Dear Melissa,

Auspicious beginnings! The year is off to a terrific beginning with speaking engagements being booked regularly, hiring an office manager, and getting my hardback version of Celebrate Your Life! The Art of Celebrating Every Day into the marketplace. My energy is high and I am attracting great people and great opportunities. I have banished doubt and discouragement.

What is your energy like? What are you attracting?

Ready for the right buyer! Many have asked if I've moved, NOT YET. I have initiated the arduous job of packing and will be ready for the right buyer when they appear. I am not in a hurry, but instead know that being prepared to move forward is a vital part of the process. Often opportunities arise in our lives, but we aren't ready to take advantage of them.

What are you ready for?

Live Well, Beautifully and By Design,

MG

"You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless."
~ Caroline Myss
Author of Entering the Castle

Finding a Better Way

Japanese grocery stores are much smaller than American grocery stores; watermelons with their round bulky shape took up too much room, a solution was needed. Most people would simply stop carrying watermelons but instead Japanese farmers got creative and found that they could easily and simply grow square watermelons. By placing a box around the fruit in its early growth stages, it simply grew into the box shape, taking up far less room on store shelves and having the added benefit of being easier to cut and serve by the consumer.

Celebrate Your Health

Regular checkups are an essential part of taking care of ourselves, yet too often we get caught up in taking care of everyone else, our children, our aging parents, our spouse, even our friends. If we don't make time for health, we will be forced to make time for illness.

Every January I get a letter from St. Joseph's hospital reminding me to schedule my mammogram. Now I dread mammograms, they are uncomfortable and something I'd rather skip but I know the value. You see it was 15 years ago when I woke one morning and realized I had a golf ball-sized lump sticking out of my left breast. Alarmed I immediately went in for a biopsy which proved benign but put me on annual mammograms about 10 years earlier than I would have been otherwise. I've been tempted to skip them a time or two but remember that prevention is the best medicine.

Making Adventures a Part of Every Day

Are you stuck in a rut? Do you talk about taking trips, but never go anywhere? Do you yearn to break out of your routine, join a new club or organization, or perhaps simply get involved in one you already belong too, but struggle to find the time? Make adventure a part of every day. Each morning when you plan the day ahead, plug in an adventure moment. It can be as simple as checking out the new gym down the street or exploring the boutique that you read about in Daily Candy. It can mean joining the book club (I just did) at your business or social club. It can also mean committing to a trip you've talked of but never quite imagined taking. If you can't make it a daily commitment, then make it a weekly commitment. But schedule it into your must-dos so that you expand your interests, your activity opportunities, and your circle of influence.

It is easy and comfortable to stay in the box of our own making, but we miss so much by not climbing out and exploring the wonderful world around us. We can also make excuses about not having the time, the fact is that we each do exactly what is ultimately most important to us, and so the excuses become “our story.” Stop talking and start doing!