ColumnResolutions: Just like to-do lists, only impossible!

The season of cocktail parties and last-minute dinners with friends before we all trek back to our respective homesteads (or wing like hell in the opposite direction) is upon us. Inevitably, someone will ask what your New Year’s resolutions are. You will have already thought about how you are going to perfect your life ever further in the coming year, perfect it compassionately and positively and joyously, in explicit detail in both your new moleskine purchased for just this purpose (drunken scrawls), as well as in Excel which you hate but admit is kind of useful sometimes (alphabetized goals), but all this you will keep to yourself, because in response you’ll laugh with the loveliest measured nonchalance and murmur something mindful Meryl Streep or a person who has found her bliss would murmur, something about slow food or slow presents. “Conscious resolution is revelatory in a way that regular old resolutions could simply never be!” your organic milk-fed countenance will say without saying a thing.

Resolutions are fine things if they are extraordinarily selfish, one-off, low dose, so easy a Kardashian could do it, or recklessly nice just because. For instance: You should resolve to have more sex. To eat some very fresh food. To save an animal. To save a friend. To leave the house clad in real shoes always, because sneakers are for the gym. To write down all the things you want to accomplish in the next decade, and choose just two for this year. To let the smile show in your eyes. To stop saying “totes.” To find a yoga class without a woman who moans her ohms like her mat is equipped in a way yours isn’t. All lovely things to achieve in this grand new annum.

Then there are all the other things.

Resolutions Not to Make in 2012

1. Lose weight.

Just stop right there. Not going to happen. You know how I know? This was your resolution last year. And the year before that. In fact, every single year for as long as you can remember being aware of your weight, or, third grade for girls, age 45 for boys. Personal trainers and lifestyle coaches will recommend that you get more specific to get results. Aim for dropping a dress size, or 10 pounds, or 5% of your body fat, they say. I say success starts with setting the bar so low you could trip on it. Consider three pounds. Three pounds is a week of no carbs. Three pounds is walking around your town for three hours, thrice. Maybe just twice. Three pounds can even be a satisfying bowel movement after a fibrous dinner of zesty uncaloric nightshades. Three pounds: You can do this.

No one else will notice, but you sure will, and since all your friends really want is for you to stop talking about how skinny you used to be that one time before they ever knew you, everyone wins.

2. Pay off your debts.

I always say that if I had real money I’d buy all the landfills in the world, because someone is going to figure out how to turn dirty trash into clean energy and get, well, filthy rich. Perhaps our debt-burdened world will strike upon some similar Eureka formula whereby all debt becomes highly valuable to the people owing it instead of the people gaming it. In the meantime, resolve to drink. Kidding! Resolve to get real. The student loans, the mortgage, the car, the second mortgage, the second car, the credit cards, the stray bank charge on the account you opened on Maui three years ago because they don’t have Wells Fargo and you forgot about it: Forgive yourself. We are a nation of forgivers. We forgive Wall Street, we forgive television, we forgive Donald Trump his hair and Newt Gingrich his head, we can forgive you.

Choose the smallest debt, divide by 12, automate checking transfers to your savings account you’ve set up just for this, and get back to work on banishing the use of “totes” from your life.

4. Learn to/take up/get into/go to classes for those seventeen things you’ve always thought you would be good at and should be good at because that guy you can’t stand but can’t unfollow on Twitter is.

Painting, singing, the Barre method, skiing, kayaking, bouldering (it’s harder than rock climbing), raising your Klout score, the art of tea, HTML5, Mandarin, never again needing to look up the meaning of sui generis, artistic welding, knitting in a hipster way not a housewife way, riding, hey how about a Century?, pasta from scratch, finally understanding and enjoying Brahms, ikat upholstery, poker, why not a tournament?, curing pork products at home, paintball, sky-diving, Tantric sex, coed club baseball, writing a novel, plus all the other things that in fact require years of practice and learning to approach basic proficiency, nevermind professional status. Definitely at least 17.

In 2012, resolve to: Take one, lone “class.” Attend one, new “thing.” Visit one, other “place”. If you can manage all that in the space of 12 short months while working, living, loving and doing, I’ll know you’re also the one who lost three pounds. Gold star.

5. Sign up for the gym.

A time-honored tradition in our country, a whale of a deal, practically a steal! Just $49 a month forever. Propping up the gym bubble adds millions to the GDP, while deducting nothing from the BMI. Do you dream about the gym? Do you miss the ritual of wiping down the handles of the Stairmaster with Pine Sol spray because the guy on it before you left a flash flood of sweat in the cup holder? Do you find yourself just hanging around the gym at 5 a.m. on a Saturday in August, wishing it were open? No? Don’t sign up for the gym.

6. Drink less.

If you have to say it, it’s not going to happen. How about worry less and drink more…of other things? Drinking is a sign of boredom. (Unless you are an alcoholic, in which case, doctor, now.) Change up friends, change up activities, change up how you spend your evenings, just change up some old thing. The drinking will change itself. No resolution required.

7. Find true love.

“You should really date more.” “So, have you tried online dating?” People. I know of a handful of happy marriages – not perfect marriages, but really happy ones, the ones that don’t make me fear marriage, the ones that don’t come like a box set of Barbie Never Orgasms But Gave Up on It Years Ago So Her Face Is Set to Permafreeze and Ken Makes Joking Digs About Balls and Chains But Boy Is He an Amazing Dad to Get Back at Barbie. Anyway. The happy ones, to the last, all happened instantly: boy met girl or girl met boy or boy met boy or what have you, and that was that. There was no trying in any case. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work at finding true love like some people garden their resumes, I’m just saying we shouldn’t work at finding true love. You’re a whole hunk of lovely love. A rock, if you will, and someone will soon turn it over and find the adorable creeping and crawling flaws underneath, and hug them and squeeze them (but not too hard), and name it Love. It’ll happen. I promise.

(Although I’m not going to make a resolution about it for you. Like I want to be responsible for dooming your chance at love in 2012.)

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

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P.S. A special hello to one Starre Vartan. We love you.

When you’re at the end of your rope, maybe it’s because of hope.

Hope: noun, verb.
• the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
• a person or thing in which expectations are centered.
• a four letter word that doesn’t amount to much.

Every word you speak or think lands somewhere – it’s heard by you (and if not consciously, certainly by your unconscious mind), by the people around you, by the Dream Fairy, The Universe, The Powers That Be.

So what kind of message does the word “hope” send out? How is Life, or your boss, or your partner supposed to interpret “hope?” Hope doesn’t tell anybody where you really stand on an issue. It doesn’t holler, Go get ‘em! or declare I wholeheartedly believe! or I’ll do whatever it takes.

Hope hangs out on the sidelines…just, you know, hoping. While expectation, optimism, and pragmatism are on the field playing the sport of life. Full on.

Maybe hoping is for sissies.
And if that’s true, than intention and faith are for heroes.

What if you banned the word hope from your vocabulary? Try this hope-replacement exercise. How do you feel with each of these statements?:

• “I hope I’ll get the job.” BZZZZT! Reframe it.
• “I really want to get the job.” (“Point taken,” says the Universe.)
• “I’m praying to get that job.” (Prayer is an action too.)
• “I have done all that I can do to get the job.” (Yes! Stand tall.)
• “I will either get the job, or I won’t.” (Precisely. Now you can get on with your day.)
• “I expect to end up with a job that I love.” (Excellent! Open-ended and affirmative!)

Do a Hope List. What are you hoping for? Opportunity to knock? The outcome to be positive? The test results to be negative? Replace “hope” with action words, reality words, intentional, faith-bounding, wide-open, change-agent hero words.

There are too many variables out of our control, yet many variables firmly within our control. It’s foolish to plant big desires on the sands of hope. It’s amazing what happens when you decide to not lean on hope (tho’ you may go through withdrawals at first, not having hope as dream-filler can be profoundly uncomfortable.)

When you move beyond hope, you take responsibility. You face facts. You see solutions that you didn’t see before. You stand in the present.

Hope less. Realize more.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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We’re counting on you.

Rachel Crow is fourteen and she can sing. You’ll cry happy, cheer-leading tears when you watch this video.

The gem of this comes at the end of the clip and it’s easy to miss. I had to watch this twice to catch it. SPOILER ALERT: When Rachel gets four thumbs up from the judges (yeah!) and there is wild applause and cheers, she says something so important:

“Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

Thank you. I won’t let you down.

This is the most humble and courageous phrase you can speak when life opens the door wide for you — which it does every day.

You’re up for it. You’re grateful. You see the gift and you realize you can’t do it alone.

With this: Thank you. I won’t let you down, you rise to the occasion.

There are so many people believing in you. Backing you up, saying prayers, taking your call, saying yes.

Dream realizing is reciprocal. Sometimes, when someone believes in you, you are honor bound to go for it.

Say it. Believe it. Hear it (from my heart to yours).

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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It’s time to get whelmed instead.

Your plate is full, right?
You’ve been at this for a while.
Life is your kind of kuh-raz-eee.

And then it gets fuller, and the time has come, or there’s a curve-ball, and things get well n’ truly wild.

And you could say, because it’s your right to, that you’re feeling “overwhelmed”. But don’t. Don’t go there. Stay with me, on the light side of change and bursting creativity; on the front end of pressure, and greatness, and the best and worst kinds of challenges.

Back away from overwhelm. Because when you just utter that word, you cast doubt on your capacity to rise. You let angst flop on your couch. You fret that you might not have the resources to surmount obstacles or to seal the deal on your dream.

Let’s make a pact. If you slip and use the o-word, I’ll refuse to believe you. I’m going to act like you didn’t even say it, and I’m going to remind you that

: you put everything on your plate with intention, and you have a huge say in creating your reality.

: you’ve been watering your dreams for years and you’re going to get what you ask for and allow (ya!)

: tragic circumstances or a circus of success — you’ve got what it takes to meet life with more giving.

Ban “overwhelmed” from your vocabulary. Refuse it entry to your psyche. You’re bigger than that.

Just be, you know, whelmed (this is best said with a Jewish, Brooklyn accent.)

Whelmed. Not at full capacity, rather, full of capacity.

Whelmed. Sounds full of potential, doesn’t it?

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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On letting go of your dreams.

Louise* and Lance* were best friends. Just friends, never so much as smooched. They were roommates, they got drunk at concerts together, they slept in the same tent, exchanged great Christmas presents. Lance dated other people. Louise was in love with Lance. Plain as day, we all could see it. Well, maybe someday Lance will get it.

Twelve years went by. New partners and holidays came and went. It was good n’ truly time for Louise to lay down the torch. She decided make a pitch. This is the crescendo of all romantic comedies where the protagonist decides to go for it:

It is 4 a.m. and we’ve all been dancing at a fabulous wedding. Louise and Lance are slow dancing as the DJ starts packing up. There is a small audience of us in the corner table balancing Stella bottles and wearing neckties around our heads. “Oh…my…I think she’s going for it,” one of the cast says. We lean in to gawk, trying to read their lips.

Sure enough, with heart in hand and Cabernet courage, Louise makes her overture. Do you think we could make a go of it? Lance listened. He’s a great guy. He listened softly. And softly he said: “If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.”

Truth bomb. Gently dropped.

If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

Even destiny has an expiry date. This is such primal wisdom. I’m all for relentless dreaming and fierce faith. But if you’re spending an overly long time trying to wish, hammer, hope, push and ploy things into form, maybe it’s time to point your dream in another direction. If a crop isn’t growing, the farmer doesn’t keep wasting water and fertilizer on it. He yanks it out, tills the soil and plants a whole new kind of seed.

Let ‘em go. Kill the project. Shut down a division. And take that same longing for love, or creative fulfillment, or phat cash and face forward!

Here’s the key dance move:

Hold on to the core desire of the dream – that feeling you want to feel when the dream is realized, but shift to a wholly new target. Change directions and a new form of satisfaction could be right around the corner.

…just like it was for Louise. She got on with her life. And fell in love with someone who fell crazy in love with her – easy breezy and right away.

*names have been changed to protect the identity of the temporarily heartbroken.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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QuoteDaily quotes at EcoSalon.

“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”  – Vincent van Gogh

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QuoteDaily quotes at EcoSalon.

“Friendship is a sheltering tree.” – Samuel Coleridge

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There’s a moment in the third season of The West Wing where President Jed Bartlet declares that stress is something that happens to other people. Sadly, many of us are holding ourselves to the same harsh standard with devastating consequences for our health.

Stress is a natural physical reaction and it’s useful - the problem is that in modern life we don’t give our bodies time to recuperate. Instead we subject it to yet more stress and the cumulative effect can lead to health problems such as high blood pressure or poor digestion.

My wake-up call came recently when I fainted at a public event (this one) and was carted off to the hospital in an ambulance (thankfully at no cost since I live in the UK and it’s all covered by the National Health Service). The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me whatsoever and I can only conclude that it was my body’s way of telling me to look after myself.

When I stopped to think about it, I knew that I’d been feeling stressed for some time. Everyone has stresses in their life – the recession and financial problems is a big one for many people at the moment, while life events such as redundancy, divorce and moving home rank right up there, as well. The biggest stress in my life is organising my wedding, which is less than a month away now.

For me the idea of wellness and ecology are intrinsically linked. If I’m wound tight with stress, I’ll inevitably go for the fastest or easiest option and not necessarily the greenest one. I’m more likely to order take-out because I’m not in the mood for cooking or catch a cab because I’m running late.

I might feel guilty about it but guilt is not a productive emotion. On the other hand, a more peaceful and relaxed state of mind gives me the space to make eco-friendly choices. If I nurture myself, I can nurture others and the world around me and I can practice compassion and creativity.

I started making changes to alleviate stress on my own and then last week I went to a workshop on understanding stress at the Neal’s Yard Remedies store in Covent Garden (NYR sells natural, organic beauty product and treatments at stores in the UK and through their online stores in the US and Japan).

I thought I’d share with you the changes I’ve made and what worked and what I’m yet to try. In this post I’ll write about the changes I initiated on my own and I’ll do a follow-up post to share what I learnt at the workshop.

1. Diet: I already eat a healthy diet but I’ve made more of an effort to focus on nutrition so that I have the energy to deal with stressful events. I eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat protein and I’ve cut out most sweets and fried foods and limited my coffee intake. Bonus – this will also help me look better in my wedding dress!

2. Exercise: I find exercise is a highly effective stress-reliever. You might be tempted to skip it if you’re feeling tired but actually it gives you more energy because it gets the oxygen circulating and triggers your body to release endorphins. I’d been slacking off a bit so I picked it up again. I like to run, but walking is also very good exercise and a great way to clear your head. I don’t like the gym but I do find exercise DVDs can be a godsend at this time of year when it’s cold out. I also resumed my morning yoga practice – just a simple 10-minute routine but I could feel it dissipating the stored tension in my neck and shoulders within days.

3. Vitamins: My iron levels are slightly below par (although this was not the reason for the faint). I already eat plenty of iron-rich food and making further changes to my diet wasn’t practical so I started taking an iron and vitamin C supplement (vitamin C helps your body absorb iron and, hey, it’s also good for you).

4. Sleep: I started going to bed earlier. My new rule is no computer after 9pm and I’m trying to get to bed by 10pm or 10.30pm most nights. I can operate on less sleep but I feel so much better with more. It doesn’t have to be a permanent change but it’s helping me right now.

5. Productivity: A major source of stress is my own ill-discipline – I am the world’s best procrastinator. I obviously can’t blow off my work nor the wedding preparations, so I’ve been trying to work more effectively instead. Wasting time doesn’t get my work done, it just leaves me less time to do it, and hence adds to my stress. I find the Getting Things Done system helpful and I’ve also tried to curb my addiction to tools such as Twitter.

6. Treats: We all know that all work and no play makes you dull and it doesn’t do anything for your stress levels either, so I’ve been making sure I schedule in fun things with friends and loved ones. I also went for a remedial massage – Neal’s Yard Remedies offers cut-price treatments with its graduates once a week, and I picked up the leaflet for the workshop while I was there. I’ve also enjoyed small treats like a bubble bath or a few squares of dark chocolate.

What are your top tips to deal with stress? Please share with us in the comments section.

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Forget New Year’s Resolutions that make everything harder and more complex. Why is it always about doing more? Can we all do less for a change? It’s time for a serious paring down; a hard core detox. It’s time for simplifying.

There’s nothing super about being a superwoman. So, with the beloved holidays behind us and tax deadlines still somewhat comfortably in the future, it’s a good time of year to lose a bad habit, ditch a possession or expense, and just let go of whatever could be holding you back or costing you cash. Besides, in this recession, who doesn’t want to lighten the load a bit? Welcome to lifestyle improvement for lazy girls (or, if you’re like me, just way-too-busy girls).

Here are some practical tips to get you started in your quest for a free afternoon or an extra dollar:

Cook more. Eat out less. This one is first on the list because I may be the worst offender, and I’ve run out of excuses. EcoSalon has made it so easy to cook, by showering posts with recipes and culinary cues galore.

Eat vegetarian. Skip meat and dairy as often as your palette allows. If you’re a regular reader, you know that veggie doesn’t mean tofu or the poor house, not by a long shot.

Learn to sew. I don’t mean buy a Singer. If you can thread a needle, you can sew a button or repair a hem. Try it rather than driving to the tailor across town and forking over hard-earned money.

Give up the gym membership. Gyms are so 20th century anyway! Why not start a walking or running group with friends? Go for a hike, a walk on the beach or a stroll through the woods. Unless you frequent the facility at least 4 times a week, give it up. There are easier ways to break a sweat, and they can be a lot more fun.

Buy an espresso machine. Lose the Grande Latte. This one sounds brutal, but really”¦there was a time, in a galaxy far, far away, when all corners weren’t covered with coffee shops. Make your latte at home.

Purchase a water purifier. Say no to bottled water. End of story. This is one of the worst and most expensive daily habits, as well as the easiest to rectify. And while you’re at it – why not quit the soda habit?

Speaking of habits…

Quit smoking, stop tanning, start flossing, or… Bad habits cost mucho dinero, and the health and environmental risks – you already know. Alcohol consumption is another good thing to cut back on or quit.

Are you still with me? This isn’t a walk in the park, I know, but just try a few at a time.

Organize a pot luck dinner. Instead of a late night out spending money on over-priced drinks and valet parking, invite your friends over, asking each to bring a favorite dish or drink. Encourage them to walk (if possible), avoiding all sorts of trouble and saving gas.

Pack a lunch. Eating out 5 days a week adds up to almost $200 a month ($10 per day). Yes, it takes extra time to fill a recycled lunch bag with goodies for the day. But if you do it while cleaning up after dinner the night before, you’ll be sure to use leftovers rather than let them go bad in the back of the fridge.

Plan a weekly menu. Spending about one hour per week to do this will save time and money. It creates an instant grocery list, so you’ll avoid throwing extra items in the cart. It may even help remedy the daily “Crap! I forgot something!” wasted trips to the market.

Buy bulk and split the goods. Again, gather a group of friends and combine your lists. Take turns traveling to Costco and doing the shopping. Get together and split everything up.

Start using cash. Put away the plastic (keep for emergencies only) and instead purchase everything with cash. A debit card is considered cash, by the way.

Cancel subscriptions. Read your newspapers and magazines online. Read them at the doctor’s office. And if you must have a favorite delivered to your home, reuse it as wrapping paper or recycle it.

Unplug. Are you a slave to communication technology? Try turning it off for an hour (or two) and notice the quiet. Enjoy.

Go paperless. Automate all your bills and never miss a due date. And never buy another stamp!

Turn down the heat. Have you noticed your sky-high utility bill lately? Put on a sweater or add another layer rather than crank up the temperature. Apply the same concept (reversed) in the summer with the air conditioning.

Never shower alone. Yes, that’s what I said. Wash two people with one shower. Save water (and have fun) by lathering up with your significant other.

Join Netflix. With no shipping costs or overdue charges, this is the best way to save money on movies, next to not going at all.

Cancel extra cable channels. Do you really watch the hundreds of channels you pay for each month? Cutting back here will save money and (hopefully) time because you just may watch less television. Consider getting rid of T.V. all together. It’s not as terrible as you think (especially because now you can catch so many shows online).

Ride a bike or walk. Whenever possible, say no to parking meters, parking tickets and parking garages.

Get a library card. This sounds so old fashioned when you consider all the online options to swap and buy used, but there’s nothing simpler and more affordable than the library. Your local branch is probably somewhere along your route to work or school.

Regularly purge and donate. Clean out basements or garages or closets and give everything you don’t need or use to a local thrift store or charity. Less is more.

Reuse or repurpose. Before buying anything new, look around your home for ways to make it with stuff you already have. Make sure it isn’t lost in the bottom of that messy junk drawer.

Shop vintage. This is not only cost-effective but fun. EcoSalon loves second-hand boutiques and swapping clothes with friends. You can find amazing mid-century furniture, rare pottery and cookingware, and designer handbags – just for starters. Try it and watch your creative juices sizzle and your pocketbook fatten.

Practice saying no. Once in a while, see how it feels to turn down an invitation or a favor request. Your yeses don’t mean as much if you never say no. Keep the time free that you would be using.

Give up on keeping up with the Jones’. It isn’t worth it in the long run. He who dies with the most luxury items doesn’t really win anything”¦at all. He just pays more bills and accumulates debt and worries a lot and suffers from health problems.

What do you do to simplify and save?

Images: Mr. Happy, bensonkua, wakalani, theBlackBrian, preciouskhyatt, gitsul., stopnlook, William Hook, mugley, wnorrix, daviddesign, darwinbell, studiosmith, Problem Solver

Chronic complainer? We’ve got the cure.

My life is good. And compared to millions of people around the world in very unfortunate circumstances, my life is very, very good. But despite the love, health and prosperity I am so lucky to have, I still find it pretty easy to tumble into a downward spiral of the gripes.

While ranting about one of my “problems” to a friend, she interrupted me and said “Keep a gratitude journal.” And that was it. I knew what I had to do.

Later that night I pulled out a notebook and simply wrote down something I was grateful for that day. And then I added a line about my husband, something I was grateful for about him. I did it the next night, and the next. Amazingly, within a few days I found I was complaining less and focusing on all that was truly wonderful in my life. It’s such a simple cure – and it’s free!

So here’s your prescription: write two lines, and call me in the morning.

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