Place your success in the tasks you can control

I recently had a hard week and work, nothing seemed to be working right, was making those easy mistakes and was struggling to feel good about myself.  I am sure we have all had weeks like that.  In the evening I would go home discouraged and found it hard to get started on anything around the house.

I then realized a concept that is probably well known to everyone else but is a new concept to me.  A job is a big part of my life, for me in IT it is huge.  Every week I am on call meaning they can call me in if there are issues at the plant.  When things aren't quite an easy of a fix that they think they often look for someone to blame.  This leaves someone leaving work with a bag of guilt.  Do my bosses feel the same way about their work?  No!  So why do I?

I decided then and there that when I am at home, i need to place my priorities and efforts as well as my value on things I can control, and things I can make a difference on.  For many years I have owned several small based business that I haven't put a lot of effort into.  Why, often I felt tied to my work, and felt that I would be interrupted or I would miss a call, all sorts of reasons this job held me back from doing things I wanted to do, something that I can learn to do better and something that I would feel would bring me successful feeling that I desired.

Maybe you are in the same boat as me, coming home exhasted from work, with nothing but the TV to fill you evening, which will bring you no fulfillment.  I think that everyone should have a project, something that they love to work on that will bring them joy.  Here are what I believe should be critera for making room in your life for something that will bring you that feeling of success:

1. Should bring you together with people that also strive success
Becoming successful at your plan means to surround yourself with successful people that will fuel your passion and support you while you work towards your goal.  These people can come from different walks of life and may even be part of your existing social circles.  They will be there to support you and may correct you as you work towards you goal.

2.  Should be something that you enjoy.

Nobody will work hard on something they don't enjoy doing.  It then becomes a job.  To truly feel success you need to enjoy what you are doing.  For me, health and wellness as well as helping people with technology are things I believe are good things to be a part of.  I work with a great team that encourage me to grow my business and to chase success.

3.  This may involve something new

Sometimes, we all have a great idea that we think can change the world.  I would encourage everyone to chase or at least look at these ideas to see if it is something that you can pursue.  A new challenge often brings together people who chase success.

I hope this helps you choose to put your plan in action, whether that means starting at the gym or a home based business venture.  I encourage you to start.  Please comment if you have some other great advice.

The Importance of water in work and life

One of my major habits of living a healthy lifestyle is the source of fluid I put into my body and I'm been looking for a way to change this as my new year is looking to improve my health, lose some weight and move my life into the next phase of life as healthy and strong as I can to make sure I prevent other health issues.

I'm 42 years old, and work in the IT Field.  I don't drink coffee but rather the past few years consume pop as my drink of choice.  My work day starts at 7am and often I grab a quick pastry and a Coke product to wake me up and get me started.  I can eat it quickly and am off to work with the morning fixes that seem to be the start of every day.

Unlike other IT jobs, my job in manufacturing requires me to do a lot of walking which means I don't spend a lot of time at my desk.  My Fitbit registers up to 10 miles per day of walking before the end of my work day, and I guess I would spend less than 25% at my desk.  This often means I don't drink a lot of water during the day but rather take a coke on the run at lunch.

Deanna Waters, a health and wellness expert posted this the other day which really got me thinking about how important putting water into my bodyd every morning and each night:

Being a Fitbit user, I know I can track my water consumption using their application.  And in reading other articles going to start with a glass of water first thinkg when I get up and one glass before I goto bed.  As well, going to work on tracking my water consumption consistantly in my Fitbit app, to ensure I drink more during the day to meet my goals.  With all of these health benefits it should move me towards my goals as well as leave less of a craving for pop.

Let me know how you ensure you drink enough water.  Would be interesting to know some other methods to help me with my change.

Don't find time for everything, set time for everything...

As one of those nice IT guys, its very easy to get swamped down with a ton of different projects and tasks and forget the important things in life.  Getting overwhelmed by projects and promised found me short with my family, tired at work and generally miserable.   My solution which wasn't the right one was to eventally ignore some of the things I promised to do or just to dump them all together without giving warning to the people I promised to.

I needed to realize a different way of doing things so that the most important things got priority.  Here are some of things that I have started working on to help with this.

1.  Family -   The first thing was my family.  I had gotten into the habit of having my family work around my schedule and this wasn't right.  We had a family calendar that was shared out online.  Instead of just checking to see if there was nothing up that would interfere with what I was trying to do, I started putting my tasks in and requesting approval from the rest of my family.  It allows them to help me manage my time.  Another thing is to realize how important I am to my family.

For me, often I felt that if I was providing money to my family, that is what they wanted.  This is not true, they require my time to listen, to enjoy time with them, and to help them with their decisions in life.  What I did is when I got home, I reminded myself that once I got home, my job was to be a part of my family.  I sat in the driveway and cleared my work from my head and prepared myself to focus on what they would need from me in the evening.   When I got into the house, I was better prepared and was able to leave a lot of my work issues outside.

2.  Projects and Home business work


Having a home business is a great way to create a second way of making money, and to recover some of that money that we pay in taxes each year.  It is for me something to get me away from the computer and to develop a second hobby and a healthy lifestyle.  Right now my business is small and I am still learning how to make it work.  However, what I needed to do is give it the time that it needed to breathe.  This also required me set aside time that fit with my family yet gives me time away to enjoy it.

3.  Work

Work is where we spend the majority of our time, we have friends, we have problems, we have great successes and sometimes failures.  A lot of things happen at work that change our lives for better or worse.  It is good to share about your day at work but make sure it doesn't take over your conversations all evening.  Try to dedicate some time to discuss these things at home, but don't let it take up your whole evening.

4.  Relaxing time

I struggle with giving myself time to relax.  I spend a lot of time with a lot of other projects and found myself lonely, and frustrated thinking I was doing everything right and why did I feel miserable.  I often felt guilty about going out and doing something fun and relaxing thinking I was wasting my time.  This often made these events unenjoyable for others as well.

Making relaxing time a part of your life with your family and friends gives everybody a breath of fresh air and time away from the stressful things in life.  Book time for this, and try to include others whenever you can.  Have friends over for a games night, play video games with your kids, or go out for coffee with your spouse or friends.  Your body and mind will benefit from it.  Make sure to focus your time to things that are fun, your dreams, some goals you achieved, plan something that you want to do in the future that will be fun, even though it may take a long time to achieve.


I hope these ideas help better set time for things that will promote good health mentally and physically.  Giving time to relax and prioritizing your life will bring less stress to your life.