Can You Quit Smoking for One Day?

Today, Thursday, November 17, is the annual Great American Smokeout organized by the American Cancer Society. For one full day, smokers across the country commit to going without a cigarette for a full 24 hours.

So what about you? Are you up for the challenge? I've never been a smoker myself, but I've talked to a number of women that confided that they wish they had the courage to quit. Like any habit you want to break, it's good to start with a list of reasons, benefits really, of changing your undesired habit. Possible reasons for quitting smoking could be:

• Fear of serious illness and a painful, untimely death
• Lingering colds and bronchitis
• Chronic, nagging cough
• Shortness of breath
• Smell on hair, skin, clothes, furniture, and inside your car
• Dulled sense of taste and smell
• Hypertension
• Dizziness or nausea from too many cigarettes
• Yellowish skin, teeth and fingernails
• Dry, chapped lips and scaly, dry skin
• Feelings of shame around non-smokers
• Time and money wasted by smoking
• Smoking outside in bad weather
• Cracking the car window in the rain
• Driving others away when lighting up
• Dry mouth and constant feelings of thirst
• Feeling "exiled" in the smoking area

Now go through the list and turn all these negative consequences into the positive outcomes you'll experience when you do give up your habit. It's been reported that within just 20 minutes of quitting, your blood pressure decreases, your pulse rate drops, and the body temperature of your hands and feet increases. After 8 hours, the carbon monixide level in your blood drops to normal and the oxygen level in your blood increases to normal. Ater 48 hours, your nerve endings start regrowing and your ability to smell and taste improves. Within a few months, your lung function increases and you no longer experience shortness of breath, coughing, and sinus congestion. After a year of living smoke-free, your excess risk of coronary heart disease decreases to half that of a smoker. So what are you waiting for?

For further help, check out FreshStart™ -- a safe, guaranteed, craving-free way to become a permanent non-smoker without the need for willpower. If you are ready and serious about stopping smoking, you can join the thousands of people who choose to leave a dangerous habit behind and open the door to a healthier, happier, and longer life.

Why Bother Looking? Finding GOD in Your Seasons of Life

A concept I talk about in Bring It On! Women Embracing Midlife is the tendency we have to live with a victim mentality. It’s so easy to blame others or our circumstances for why we’re not where we want to be in our life. But blaming serves only one purpose – making you feel like a victim. And a victim doesn’t have power over her own life.

One woman I know has every reason to live with a victim mentality. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, however, she’s not only risen above her own circumstances, but she’s helped hundreds of others create abundant lives filled with purpose. This woman is my personal friend, Lynn Jarrett, who has now authored a book titled, Why Bother Looking? Finding God in your Seasons of Life.

Yesterday, Tuesday, November 15, was her BIG worldwide BOOK LAUNCH! Why Bother Looking? made it to #8 on Barnes and Nobles' Bestseller List!

This doesn't surprise me at all. Lynn’s personal stories and others’ stories in her book, Why Bother Looking? draw you in to the struggles we have in our lives, and guide you through your seasons of life. Lynn’s work as a life/business coach and professional speaker helped her develop tools and steps for you to discover for yourself who God is to you and how that impacts your life.

A variety of life circumstances could have caused you to be disillusioned, disappointed, or even bitter and angry towards God. Maybe you grew up in an abusive home, you felt unloved by your parents, your spouse cheated on you, you have a child with special needs, you lost a child, you had a major business deal fall through, you’ve been laid off from a job, or possibly you’ve been diagnosed with a debilitating or terminal illness.

Any one of these circumstances could cause a negative impact on how you see God. Since midlife is often a time when we stop and reevaluate our view of God, I can’t recommend highly enough Lynn’s book for helping you sort through and let go of the painful memories of your past and finally experience the restoration and healing you might have given up all hope that you’d ever find.

Why Bother Looking? teaches you how to:

• Find answers to life’s biggest problems
• Increase your self-confidence
• Find happiness and hope
• Find life purpose
• Manage life changes
• Build confidence in your toughest areas of life
• Be self-motivated to keep moving forward with your goals in life
• See your life and experience of God in a completely new way

One of the bonus gifts Lynn offered on her BIG book launch was a FREE 45-minute teleseminar with me on Monday, December 5 at 8pm EST. This Creating Positive Change teleseminar is an introduction to some of the concepts taught in Bring It On! If you'd like to participate in the seminar, please send me an email with "Teleseminar" in the subject line and mention that you heard about it on my blog. Prior to the call, I will send everyone who is registered for the call an email with the bridgeline number and passcode. You will also receive a handout prior to the call in order to gain maximum benefit from the session. Again, this teleseminar is scheduled for Monday, December 5, at 8pm EST.

I hope you'll join us on this call. Feel free to invite friends as long as they pre-register! I have a limited number of lines available, so I want to make sure that I can accommodate everyone.

Top 10 Reasons for Returning to College

1. You gain a sense of accompishment.
2. You meet others that are also pursuing new areas of interest.
3. You discover that subjects you once thought were boring now excite you.
4. You are able to share your real-life experience with traditonal age students.
5. You keep your mind active and alert.
6. You become more marketable and can expect higher compensation in the workplace.
7. You experience the thrill of discovering new things and being intellectualy stimulated.
8. You increase your confidence by successfully stepping out of your comfort zone.
9. You are energized by the new discoveries and relationships that you're expereiencing.
10. You inspire younger classmates -- even your own kids!

If you've ever given any thought to returning to college, this might be the time to go online or pick up the phone and find out what's available. Sign up for just one class to get your feet wet. Even if you don't need a degree to further your career, you can never go wrong with lifelong learning.

Baby Boomers Returning to School Bring Real-Life Experience to the Classroom

What sets apart adult students, often in their 40's and 50's, from their younger peers? It's more than the amount of gray hair or wrinkles -- it's the richness of the real-life experiences that they bring to the classroom. Traditional age students often wonder how what they're learning is ever going to apply to the real world. Their more mature classmates are able to relate their studies to actual work-life experiences from their own life.

Although my return to academia was in my twenties after getting married and in the process of raising two children at the time, I do remember how much more relevant the material seemed after having spent a few years in the real world. Now women are raising children and grandchildren while holding down full-time jobs and earning a degree. Some want to change professions or earn a promotion. Others are looking to re-enter the work force after staying home to raise young children. Whatever the reason, these baby boomer students are motivated! Because of the need to juggle the responsibilities of caring for family and going to work, they place a higher value on the limited time they have for class and schoolwork.

An increasing number of colleges and universities are catering to these returning students by offering support groups, on-campus childcare, evening office hours, and commuter lounges. Some schools are even offering special services that teach computer skills to students who might be intimidated by the advancement in technology since their Corolla typewriter days.

Whether changing careers or seeking advancement in their current position, adult students are much more focused than their younger classmates. For one thing, a middle-age college student has already had time to explore who she is and what she wants to do with the rest of her life. With her eyes focused on the goal, she's going after it!

'Nontraditional' no longer applies to college students over 40

The number of women over the age of 40 going back to school is increasing in record numbers. In fact, the so-called 'nontraditional' student accounts for over 50 percent of the students currently enrolled in America's colleges and universities. Whether they didn't have the opportunity to attend college following high school graduation, their higher education was interrupted to marry and raise a family, they aspire to advance their career, or they are interested in pursuing an entirely new career, financial independence is a key motivator for many women.

Education is critical because it enables you to pursue the career options you want in life. In fact, statistics project that 75 percent of future positions are expected to require at least some type of certification or licensing. Furthermore, professions that requre a bachelor's degree are projected to grow nearly twice as fast as the national average.

But the benefits of going back to school don't stop at increasing your earning power. Learning something new can be an invigorating experience that boosts your self-confidence and helps keep your brain young. Going back to school can also raise your self-awareness, develop your time management skills, set a good example for your children, and help you become more aware of the world around you.

Vacation Time Left on the Table

With nearly 40 percent of U.S. employees working more than 50 hours a week, we're a nation that is out-of-balance. Yet according to a survey done by Expedia.com, Americans are so consumed with work that they don't take off the full amount of alloted paid vacation time that they're offered each year.

Vacations give us time off to relax and play with family and friends. These "time-outs" are important to the creative process and can actually help our productivity back on the job. More importantly, vacations help us to maintain our perspective on our life. If you're so caught up in the urgent matters of your work, you're likely to lose focus on what's really important to you.

Perry Marshall encourages people to, "Do something important today. Not what would seem important on a regular day, but what would seem important while you're getting a CAT scan."

Some women are using their vacation time to try out a new career. Vocation Vacations, founded by Brian Kurth, lets people test drive their dream job by matching clients with dozens of mentors in a variety of fields. Sometimes it ends up leading to an exciting new career, and other times it ends up being a nice break from your regular routine.

Other women have opted to take an adventure vacation with a group of like-minded women. Adventures in Good Company, founded by Marian Marbury, offers women guided tours backpacking the Appalachian Trail, rock climbing in a national park, bicycling the coast of Maine, kayaking in Baja, Mexico, horseback riding in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, or a variety of other equally fun and exciting adventures.

You may want to make reservations at a spa resort for a week of pampering or take a week of vacation and volunteer through a service organization. It may be helping out at an orphanage in Haiti or helping to rebuild homes in Mississippi or Louisiana after the recent hurricanes. One woman travels with a rock band, another raises money for AIDS relief by participating in a long-distance bike-a-thon.

Whatever you do, don't leave vacation time on the table. Use those times that your company gives you to rejuvenate and recharge your batteries. Even if you don't spend your vacation lying on a tropical beach, you'll find that the change of scenery will give you a fresh outlook and "make you enjoy life so much that everything fits into place."

Top 10 Indicators That Your Work Is Invading Your Life

Is your life in balance? Here's a list of warning signs that it might be time to stop and reevaluate the amount of time and attention that you focus on your professional life:

1. You've missed many of your family's events because of work-related responsibilities.
2. You have no time for hobbies or outside interests.
3. You bring your cell phone, laptop, and work projects on vacation with you.
4. You can't remember the last time you took a day off to relax and do something just for yourself.
5. You have lost sight of why you chose your job/career because you are so stressed out.
6. You're getting signals from your husband and/or children that you're spending too much time focused on your work.
7. You feel as though you never have time to catch your breath before you have to move onto the next project or work-related crisis.
8. You are putting in a lot of overtime every week and really liking it.
9. You are feeling distant from your family and friends outside of work.
10. You spend all your time outside of work with clients and/or co-workers.

If any of these warning signs apply to you, it's time to stop and reevalute your priorities and see if some changes are in order.

Work/life balance no longer a concern?

Work/life balance is no longer a concern? Says who? According to a recent survey of 1,000 employees from nearly 30 countries, nearly 50 percent of them believe they spend too much time at work, but only about 25 percent of them think it's enough of a problem to do something about it!

Interestingly, in Britian they're preparing for their third Work Your Proper Hours Day to encourage people to make the most of their off-work hours. Apparently, salaried persons are regularly putting in long hours of unpaid overtime. Only 27 percent of British workers claim to have a good work/life balance, so they ought to be looking forward to their upcoming February 24, 2006 day of freedom to reflect on their devotion to job and company above all else.

Here in the United States, we're not doing much better. Nearly half of the Americans surveyed felt their professional lives took up a considerable amount of time, but less than 20 percent said their private life is more important to them than work. Did you hear that? Four out of five people believe their work is more important to them than their personal time outside of the office!

Now I realize that 1,000 people is a relatively small sampling, but I can't help but wonder what's wrong with these people's priorities. No wonder so many are suffering from a midlife crisis! If you devote your whole life to your work, you are bound to wake up one day and realize that you've made some sacrifices along the way -- and some of them may not be sacrifices you really intended to make!

Welcome to The Midlife Journey!

I'm so excited to be able to communicate with you informally about issues related to our adventure together as women. I hope you'll check back often as I discover new things to share with you.