THE 100 DAY TRANSFORMATIONAL PROJECT (PART TWO)

This is Part 2 of The 100 Day Transformational Project. If you have not yet read Part 1, please read it here. The purpose of the second part of this post is to give you an overview of how to actually apply and implement this 100 Day Project.

Before I do this, I want to remind you of what I emphasised in the last post - that the most important focus of this project is inner transformation. It is very easy to get distracted by the outer world and think that our goals of what we want to do and have are the most important thing. During this project it is a good idea to have some outer goals that you are working on, but your main focus will be on your inner state.

What will amaze you, is that once you actually change and heal your inner world, the outer results will come easier, faster and much more effortlessly than ever before. It is therefore beneficial to set some outer world and material intentions as you will then be able to observe how differently your dreams manifest when you start on the inside first.

So, for those of you who do not have much experience with doing inner work, you may be wondering exactly what inner transformation is.

What is Inner Transformation?

Inner transformation involves a few main components;

• Self Reflection and Self Inquiry: This involves getting curious about yourself, taking a step back and looking at your life from a new perspective. Become aware of your patterns of thinking and your habits of behaviour. Begin to question and make sense of why it is you do what you do. Think about what emotions or feelings you regularly feel. Take a mental inventory of experiences that tend to show up in your life over and over again. Simply start to get to know yourself better and gain a better understanding of the thoughts and feelings you experience and how these affect your outer life experience.
• Determine what needs to change: Start to think about what areas of your inner world are not truly serving you. Do you have some patterns or habits that are holding you back? Do you often feel negative emotions? Do you tend to live in the past and play old stories over and over in your mind? How do you feel and think about yourself? Do you have any perceptions or views of the world that do not support you? How are you with others? Are you ever judgemental, unforgiving or rude to people?  Do you live in fear or anxiety? Do you feel that your thoughts, feelings or beliefs keep you stuck, powerless or unable to achieve what you want in life?
• Do the work: This is where you determine what work has to be done to transform your inner world. How can you work to change your thoughts, feelings, reactions, perceptions, interpretations and emotions? Here, you actually change who you are as a person with the aim of then creating different results around you

The Practices

What I want to give you now, is a list of practices that you can apply throughout the project to assist with  the transformation of your inner world, and the achievement of your intentions. These practices are designed to work with your mind, your emotions and your energy. This is where true change begins. These practices support you in changing who you are being and how you see the world. The spin off is that through making these inner changes, the outer world will consequently begin to shift too. As you work to remove the inner blocks inside you, then the things in the outer world that you have previously been blocking, will now start to roll in.

In the last post, I explained that there were 4 main aims in this project. They were;

1. Feeling Good

2. Thinking Right

3. Releasing Resistance

4. Manifesting

I will categorise the practices you can use based on how they support each of the aims;

Practices to help you FEEL GOOD

• Positive Aspects: Take time each day to stop and notice the good/great/wonderful/beautiful things that are surrounding you at this moment. You may be at work, in the car, out shopping or doing chores at home, but you can still take time to tune in to the good aspects of each experience.
• Appreciation: Write lists or just think in your mind of all the things that you love and appreciate in your life. This exercise is beautiful for opening your heart.
• Gratitude: Similar to appreciation, gratitude helps you see just how blessed you are. Think about all the amazing things you have to be thankful for you in your life, no matter how small.
• Follow Your Bliss: Each day dedicate some time to following your bliss. Ask yourself what you love to do and make some time to do it each day. It may be an activity like painting, dancing or playing sport or it may be as small as reading your favourite book, drinking tea, playing with your pets or walking in nature.
• Be Kind to Others: Making others feel good can bring about so much happiness. Smile at people, think kind thoughts about them, do favours for people, buy gifts, help strangers, and speak nice words to all those that you meet.
• Nourish Your Body: When you eat well and exercise you will be amazed at how much better you feel. Not only are you showing yourself that you love and care about yourself, but a healthy body supports a healthy, positive mind.

Practices to help you THINK RIGHT

• Affirmations: You want to program your mind to think in more positive ways and in ways that are in line with what you want. Write out clear affirmations of what you want to experience, be, do or have and say them out loud daily.
• Review Your Intentions: I like to keep a list of the intentions I am working on for each 100 Day Project pinned up near my desk where I can see them. Looking at them daily keeps my mind focused on where I am going and what I am currently working on.
• Focus on What You DO Want: So often our mind gets stuck thinking about all the things we do not like or do not want, but it is necessary to catch yourself when this happens. Instead focus on what you do want to experience, or do want to have or do want to feel or do want to bring in to your life.
• Quit Complaining: We often let small trivial complaints occupy our mind for no good reason. Letting go of complaining thoughts will make space for beautiful, positive thoughts to come in.
• Believe and Expect: You must have faith that everything is on it's way to you, and you must keep your mind in a open state of belief, expectation and receiving. Know and trust that good things are coming to you and they will.

Practices to help you RELEASE RESISTANCE

• Meditate: When your mind is calm and free of stressful thoughts, you are in a much more open and positive state. In the absence of negative thought there is nothing blocking your desires from coming to you, and you are much more able to receive goodness in to your life.
• Breathe: If there is any point that you feel tight, stressed, tense or anxious one of the best things you can do is focus on your breathe. Take several deep breaths to assist you in calming down or in releasing tension in your body or mind.
• Feel Your Emotions: Often when negative emotions arise in us, we do our best to suppress or ignore them. Instead if you find yourself feeling something yuck, just sit with it and experience it fully. Once you acknowledge and process it you will allow it to release. 
• Journal: If you have a problem you cannot solve or something is bothering you, take out a pen and a piece of paper and write it down. Getting it out of your head and on to paper helps you process and release stuck negativity.
• Forgive: Sometimes if we are feeling bad, there is someone or something we need to forgive. It could be a person, an experience, an event or even yourself. Ask yourself if there is someone you need to forgive or an old resentment you need to release and see what comes up.
• Be Present: When we a truly present and at peace with the moment, there is no stress or struggle. It is when our minds are stuck in the past or the future that we suffer. Do your best to remain as mindful and present to your experience in this very moment and do not let yourself get caught up on worries of the past or future.

Practices to help you MANIFEST

• Think Right + Feel Good + Release Resistance: By working with the above 3 steps you will be supporting and enabling your dreams to manifest much faster.
• Visualisation: Did you know that your subconscious mind does not know the difference between images that are appearing on the screen of your mind because you are remembering them from the past, observing them in the present or imagining them in the future. When you visualise your dream life, you are putting images in your mind that your sub-concious mind takes as reality. Imagine your life as you want it to be, see it in your mind and feel it in your body and soon it will start to become your reality.
• Act As If: When you act as if, it does not mean you are pretending to be something you are not. Rather it is about embodying the qualities you want to have now even if you do not have them yet. If you want to have more money, begin embodying the qualities of abundance and feeling as if you already have all the money in world. Or, if you want to be slimmer, start acting more confident and relaxed in your body and feel the feeling of being slim and healthy even if your body is not quite there yet.
• Take Action Steps Daily: As you start to focus your mind in the right way, you will start having new inspiring ideas about actions you can take to start making your dreams a reality. When you get these ideas, act on them. Start doing new things each day - create a new habit, commit to a new daily practice, or take a small baby step each day in the direction of new behaviour. 

HAPPINESS TIPS FOR THE NEW YEAR

I believe little things can actually make a big difference in creating a happy life. Happiness is not an outward, action oreintated process where you try to get all the things you want and get rid of all the things you don't. Rather it is about shifting your thinking about what you already have, and then taking steps each day to do the things that you know make you happy.

This year, maybe you do not  need to set huge lofty goals, but just commit to make some small shifts in your day to day life. This is what a life of perfect days is all about - what you can do today to make a difference in your life.

If each day you took one small step to change the way you were thinking, being or acting, it would add up over the course of the year to some significant life-altering change.

My tips are not so much about changing what is around you, but rather shifting what is inside you. That is where true change starts, and this is where you will make the most progress in creating a beautiful, happy and successful year.


HAPPINESS TIPS FOR THE NEW YEAR

• Focus on what you do want, and do not let your mind dwell on or worry about the things you do not want
• Put love in to all that you do (even if it is something as mediocre as washing the dishes)
• Boost your self esteem by continuously recognising and acknowledging what you have done, how  far you have come, what you have achieved, what you have acquired, what your strengths are, what is good about you, and what awesome things you have created in your life
• Put a note on your mirror that says you are beautiful and read it daily
• Develop a spiritual practice even if it is as simple as lighting a candle and sitting for 5 minutes just focusing on your breathe
• Believe in your Self and the Universe's ability to bring you whatever you want
• Choose thoughts of love over fear
• Do what makes your heart sing regardless of what anyone else thinks
• Be emotionally intelligent and use your feelings as an indicator to help inform you if what you are thinking is good for you
• Want from a place of joy and excitement rather than from a place of need and lack
• Give
• Follow your heart and not your head
• In a time of challenge, ask for guidance and see what you receive
• Ask yourself why you want something. What we really want in life is the feeling something will give us, rather than the actual thing. See if you can find ways to feel that feeling now without having to wait for the external thing to come
• Love unconditionally, wholeheartedly and passionately
• Appreciate and acknowledge what you do have
• Think of something you have always wanted to do, because you know it would bring you so much joy, and this year commit to doing it
• Live like the creator of life that you are. You are not a victim and life does not happen to you. You create your destiny
• Accept and love the now rather than trying to change it, avoid it or disconnect from it
• Choose food to eat because you love your body and you want to take care of it. Think about whether what you put in your mouth nourishes and supports you or depletes and toxifies you
• Control your inner state through intention, rather than letting yourself be triggered and controlled by outside events
• Create a compelling, powerful and clear inner vision of what you desire for yourself and your life, and let nothing distract you 
• Live each day as if you already have everything you desire and as if you are already everything you wish to be
• Watch your words as they create your world. Stop complaining and criticising as this will only bring you more of what you do not like and want
• Do less. Be more
• Treat nature, the environment and animals with respect, love and gratitude as they sustain your existence on this planet
• Live authentically and with integrity
• Learn to listen to your intuition. The more you listen and follow it, the louder and clearer it will become
• Believe you are worthy of having what you want. Unless you have self worth, you will lose and sabotage anything good that comes to you
• See everything that happens as a learning experience. Even if you feel like you have failed at something, resist the temptation to throw a pity party and sit around beating up on your self. Instead ask yourself what can I learn from this? Commit to getting the learning and making the change, and you will not have to repeat the lesson!
 

A HEALTHIER YOU IN 2010

Are you interested in improving your physical health, the appearance of your body or in creating a more balanced and healthy lifestyle? If so, here are ten tips that you could commit to taking on board in 2010.

These suggestions are not so much aimed at removing the bad things from your diet or stopping unhealthy lifestyle habits. They are more about what you can add to your life to improve your health and create a more balanced lifestyle.

I have used many of these and they have made big shifts in the quality of my life, my health and have helped me create a more balanced lifestyle. Why not try one or all of them. Or come up with your own...

1. Eat Organic

Do you know that you can get fresh organic produced delivered to your home? I get my organics delivered by miss organic which are a melbourne based company. My first box for 2010 arrived today overflowing with yummy organic goodness. If you struggle with the idea of going out of your way to make it to the markets or an organic supplier, consider getting your produce home delivered. I come home every Thursday to a huge box of amazing produce which means I don't have to go searching around the markets for the best stuff. I love using my produce to make nutritious smoothies, vegetable juices and a daily salad which I take to work. Organic produce is fresher, more nutritious and free from nasty pesticides. With services like this there is no excuse to not start in 2010.You can check out the miss organic website for more information on their company and on the benefits of integrating organic produce in to your life. Or if you're not from melbourne, just simply do a search on the Internet and you will surely find an affordable and easy way to begin eating organic.

2. Add in a new form of exercise
We can get stuck in an exercise rut, so this year why not try something different. Are you yet to try yoga, surfing, or rock climbing? Is there a new fitness goal that you have? Do you normally exercise at the gym? You could try a class you have never done before or why not try exercising outdoors. My new thing in 2010 is boxing classes. Boxing is completely out of my comfort zone and totally not the type of exercise I would normally take on. But I have been hearing people raving about it lately and I think the fact that it is new and exciting will help me jazz up my exercise regime a little. I am a runner from way back, and I enjoy nothing more than running outdoors. But, this year it is time to try something new. Is there something new you are willing to take on this year?

3. Wake up earlier 

Could you commit to waking up half an hour earlier each day? Would that benefit you? What morning practice could you integrate, and how could you best use this time? Some ideas or ways to use that extra 30-60 minutes in the morning include; sitting down and planning your day or setting your goals, making your lunch, exercising or going to the gym, doing some yoga or meditation, reading the newspaper and catching up on current events, getting to work earlier to increase your productivity, getting started on your to do list, or even just relaxing! Since I have committed to waking up earlier my whole life has changed. I now have a valuable morning routine that includes yoga, meditation, journaling and making my lunch. I use this time to set my energy for the day and ensure I head off to work feeling calm and organised.

4. Get to bed earlier

If you want to start to wake up earlier, it may also be helpful to start going to bed earlier. Getting a good night sleep plays a huge role in your health and your ability to feel alert and energised through your day. Even getting to bed 30-6o minutes earlier can help, especially if it is in those precious hours before midnight.

5. Make your lunch each day

This could mean waking up 30 minutes earlier, or you could make it the night before. Make something healthy and nutritious for yourself that you enjoy to eat and save money on buying food at work. I make a salad for lunch in the morning for work. This guarantees that everyday I am getting a dose of raw, healthy organic veggies into my diet. While it may mean that I have to be more organised and get up earlier, I have found the benefits and the money I save to be worth it

6. Go green

Add more green veggies in to your diet. Green vegetables are the most nutritious foods on the planet. Jam packed with vitamins and minerals, they are water rich, alkalising on the body and also very cleansing. You can just work to add in more of them along with your regular meals. You can have your normal dinner but include along side it a big green leafy salad or bowl of steamed greens, have a salad for lunch, or even try a green smoothie for breakfast.

7. Relax 

I have my own little tool box of strategies that I draw on to help me cope with stress. If you find this is an issue in your life, work on integrating some new practices in to your life in 2010 to help you. This may include; journaling, yoga, meditation, walking outdoors, breathing exercises, taking time out on your own, taking regular breaks at work, reading a novel, doing gentle stretching exercises, getting a massage, having a bath etc... Take time to find out what helps you feel more relaxed and make a commitment to include these things in your life daily.

8. Have it raw 

Rather than cooking for vegetables, eat them raw. Eat more fruit. Snack on raw nuts and seeds. Have a freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juice or make an all fruit smoothie for breakfast. There are plenty of ways to add more raw foods in to your diet. Eating your food raw keeps them in their natural state so that no vitamins or minerals are damaged during heating. It also keeps all the natural enzymes which means your body doesn't have to draw on its own store of precious enzymes to digest your food. I personally thrive on a high raw diet, and I find eating lots of fresh, uncooked organic fruits and vegetables keeps my body energised, clean and glowing with health.

9. Eat smaller dinners 

Through most of winter I used to eat really big comforting dinners. Although they were usually filled with nutritious things like vegetables and whole grains, I often went to bed feeling full, and as a result I would wake up feeling groggy and unrested. It wasn't until I started changing the way I ate dinner that I started feeling different when I woke up. I now eat a small, light dinner and I eat it early in the evening so I have plenty of time to digest before I sleep. This way my sleep time is dedicated purely to restoration and regeneration rather than digestion. It is amazing how much better you feel in the morning, plus it also helps give you a flatter stomach! It is worth giving a try and seeing if you notice the difference. 

10. Learn more

Learn more about what you are putting in your body. Read labels. Understand what you are eating. Open up to new ideas rather than just eating what you always eat. It is easy to fall in to food ruts and never actually question what we put in our mouth. Become educated about what you are eating and find what works for you. Gain more knowledge on health and nutrition or on exercise and fitness and actually find out what your body needs to thrive. This will help you make food and lifestyle choices that are supportive of your body and valuable to your health.

Enjoy 2010 and do your best to create it as your healthiest year yet!