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!

For the past couple of months, my major goal has been clearing stuff that no longer serves me in order to prepare for 2012. It has been quite liberating. I am really forcing myself to release and give away things that no longer serve me and I don’t just mean tangible things. I mean thoughts, beliefs and relationships with people that don’t serve my highest good. One of the things I did was burn old journals that I’ve been keeping since I was very young. As a teenager, I used to journal only when I was upset about something so it was very liberating to burn and release all those negative emotions. It was also fun, but I don’t recommend that unless you know what you’re doing. I gave away of my prom dress and it’s still in style so I hope someone else will be able to put it to good use. I have literally been dropping stuff off at Goodwill once per week and have 3 times more garbage than usual.

Sometimes we hold on for no good reason. Let’s let go and make room for more positive fresh energy.

source: AKUOL DE MABIOR for DNA MODELS

It is clear that we are all here for a purpose. Every single aspect in our lives has a purpose including our hair. The physical/biological reasons for different skin tones, nose size, eye shapes and hair types are pretty self-explanatory: to protect and thrive in certain environments, our ancestors physically adapted to their environments in a way that could create the best circumstances for continuing the human race. Now that we are all together, interbreeding, thriving and surviving in the same global community… what’s the deeper meaning for having high-texture? What are we to learn from it? Now that we’re all here… what will our descendants look like thousands of years from now? Will they all have a similar hair type? What will it be? How will we evolve and adapt?

What lessons have you learned from having naturally textured hair? Here are a few that I have collected from readers over that past 4+ years of Mane and Chic.

Accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can.

Dare to be 100% authentically you in a world where you are programmed to be like everybody else.

Embrace and love yourself as you are even if it makes others uncomfortable.

Weed out shallow people who only want to be around you based on whether your physical aspects fit the standard of beauty.

Focus on what you love about it and more of it will come.

Trying to force nature to do something opposite it’s nature can sometimes be fruitless and cause more bad than good especially if the intention comes from a place of self-denial.

Being different is perfect.

Our hair type is bold and demands to be seen! When you’re confident in really rocking it… your message will be felt with or without words.

Support other women of like mind, there is power in numbers.

What spiritual lessons has  your hair taught you?

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading New Psycho-Cybernetics. It was originally written by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a cosmetic plastic surgeon. He noticed that even after extensive plastic surgery, some of his clients complained of not seeing a difference in themselves. Dr. Maltz began to realize that his patients had “emotional scars” that no amount of surgery could fix. Many people have very negative images of themselves that cripples them and stops them from living the lives that they really want to live. He noticed it first from people who had distorted self-images of their physical apperances and later saw that it could be applied to anxiety, finances, love and everything in between. Basically if there is any area in your life where you aren’t happy or it’s not where you want it to be, you might seriously analyze what in your self-image could be causing your issues and then challenge it to improve your self image.

Dr. Maltz also speaks of the mind as a goal-striving mechanism. We have to give our mind goals and orders and the same way a computer works is the the same way our minds work to achieve our goals. We have the power to control our thoughts and our lives.

Is is a quintessential self-improvement book that will give insight on how to overcome many common issues. I’ll probably be reading this book for awhile because it’s very intense, but it’s kind of just reiterating what all the other books have been saying: fear, doubt and other emotional scars are getting in the way of our dreams. We need to consciously strive to replace negativity with empowering thoughts, beliefs and our lives will be whatever we desire. We need to stop running on auto-pilot and give our minds goals to work on. What I like about this book is that it gives tons of practical advice about how to eradicate negativity (some of them I’ve been doing before even reading the book). Something that you can do without reading the book (and something that I do daily) is to take 15-30 minutes before sleep and/or right when you wake up and visualize your dream life. Create a movie of your perfect life in your mind. You might experiment with visualizing as if you’re actually in the movie or just as an observer.

Something else I learned is that you have to make a decision. You need to get all the worry out, make the decision and just be confident and only give attention to thoughts that will support your decision. Second guessing yourself or getting frustrated will only prolong the process.