We are ending a chapter in our Book of 2012. What did you accomplish this month? Have you been keeping a daily journal? Hopefully you’ve been taking steps, strides and leaps towards your goals everyday. I certainly have. Today I am working a month-end review listing all the action steps I took this month and I filled up nearly two pages in my journal. I am also creating a map or to-do list for things for February. Basically, I have goals for 2012 and my life in general and I just break them down into small tasks and try to do something about it every day.

One of my goals for 2012 was to release 15 pounds and I’ve already accomplished it. I actually went over my goal and released 17 pounds. I did this in about 2 months using a food diary app on my iPhone and of course exercise and changing my diet. I barely exercised before 2012, but now it’s a habit and I hardly ever miss a day. I also have semi-better eating habits and started a high-protein diet in the last couple of weeks which has helped tremendously with shedding the pounds. It’s one thing that I can cross off my goal list, well… not really because I have to maintain it, but it’s pretty much like second nature to do the food diary and do my daily workouts. Now I can focus on some other goals I have for 2012.

Have you made any headway in January? 

The beautiful journal in the photo above is from Colorbloom.

I learned so much this year. I grew so much. I had to go through so much to get to the place I am now. I can honestly say that 2011 was the most awakening, most enlightening, most progressive year of my life. Books accelerated my growth exponentially in every area of my life and if my 2011 was a movie, the books I read would be my co-stars.

Here are the top lessons I learned (and still learning) this year and some lessons from before 2011 that I hope will help you as we move forward in 2012. Some themes are repeated, but repetition is the mother of learning. Most of these lessons are quotes from radio shows, tv shows on OWN, some are direct quotes from books, tweets from others and some are just from my own life. I highly recommend that you print this out and review it as much as possible. If you’re in the Rebirth 2012 Mastermind, I will send you a PDF upon request.

Please use this list to evolve your life!

In a nutshell this is all that I have learned about life, it is so valuable: thousands of dollars of books/classes, hours upon hours of reading and re-reading coupled with priceless lessons that no book or class could ever teach. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Need nothing, attract everything.
2. Everything is energy.
3. Release to renew.
4. We average 60,000 thoughts per day and most of them are habitual. Challenge that! Change your thoughts!
5. Satan is the ego:”the deceiver”. EGO = edge God out. Strive to loose your ego as much as possible.
6. If you live your life fully, you will only die once, but if you are scared, fear will kill you day after day.
7. Start from the destination, and then figure out how to get there.
8. A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.
9. Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
10. The road to wealth is to observe what people want and give it to them. We are here to serve. Insight + Action + Serving = Wealth!
11. Ignorance of mental and spiritual laws is the cause of all unhappiness.
12. Faith is a seed that grows after its kind. Plant the idea/seed in your mind, water and fertilize it with expectancy, and it will manifest.
13. IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, YOU CAN HAVE IT.
14. Wealth eludes most people because they are preoccupied with events while disregarding process. Without process, there is no event.
15. You have to get to the root of a problem in order uproot it. Experiences come to show you what you really believe.
16. There are only 2 emotions: fear and love. Anger is just a manifestation of fear. Right below the anger is a well of hurt. Then below the hurt is a layer of love. When you’re angry, look for the core… the fear behind what you’re angry about.
17. Love does not hurt.
18. Program your subconscious mind through repetition. 
19. You think you have many problems, but you really only have one… your separation from your source.
20. Never start a business just to make money. Stop chasing money and start chasing needs. Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or “do what you love.” Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points, service deficiencies, and emotions.
21. The amount of money in your life is merely a reflection to the amount of value you have given to others.
22. Just let go. Let it flow. Just let it go!
23. If you are struggling with anything in life or there’s a goal you haven’t reached yet, look for the lesson in every moment of that journey.
24. Everything for a reason, there are things you had to learn from it/them… it/they were practice.
25. Create what you want instead of being stuck in what you didn’t have.
26. Rock bottom is good solid ground and a dead end street is just a place to turn around.
27.  You add value to self when giving your love to someone who has earned it and values you.
28. Don’t just go through it, GROW through it.
29. Relieving the suffering of others is the best way to gain freedom from suffering.
30. If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
31. You have a right to your thoughts and feelings. Your feelings are always valid.
32. Stay on your hustle. You have everything you need.
33. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
34. We must be our own before we can be another’s.
35. What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
36. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
37. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
38. Listen to your gut.
39. Meditate, meditate, meditate… for the mind that is still — the whole world surrenders.
40. We are all here for a purpose.
41. We are not our egos.
42. Live in the now and be present.
43. Think thoughts that make you feel good, make choices that make you feel good, and take actions that make you feel good.
44. Shame is an isolating emotion.  Don’t let your past define who you are today. When we hold secrets, we create shame.  Shame  is a great barrier to success because when you carry shame, you don’t allow to fulfill your greatest potential.  Being ashamed is like a veil that covers your whole life. When you let go of the secret, you let go of the shame.
45.  If you have loving people in your life, then you have loving in your life. If you have selfish people or angry people in your life, then look at yourself and you will see that you have anger in your life and self-concern. If there are a lot negative people in your life, don’t look at them.  Look at the energy you are creating to attract them.
46. If you want something you’ve never had, you’d better do something you’ve never done.
    
47. If your cup is empty, you can’t give anyone else any water from your cup to drink.
    
48. Before you take any action, stop to clarify your intentions. Make sure your intentions are good and good will be returned to you.
49. Don’t text and drive, drink and drive, DJ and drive. Whatever it is, it can wait!
50. Action is the bridge between your dreams/goals and making them your reality.
51. Your ISSUE becomes your CAUSE. We are all given “issues” and the challenge is to overcome them and share how you did it with other people.
52. If you’re comfortable, you’re not growing.
53. Pay attention to your life! It’s speaking to you all the time. Life is your teacher and class is always in session.
54. Talk is still cheap.
55. Believe all that a person does and little of what they say.
56. Love is a behavior.
57. If you want something, you really have to feel like you have it already. Get in that space of feeling it as much as you possibly can.
58. To improve at anything, we must push ourselves outside our comfort zone.
    
59. To go far, you must go near first.
60. Dreams are the seedlings of reality.
61. The closest people to you are the most contagious.
62. The most valuable skill you can have is the ability to direct your thoughts.
63. If you do not express your own ideas and listen to your own being, then you are betraying yourself.
64. It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
65. Every nail that you hammer in your brother’s hand keeps you on the cross.
66. Abraham Jesus Muhammed and Lord Buddha/ amoung others were sent to us to speed up our enlightenment process.
67. Don’t debate, BRAINSTORM!
68. Faith and fear make poor bedfellows. They cannot coexist. Do what you want to do and have unyielding faith that it will work!
69. I think you know you’re with the right person when you’re growing… if you’re not growing and feel you can’t… time to move on.
70. Conflict is growth trying to happen.
71. You are who you hang with… get away from people who have your same problems and get around people with your solution!
72. Love is God. God is Love. Love feels like growth, safety, peace and acceptance.
73. There is a such thing as spiritual abuse and spiritual violence.
74. Your spending is a reflection of what you value.
75. Notice yourself! Don’t analyze or judge… just NOTICE!
76. It is the energy of our intentions, not actions that come back to us. You cannot cheat your way to good things.
77. If you have selfish people in your life, then you have been selfish in your life.
78. If u have anything negative in your life, think of what energy you were putting out to attract it and CHANGE IT POST HASTE!
79. Don’t be a victim, be a CREATOR!
80. Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
81. If you can’t find a job and want one… CREATE ONE!
82. Pay attention to your thoughts. You can change them and by doing that change your life NOW!
83. You can earn a handsome living doing something you love.
84. Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
85. The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.
86. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
87.  Your gut is the voice of your ‘higher self’; it’s your personal GPS.
88. The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.
89. When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
90. Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.
91. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
92. Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
93. When you stop playing it safe, your spirit is free to grow, expand and create.
94. Thoughts are spiritual seeds.
95. Forgive and release so that you can be free.
96. Love is free.
97. We chose our parents.
98. We chose our life circumstances to learn lessons.
99. Exercise, exercise, exercise! Our lives love movement on every level. Move!
100. Affirmations are powerful. Our words are like magic wands.
101. Love more.
102. Be conscious of your patterns and habits. They are likely the same patterns/habits demonstrated in your childhood. Overcome the ones that do not serve you.
103. You must be a good giver to be a good receiver.
104. If there is an area of your life where you are lacking, it’s a sign of where you need to give and grow more.
105. Love is the solution for everything.
106. Don’t settle.
107. Be conscious of what energy you are projecting onto others.
108. Be the love that you desire.
109. Make space in your life for what you want: physically, literally, spiritually, emotionally and mentally.
110. Get rid of relics that no longer serve you are that don’t make you feel good.
111. Feeling good = feeling God.
112. Purge and release beliefs, things, people and jobs that no longer serve you.
113. Be decisive.
114. Act in faith.
115. Fear and doubt are the enemy, use them to pivot towards your destiny/dreams/goals.
116. Write down your dreams and goals to make them happen.
117. Prayer should be about giving thanks and love.
118. No one has control of your emotions.
119. What other people think of you has nothing to do with you.
120. Respect money if you want to have a lot of it.
121. Be solution-oriented.
122. Don’t react, TRANSCEND!
123. Send love out into the world and you will always get it back.
124. Nothing brings out the worst in another faster than you focusing upon it.
125. Nothing brings out the best in another faster than you focusing upon it.
126. Forgive your parents for the mistakes they made.
127. Count it all as joy.
128. One of the duties of the leader is to lift up those who are not able to advance themselves.
129. There are few things that cannot be achieved by sheer determination and effort.
     
130. Smile more… as often as you remember. Notice the changes.
131. When you greet someone, say their name. People love hearing their own names.
     
132. Reinvent as much as possible. Use your life and influences to create something unique.
     
133. Life is a class and everything is a lesson.
134. Talk to people, not at them.
     
135. There is no good or bad, only the meaning you give to it.
136. Stop being a victim. Your thoughts, beliefs and purpose sent every circumstance in your life in order to propel you forward.
137. If you have a definite major purpose, you will have the courage to act on your ideas.
     
138. Invest in increasing your knowledge of your own industry. You can’t afford not to.
     
139. Act like you know. (Marinate on that, it’s deeply metaphysical).
140. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
141. We are here to serve: create, inspire, motivate and teach.
142. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
143. Be you, authentically. There is something incredibly powerful about people who are genuine and authentic. 
144. You will not have the life you deserve if you are pretending to be anything you are not.
145. Every choice creates the future.
146. There is a big difference between wanting something and being ready to have it.
147. You attract what YOU ARE, not what YOU WANT.
148. If you want to change the fruit, change the root.
149. Stop talking/thinking about what you don’t want and focus on what you do want.
150. Stay away from negative words at all costs.
151. You are the average of the 5 closest people to you. Choose wisely.
152. Everything starts with just an idea.
153. Nobody but you is responsible for your life.
154. Everything isn’t for everybody.
155. Focus on the GOAL not the obstacle!
156. Give and it will be given to you! We all get what we deliver!
157. Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.
158. Inaction is the greatest risk of all.
159. Take responsibility for the energy you are sending out.
160. Goals are dreams with deadlines.
161. Have the audacity to ask for what you want an you just might get it.
162. Make your good better and your better best.
163. You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.
164. Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.
165. To make a difference tomorrow, you must do something different today.
166. Money shouldn’t be used to buy happiness, it should be used to buy freedom.
167. Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.
168. Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.
169. The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.
170. You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.
171. Don’t spend time beating on a DUCK, hoping to transform it into a door.
172. Effect millions, make millions.
173. No one has ever succeeded in pleasing everyone, and you won’t be the first.Don’t be against anything be FOR whatever is positive.
174. If you want a better life… increase your skills. Always be learning.
175. You are the choices that you’ve made. Now, decide what choices you need to make in order to be the person you want to be.
176. Always aim to be the producer instead of a consumer.
177. Don’t believe in NO.
178. Embrace mistakes as an opportunity to learn never been afraid to fail.
179. Ideas are worthless without any execution.
180. Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
181. Time is finite. Money is infinite.
182. If you are stuck in a rut, make BOLD LIFE ALTERING decisions to change your life now!
183. Stop focusing on your weaknesses and focus on building your strengths.
184. Decide what you want, review it constantly, and each day do something that moves you toward those goals.
185. When you learn, teach. When you get, give.
186. If you aren’t given a bridge… build your own.
187. You will learn more from failure than success.
188. Don’t be a trendsetter, literally manufacture the trends. Don’t just read books, write them.
189. Nothing new can come into your life until you’re grateful for what you have NOW! Start from where you are NOW!
190. Life is a menu. Order!
191. Change is not an event, it’s a process. Take the first steps.
192. True forgiveness means saying ‘thank you for giving me that experience’. Everything is a lesson and an opportunity to grow.
193. Stop using your past to hold yourself back. Lighten the load.
194. Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it.
195. Love is not crazy or stupid —egos are.
196. Cleaning is literally cleansing.
197. Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.
198. Pray with your feet moving.
199. If you surround yourself with positive people, positive things will happen.
200. Practice serving others without expectation.
201. Get clear on your big goals and align every action you take from now on with those goals.
202. Every moment is an opportunity to grow and move forward, stay and be safe or move backwards.
203. Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.
204. Aim to be like water.
205. As water rises no higher than the level of its source, so a man can rise no higher than his personal estimate of his source.
206. There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines. If you fail to make the one you’ve set, don’t conclude that goal setting doesn’t work. Instead, seek to increase your knowledge of it. Clear goals provide the strength to keep going; without them it is easy to collapse at the first obstacle.
     
207. There’s plenty of room at the top.
208. Your job in life is to create value where there was none before. To gain money, enrich the world in some way.
     
209. You cannot walk forward by looking backward.
210. Words have POWER! Watch what you say.
211. By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it.
212. Sometimes you just have to SHUT UP… there’s a reason we have two ears and only one mouth.
213. Riches are not acquired… they are the simple things we already have but often fail to appreciate.
214. What holds most people back isn’t the quality of their ideas, but their lack of faith in themselves.
215. Your passion chooses you.
216. Poor is the man whose future depends on the opinions and permission of others.
217. Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tap into.
218. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish.
219. If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and see how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work. This does not mean pain.
220. When you have a wealth mentality, wealth follows naturally. Money gained without consciousness will quickly turn to the place it came from. Awareness is the steering wheel of your wealth and your life.
221. Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?  If you want to change your life, change your choices. To change your choices you must change your belief system.
222. A decision made to move toward something is always more productive & energizing than a decision made to move away from something.
223. Life is like a mirror: what you put out you get back. If you’re dissatisfied with any area of your life it’s a great sign.
224. When it comes to your goals, replace “if” with “when.
225. What you can do, or dream you can, do it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
226. We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
227. Small steps are good—they add up to big ones.
228. Rejections are not necessarily an indication of the lack of worth of your project. They may simply be indications of a mismatch of the applicant and rejecter. Or lack of good taste on the part of the person denying your request. Some of the greatest works of art and literature were overlooked by many people. In his lifetime, Vincent van Gogh sold but one painting, for a pittance. In recent years, one of his paintings sold for $135 million—the highest price ever paid for an oil painting.
229. You don’t have to work hard to make money, you just have to work smart.
230. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
231. There are three departments of the mind, the subconscious, conscious and superconscious. The subconscious, is simply power, without direction. The conscious mind has been called mortal or carnal mind. It is the human mind and sees life as it appears to be. It impresses the subconscious. The superconscious mind is the God Mind within each man, and is the realm of perfect ideas.
232. Use your strengths often. Do so in service to something bigger than yourself and you’ll be blessed with abundant happiness and a life filled with meaning.
233. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.
234. Accept–then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.
235. If you’ve ever felt inspired by a purpose or calling, you know the feeling of Spirit working through you. Inspired is our word for in-spirited.
236. All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry—all forms of fear—are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.
237. More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm.
238. There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.
239. You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every other man will have more than he has now.
240. You cannot exercise much power without gratitude; for it is gratitude that keeps you connected with Power.
241. You cannot change other people. You love them or you don’t. You accept them the way they are or you don’t. To try to change them to fit what you want them to be is like trying to change a dog for a cat, or a cat for a horse.
242. The one who loves you, loves you just the way you are. Because if someone wants to change you, it means you are not what that person wants.
243. If you cannot love your partner the way she is, someone else can love her just as she is. Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste your partner’s time. This is respect.
244. Self love which is by far the most important love relationship you will ever have.
245. Let go of the things you don’t love about your childhood, and keep the things you love. Let go of the things you don’t love about your adolescent and adult years, and keep the good things. Just keep the things you love about your whole life.
246. Many people don’t know about the power of good feelings, and so their feelings are reactions or responses to what happens to them. They have put their feelings on automatic pilot, instead of deliberately taking charge of them.
247. Every single second is an opportunity to change your life, because in any moment you can change the way you feel.
248. So how do you fall in love with life? The same way you fall in love with another person — you adore everything about them! You fall in love with another person by seeing only love, hearing only love, speaking only love, and by feeling love with all your heart! And that is exactly how you use the ultimate power of love in love with life.
249. You are the driver of your mind, so take charge and keep it busy with your instructions by telling it where you want it to go. Your mind only takes off on its own if you are not telling it what to do.
250. When anything good happens to you in your day, give thanks. It doesn’t matter how small it is, say thank you. When you get the perfect parking space, hear your favorite song on the radio, approach a light that turns green, or find an empty seat on the bus or train, say thank you. These are all good things that you are receiving from life.
251. Remember it only takes giving love and good feelings a minimum of 51 percent of the time to reach the tipping point and change everything.
252. Writing a full-fledged description of what you want is one way of saying you believe that it’s attainable and you are ready to receive it. The more precise you can be, the more ready you are. Write a visualization in loving detail—not only depicting your goal, but rehearsing what the particulars of your daily life will be like once this goal is realized.
     
253. You need not write volumes to express a goal; a short and simple list of items, as specific as possible, will clarify your intentions as surely as an elaborate description, and perhaps will be even more powerful.
     
254. The first step of commitment is to be willing to write down what you want. Then take some small action toward the realization of that dream.
     
255. You have to talk about what you love to bring what you love to you.
256. Love is the highest feeling you have, then in descending order from love comes: gratitude, joy, passion, excitement, enthusiasm, hope, satisfaction — these are the good feelings. Then comes bad feelings, in descending order, boredom, irritation, disappointment, worry, criticism, anger, hate, envy, guilt, despair, fear.
257. Count the things you love nonstop, one after the other, keep listing everything you love until you feel amazing.
258. Don’t struggle to change the circumstances of your life. Give love through your good feelings and what you want will appear. You have to give good feelings first. You have to be happy first and give happiness to receive happy things. Whatever you want to receive in life, you must give first.
259. Hard work results in acquiring knowledge about yourself that idleness never reveals.
     
260. Don’t be a cog in the machine, be a linchpin!
261. Whatever you decide to do, be honest, fair and do it to the best of your ability.
     
262. Being truly happy with yourself is the first step to attracting the friendships, intimate relationships and familial relationships that you want in your life.
263. While the universe is built by atoms, success is built by minutes; successful people are masters of the use of their time.
     
264. Expect to get the thing that you desire. Expectation is magnetic.
265. The greater the risk, the greater the potential success. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Be action oriented.The greater the risk, the greater the potential success. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Be action oriented.
     
266. Money is spiritual.
267. Success leaves clues. Study the people that have been successful in what you are pursuing.
268. Our perceptions of others are merely reflections of ourselves; therefore, to put another down or project negative words or energy towards another person, is to lash out at the other person because of our own insecurities.
     
269.  What anybody thinks about you, or says about you is none of your business.
     
270. Go the extra mile.
271. Always do your best.
272. Be impeccable with your word.
     
273. Optimism is power.
     
274. Aim to be a master at whatever it is you choose to do and success will follow.
275. Luck happens to those who greatly increase the chances of its occurrence.
     
276. Your outer world of form and experience is a reflection of your inner world of thoughts and feelings. As above, so below. As within, so without.
     
277. The greater your awareness of the Presence of God/the Divine/Spirit within you, the more that Presence fills your consciousness and your world.
278. Upgrade from being competitive to being creative.
279. The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
     
280. Have the ability to protect yourself and your family.
281. We only get one body in this life. Remember and take care.
     
282. Be careful of what you let take root in your mind. Growing amazing flowers not weeds.
     
283. Honor your deepest desires. You MUST BE what you CAN BE.
     
284. Let ‘thank you’ be your mantra. Find little things in every moment to be thankful for and be saying or thinking ‘thank you’ all day.
     
285. Care for your thoughts as you would your most prized possessions.
     
286. Complaining is unproductive. Be solution-oriented.
     
287. Carpe punctum! Seize this moment!
     
288. Let go of  negative words, they compromise your nervous system and cause sickness.
     
289. Energy flows or it stagnates. If we want more of something in our life, we need to keep it flowing: receive give receive give receive give.
     
290. Stress is not caused by problems. It is your attitude toward the problem that causes stress.
     
291. Money is a kind of energy and it is always active. To bring the greatest benefit to the greatest number, it must flow and circulate.
     
292. Too little or too much money magnifies personal deficiencies, or reveals the good character that was already there.
     
293. Poor people focus on spending money; the wealthy focus on creating it.
     
294. You will get rich by imitating the mindset of the wealthy, not by imitating their spending.
     
295. Everything that you see around you, someone has made a fortune from. You are surrounded by wealth and abundance.
     
296. To receive more, you must be able to manage and APPRECIATE what you already have.
     
297. When you’re resentful, you’re bound to the person/situation. In forgiving, you free yourself and allow the floodgates of prosperity to open.
     
298. To receive good things you must first cleanse your mind of clutter and negative emotions.
     
299. When you recognize a higher power as the source of your supply, money begins to flow.
     
300. Wealth (and happiness) comes most easily to those who forget themselves in the service of others.
     
301. Your brain won’t know you’re full until about 20 minutes after you’ve started eating. So eat smaller or slower to help your brain catch up!
     
302. When you eat, take a bite and then put the fork down and chew your food. Don’t keep the fork/spoon in your hand.
     
303. If you eat meat, use it as a garnish for veggies instead of as the main dish.
     
304. Use smaller plates, cups  and bowls to reduce caloric intake also wait 15-30 mins before “seconds”, you might change your mind.
305. BLUE is an appetite suppressant. Red, yellow, and orange encourage eating. Change your dinnerware!
306. If you didn’t get the job, you weren’t meant to have it… better opportunities await you. Bless it and push forward!
307.  Love is what love does.
     
308. Building trust can take years, destroying it takes but a moment.
309. The show must go on.
310. People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
     
311. Ignorance of mental and spiritual laws is the cause of all unhappiness.
     
312. When you act in alignment with your true life purpose, all of your actions automatically serve others.
     
313. If you like something, enjoy it. If you don’t like something, avoid it. If you don’t like something and can’t avoid it, change it. If you can’t or choose not avoid or change something you don’t like, then accept it. You accept something by changing your perception of it.
     
314. If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.
     
315. To have more, you must first be more.
     
316. Leaders have vision. Nonleaders do not.
     
317. Believe all of what they do and none of what they say.
     
318. Invest your time, energy and attention in working to bring about the things that you desire to experience.
     
319. Don’t hook your dreams on things, focus on what you want to feel.
     
320. Everything that glitters is not gold.
321. Love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image… otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.Love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image… otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
     
322. You cannot make someone love you, but you can make yourself lovable.
323. Our home is our third skin. The first is our body and the second our clothing. Our homes have an enormous effect on our wellbeing – especially those rooms that we spend a lot of time in, like the bedroom. Think about how your room makes you feel and remember that feelings are everything. Clean and declutter your space to feel better.
     
324. The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.
325. The greatest stock market you can invest in is yourself.
     
326. What you want may seem unrealistic, but take baby steps and it’s bound to happen.
327. No one has ever succeeded in pleasing everyone, and you won’t be the first.
     
328. Sometimes to be great is to be misunderstood.
329. It takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill.
     
330. Rethink possibilities.
331. Dreams do not have expiration dates.
332. Start from where you are. 
333. Know your skills and talents.
334. Find your passion or create some.
335. It never makes financial sense to buy a brand new car, it depreciates 20-30% as soon as you drive it off the lot.
336. Set clear concrete specific goals and create a clear concrete specific plan to achieve them.
337. Remove bad habits (or things that don’t serve your highest good) from your life little by little. Maybe you don’t feel you are able to cut something out cold turkey, but you can cut down on it little but little every day.
338. Use batching to work on projects. Try to devote a minimum of 30 minutes per day of focused attention on one project at a time. Eventually that thing that you kept putting off will have progressed to a point of completion over time. 
339. Make a conscious effort to learn at least one new thing every day.
340. If there is something in your life that you want, but don’t have in your physical possession yet… learn everything there is to know about that thing and journal your learning.
341. It’s very hard to duplicate an original. Develop our uniqueness.
342. Focus on the dopeness!

HAPPY 2012!

The most important aspect of the Law of Attraction is that you must feel like you have the thing you want in order to manifest it. Our emotions are the key to opening the doors to our desires. So instead of wanting a certain thing, we should aim to really get into the place of feeling whatever feeling we think that thing we elicit.

You only need to feel the following emotions 51% of the time to see your life transform. Aim to feel love, appreciation, wonder, bliss, peace, passion, creative, acceptance, abundance, wealth and health. Also you should have the intention to give these feelings to others in whatever area of your life where you feel you need more support.

Here are more positive feelings that we should focus on from PsychPage. If there is a thing that you’ve been wanting, but haven’t received it, you might check the list of unpleasant feelings to see what feelings you’ve been giving toward that thing that you desire. Being conscious of what you’re thinking is the first step to choosing more positive feelings.

Source (for list of feelings): http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/assess/feelings.html

Most of the books that I read in 2011 kept driving home the same points. It just became clear to me all of the habits that we all need to develop in order to have better lives. The tips I’m about to give you have all been proven by science to enhance people’s lives. I’ve listed the books that were sources of this information for me. Now all of these things are things you have heard before. I know this because I’d heard it all before, but it wasn’t until I read the reasons and science behind it that I understood that these things were essential to my evolution. Iyanla Vanzant says that it takes 40 consecutive days to develop a good habit and if you miss a day, you have to start over again. Choose some or all of these habits and start your 40 day healthy habit training.

Here are the things that we need to be doing every day:

• Meditate for at least 15 minutes per day. First thing in the morning and the last thing at night are best. If you can, it would be wise to meditate twice per day for a total of 30 minutes.
• Give more without expecting a return, but don’t give if you feel resentful. Give when it brings you joy to give, but take care of yourself first. Try just sending out love to strangers and especially your loved ones. Carry a bunch of $1 bills and just give them out. Give compliments… it’s free to give those. Give away the clothes that you don’t wear. Do you know that most people only rock 20% of their wardrobes? Stop hoarding your belongings! Volunteer your time to help your community. Just give, give, give for the joy of giving. 
• Write, say out loud, repeat and really feel positive affirmations in the present tense. Do this as often as possible. Do it all day, but remember to really feel what you are saying. This is the secret! Your true feelings give the words meaning and power.
• Release things and people that no longer serve you. For some people this is something that has to happen daily.
• Drink water, 1/2 your weight in ounces each day. 
• Surround yourself with positive energy. Listen to affirmations all day, listen to positive books all day, watch positive television, spend time with super positive people. Watch the music and tv shows you’re being entertained by. Be conscious of the underlying messages they are sending out.
• Move! Exercise! Nature wants us to move. Stagnant energy causes all sorts of diseases and stops positive energy from flowing in your life. Keep it moving!
• Visualize! When you visualize, really feel it as if it is happening.
• Learn something everyday.
• Live in the moment. Be present.
• Love, Love, Love. When you see those shoes that you love, really feel that love. When you’re with someone you really love, really feel it. Be present and don’t let moments like that be lost on you.
• Watch your words and your thoughts! What kind of words are you using? Do you want a promotion at work, but when you talk to your friends are you saying you hate your job? If you want to attract a mate, are you sending out desperate energy with your words or making negative statements about relationships? Do you want to be wealthy, but you think money is the root of all evil? That’s not going to work. Really monitor what you’re saying and thinking and never let a negative thought complete itself. Whenever something negative pops up, that’s a great chance to pivot and focus on what you do want to attract into your life. 
• Give thanks, love and appreciation. When you get all green lights on your way to somewhere and you’re late, say ‘thank you, I love that’. For a sunny day, literally say ‘thank you, I love that’ just notice everything and love it and be thankful for it.

There are more, but these are the basics.

Now, develop!

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The Soulmate Secret by Arielle Ford

The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol

The Vortex by Esther Hicks

Excuses Begone! by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

The Secrets of the Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker

The Complete Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel

Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All by Russell Simmons

The Complete Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn for Women by Florence Scovel Shinn

How to Attract Money Using Mind Power by James Goi Jr.

The Secret: The Power by Rhonda Byrne

Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Kaizen is a Japanese term that means improvement. The word ‘kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘zen’ translates to ‘good’. It is a system that targets continuous improvement in the processes of manufacturing in corporate environment. Kaizen emphasizes the well-being of the employee, working smarter, not harder and developing best practices. For that reason Kaizen is the perfect principle to apply to your own personal growth and of course your business. As it relates to achieving personal goals in 2012, Kaizen is the practice of taking small steps towards your goals every day.

Hopefully you’ve already set your goals for 2012 and you’ve figured out what you needs to do or what habits you need to develop to make things happen. The main thing that you want to do is to make sure that you are being efficient with your time. One of the things you might try is mapping out your week and figure out how much time you’re wasting. You want to spend more time working on your goals or developing the habits that will move you closer to your goals. To get a copy of a spreadsheet to use to help you do this, please sign up for the 2012 Rebirth Mastermind. It’s up to you how much time you will spend on your goals versus doing other things that may not be productive or truly fulfilling. Time is valuable and it is finite, aim to be extremely efficient and conscious of how you spend your time.

Next, track your progress and take steps towards all of your goals each day. If you take 2 actions steps per day, you will have taken over 700 steps towards your goal by the end of 2012. If you take 10 action steps per day, you will have taken 3660 steps by the end of 2012. It’s up to you how far along you want to be. Keep a journal to track your progress. Get a 2012 journal or if you’re artsy and like to use markers and crayons, you can create your own 2012 book using a sketchbook, composition book, binder or daily planner. You can make a scrapbook: adding stickers, pictures, drawings, receipts and whatever else you want in your 2012 book.

Some guidelines for your 2012 book

• Make it positive only. Try to avoid negative words or events that took place. If something “bad” happened, look for the lesson and write that down for the day. Make sure whatever you’re putting from here is coming from a place of love and appreciation.
• There are 366 days in 2012, so be mindful of that when you’re deciding on space or how many pages are in the journal you will buy. You might even consider having different journals for different areas of your life or different projects that you’re working on. If you run out of space, no biggie… you can always create more volumes.
• Write what you loved or appreciated about each day.
• Write the action steps you took each day.
• Write ideas for action steps that should be taken next.
• Write the lessons you learned that day.
• Write your affirmations.
• Refer to the book whenever you are feeling down, it should be a sacred and uplifting place for you to come. It should make you smile just to see it.
• Use colorful pins, markers, crayons, glitter in your favorite colors. It’s your world, go for whatever makes you feel the best.
• For the first page(s), write your intentions, affirmations, goals and dreams for 2012. Remember to write in the present tense and how it will make you feel and also how it will be best for the greater good. Example: I want $10,000 a month. I attract $10,000 a month and I feel accomplished and inspired to serve more.
• You might also consider writing 2012 rules for yourself in the first few pages, but try to affirm them instead of using words like “don’t” or “no”. Why? Because our minds work like an internet search engine to give us what we ask for so if you say “NO PURPLE ELEPHANTS”, guess what’s going to pop up in your life? Say “I make my bed every morning”, “I wake up at 8 am every day”, “I work out 7 days a week”, “I spend my time wisely”, “I attract positive people” or whatever it is that you want. 

HAPPY KAIZEN-ING and TRACKING YOUR GOALS!

Comments, questions or suggestions? Contact me or feel free to leave a comment!

Rebirth 2012 Masterminds, have you taken inventory of 2011 and set your goals for 2012? Here are some assignments that should get you ready.

1. Make a list of 100+ things that you accomplished in 2011.  
2. Make a list of the 50+ things that you want to do, want to have and want to be in 2012.  
3. Make a list of the behaviors and habits you need to develop for the New Year.  
4. Write affirmations about your 2012 dreams and goals for every area of your life that speak to you in the present tense.  
5. Purge the clutter, you have a deadline: midnight December 31, 2011!
6. Make a list of what habits, behaviors, people, things you don’t want to take into 2012 and release them!  
7. Signup for the Rebirth 2012 Mastermind.

Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions? Please leave them in the comments or shot an e-mail.

Are you on Pinterest? It’s a cool (FREE) site that I have been using like a vision board. Visualization is a huge part of getting the life that you want and reaching your goals. What you focus on grows and I try to use Pinterest at least twice a day as a form of visualization. You can find me at http://pinterest.com/maneandchic/. Be sure to follow me after you join!

For 2012, my resolution is to to share everything I’m learning and everything that I have learned from the over 60 books that I read in 2011. I think we are all here to teach and share what we have learned and this is a new passion of mine. When I first started Mane and Chic, I knew nothing about hair. I was merely documenting my journey and it really helped me to succeed mainly because so many of you were rooting for me and just sharing the things that I picked up along the way actually helped and inspired thousands of women around the world. I’d really like to share what I’ve learned to help people make their dreams come true. I’m super passionate about this. I have done this type of thing in my personal life with a few friends and I really feel that this new project is my destiny. It’s what I was meant to do at this point in my life.

If your goals for 2012 include increasing your income, getting in shape, having a healthier diet, overcoming limiting beliefs, releasing negativity, finding your purpose or just overall evolution, please signup for the Rebirth Mastermind 2012 to be notified about the details when they are available. Click here to apply To The 2012 Rebirth Mastermind.

New month and last month of 2011. Time to start wrapping up those loose strings to prepare for 2012. One of the things I like to do is write my goals for the year, month, week, day in a place that I can see them. There are 7 basic areas in your life that you should focus on when goal setting. You can get as specific or as broad as you want. I encourage you to set a goal for every area of your life and try to do at least one thing towards those goals everyday… more than one is better and I’ve heard a very accomplished author (forgot his name) does 7 things towards his goals each day. You must do things that above and beyond your typical day… so… waking up, going to work — the basics don’t count. Some steps might include: take a yoga class, get a passport, buy tickets to go on a last-minute vacation, schedule a meeting with a mentor, throw out 50 things or prepare to move to a new city. Ok, here’s the outline to get you started.

1. Relationships
2. Lifestyle
3. Career
4. Education
5. Finances
6. Health
7. Family

After you’ve set your goals, I highly recommend doing daily affirmations and visualizations as much as possible throughout the day. Don’t just say the affirmations or just imagine the goal, but actually feel what you want. If you want a job or to move to a new city actually get in the place of what it would feel like to have it already. Believe it, have faith and let’s see how far you can get in this last month of 2011.

Happy Goal Setting and Happy December!

I called into a radio show and Jack Canfield was one of the hosts or guests. I got a chance to ask him a question and he responded to me on the air. Oh! You know him right? He’s the co-creator of all Chicken Soup books, motivational speaker, he’s been on Oprah and he’s a gazillionaire. He and William Gladstone were on to talk about their new book The Golden Motorcycle Gang which is essentially Jack’s autobiography and is about how he discovered his life’s purpose. They were talking about how to find your passion and how do you know what your passion is and all these things. This is something I always struggle with.

There are millions of things that I’m interested in. Once upon a time it was just hair, fashion, magazines, my relationship and being an entrepreneur. More recently, I got really into personal development, self-evolution, love and spirituality. I’ve read over 60+ books on these subjects in 2011 not to mention the dozens of classes and webinars that I’ve participated in this year. It’s been quite a journey and I have this voracious appetite for learning more and more.

If you’ve been reading Mane and Chic for a bit then you that I get loads of ideas. I truly want to help people solve problems. I believe that is why we are all here: to teach and serve. I try to brainstorm every night, but I am also being still to listen for that big idea that’s going to change a lot of people’s lives. You remember the idea of the scomb, the e-boutique, the e-magazine… all these things are out there but I want to make sure that whatever I do is something I can stick to and something I’m super passionate about. So essentially, I asked Mr. Canfield ‘How do I find my passion and overcome excuses/fear/doubt that makes me rethink all of my ideas?’

I am sharing with you what Mr. Canfield told me in the hopes that it will help you as well.

• Take the Life Purpose Exercise on the Golden Motorcycle Gang websitehttp://goldenmotorcyclegang.com/public_html/images/stories/life-purpose-exercise.pdf

Overcome Fear & Self-doubt

• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Read books.
• Listen to audio programs.
• Say daily affirmations to replace negative beliefs with positive ones.
• Do daily visualizations and see yourself doing the thing that you love and see people responding positively.

I honestly cannot say that I haven’t heard all of this before. I certainly have, but repetition is the mother of learning! I definitely need to step my affirmation and visualization game up. The thing is, I know it works because I have seen it work in my life on numerous occasions.

I won the The Golden Motorcycle Gang book and I am excited to read it and share with you. I will also be doing the Life Purpose Exercise and see if anything shifts for me. I hope you join me in doing the same if you’re not clear on the next steps in your life.

Peace and Love!