And the winner, with number 247 is….KAMEKA! Way to go girl! You win a new Kleen Kanteen Water Bottle – complete with coozy! Just send me a message through Facebook with your contact information and I’ll get it out to you!

But WAIT…there’s more!

We actually had TWO Klean Kanteen Water Bottles to give away (see – this is why you should ALWAYS participate! you could get something for FREE!)! And the winner of the second bottle, with a number of 557 is…STACEY! Way to go! Same thing as above–just send me your address via Facebook and I’ll send you your prize!

Congratulations and thanks for doing the water challenge with me! I really think that 16oz per day is doable and that I can add this to my daily routine.

Next Week’s Challenge is SLEEP. The goal – for ONE WEEK is to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night. This week, though, I’ll have some action steps to help get you there.

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group to log your progress! Good luck!

It could be anything.

Stop thinking about it.

Do it.

On “Get Off Your Ass” Friday, all ya gotta do is one thing to get your a step closer to your [insert your goal, dream, plan, idea here]. And, I’d love to hear about it.

As we started out on our two-mile walk, though, I started to feel badly. Poor Max, I thought. He’s been cooped up in the house all week. I’ll just be patient today and let him sniff as much as he wants. After all, I needed to let a dog be a dog, right? And so, Max stopped at every tree and took his sweet time sniffing the snow and bark and dog poo. I started to become impatient. Max needed his exercise; otherwise, he would become a Tazmanian Devil once we got back home. So, I tightened up on the leash again.

Of course, this was just as disastrous. Now, Max, who had become accustomed to stopping and dallying for as long as he wanted, really started to pull. I spent the rest of the walk just trying to keep him in line so that we could both get a reasonable amount of exercise. Once I got back home, wiped the goop out of his eyes, it occurred to me that working on our bad habits is much like walking a bad-ass dog that you happen to adore. In order to be successful when we’re walking the “dog” of our bad habits, we have to remember three things: don’t start with too short a leash, don’t start to feel sorry for the dog, and once you begin the walk, stay focused.

Don’t Start With Too Short a Leash

When we begin to change our bad habits, we often severely restrict ourselves. Take caution with this approach. If we begin with a very taut leash, we become very frustrated with continuously reeling ourselves in and our “dog” natures become even more resistant to change. Instead, we have to be reasonable, gradually shortening the leash of our bad habits by changing our behaviors. For example, in the case of me and Max, I could start with a loose leash, gradually shortening it throughout the walk or throughout a series of walks. This would help Max to become used to a shorter leash without feeling so restricted (okay—so, I care about my dog. I’m no Cesar Milan, okay? I believe dogs have feelings too.) This is why many “quit smoking” programs encourage you to cut back before your quit or to start tracking cigarettes. Gradually, your “dog” nature starts to get the picture.

Don’t Start to Feel Sorry for the Dog

If there is one thing that I have learned from watching “It’s Me or the Dog” and “The Dog Whisperer,” it’s that dogs want to be disciplined. They need structure, and they require discipline in order to be happt. Dogs that do not have a clear “master/owner” can become very unstable. When they feel like they have to lead the pack, they can become overly aggressive or exhibit other behavioral problems. When we start to feel sorry for our dogs and to humanize them, we run into a lot of trouble. We start to feed them fast food, and they start to get diagnosed with human diseases. We give them too many treats, and they stop obeying our commands unless we give them something. We buy them expensive bedding and they rip it to shreds (Oh wait! How did that one get in there, Max? Oh, no. I’m not bitter at all.)

In the case of habits, feeling sorry for our dog “natures” is really about feeling sorry for ourselves. We feel like we deserve to [insert bad habit here]. So, we start to cater to our desires and not to be disciplined. Remember that like a dog, our inner man secretly wants to be disciplined. This is a universe of order and we desperately crave it.

Once You Begin the Walk, Stay Focused

If you start the walk on a short leash, keep the dog on a short leash – stay focused. The short leash means that you’re walking for exercise—that you’re staying on task. Sometimes, in the middle of the walk, you’ll find that the leash has gotten longer and your dog has strayed farther. No problem. It’s not too late to course correct. Simply take a deep breath, call your dog to his place and begin again. With some practice, course correction will become second nature for both of you.

With habits, I’ve found the same to be true. Once you make the decision to change, stick with it–no matter what. And when you find yourself in the middle of a bad habit, beating yourself up is not the appropriate course correct. Just take a deep breath, call your “dog” nature to his place and begin again. With time, you and your “dog” will be in sync. Maybe you’ll even be able to walk him off-leash.

It’s January 12. Do you know where your New Year’s resolutions are?

Hopefully, they’re not on that crumpled up piece of paper that I see in your circular file. Hopefully, they’re taped to your refrigerator, hanging from your mirror, or posted to your front door. If they’re not, and you’re feeling a little discouraged about your goal, take heart – you are not alone and it’s not too late.

Today, I was driving home from work and I realized that it was already January 12th. I was still fat; I was still a smoker, and I was no closer to any of my goals than I was on December 31, 2009. I started to feel badly about myself, chalking 2010 as another year of unrealized goals. Then, I realized something even more important than that: as long as I had breath, I had hope. It wasn’t too late and I refused to give up on myself.

If you’ve stalled out on your New Year’s resolutions like I have, don’t give up. The way I see it, we can either look at the last 12 days as wasted, piss on ourselves and throw a pity-party OR we can take a deep breath and get back to it.

Shift Your Paradigm

The hardest part of any self-improvement plan is finding a plan that works for you. For instance, one of my goals this year is to lose 40lbs. I’ve tried Weight Watchers in the past with some success, but the plan just doesn’t turn me on enough to stick with it. In fact, I’ve come to understand that no diet and exercise plan ever will. Instead, I have to focus on getting healthy (specifically, disease prevention), not losing weight.  It sounds like trickery or word-play, but my reality is that I have to commit to shifting my manner of thinking about losing the weight. Otherwise, I will never see and appreciate the trees (each individual pound that I lose). I will only see the forest.

Create an Anchor

When I think about my husband, my ridiculously cute puppy, my siblings and my parents, I feel even more empowered to meet my goals. My family is an anchor for self-improvement. I am not seeking to improve for them; I am seeking to improve because of them. The idea of being able to enjoy them for as long as possible in a healthy physical and mental state is a powerful motivator. So, one thing that I’ve done when struggling with my goals is to create an anchor.

Think about just one wonderful by-product of meeting one of your goals. It doesn’t have to be your family – it could be anything. For example, another one of my goals is to decrease our debt this year. A wonderful by-product of losing weight will be saving money. I won’t be spending money on fast-food lunches, premium coffees or junk food all day. So, as an anchor for losing weight, I can use something seemingly unrelated like decreasing debt. Each day that I save money by not spending it on fast food, I will be eating a healthier packed lunch. I can watch the money pile up while watching the pounds fall off. An anchor gives you something to latch on to when you need motivation. Let your anchor help to keep you focused on your goal.

Celebrate Each Victory

Imagine this scene: you go all day without smoking/drinking a soda pop/eating fast food. Then, someone really pisses you off. A cigarette/soda/fast food starts to sound pretty good. You buy cigarettes/soda/fast food to deal with the stress. Ahhh!

And then the guilt sets in. Now you’ve ruined everything. You’ll never change. You might as well keep smoking/drinking soda/eating candy.

It’s easy to throw yourself under the bus and give up quickly with one slip-up. Instead of beating yourself up over a slip-up that occurred in one hour, why not celebrate the eight hours that you made it sticking to your guns? Celebrate each small victory. Clap your hands. Stomp your feet. Sing at the top of your lungs: “I’m bad! I’m bad! Who’s bad?” Do whatever you need to do to celebrate  yourself. Build your self-confidence and just start again.

I believe in you.

We can do it.

It goes like this:

• Pick 6 habits for 2010.
• Pick 1 of the 6 habits to start with.
• Commit as publicly as possible to creating this new habit in 2 months.
• Break the habit into 8 baby steps, starting with a ridiculously easy step. Example: if you want to floss, the first step is just to get out a piece of floss at the same time each night.
• Choose a trigger for your habit – something already in your routine that will immediately precede the habit. Examples: eating breakfast, brushing your teeth, showering, waking up, arriving at the office, leaving the office, getting home in the evening.
• Do the 1st, really easy baby step for one week, right after the trigger. Post your progress publicly. (Read more.)
• Each week, move on to a slightly harder step. You’ll want to progress faster, but don’t. You’re building a new habit. Repeat this until you’ve done 8 weeks.
• You now have a new habit! Commit to Habit No. 2 and repeat the process.