INSPIRING MAX

Life Plan

January 11, 2015 inspiringmax

Take the first sentence from your favorite book and make it the first sentence of your post.

“What are you supposed to be doing with your life?”

And the answer is?

It’s your choice. Nobody can tell us what we should be doing with our life. I also believe that the goal posts are constantly changes—there is no right or wrong answer.

Decide what you want and make a plan for your life. Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle—a blank canvas that slowly and with consideration comes together.

Start by focusing on one or two areas. Every positive change makes a difference. Over time you can look back on your journey and notice how far you have come. At times, you may choose the wrong pieces to go together. Don’t beat yourself up. Take out the wrong piece, make another choice and keep going. Every choice empowers you.

Completing a jigsaw puzzle, like planning your life can be frustrating. There is no quick fix and even the simple ones take time. The more complicated the puzzle or life plan, the more time it takes. Your options when completing your puzzle are:

The more you focus on the job, the quicker it comes together.

There is a greater chance of someone or something messing up your work when you are not focusing on it.

If you leave it and get distracted, nothing changes.

It is important to remember that the more people who help you complete your puzzle or support your journey—the quicker and with less frustration, it is completed.

Photo Credit: Google Images

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/call-me-ishmael/

Danger

January 6, 2015 inspiringmax

Tell us about the time you rescued someone else (person or animal) from a dangerous situation. What happened? How did you prevail?

When someone or something needs to be rescued, deal with stress or is in a dangerous situation, everyone has 3 alternatives. Depending on the choices made, our body responds differently allowing us to do what we required them to do.

Fight – Attack or do what is necessary to rescue
Flight – Run away
Fright – Stop and shut down

Fortunately, in my personal life I have never employed any of these options. In my professional life, as a mental health nurse, I have often triggered my fight response. Each time having a positive outcome. I love that by trusting our bodies they give us the ability to do what we need, without us thinking about it.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daring-do/

F.I.R.S.T.

January 5, 2015 inspiringmax

Tell us about your first day at something — your first day of school, first day of work, first day living on your own, first day blogging, first day as a parent, whatever.

There is always a first time to do something. The problem is, often none of these are as simple as they seem. Starting a new job, having a baby or beginning blogging, they all need a strategy.

To help us with this mission, I have made an acronym of FIRST.

F: Fear

I: Inspiration

R: Resolve

S: Stategy

T: Test

All new things have a fear attached to them. Use this fear to develop inspiration as to why you want to overcome this fear. Then resolve to make a strategy to ensure your success and finally test it out.

Don’t let fear get the better of you. Make a plan to overcome it and make lots of firsts. They keep your life exciting.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/first/

Weekly Photo Challenge: New

January 4, 2015 inspiringmax

Possibility. Opportunity. Potential. As another year gets underway, let’s celebrate the new.

Today we had our serious day of winter weather. The first day of real snow in our 5 weeks in Canada. Whilst on the odd occasion it has snowed before never was it like this. When we left our motel this morning the streets were clear. By the time we returned home there was 15 cm of snow. It was awesome. Fine powdery snow that was fun to walk in, although I am sure I found muscles I didn’t know I had. I have never not seen the streets not cleared before, so it was difficult at times to tell where the footpath ended and the road started.

Winter Fun in Ottawa

I am hoping it continues to snow tomorrow as the prospect of freezing rain, another new experience actually doesn’t excitement me. But que sera sera, whatever will be will be. It’s all part of understanding what it is like to live in Canada, which is why we traveled from Australia in the first place.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/new/

Inspiring Hope

January 3, 2015 inspiringmax

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

I believe the way you look at the world changes your outcomes, and I always focus on the positives in any situation. Developing a spark of hope into a fire that warms you and lights your path is my goal. Life is too short not to make the most of what we have.

The above quote is from my About page and shows the purpose of my blog. Working in mental health I encourage others to see that there can be an alternative way to look at situations. We may not be able to change our past but we can choose to change the impact it has on our future.

Where possible I like to find a unique angle for my blog posts that inspires people to think outside the square or gain a new experience. I use my double rainbow as my brand to help keep me focused on hope.

The double rainbow is a rare and beautiful thing that inspires even more hope. It reminds us that after the storm there can be a beautiful ending. At the time I took this photo from Melbourne Aquatic Centre in 2011, life wasn’t necessarily easy but by focusing on the positive, gold was eventually found at the end of the rainbow, in the most surprising places.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/be-the-change/

Someone Else’s Skin

January 2, 2015 inspiringmax

If you could spend the next year as someone radically different from the current “you” — a member of a different species, someone from a different gender or generation, etc. — who would you choose to be?

The idea of living in someone else’s skin has never occurred to me before as I am quite happy in my own despite its flaws. However, given the opportunity I would live as someone I could learn from and gain new experiences to consolidate my want to be a full-time writer.

At present my book is non-fiction, based on my years of experience working with people with eating disorders. My future goal is to write fiction in the adventure romance genre. Janet Evanovich is my favourite author in this genre and I have all 21 of her Stephanie Plum series as well as her Plum series and Wicked series and several of her co-authored books.

Janet lives in New Jersey, outside New York, a city I would love to live and work in for a limited time. It has many things I have dreamt of experiencing as well as being a centre of excellence for writing.

Other reasons I choose to live in Janet’s skin are:

She spent many years learning the art of writing dialogue, which is one area I am only just beginning to learn.

She Is a New York Times Best Seller author something I aspire to be.

She started out as a mum with no expectations, grateful for what she achieved and her success grew from there.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/new-skin/

Tears of Joy

January 1, 2015 inspiringmax

We cry for lots of reasons: sadness, pain, fear . . . and happiness. When was the last time you shed tears of joy?

Psychologists now believe the purpose of tears of joy may be for the body to “restore emotional equilibrium”. This possibly explains why you can never stop tears coming, they are just there like an overflowing bath.

I am a sensitive person and I cry easily. Both tears of joy and sadness. I am more likely to cry tears of joy as I respond to other people’s statements, personal memories or connect with something. When people tell me happy things I get teary because I am happy for them. As I am a nurse and counselor, this is sometimes initially a surprise to the other person. The chances of me crying are doubled if the person I am listening to is describing how something I suggested to them worked out well. For this reason I have to watch the mascara I use or I live my life with panda eyes.

Photo Credit: Google Images

The last time I cried tears of joy was today, New Years eve in Canada. My husband showed me video of Sydney’s New Year’s eve fireworks. This took me back to my usual New Years eve in Sydney with family. We have a nice family dinner at home and when it is time for the fireworks, we go for a short walk to a position from which we can see some of the high fireworks from the Sydney harbour bridge live and several other fireworks displays going off all over Sydney. It is exciting. On our return home, we watch the television version to see the lower fireworks that we missed.

http://youtu.be/etij8MBThHY

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2015 bring you all great joy.

http://youtu.be/etij8MBThHYhttps://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/happy-happy-joy-joy/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Warmth

December 31, 2014 inspiringmax

This week, let’s keep things nice and cozy.

We have traveled for thousands of kilometres from sunny Australia to have a Northern Hemisphere winter. Whilst we have been disappointed to not have snow we have kept warm in many ways. The most successful one being eating chocolate and drinking hot chocolate. The following photos are from our favourite – Newfoundland Chocolate Shop. The ceiling had pretend melting chocolate dripping from it and a train track. It was awesome and there were free sample. Yum!

Chocolate definitely makes me feel good inside and out.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/warmth/

Inner Child

December 30, 2014 inspiringmax

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

I grew up early. As the eldest child I have always been responsible, however, I have always had time to nurture my inner child. I don’t believe that we are ever too old or grown up to have fun.

When was the last time you had fun, did things you enjoyed as a child or played with your own children. All of these things are great stress relievers and help us to remember not to take ourselves too seriously.

Make a list of ways you can connect with your inner child:

Dance while you are doing the housework
Run in the rain or puddles
Play with the Lego and create a masterpiece
Read children’s books
Go to a theme park
Watch an animated Disney movie
Build a snowman or a sand castle
Play Sing Star or sing into a hairbrush
Colour-in
Draw with chalk on the cement
Play elastics or skipping rope games
Go to the playground
Play with your children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews
Eat your childhood favourites e.g. fairy floss

It is certainly important to be responsible and grown-up most of the time. However, take some time out of your day to have fun, help your creativity and connect with your inner child. You’ll be glad you did. It will help you laugh which has its own health benefits.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/all-grown-up/

Dog Sledding

December 29, 2014 inspiringmax

Yesterday, although Quebec has a lack of snow, my husband and I had an amazing experience. We went dog sledding. Despite it being in jeopardy initially, luck was on our side. A light snow fall overnight allowed it to happen. Without the snow, the track would have been to icy for us inexperienced sledders to manage.

Our venue was the spectacular Pourvoirie Du-Lac Beaufort only 20 minutes out of Quebec City. For about 10 minutes in the shop, there were twice as many Australians as Canadians because the other couple booked to dog sled to our surprise were fellow Aussies.

Our first stop was to feed the Huskie puppies. They were so cute and ate from our hands.

Now we were off to complete our training to be able to drive a dog sled. Manu, our musher explained that because of the ice they had only given us 4 dogs in our teams. Any more dogs would be too hard for the drivers to control. Then it dawn on us. This wasn’t going to be as easy as we first thought.

Manu was a very experienced musher and his team lead the expedition. Our dog sled was the first for the day so the dogs were full of energy. We were given several instructions; the main one being to keep the dog teams apart as they will fight. Soon we got to experience stopping wasn’t as easy as any of us thought and the dogs kept running into each other. When this happened the front team started attacking the team from behind. Manu sorted it quickly and we were off again.

In the dog sled team, all dogs are trained to a specific position depending on their abilities. The smartest dogs are the lead dogs and there are two of them. They are the ones that sense danger and stop the team if things aren’t right. They also listen to the orders of the sled driver. The middle dog was the point dog. He is a strong dog to pull the sled. The last dog is the wheel dog and he is the strongest dog giving extra help when needed.

Initially I sat in the sled and my husband was the driver. It took me 5 minutes to realise I didn’t want to drive as stopping was too tricky. At times we went close to ponds and I was very grateful I wasn’t driving and that i didn’t end up in the water. When it came to change overtime Manu was very pleased neither of us ladies wanted to drive. His opinion was that the conditions were too hard for us to manage, which made it dangerous. It definitely was a psychical workout for the boys as they were sweating. I agreed, driving yesterday was a boy job and I was not offended. My job was photography and as we were moving quickly this wasn’t easy. Fortunately we both succeeded at our tasks and we had a great morning.