Extreme Makeover--Me Edition

This week's question from Amber:

Show us your inspiration picture. Of yourself skinny, of yourself fat, of a celebrity that inspires you to keep going.

Firstly I joined a weight loss group at my church. The condition for joining is to start by paying $20. We weigh in weekly and if you gain you have to pay $2. If you MISS a weigh in, it is $5. The group meets for 12 weeks and at the end of that twelve weeks two people split the money in the pot. The one that has lost the most weight and the one that has lost the most inches. Before this group I actually lost a good amount of weight from August to December doing a HCG diet that my entire office was doing. It worked great and I plan to engage in it again. However it is EXCEPTIONALLY expensive i.e. $250 a month. I stopped when I got laid off from my job in December, started eating loads of

carbs and as a result gained all but 10 lbs back!

Not sure if any of you have ever heard of Dailplate.com but it is a great site that allows you to track your weight loss and is TOTALLY Free! It has the caloric count for just about any and everything you eat! It also has great support groups online too!

Now where I am today? I have not had a disciplined week at all. I have been eating only twice a day, only worked out ONE day last week. In spite of all of that, I lost 2 lbs – YIPPEE!!!. Now, I am deciding to be exceptionally open and share my weight. I want this journey to be open to all so you can share my victories and my defeats

. I weighed in at 230 lbs today during our weigh in.

This is a progress pic of me from when I was on HCG Weight Loss Program October of Last year!

Goals for this week:

Cook my lunch for the week on Sunday

Work out 4 days a week

Drink 100 oz of water a day

Log my progress on dailyplate.com

Extreme Makeover--Me Edition

I introduced my BFF Tecia to blogging and she has taken off with it! So proud of her! She met an online friend named Amber and I really like her blog so I am following to do the things below! Come join me!

Directions: Every week, you'll do a specific post on your blog in regards to Extreme Makeover--Me Edition.

----Pretty much, just update us on your progress. How did your week go? Did you struggle? How were you successful? Do you have any great tips? {I think it's also important to celebrate even little successes}

----Answer the specific question or topic that I pose each week.

After you've finished your post, view that specific post {either view your blog & click on the title of that post, or go 'edit posts' and 'view'}. Grab the url and post it into Mr. Linky. Simple as that!!

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This week's question...

"We're all here at EM:ME because we're unhappy with our bodies, or our health; there are things that we are trying to change.
But today you must share one thing with everybody that you absolutely love about yourself"

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT ME!

• MY SMILE
• MY ABILITY TO ENCOURAGE
• MY OPTIMISTIC SPIRIT
• MY CREATIVE SKILLS
• MY LOVE FOR PEOPLE

REFUSE to Entertain it!

Release the hurt.....

Release the fear.

Refuse to entertain your old pain.

The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life!

Objections

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

~Samuel Johnson~

Wordless Wednesday

A Motivational Gem from Jewel Diamond Taylor

"Do you believe you can be, have and do what you dream and desire?
Once you have a clear vision of what you what to experience in your life…
your goals are the steps you take to realize your vision.
You can only receive what you see yourself receiving.

If you don't believe you are worthy, capable, ready and qualified,
you are already defeated.
Be committed and proactive with your goals. Be consistent and persistent.
Opportunity may knock once, but distractions and temptation will always bang
on your front door. Call forth the courage, faith, energy and discipline you need
to make your goals and dreams a reality."
From the desk of


"There is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill,
something you are to do, which no one else can do."
~ Plato, The Divine Design

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"Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for,
even where there isn't the slightest sign of it in sight."
~ Florence Scovel Shinn
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"Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way."
~ Native American saying


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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."
~ Robert Brault

Unique Commodities

Is your PRIMARY focus IPA’s (Income Producing Activities)?

Ok let’s face it, we all have a million things we feel we need to do or want to do in a day, week month, etc! Fact is though when our days are consumed by all the enormous list of things we are focused on getting done, the “true money maker” often times gets ignored or put on the back burner! Hey I know I am guilty because my 6 most important things to do list is about two pages long!! Not to mention that there have been days where I spent hours in the forums chatting, looking and admiring others new product posts and getting nothing done that as a result of doing it will produce income (that is the definition of IPA’s). I am talking tangible products or if you offer a service than something one can read, see or reach the service you offer through!

I have shared on this blog before that I used to be a Mary Kay consultant and we had this AWESOME IPA’s weekly tracking sheet for consultants! I don't know how to attach excel files to blogger so I can't show you the sample file here but feel free to ask me and I will send it to you! We had to write out your goals for the week and the IPA’s you would do to make sure you reached those goals. Boy did my director stay on my back but it taught me discipline and how to focus on what a TRUE IPA was at least for Mary Kay!

I created my own variation of the MK worksheet and will gladly share it as well as well. How this can be used will be different for each person. Of course you also need to have a determined number of hours each week that you are committed to your business. For me it is 20 hours a week. I wrote what my weekly goals were and what I would do to reach those goals. I make sure that I spend a minimal amount of time doing NON IPA activities like administrative tasks i.e. inventory, abundance chatting whether it be on the phone or on forums, etc.

I also break down my goals/focus as follows:

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT consistent even remotely at following through on this thus the reason I felt compelled to write about it! I am working towards it though!

1. No more than 2.5 a week on NON IPA activities i.e. Admin work, inventory control, etc (sometimes this means either paying someone else to do these tasks or doing it during your non business hours)
2. No more than 4.0 hours a week on advertising and marketing ( I consider these to be indirect IPA’s as they promote the opportunity to create income as a result of doing them). Examples of advertising and marketing for me is blogging, EC Drops
3. Spend remaining 13.5 hours a week on direct IPA’s i.e. making jewelry, photographing, editing and posting items.

Using this worksheet I first wrote out what my IPA’s were for the week. An example of some IPA’s (both indirect and direct) in my current venue are:

1. Make 2 jewelry pieces a day (10 a week)

2. Blog on Unique Commodities Blog (6 days a week)

3. Blog on Indiscriminate musings blog (4 days a week)

4. Do 200 EC drops 5 days a week (1000 drops a week)

5. Photograph jewelry and edit photos

6. Post jewelry items made to Crobbies

7. Post jewelry items made to Etsy

8. Post jewelry items made to Bonanzle

At the end of the week, I evaluate my business! Did my activities support my goals for the week? Why or why not? Reassess , tweak where necessary and keep it moving!