1. Do more than what you’re told to do

2. Try new things

3. Teach others about what you know

4. Make work into play

5. Take breaks

6. Work when others are resting

7. Always be creating

8. Make your own inspiration

9. Love what you do or leave

When she was a teenager, Vicky Armstrong imagined that by 30 she’d be a best-selling novelist, married to a drop-dead gorgeous actor with four adorable children and living in a beach pad in California.

It was only when Vicky, an office manager, saw 40 looming that she started to accept the implausibility of her dreams.

‘I have achieved the sum total of none of these things,’ she says. ‘I’ve never married, don’t have children and my only attempt at writing a children’s book was returned with a confidence-zapping rejection note.’ (more…)

Do you realize that you don’t make 99% of your decisions? Your programs or mindsets make them for you, but you think you are making the decision.
Your subconscious belief system makes the majority of your decisions. We need to listen to our thoughts. Are they helpful or destructive?
Imagine if I were born wearing a pair of red tinted sunglasses. If I was reading on a white page no matter how much you told me it was white I would say it was red. I might even say “I think you should have your eyes examined.” So there would be no hope of me actually seeing white while my glasses were on. (more…)

Of all the things that can have an effect on your future, I believe personal growth is the greatest. We can talk about sales growth, profit growth, asset growth, but all of this probably will not happen without personal growth. It’s really the open door to it all. In fact I’d like to have you memorize a most important phrase. Here it is, “The major key to your better future is YOU.”

Let me repeat that. “The major key to your better future is YOU.” Put that someplace you can see it every day, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, at the office, anywhere where you can see it every day. (more…)

The minister noticed that the bride was in great distress. She said she was nervous and afraid she would not remember what to do. He told her that she only needed to remember three things.
First the AISLE, because that is what she’d be walking down.
Secondly the ALTER because that is where she would arrive
Finally she had to remember the HYMN they would be singing during the service.
Family and friends were shocked to hear the bride repeating the 3 words, aisle, alter, hymn.
This is how many go into marriage but that is not love. “I’ll alter him.” (more…)

Have you ever heard yourself say “I’m not creative,” or “I haven’t got a creative bone in my body?’ Or maybe you’ve dabbled in creative things and thought “this is not for me.” I have found as an artist, that almost everyone who has a desire to paint, can learn to paint and I believe the reason they have the desire, is because they are meant to paint.
It is said that the creative part of the brain is formed somewhere between 6 and 18 months of age. This is the time to let the child explore….let them get into the pots and pans, let them have many experiences otherwise it can stifle their creativity for the rest of their life. (more…)

Our family are taking seriously the challenge of helping those less fortunate than ourselves. Alan, my husband, is recruiting a team of 15 to Cambodia with Habitat for Humanity in November accompanied by myself and two of our sons. We are part of a larger contingent of 150 volunteers from NZ and will join with a further 150 volunteers from various countries to take part in the “Khmer Harvest Build” where 20 impoverished families will be assisted into their own homes so they no longer have to live and work in Phnom Penh’s large, toxic, rubbish dump. (more…)

It’s estimated up to two billion people had their eyes on the royal wedding this week. Everyone loves a romance! I loved the opening of the message of the Bishop to William and Kate. “Be who God meant you to be and set the world on fire.” Some further gems were “spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. The more we give of self the richer we become in soul. The more we go beyond ourselves in love the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed.” (more…)

There never seems to be enough hours in the day to paint all that I see in my mind. I have completed two works in my self esteem series, “I Am Beautiful” and “I am Free to be Me.” “I Am Beautiful” is on display in the main gallery at Arts Post at the southern end of Victoria St Hamilton in the “Facets of Creativity” exhibition until the 25th April. These paintings are available in quality prints – on paper, canvas prints, or on stretched canvas, as are many of my paintings.
I invite you to take a tour of my studio on this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpk72FAqTi8 (more…)

Find out why this little-known antioxidant is key to fighting toxicity and premature aging — and warding off chronic disease.

By Catherine Guthrie / April 2011

If biochemistry were the stuff of comic books, antioxidants would be the superheroes — with glutathione (gloota-thigh-own) being no less than a cross between Superman and Underdog. As the most powerful antioxidant in the body, glutathione works around the clock to fend off nefarious characters. And yet, few people recognize its importance. (more…)