad habit,get out of debt, or earn more money.  Since you are encouraged to start with one goal at a time, write down all of your options.  Closely examine them and see what is most important to you.  That should be your New Year’s resolution.  Also, don’t throw your list of goals away.  Keep it.  If you meet your Near Year’s resolution early in the year, work on the rest of your list.

Choose a realistic New Year’s resolution. One mistake that people make is aiming too high.  Yes, it is good to do so, but that often results in disappointment.  That disappointment causes many to stop trying all together.  Do you want to lose weight?  Good.  Instead of saying you must lose 30 pounds by March, give yourself the entire year.  This way you are not in a rush.  When you give yourself time to achieve your New Years resolution, you are more likely to see it become a reality.  If you set realistic goals, they will be easier to meet.  In fact, if you do so early, start working on other aspects of your life to improve.  You do not have to wait until New Year’s to make a change.

Many use New Years resolutions to make a big life change.  You do not have to do so too.  Are you in good shape, have a good relationship with your family, and are not in debt?  If so, you may not have a huge goal to set.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t make a New Year’s resolution.  Instead, think of something small, but meaningful. For example, redecorating your home, buying Christmas gifts ahead of schedule, or helping others in need are unique, but good resolutions.

Mine was to get organized and simplify. I created ‘My Home Management System‘ to help me do just that. Click the following link for details on that: http://www.simpleandstressfree.com/my-home-management-system.html

Good luck in meeting your goal!

Veronica Bettencourt

I was reading an email someone sent me that I thought would be worth sharing since it is both odd and interesting. The following is the exact email message that was sent about how to prevent yourself from getting the flu virus:

ONIONS FOR COLLECTING THE FLU VIRUS

In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that visited the
many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu. Many of the farmers and
their family had contracted it and many died…

The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very healthy.
When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different the wife replied that
she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then).
The doctor couldn’t believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions
and placed it under the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find
the flu virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the virus, therefore, keeping the family
healthy.

Now, I heard this story from a hairdresser in Arizona . She said that several years ago
many of her employees were coming down with the flu and so were many of her
customers. The next year she placed several bowls with onions around in her shop.
To her surprise, none of her staff got sick. It must work.. (And no, she is not in
the onion business.)

The moral of the story is, buy some onions and place them in bowls around your home.
If you work at a desk, place one or two in your office or under your desk or
even on top somewhere. Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and
we never got the flu. If this helps you and your loved ones from getting sick,
all the better. If you do get the flu, it just might be a mild case..
Whatever, what have you to lose? Just a few bucks on onions!

They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It’s a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.

And they say that the proactive ones are already living off the edge.

I know how it feels.I still get stressed occasionally, but definitely not as      much as I used to get stressed;and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that  may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and happiness that you can carry once you head out that door. You can’t blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what’s bugging you anyway?

There are several ways to manage stress. So I’ll give you some helpful tidbits and I promise it’s not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.

1. Acknowledge stress is good
Make stress your friend! Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.

2. Avoid stress sneezers
Stressed people sneeze stress germs indiscriminately and before you know it, you are infected too!

Protect yourself by recognizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you’ve got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.

3. Learn from the best
When people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced?
Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.

4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathing
This is something I’ve learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.

5. Give stress thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then we’re all up the creek!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?

Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong – how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?

6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines…. My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!

Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?

Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?

7. Burn the candle at one end
Lack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it’s often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends!

Having stress can be a total drag, but that should not hinder us to find the inner peace of mind that we have wanted for a long time. In any case, one could always go to the Bahamas and bask under the summer sun.

If managing your time may help manage your stress, download a free time-management report that I have made available for you at my site:

http://www.SimpleandStressFree.com

Feel free to comment about how you currently deal with stress.

Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change.

Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study. Debts remind us of our inability to look for a source of income. Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.

With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we keep motivated? How do you keep motivated? Try on the tips I prepared from A to Z…and feel free to post a comment of your own tips at the end of this post.

Here it goes…
A – Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B – Believe in your self, and in what you can do.

C – Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your steering wheel.

E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.

G – Give more than what is enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert extra effort in doing things.

H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force.

I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay out of toxic people – the kind of friends who hates to hear about your success.

J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

K – keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out, paving the way to self improvement.
L – Learn to love your self. Now isn’t that easy?

M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.

N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O – Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse sense. They see things in 2 ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be.

P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.

Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?

R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S – Stop procrastinating.

T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.

U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be understood the second.

V – Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry land.

W – Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation and self improvement.

X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to put on “extras” on your life like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.

Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!