My Favorite Self-Help Stuff

Which fat loss plan is the better one? There are so many variations, but I’m definitely a low carb person — the other stuff simply won’t work for me.

And now that I’m self-employed, working for myself, trying to keep up with my deadlines, I often find myself in front of my computer up to 14 to 16 hours a DAY.

I’m grateful for the work and for my amazing clients who are making this possible, but the hours will have to change. Along with the side-effects of that sedentary lifestyle.

So over the last few weeks, I have decided to get serious about getting rid of that accumulated extra fat — and so a few days ago I finally got that “Day Off Diet” program that I had been eyeing.

And I like it. I started easing myself into it, and last night, while shopping, I actually put the sugar-free chocolate back at check-out. And that was my favorite — and the store where I was is the only one that carries it. So that’s progress.

Well, this morning, I found an email in my inbox — from Kimkins. Seems that they had an essay contest, and the essays were so inspiring that I went straight to their site, which I had joined a couple of years back.

I discovered that it had been two years TO THE DAY that I last left a message. I never did quite get started with it properly back then, regrettably. But now, I discovered that they have a NEW plan option: It’s kind of a flex plan. One week Kimkins, one week another plan of my choice.

So I’ve decided to alternate between One Day Off plan and Kimkins Original version.

Why am I telling you? Because, well, going public with it will keep me accountable… I’m sure someone will ask me what happened…

In fact, I might start a new blog just for that…

In a nutshell, in case you want to know:

Kimkins is kind of Atkins on Steroids. It’s been quite controversial, and I got a flurry of angry comments when I last promoted it.

Well, the Kimkins plan has mellowed some, and I really don’t care whether or not Kimmer actually has or has not lost the weight herself. It clearly works for quite a lot of people, and I like their plan and the community, Can’t wait to find out how things pan out for me this time around.

Their plans range from the drastic (no carbs) to an Atkins-style low-carb plan to a low carb shakes plan to the fairly mellow (one week Kimkins, one week another low carb OR low calory plan of your choice). One plan, called bootcamp, includes portion control and exercise.

They have a vegetarian plan too, though I’m a hardcore carnivore, which is probably why I like low-carb so much. The thing I like best is their forum and support stuff, the recipes, and their cool customizable weightloss trackers (although it was painful to update it today).

The One Day Off plan, on the other hand, is really quite compatible, though a bit more lenient. Well, considerably more lenient if you consider that once a week you’re supposed to basically eat anything you like.

While it suggests that you can practically pig out on that day, their examples indicate that they really have something a lot more reasonable in mind. But it does give you great flexibility. And you can eat whatever type of food makes you happy that day.

Oh, and unlike Kimkins, the Day Off Diet’s regular plan is a “slow carb” plan, which allows small amounts of berries, more veggies, and also beans and such. And I just stocked up on beans, in anticipation of creating beans & salsa concoctions.

So one week with beans, and one week without them. Plus an “off” day either every other week, or once a week. I’ll have to experiment to see what works best.

I hope that between the Day Off Diet and Kimkins, they’ll allow me to release that extra weight at a pace that will hopefully be comfortable but not so slow that I lose interest…

And no, I won’t tell you how much I weigh right now. I’ll wait until I have reached a significant milestone or two before I disclose that, if ever. For now, I’ll call it point 0, the starting weight. The idea is to go down from there…

Stay tuned

When you’re stressed, you’re probably focused on everything that’s wrong in your life. And from the Law of Attraction, we know that this is likely to attract more of the same.

And yet, there’s one thing we can do that can easily turn it all around. It will lower your stress levels like you won’t believe, and it will also attract better things into your life. It’s like attracting instant good karma.

And that magic thing is gratitude.

I’ve written about this before, though not lately. But I am inspired to write about it right now because a) I’m grateful for so many things right now, and b) one of my new Twitter friends, Daniel Brenton, is putting on this really cool gratitude watch event every week.

You can see what he’s doing right here: gratitude watch

It’s a seriously uplifting site, featuring videos and links to articles, plus, well, just go and check it out.

There are also links to two articles I wrote for ezinearticles.com a while ago…

I realize it can be hard to think of things to be grateful for especially when things don’t seem to be going your way. But try it anyway.

My favorite way to do it: I just go outside. Usually, just the sunshine and the fresh air will instantly remind me of a LOT I’m grateful for. And as I walk to my car, hey, there’s another reason. I’ve got a car. And it’s running. Plus I can walk, I can see, there’s so much I can do to change my life for the better, and it’s unbelievable how quickly I feel in a MUCH better mood, and miraculously, things start to go better as well almost instantly.

Often, I come back to my computer to find a new order or some other kind of good news. It’s almost as if the Universe had held off giving it to me until I changed to a more positive state of mind.

Try it, and let me know how it goes…

Oh, but what if it’s raining? Oh puh-leeeze! Think about how wonderful this rain is for all the plants and vegetation. And besides, we need it too — what would happen to our water supply if it stopped raining. Our earth wouldn’t function without that steady dose of water. Also remember to enjoy the clean smell of the air when the rain stops, or the fact that you can feel the rain drops on your face.

Or stay indoors and look around for things you’re grateful for. A favorite book. The fact that there’s food in your fridge. The fact that you HAVE a fridge. And so on…

In gratitude,

Elisabeth

P.S.: Here’s that link again: gratitude watch

P.S.: Please follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElisabethKuhn and on Facebook too: http://facebook.com/elisabethkuhn

P.S.: Want a FREE autoresponder for 30 days — and with FREE installation? Check out my freebie on my other site: Free Autoresponder Offer

Take time off for stress relief? Absolutely! The core of any stress relief or stress management program is to take some time off periodically. But those of us who have our own businesses find exactly that VERY difficult at times. We feel like we constantly have to keep all the balls in the air — and continue marketing as well, or else, our business will just evaporate.

And that can cause problems. Burnout for once. Or just exhaustion, or disenchantment. We might wish it would all just go away. I’ve been there, and the horrible thing is that our wishes tend to become true.

A few years back, I was getting very burned out from working double shifts — running a business in addition to my more than full-time job, and within weeks, my business went POOF!

It was weird. All my clients suddenly disappeared and/or no longer needed my services. One person moved away. So did another one — completely unrelated to the first one. Another became pregnant and no longer wanted to continue with my services.

Yet another didn’t like the way I had handled the increase in my fees (which was my mistake, I admit, and I did learn a lesson there), but somehow, I believe the timing was just too uncanny for this to have been an accident.

Meanwhile, I have learned about the Law of Attraction, and if this wasn’t the law of attraction in action, I don’t know what is.

So what should we do? Give ourselves a break! But what about the marketing?

Well, there’s this teleseminar coming up that will give you a great answer. It will give you strategies you can put in place right away that will help you grow your business even if you’re spending some time at the beach or in the park with your loved ones, or playing golf!

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

Success coach Sue Clement is doing what she preaches — she’s taking multi-week vacations while her business keeps on going, and growing. And she’ll show you how you can do the same.

Where? When?

Wednesday at noon Pacific or 2 p.m. Central time, or 3 p.m. EST

Go to http://www.sueclement.com/teleseminar.html to sign up. And yes, even if you can’t make that time. Or even if you get this information after the teleseminar is already over. Because if you sign up, you’ll get access to all the information afterwards, including the downloadable mp3!

You just can’t get your questions answered… so IF you CAN make it live, it’ll be worth your while to make the effort.

Anyway, in the interest of maintaining your health and sanity — and keeping your business humming along, I highly recommend that you check out Sue’s teleseminar. I bet you’ll enjoy it and will get some VERY useful information from it.

Take Time off Teleseminar

Well, that was fun! I haven’t done poetry readings for WAY too long. I think I’ll have to start scheduling these a bit more often again…

Like I said in the show, I set up a page for poetry right here (just click on the “poetry” link along at the top).

Also, here is the link again where you can download the show if you like:

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

My book is “Average C-Cup” (you should probably know that it contains a good number of poems about breast cancer — but they’re mostly pretty uplifting, and osme of them actually pretty funny, or so I’ve been told. Read the review on Amazon.com to find out more).

In fact, you can get it on Amazon.com. But, even better, you can get it from me directly (personally autographed to your specifications):

More to come soon

Elisabeth Kuhn

Yes, I’ll be doing a poetry reading on internet radio today, TODAY, this afternoon. At 5:30 EST, 2:30 PST, and if you’re elsewhere you’ll just have to do the math…

I’m excited. It’s my first poetry reading on internet radio. The only other time I was broadcast was when Garrison Keillor read my poem “Bathrooms” (a sonnet!) on his program Writer’s Almanac (and you can still find it, I think). It was on July 11, 2006, I’m pretty sure. I’ll see if I can dig up the link and put it here…

Meanwhile, there’s today’s program. It’s host is poet and writer Diane Tegarden, and here’s her invite:

The Storytellers, Poets and Bards of the World join Diane Tegarden, poetess and author, as she hosts monthly poetry readings on Internet Voices Radio with her gregarious guests!

LISTENERS CALL IN# 866-977-4887

WHEN: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

TIME: 2:30pm PST/ 3:30pm MST/4:30pm CST/ 5:30pm EST

(Please use the links given below for international time calculations)
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Join us for a charming half-hour of unique poetry and author’s chat as Diane and her guests read you their
poetry and discuss the larger social issues touching their lives.

WHERE: http://internetvoicesradio.com

(You can also download the show from that link.)

OUR GREGARIOUS GUESTS ARE:

Elisabeth Kuhn, Sage Wolfsong, and Rampyari Walia

Grab a cup of fair trade coffee or tea, sit back and relax. Take this break from your everyday world
to enjoy the new vistas brought to you by these fresh, original poets!
_____________________________________
Hello, this is me again:

I’d be thrilled if you could make it! Again, it’s TODAY! Please tell your friends as well.

Thanks a bunch, and see you then.

Elisabeth

P.S.: Since they asked about it during the program, here’s where you can get my book (autographed to your specifications!):

Ever have a bad day and don’t know what to do with yourself? Okay, so who doesn’t… And it’s time I address this topic in my self-help blog again…

Sometimes, (or often), your bad mood or feelings of stress and despair may feel quite justified by outer circumstances. And yet, we all know that we cannot usually control those circumstances. Not all of them anyway. Especially not other people. Or the wealther. Or a whole lot of other things.

But we can control how we feel, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

And I love Abraham’s tool, the emotional scale. It never fails to work. I wish I would remember to use it more often, because when I do use it, miracles happen — sometimes VERY fast.

Except… and here’s the trick, if you do it just so that there will be a miracle it won’t work nearly as well. So just immerse yourself in it for the sake of making yourself feeling better, one step at a time.

You can find more details about the emotional scale in their book “The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent.” (Esther and Jerry Hicks).

Of all the Abraham books, this one gives the most detailed examples on how to work through the emotional scale. I actually copied the most applicable one out of the book, and started adapting it to my situation.

And every time I feel the need to raise my vibration (okay, not every time, but I really should), I take out one of my scales and adapt it to how I’m feeling right at the moment, and then work my way up the scale. By the time I’m done, I’m feeling way better.

If it’s nice outside and still daylight, I’ll go out for a walk, which raises my vibrations even more.

So give it a try…

I’ve written a few other posts about this, which you can find in the Abraham-Hicks section.

May you have a fantastic day!

Elisabeth

Woohoo!  I love Twitter!  And I just found the German TwitCharts.de — a top 100 list of the most popular German Twitterers.  So I applied to get on it, and I’m number 27!

Wow! I’ve got to break out the champagne!

And I need to see if I can insert a screen shot:

And if not, you can go to http://www.twitcharts.de and see for yourself!

Twitter Guides? There are lots of them out there.  But which ones work — and which ones are the best Twitter guides?

I’m going to go over them one at a time — the ones I like.  This is NOT an exclusive list, but a list of those I’ve come across lately. Particularly, a list of inexpensive guides I’ve come across lately.

First:  Twitter Decoded:

This is an ebook. It’s great for beginners and intermediate Tweeples.  It gives you a very clear overview over how Twitter works, and also provides valuable information on how to use Twitter to build your network.

What I like especially about it is that it promotes a very responsible use of Twitter.  It does provide info on some automated resources but doesn’t focus on them.  Most of the things it suggests are done the old-fashioned way, and they’re going to get results that actually matter.

You can check it out here:  http://budurl.com/twdcd

Another useful guide is Twitter Traffic Machine . It’s almost the opposite of Twitter Decoded.  For starters, it’s mostly a set of videos (with a shortish guide).  And it is very heavy on automation.

I put some of the techniques to use, and they do work like gangbusters. I’ve managed to grow my followers much faster than before — for a lot less "work."

So does it work? Yes.  However, you may want to check on your followers periodically to make sure you’re comfortable with the kind of people you’re following.

Because … while it does follow people selectively, it’s automated, and automation has a limited degree of judgment…  I’m not going to give away how it does it, but let’s just say, it works even better if you make sure you want ALL the followers you’ve been getting.  And delete the ones you’d rather pass on.

It also explains an automated content creation system that goes beyond what I personally would like to do.  But you may like it.

So does it deliver?  In spades. Where can you find it?  Here:

http://budurl.com/twtm

There’s another tool I’ll write about next time…  For now, I highly recommend these two.  Actually, I think they complement each other nicely.  there’s hardly any overlap.  While Twitter Decoded does mention some of the automation tools, it leaves them woefully unexplained.  It’s much more thorough on the basics.

But once you’ve got your basics down, you’ll want to play with some of the more advanced features, and give Twitter Traffic Machine a try. Yes, maybe you might actually want to give the auto content creation a whirl too.

Of course, you may think two guides might be a bit much.  But they’re fairly inexpensive, and considering the time they’ll save you and the increased efficiency (and the chance to avoid costly mistakes), I’d say it’s worth it.  It was to me anyway.

Do they answer ALL my questions? No, which is why I continue to investigate…  More next time.

Meanwhile, have fun, and much success, and give one or both of these a try.

Elisabeth

Does The Law of Attraction really work?  I think so.  But here’s the scoop:

I just found this really cool article about it on Twitter:

http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/the-deeper-purpose-behind-the-law-of-attraction/

Check this out and let me know what you think.  The thing is we’ve all been going about getting what we want the hard way.  Well, most of us have.  And I’m the grand master at doing things the hard way.

In fact, I think I’ve had a deep down feeling that I only deserved things I got the very, very hard way.  It’s sort of a justification for why I got them.

And now I’m learning that I was going about it the wrong way.  I should approach things with much more ease.  To focus on what I want, enjoy the idea of having them, and then mostly do what seems to be the next step etc.

I’ve learned that from Bill Burns years ago, but didn’t fully "get" it until I’ve been studying Abraham-Hicks and the teachings of Unity.  And yes, I do have relapses…

But things do go so much better when I focus on the positive, on what I want and banish thoughts of negative possible outcomes from my consciousness as much as possible.

While doing my part in making things happen.

So here goes…

Oh, and how does stress figure in with the Law of attraction?  Well, doing things the hard way causes stress, and stress practically keeps the desired results from you.

So one step towards getting somewhere is to get a grip on stress.  Obviously, there are many ways to do that.  If you want to know one way, you can either sign up for my free report at any of the sign-up forms right here, OR you can go to http://www.FreeStressTipsReport.com and sign up over there.

And I’m just working on a new edition of that ebook, and if you still get the old version, you’ll get the new one automatically (unless you unsubscribe before I have a chance to send it to you).

So let’s all relax into attracting what we desire

Happy attracting!

Elisabeth

How to write faster?  There isn’t enough time in the day to get it all done.  Sure, you can outsource it, depending on your situation, but then you have to micro-manage it and that may still take longer than simply writing it yourself — provided you know how to write really fast.

There are two components to writing really fast.  Okay, three components:

1) you need to know the information.  So you need to write about what you know.  If you don’t, you’ll need to do research, and that will take extra time.

2) You need a set format so that you won’t have to put a lot of thought into decision making.

3) You need the right mindset.

One of my favorite Internet Marketing/Writing experts, Jason Fladlien, has the formula down pat:  He started by making a splash with his 7-minute articles, and has developed the system now to an instant content creation system that really puts your content creation on steroids.

Where can you find out more about it?  Here:

http://budurl.com/jficc

And if you want to take your new-found speedwriting expertise to the next level and actually make money with it, here are a couple of possibilities:

http://budurl.com/n8u4

This is a fantastic resource with 20 legit ways to create $100/day oniline.  Several of these methods do involve writing, so once you have your writing pace up to speed (pun intended), you’ll find it much easier going and it could be a natural way to make money.

Especially since the online world is hungry for content.  If you can provide it, you’re golden!

Still feel intimidated?  Don’t be.

But here’s a third resource I love, also by Jason, the same guy who wrote the speed writing system above:  On how to become an online millionaire.  No, it’s not hype.  And the path to millionaire in his system could take you a few years, but if you keep at it, you’ll get there fairly quickly.  Take a look:

http://budurl.com/jfimr

And discover how a monk went from zero income to $50,000 within 6 months.And well into the 6 figures before the year was over.  If that doesn’t cheer you up, I don’t know what will.

Oh, and about the economy?  Like they say, in the challenge lies opportunity.

P.S.: And now that I’m just starting a new site on Richmond Web Marketing I’ll need to supply some content, so my fast writing skills will be challenged all over again.  And that’s not the onliy writing I need to do - there’s lots of writing to be done for my clients as well…

So I’ll be puliing out my own copy of my fast writing manual and have at it…

Happy writing, and give writer’s block a run for its money!

Elisabeth