An Historic Day

Today history was made as Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States. Once again, our country experienced a peaceful change in power, unlike so many other nations where change occurs only after a bloody coup.

We have much to be proud of and thankful for in this country; however, I have always been proudest of the fact that we are always seeking to be better than before, striving to achieve the ideals of our founding fathers, to give every individual an equal opportunity to succeed, a fair shake in life.

I pray today that we all come together to be the best that we can be, to share our greatest gifts with the rest of the world, to heal old wounds and make a fresh start, united in our desire to regain our stature in the world and form a more perfect union.

May God bless America.

Off to a Good Start

Now that the first full week of January is behind us, how did you do? Did you make any progress toward your goals? If not, what kept you from moving ahead? Did you lapse back into the same old bad habits? What can you do differently to avoid falling into that trap again?

I did pretty well this week. I made a plan for writing a certain amount of time each day and I stuck to it. I promised myself that I would not use my writing time for laundry, dishes, cleaning or any of the other distractions I face working at home. I fell short in a couple of places too, mainly because I had a vague objective with no plan to achieve it.

For example, I want to master this social networking thing. I have pages on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Live Journal, CafeMom, etc. I signed up for these to promote my writing, but I find I am overwhelmed by the thought of dealing with so many websites and constantly updating each. So this week I will visit each site and evaluate which sites are worth keeping and which to chuck. Then next week, I will post a blog or comment on each site I decide to keep. I will set aside a specific time each day to do this and I will succeed.

This week try setting a specific task for yourself and make a plan to accomplish that task. Write it down - committing something to paper can be powerful - and check your plan each day to see how you are doing. Drop me a line at the end of the week and let me know how you did.

You can do it! You can eat less, exercise more, argue less, study more, stop procrastinating. You can change your life! Good luck!

Resolutions!

A few words of encouragement as we begin this new year.

I hope you have made some New Year's resolutions and I hope they are attainable. If they are realistic, but you are not sure if you will honor them, think about this. The words we use when we think or speak have tremendous power. If we say, "I'll try" or "I will if I can" or "hopefully," the odds are good that we will not succeed. However, if we use the words "I will," "I can," and "I am going to," we have a far greater chance of succeeding.

So here's to a new year full of possibilities and positive language.