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!

Tonight, a very good friend of mine made the same painful observation. He said that I was the kind of person with a lot of excuses. That I wasn’t happy with my relationships, my career, or myself. But what was I doing about it? I was content to play the victim to my circumstances and to be a martyr in my relationships. The words stung. They landed in my lap and burned.

He was right.

What kind of self-improvement writer is credible when her own life is in shambles? I never said that I was a self-improvement writer, I argued. Another excuse. I said that I was going to help myself and blog about it so that I could help others. But how could I help others–advise them, counsel them, encourage them–if I wouldn’t help myself? It simply wasn’t possible.

He was right.

Look, I’m no Steve Pavlina or Leo Babauta. I’m just a person who wants to improve and impart whatever help I can to other people. But all of my struggle to get people to subscribe to this blog or to follow me on Twitter is absolutely meaningless unless I can stop being chickenshit and get some things done.

That’s the reality in life–until you are willing or able to be an example–to set a standard for the things that are important to you, you can’t help other people. You’re horrible with money. How will you give to charity? You overeat and never exercise. How will you teach your children to eat a balanced diet? You’re constantly late to work. How can you hold your employees accountable?

Whether we like it or not, we are always on stage. Our behaviors and our habits tell people who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, and who we are not. Helping others, in any way, first requires us to help ourselves.

This is what Steve Pavlina says about personal development, and believe me, it’s a bitch, but it’s true:

Personal development is hard work. It takes time, consistency, and patience. If you’re…looking for shallow quick fixes and you aren’t interested in real, lasting change, [his blog] isn’t the right place for you.

Damn! Now that’s tough love, but he’s right. He figured out a long time ago that he couldn’t help others without doing the work. Which brings me to another point. I see no reason for me to re-create the wheel. There is a plethora of great information out there in the world. I’ll go in search of it and bring the best of it back here to test it. In the process, my greatest desire is that I will improve my work, life and habits and say that the life I lived was a spectacular one.

I’ve decided to start with The Seven Pillars of Health, by Dr. Don Colbert. This is a 50 Day guide to better health based on the seven pillars of wellness: water (intake), sleep and rest, living food, exercise, detoxification, nutritional supplements and coping with stress.

I’ll start with a 30 day program. At the end, I’ll evaluate it and then determine whether to continue or to move on to a new action item.

Interested in completing the first 30 days of The Seven Pillars of Health? Subscribe to this blog by email and leave a comment about this post. I’ll randomly select one winner to receive a free copy of the book!

Health Care.

You can sum up my disappointment with the Obama Administration in two words. Health. Care.

I was a Hillary supporter early on, but like many African-Americans, I was absolutely energized after Obama won the New Hampshire primary. I read every piece of literature that I could find, immersed myself in pages and pages of web articles, blog posts and Obama campaign documents. Here was a candidate who would finally change the status quo, I thought. I was proud to lend him whatever small amount of support that I could.

It was clear to me then that he was a candidate that I could get behind, not because of his race, but because he could win. I threw myself into the campaign: knocking on doors, making phone calls–even convincing my long-time Clinton-loving parents to learn more about him and to finally vote for him.

On election night, sitting in a living room with my friend’s aging parents who had immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, I cried. Together, we danced. We screamed. We thanked God for the victory.

It’s hard to believe that was just a year ago.

Today, I feel deflated and disillusioned, and I am wondering if I all that talk of hope and change was a sham. Civility in Washington? Nope. Accountability? Nope. Transparency? Fuggedaboudit. I waited for President Obama to drop the hammer on Republicans, to roll up his sleeves, and dig into the health care debates. This might be the only chance in my lifetime to set the groundwork for a “more perfect union,” I thought. What I saw instead was bailed-out Wall Street banks and an inept, fat-cat, Wall Street-connected treasury secretary making a mockery of the his campaign philosophy. What the eff had happened? Where was the public option? Where was the hope? Where the hell was the change?

I don’t regret voting for President Obama. Regret is a useless emotion. Like all decisions that I later have to re-evaluate, I understand that I made the very best decision that I could at the time with the information that I had. But what President Obama must realize is that the American people–in large part because of him–are more educated and more interested in their government. Unfortunately, we don’t much like what we see.

I know what you’re thinking – this has nothing to do with helping yourself meet your goals to become a better “you.”

But it does. Like never before, we must remember that change – true change – is up to us. We can and MUST change the world, with or without President Obama’s help, with our own two hands.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he gets tired of foolin’ around…

–Prince

It’s day eight of “becoming an ex” and I’ve hit a wall. I’m sputtering and about to stall. I know exactly what my triggers are, I know when and why I smoke, and I know how many cigarettes I smoke per day. What I don’t know is why I haven’t moved forward at all. I’m still averaging the same number of cigarettes a day and counting the minutes (10 minutes per car ride to be exact) to when I can light up.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s the point of this exercise.

Phase I – Identifying Your Triggers (3 days)

Phase II – Separation (5 days)

I suppose it’s time for the next step. Until now, I have been patting myself on the back. I have more self-control; I feel more in control of my addiction. But you can’t play with it. You can never forget that you’re NOT in control of your addiction: it’s in control of you.

The pragmatist in me says that I should keep tracking for two more days—make it an even two weeks since I started this process. But the realist in me knows that it’s time to move on, before I get to comfortable in my “self-control.” Besides, knowing and understanding addiction is not enough. Not when you want to conquer it.

I’ll spend the next three days re-learning addiction. From the website in this section:

Addiction is powerful. Quitting smoking is hard because your own brain is working against your efforts to quit. In this section, you’ll learn just HOW powerful addiction to cigarettes can be, and in later sections, you’ll learn some proven strategies to help you beat it.

Did I mention that she was also quite opinionated?

C’mon – would you have expected anything less? To make a long post a little shorter, I’ll get to the point. When I arrived, I had just smoked a cigarette. As I am apt to do, I immediately apologized against her embrace. I detest the smell of smoke and know that most others do as well. My apology sparked a conversation on my Become An Ex program. Who knew? She was a smoker as well – back in the 80’s.

Encouraged, I started to tell her about the plan. First tracking and then separation. Her response took me aback.

“Instead of some half-assed attempt to quit, you need to just quit,” she said. “You need to just quit cold turkey, like I did. Eat lots of sunflower seeds and drink water. That’ll make you quit.”

Oh! Had I only known that it were so simple.

Advice on breaking a habit or an addiction is just like an asshole—everybody has one. Everyone can tell you how they did it, or condemn you for it, or tell you that your process is “half-assed,” but don’t listen. Continue to work your process, whatever it is.

I don’t know how many people have successfully quit smoking using the EX plan, but I do know from personal experience, that tracking your cigarettes works. Tracking your cigarettes really makes a difference and here’s why:

Tracking Cigarettes Forces Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be easiest summarized as thus: awareness. Mindfulness plays a central role in Buddhism. It is “is calm awareness of one’s body functions, feelings, content of consciousness, or consciousness itself.” This is at the root of tracking cigarettes, or any behavior that you are struggling with. Each time you light up, understanding that you will need to write down the cigarette, forces you to look at precisely when you are smoking, which is directly connected to your addiction. The “when and why” of smoking is a trigger.

Tracking Cigarettes Creates Hopefulness

At the onset of any program, you are acutely aware that there is a beginning and an end. Knowing that you are in the process helps to build a sense of optimism. You know that there will be an end to your addiction. And, as you learn more about the addiction, the “whens and whys” of the habit, you come to better understand yourself, which leads to compassion. Compassion replaces guilt; hope replaces fear.

Tracking Cigarettes Paints a Realistic Picture

Today, I realized that I had three empty packs of cigarettes in my car. That’s 60 cigarettes. If that was too abstract for me, I got the picture when I saw the number in black and white (well, actually “robin-egg” blue) on my daytum profile. I felt absolutely rotten. But remember, that rotteness (i.e., “guilt) was quickly replaced with compassion. This is what I had been doing, seemingly in the dark. I never had to face up to it. Now I did. I immediately started to devise a way to ensure that the new pack that I had just purchased, would be the last pack ever. I’m currently on Day 6 – which is separation. I’m still in “Separation” because I wanted to make sure to include the workweek. So, because of this, it’s time to up the ante and keep it movin’!

So, I’ve concluded that tracking your cigarettes isn’t a half-assed approach at all. In fact, this is a very, very important step in the process and I hope that if you are looking for an effective method to quit smoking, I can definitely endorse this method.

Overall, I believe that this is a good plan thus far and that it is working. I’m excited to continue on this journey.

I chose the EX program from becomeanex.org to help myself with this problem. I have tried the program before, but did not do my due diligence with all of the steps. I was impatient.  Because of this, I never quit smoking, and I never escaped the cycle of addiction: craving, gratification, worry and guilt. This time, I believe that I will be completely smoke free by the end of January 2010.

The Program

This program is broken up into three phases, and I’m in Phase I. This entails re-learning the habit, identifying your triggers and tracking your cigarettes for three days. This process has caused me to really focus on when, where and why I smoke. This sort of mindfulness is really helpful. It increases my level of confidence. Simply, by understanding the process of when, where and why I smoke, I have started to feel like I have some control over the process. Also, tracking my cigarettes, like I am doing with Daytum, really puts my habit into perspective for me and in plain view for all the world to see. I’m embarrassed and enlighted, disgusted and empowered. Hoo-rah.

Tomorrow is my last day of tracking. On January 1, I’ll start Phase II – Separation. More on this to come. For now, my goal is to make it through tomorrow without smoking more cigarettes than I smoked today. I’m not going to push myself to beat it—just not to exceed it. So far, though, I am super excited to be working this process.