It is the time of the year, again, when we break open our shiny new planners and start dreaming big. Next year will be different! I can feel it! Of course, as the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So, this year, I would like to invite you to try something different!

“When you can’t change the direction of the wind – adjust your sails” is an inspirational quote from writer H. Jackson Brown, Jr. It has depth and meaning if things are going on in the life that you cannot control.

The only issues you can change are the ones over which you have some control. Therefore, you need to find a way to adjust your sails and look to the future rather than spending more time on what is not working.

When a sailor knows a storm is coming from a particular direction, he or she will adjust their sails and let the wind blow them in the opposite direction. Remaining...

The Christmas holiday season is supposed to be a wonderful time for you and your family. But, sometimes, the stresses leading up to the holidays make it seem like quite the opposite. Remember that there are ways to enjoy yourself and survive the holiday crunch even in poor economic times.

Saving Money

Chances are you will be spending money during this holiday season. Through careful planning, you can make a small budget go quite a long way.

Consider the following holiday money-saving suggestions:

1. Conserve Throughout the Year. Most women let the holidays creep up on them. Suddenly, they realize it is only weeks before the holidays, and they need to start preparing. You cannot pull money out of nowhere, and you should resist the urge to put all of your purchases on credit. If you have done this in the past, you know first hand that you may still be paying for last year's gift charges for years!

* Try automatically withdrawing a small sum of money from every paycheck...

Every woman has areas of life where there is a lack of organization. Whether at home or the office, we misplace things and cannot find items when we need them because we are not orderly.

What happens when systems are not put into place?  What if an organizing system is not established? Well things get lost, chaos ensues, and you lose time looking for stuff! I have multiple businesses and do animal rescue. My schedule is nuts.

Now, more than ever, it is crucial for us to stay organized! Here are hacks for you that I use to keep myself and my businesses as organized as possible and I promise will save you time (and maybe a little sanity!) 

Being organized is a great help with time management. Declutter both home and office before attempting to tackle keeping organized and managing time better.

     1. Forget complicated systems.

Any systems you use for organizing that take a lot of time to...

Disruptions are giant time thieves in your life. Have you ever considered how many hours are stolen from your days by other people or situations barging into your schedule?

Tips to help you better manage disruptions:

1. Make time during every aspect of your day for the interruptions that we all experience.

You will never have a single day not disrupted by something unexpected. This is usually what throws women off course. It breaks your concentration, making it harder for you to get the flow back.

If you are at work and a coworker pops in for “just a minute,” you will observe that it repeatedly takes a lot of time. Before you know, an hour passes, and you cannot get time back.

You want to give time for these interruptions by looking at your day and figuring out how much time to devote to disturbances. For instance, if someone walks in your department, you can tell them, “I’m working on a project. I can only spare ten...

Women must make good choices for many reasons, including having a greater sense of self, increasing confidence, and learning from experiences. But, becoming a better decision-maker involves taking risks and knowing that not every decision will be the best one.

Making mistakes is not necessarily a negative thing. It gives you more confidence in your ability to make decisions in the future based on those experiences. But, examining choices helps women make well-rounded decisions and grow as decision-makers.

Make Better Choices

A successful way to embark on a self-improvement journey is to make better choices. Women sometimes make choices without realizing they are making decisions that will impact their lives for the long run.

Maybe you have a weak record of decisions when trying to take care of yourself, but that does not mean it cannot change in 2020. Begin by applying both emotion and logic when you make choices.

No matter what it is you...

If a woman has a perfectionist personality, she wants all tasks to be completed flawlessly. These types of high achievers suffer more stress than women who are not perfectionists. When it comes to time management, believe it or not, perfectionism works against you.

1. Know that it is all right not to do it all.

Forget multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is synonymous with doing several jobs poorly at one time. That is very frustrating to someone with perfectionist tendencies.

You do not have to carry out everything in one day. Instead, concentrate on what is right in front of you that has to the earliest deadline first. Get that done, and then move on with the next task.

2. Give everything you do a time limit.

Whether you are a perfectionist or not, this is a good rule of thumb for any woman looking for better time management. Open-ended tasks tend to pile up because there is no finish line.

If you look at the whole picture of what is left undone, it can feel overwhelming...

There is a common misconception that optimistic women are a particular breed and always make the right choices when handling their emotions. But a negative mindset forms when a woman consistently gives in to the negative thoughts that will naturally pop up for all of us.

On the other hand, a positive mindset starts when a woman consciously tries to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. So, all that it takes is some effort. You need to put negative thoughts to the back of your mind and strive to find the positive in any situation.

Have a Growth Mindset

This is needed to end everything that ever holds you back from bettering your life. With just your mind, you can affect how your day will go, how you will feel about the circumstances you encounter, and the overall outlook about your future.

The mindsets you hold come naturally, which means most women do not even realize how they conduct themselves. A first step is to recognize the type of...

Give Up Procrastination

When tasks feel overwhelming or provoke anxiety, they are often avoided. Women put off tasks because they do not believe they will enjoy them and want to avoid making themselves unhappy, or fear they will not do the tasks well.

Definition from Oxford Languages https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Procrastination is a barrier to self-improvement.

You will start the diet tomorrow. You will set boundaries after this next family vacation. You will change your negative habits when you have more money, time, or a better life situation. Procrastination becomes your habit.

When you realize how it happens you can replace it with a better habit. This is the key understanding to help us overcome...

Take Healthy Risks

It is human nature to reach your comfort zone and remain there. This can take place in all parts of your life. You can get to a certain point with your finances, health, relationships, and weight, and you remain for the long haul since change is risky. But sometimes, you need to accept change for growth.

Growth means you may have stretch. It would be best if you reached outside your comfort zone. Usually, when women sense a challenge to step away from what is known and leave it behind, they start to retreat.

Women all have perspectives on what is attainable and what is out of their reach in our personal and professional lives. But, taking risks and making mistakes are essential learning experiences. And healthy risk-taking can build confidence!

You might list dozens of ways why it is better to stick with what you know than dive into that unknown. You may want to go back to school or start your own business, and you have...

Sometimes women hold onto a habit simply because it is something they have always done or how they have thought for years. An example of this would be saving money and controlling your finances but consistently blowing your budget on the spur of the moment buys.

You may very well think one way and even acknowledge out loud that you want to break a bad habit, but then you turn right around and give in to behaviors that sabotage your aspirations. You know what you are doing (or not doing) that holds you back from living your best life.

It is not easy to tackle the worst part about yourself. But if you do not acknowledge what is going on with you, you will not alter it. Recognizing that self-defeating habit is where you start.

Recognize how it is keeping you back from experiencing your goals. For example, if you would like to go on a nice vacation but always spend your vacation fund, you sabotage your plan.

Once you identify that self-defeating habit, you...