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1. Automate your bill payments using online banking so its one less thing to worry about.
2. Pay off your credit card every payday. If that’s not possible because your debt is too big then make yourself a plan to pay it back.
3. Pet your cat or someone else’s; repeat regularly and often. If you don’t like animals then teach yourself to like them, it’s worth it.
4. Plant a tree or flowers in your garden and make the commitment to water them and care for them.
5. Read my list of famous failures. There are plenty of them, in fact everyone is a member of the failures club at some point so get over it!
6. Watch the DVD ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and marvel at how amazing your life is compared to the lives of millions of people on earth.
7. Talk to someone at your work you never really talk to. Keep talking until you find something that you have in common.
8. Write down every item of food/drink that you consume in a week. Are there enough fruit and vegetables? Is there too much junk food?
9. Spring clean your house – really spring clean it. Clean every nook and cranny.
10. Throw out heaps of old stuff you have lying around. Take old clothes you haven’t worn to op shops, throw out unwanted items. Take old books to second hand books shops or sell them on ebay etc.
11. Spring clean your computer. Go through your files and folders and delete loads of old files that there is no point keeping. Do the same with your emails. Uninstall programs you never use, defragment your hard drive, do a disk clean up. Change your desktop background to a peaceful, funny or motivating picture (you can find cool pictures on Flickr). Wipe the dust off your screen and keyboard.
12. Go to Youtube and get to the comedy section. Watch lots of funny videos and laugh out loud at them (start with this one). Or do a search for ‘funny kitten‘ or something similar and you’re bound to find something amusing to lift your spirits.
13. Start your own blog about something you are passionate about (you can start one in a matter of seconds at Wordpress.com).
14. Write a list of the 10 things you most regret having done in your life. Brainstorm ideas about how you could right those wrongs, and then do them.
15. Find ten quotes that make you feel good. Write them down or print them out and stick them to your fridge. Laminate them and stick them to the wall in your shower or on the wall in the bathroom. Stick them anywhere you will see them regularly and read them and think about them.
16. End all your text messages with a smiley face :)
17. End all your emails with a smiley face, especially important work emails :)
18. Cut down how much alcohol you drink.
19. Put some lively music on and turn up the stereo loud when no one is around at home and dance really badly because no one can see you.
20. Get someone to massage your feet. Or massage them yourself. Use massage oils.
21. Empty out your wallet, purse or handbag. Throw away old receipts & take out cards you never use. If your wallet is really old and disgusting then get a new one.
22. Weed your garden, then plant something and care for it.
23. Learn to type properly. If you already do, improve your speed and accuracy. You can find tutorials here.
24. Clean all your shoes.
25. Use an electric toothbrush, floss and mouthwash every day.
26. Change your hairstyle, makeup, hair colour…grow a beard, then shave it off.
27. Pick something that you would like to do but don’t think you are capable of doing and work out how you can do it. Run a marathon, go to Chile, learn French, learn how to cook. Don’t be put off it you don’t get it straight away.
28. Teach someone how to do something.
29. Get to know your neighbours. Bake them a cake, drop off their mail for them or something. It might seem weird if you’ve lived next to them for ages and never spoken before but who cares? Do it anyway!
30. Think of someone you’ve had a falling out with and figure out how to mend that relationship. It doesn’t matter who was in the wrong originally, get over that part and work out how you can move forward.
31. Think about how you’d like to feel when you leave this life. What would you like to have achieved? What would you like to be remembered for? Who would you want to say goodbye to? What would you want people to be saying about you at your funeral? Who would you want to be there? Write down anything that comes to mind. If there are things you need to do in the light of this exercise, do them.
32. Smile and ask the checkout operators at the supermarket/service station etc how their day was.
33. Drink less coffee.
34. If you smoke, stop. Try using Allen Carr’s book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking
(endorsed by the likes of Richard Branson & Anthony Hopkins). If you don’t smoke then congratulate yourself on never having fallen victim to this habit. It’s a great achievement, well done!
35. Make sure you’re drinking enough water everyday. There are plenty of theories about how much people should drink, but researchers have shown that the actual amount varies between people. Just make sure you’re drinking enough.
36. Take a multivitamin everyday if you think that your diet may be lacking. Even better – improve your diet.
37. Don’t dwell on your faults and failings. Dwell on your future successes and how you are going to create them. We are what we think and if we constantly think about our failures or the things we don’t like about ourselves then these things become out of proportion. Focus on positive uplifting things and work towards creating them in your life.
38. Get motivational materials for your Ipod or Mp3 player to use whilst you’re at the gym, on the bus, walking the dog, at the supermarket etc.
39. Take photos of good times you’ve had with your friends and family and put them in nice frames and stick them up on your wall. If you struggle with this one then buy uplifting pictures or photos and hang them up. Anything to create an uplifting environment at home.
40. Book yourself a pamper session. Get a massage etc really treat yourself. Take a friend with you.
41. Apologise to someone for something you’ve done (recently or in the past). Mean it.
42. Join Stumbleupon and in the category section pick self-improvement as your only interest. This will introduce you to lots of self-improvement sites and blogs. Do a search on Google news for self-improvement and set up an alert with Google alerts so that new entries emailed to you. Add self-improvement sites to your news reader and stay updated with their content. Sign up to self-improvement blogs for updates by email.
43. Write a list of 10 little things that you’ve been meaning to fix/clean/tidy up around the house for ages. Do the first 3 right away.
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