Living the Dream

So, as it turns out, this month has been a craze of adventures and absolute awesomeness. I apologize that my updates have been slower, but life has a funny way of coming at you fast.

I have been fortunate in this month to experience my first comedy show, Jeff Dunham is amazingly hilarious and I enjoyed every moment of it! (Thanks dad!) I went to my first monster truck show. There are not enough words to describe how cool it is to watch huge trucks demolish cars while doing wheelies. I went to my first diesel drag race. I give those guys credit for getting some decently fast trucks. Speaking of diesels, as some of you know, I have been selling semi trucks for six months and recently had the opportunity of starting a YouTube channel dedicated to bringing the world advice on trucking and trucking news from around the world. My counterpart Corina and I have only had the opportunity to make two videos but I am so excited to see where this journey takes us in life.

And the biggest change in my life has been starting the Paleo Diet. I decided that giving up the regular American diet was a great way to get my body in gear. I have officially been off caffeine for three weeks and coming from a girl who was addicted to Red Bull, that was a true accomplishment in itself. I have cut out a majority of all processed foods. I no longer live my life on pasta and sandwiches, but eat all meats, fruits, and vegetables like it is going out of style. It’s amazing how much a diet change can affect the rest of your life.

Now, onto the positivity side of my blog. I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately and really trying to decide what I want most in life. You know what, I want everything! And I don’t mean I want all the riches in the world (not by any means) but that I just want to experience everything the world has to offer. With dreams that are beyond my current scope of life, it is also very easy to get discouraged and feel like I will never be good enough. As a reminder to everyone who reads my blog I would like to share a major topic talked about in a book that changed my life, “The Slight Edge.”

It is easy to talk yourself out of doing things because they are too time consuming, too difficult, or even impossible. (On a random note, the word impossible should be taken out of your verbal dictionary the moment you read this. As Audrey Hepburn said, “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible! Just food for thought.) The Slight Edge is a personal development book by Jeff Olson that truly changed my thinking habits in life.

The whole purpose of the book is to really look at your dreams, your goals, and your visions for the future. Let’s take the simplest example, weight loss. As Jeff Olson says, we all know how we should eat, that we should exercise, and that we should take care of our bodies, but we are Americans and we want results, not tomorrow, not even a month from now, we want them right now. There is no healthy quick fix for weight loss, the simple answer is make small improvements every day in your diet to create the image you want to see.

Now apply that everything you want in life. Instead of looking at something as one big picture, see it as a few small changes you can make to improve yourself in a positive manner over a period of time. If you want a better job, start networking. It won’t pay off right away, but over time you will have created a group of people you can turn to when you set yourself to get a better job. If you want to quit smoking, you will most likely fail if you wake up one morning and say “I think I am going to quit smoking today.” You cut back slowly. One day you don’t smoke on your way to work, then the next week you cut out after meals, then you cut out your driving smoke, and eventually you are just used to not smoking and it becomes natural. Think about your retirement plan, if you have one, you don’t just one day throw in a million dollars to save until your 65, you slowly build up your money so that one day you can enjoy it in peace.

The biggest key in all of this is remembering that improvement is just as easy to do, as it is not to do. You can choose to workout everyday or choose not to but remember how much better you will feel if you do and keep the motivation high! Nothing in life is impossible. For me, the biggest struggle will forever be experiencing everything I want in my lifetime, but I have to view everything as a piece by piece improvement and I encourage you all to do the same.

Until next time, happy Tuesday!

Keep on smiling!

Cheers to the New Year!

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. 

A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”

– Bill Vaughan

As the entire world rang in 2012 at midnight last night, many made resolutions to become a better person in some way in the oncoming year. We have all made our resolutions at some point in life. We have vowed to quit smoking, lose weight, eat better, and many other things. For some of us, saying good riddance to the past and hello to the future was enough of an accomplishment.

However you see it, I hope that the coming of a new year reminds you that an entire year can pass you by before you even realize that it’s gone. Life while going day by day seems so slow, but our lives our flying by the second.

With that thought, combined with many of the recent events in my life, I have decided to set my New Years resolutions to something with a purpose to my overall well being. Many of those who know me, are very aware that I have a bucket list. I am sure that we all have one, things we would like to do and accomplish. Mine is saved onto my laptop and hanging on a piece of paper in my bedroom to remind me everyday of what I want to do in my lifetime.

I wrote my list out over a year ago and I am sad to report that not item has been crossed out since I started. I shared this list with many of my friends recently. I am going to re-share it, word for word, as it appears on my wall. (With a few things recently added.)

• Skydiving
• Bungee Jumping
• Drive a NASCAR car
• Eat a hotdog in Times Square, New York
• Spend one New Years Eve in Times Square, New York
• Drink wine in Italy
• Ride in a hot air balloon
• Learn how to ride a dirt bike
• Build a rat rod
• Do a pin-up girl photo shoot with it
• Build a race car
• Own a smoky and the bandit Trans- AM
• Finish the Blazer and romp it
• Build a rally car
• Build a pre-runner
• Drive a race car down the track (11 seconds or less)
• Take up photography and take amazing pictures
• Stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower
• Learn how to make Lasagna from scratch (pasta, sauce and all)
• Swim with sharks
• Feed/swim with dolphins
• Learn to ski
• Learn to snowboard
• Learn to surf
• Go to a beach and build a HUGE sandcastle
• Go kayaking
• Try fencing (sword fighting)
• Learn how to ballroom dance
• Learn how to swing dance
• Learn a new language (Spanish)
• Learn to play the guitar
• Maybe even the drums
• Ride a mechanical bull
• Fly a plane
• Ride in a helicopter
• Go to the Bondurant school of driving and drive a FAST car
• Face my fear of roller coasters
• Break a world record
• Experience Mardi Gras
• See the pyramids in Egypt
• Open my own business
• Take up some kind of fighting
• Go to one super bowl game
• Inspire even one person to better themselves
• Ride an elephant
• Go paintballing
• Take a wine tasting class
• Study religion
• Experience Vegas!
• Try to brew my own beer
• Send a message in a bottle
• Drink a beer in a pub in Ireland
• Be a part of a food fight
• Dance with a stranger in a foreign country
• Scuba dive in Australia
• Write a book
• Open a bar
• Build a tree house
• Have someone make a wish of mine come true
• Make someone else’s wish come true
• Help someone cross an item off their bucket list
• Two birds with one stone- achieve one of my things to do that I share with someone else
• Make a difference in the world

With that shared, I have decided that while keeping the direction of my blog focused on positivity, I will also be adding the concept of fulfillment in life. I believe, that there is so much life to experience in the world, so many things to see and do, that we should take every opportunity to do so. This year, I have made my resolution to fulfill my life. I will be taking wine tasting classes, studying religion, meditating, eating foreign cuisines, traveling, and sharing my positivity with as many people as I can.

I hope that everyone continues to follow my journey in the world. As I turn 22 in two weeks, I am excited to start this year, one year older, one year wiser, and look forward to sharing my life with everyone who is willing to be a part of it. please feel free to share any experiences of these events with me as I go through them or if you feel there is something extraordinary that needs to be added.

As always, thank you all so much for believing in me and enjoying my stories. It is truly an incredible feeling.

Wishing you all the best in 2012.

-Racy

 

The Past is Not Always Evil

It has occurred to me that in today’s society we are constantly looking for improvement, success, and most of us never feel good enough. We focus so much on what we are not accomplishing that we often forget to remember how far we have come.

As someone who writes a blog on positivity and moving up in life, I must admit that my life didn’t always have such a happy outlook. Two years ago I was in a very unhealthy relationship with someone who made me believe that I wasn’t good enough to deserve anything better than what he was offering. My boyfriend at the time was doing plenty of illegal things to take care of his family. I worked full time to help support them. I didn’t start college, even after finishing high school a year early with a semester of college done, because I was scared of my future and had no idea what to do with my life. I lived in a house that looking back on, I will just say, I am surprised I don’t have multiple diseases from living in for so long. My parents and I had completely unstable relationships, because I had let so many of my dreams die in order take care of someone else. I had nothing to my name. I was at my rock bottom.

We all have those moments we call our “rock bottoms.”  We have them in different varying degrees and we all handle them differently. There are many times in this blog that I have stated “It’s not about what has happened in the past, it is what you took away from your experience.”

Many experiences are not pretty. There is no reason to look back and think of yourself as a failure. At one point in your life you were your weakest. At one point in your life, you decided to get stronger (or are still working on it.)

When I look back, I don’t see how miserable I have been, I remember how far I have come.

In two weeks I will have an associates degree in Marketing and Advertising. And while, I know to some people that seems like nothing, for the girl who held herself back to give someone else a chance to shine, it means the world. I have friends who have seen me through hell and back and they will always be here for me. I recently purchased my first brand new car. I have a real career and I am finally pursuing my dreams because I deserve to do so.

Remember to always look for the positives in your life.

Have a great week.
<3 Racy

The Power of Letting Go

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can’t change.
Life’s too short to be anything… but happy.
– Anonymous

There comes a point in life where you realize that you can’t hold on to bitter feelings of resentment towards events that have happened in your life. No one lives a “perfect life.” We all have our own struggles, our own battles, and we all deal with them in our own ways. As hard as it is to admit, coming from someone who writes a blog on the power of positivity, I didn’t always have the best means of handling my bottled up emotions.

I’ve been hardened by relationships as many of us have. I have been through what I will leave at “interesting” relationships. I am a product of parents who went through a hellish divorce. I have harbored resentment towards my step family for seeing my father get married, because I was not there.  I have battled with self-esteem and my image, who doesn’t?  I dealt with my problems in so many ways that I can’t even believe them myself looking back. I was anorexic for months in high school, because in my own head I never felt good enough for anyone. I put a brick wall around my heart to keep anyone out as I grew up. No one was allowed to get close enough to hurt me. I learned to show no emotion and many of my friends would have said that I was heartless towards men. I stress ate until I was fifty pounds overweight and I turned to alcohol when I got stressed out, because drowning my problems was easier than facing them.

About a month ago, as I was writing this blog, I realized that I have a lot of things in my life I need to let go of. Holding on to so much of my past, would only hinder how far I could advance in my future. I sat down and told one of my best friends a few of my stories and told her that I felt as if I needed to just get them off my chest. If someone else could listen without judgement and try to understand where I was coming from, I might feel a little better. The moment I told her and I cried it out, I felt so much better. There was literally a feeling of weight lifted off of my shoulders. When you learn to talk about something instead of bottling it up inside, there is a power of enlightenment that accompanies it.

I spent the next week, honest to God, on my bedroom floor, listening to emotional music and crying my eyes out. I thought I was broken, I hadn’t cried for no reason in years! So I layed there, I let it all out and then by then end of the week I felt amazing.I guess I literally cried out years of pent up emotions. I’ve realized over the last month that I actually cry over things normal people do. I cried at a wedding for the first time ever, I opened up to my emotions towards people in ways I never could before. My relationship with my step family has changed, because I no longer hold any resentment in my heart towards them. I am truly a new person.

I have finally faced my fear of who I am deep down. I am finally okay with just being me. If you don’t like who I am, don’t be a part of my life. I am who I am and you can take it or leave it.

With that said, I think my entire point of my story is that if you are dealing with something you can’t let go of or if you are being self destructive as a way of running from your emotions, there are better ways to handle things. No one is perfect. Someone in the world has been through your struggle. Find someone you trust dearly to talk to about your experiences. If you don’t have someone or don’t want to talk to a personal friend, find a counselor, but don’t be afraid to face your past.

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” — Herman Hesse

Let go of your past and sail towards the future.

Hope you all have an amazing week.

<3 Racy

Special thanks to my best friend Sarah for always being there for me. You never judge me for what I have been through and for that I am eternally grateful. I love you. <3

Life Lessons

There is one incredibly important thing to realize in life and that is that everything is a lesson in some format or another. This came to me Friday morning while I was attempting to make my first sales calls ever. I don’t mean phone calls either. I mean driving to businesses, speaking with clients, and trying to introduce myself as their sales rep. When they say epic fail in video games, I now know the true meaning of that statement. I drove around for hours to businesses that had closed, people weren’t in the office, and I had the wrong addresses for some.

That story doesn’t really start my positive blog in a happy manner, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons that day. First, I realized that my sales strategy of the day, for lack of a better word, sucked. However, I had the attitude that I was going to learn from my mistakes, refine my plan, and not give up. I won’t make the same mistake twice.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting different results.

So why is it that we always try to do things that failed in the same way they failed before and hope that they work? That’s illogical. If in life you find yourself constantly in the same position in a job, a relationship, or in life, you have to start asking yourself what you aren’t changing. I am not saying to change yourself by any means. Be who you are and be damn proud of it, but don’t put the blame on other people either. For example, if you find yourself in relationships that don’t work out and you end up heartbroken all the time, you should probably consider changing how you approach relationships. If your in a job you hate and you leave to go to a job that you are doing the same thing, just for a different company, you may not solve your problem.

Take everything in life as a lesson. Make sure you are constantly learning from where you have been. The path you walk down may not always be perfect, but it can be perfectly valuable to your future.

Happy Monday!

<3 Racy

When Great Friends Inspire New Thoughts

Today I had a long talk with one of my closest friends. I was in a funk wanted to vent about some relationship and life issues I have been having. I was telling her about what I mess I feel like I am and how badly I needed to snap out of it. As I have learned, talking about negative things only brings negative energy so we began talking about how positive things are in her life.

Well, she has recently started dating a new guy and her energy level is off the wall! As we began discussing their relationship and how it’s evolving, she let me in on a secret of hers. She keeps a list of ideals and things she would like in a partner in her purse as a reminder of what she is looking for and never to settle for less than what she wants. She tells me how she thinks that this guy meets so many of them and how excited she is about it.

Instantly, I was inspired to start my own.

If you read any goal setting book, it will tell you to write down your goal and give details on what you want. So if you want a relationship that is everything you have ever wanted, you must first define it. That makes perfect sense. It took me less than half an hour to come up with just above sixty criteria that I would like someone to have, aspirations I would like them to share, and personality traits I would like. It was therapeutic for me, because it was the first time in life I have ever sat down and really defined word for word what I want in a relationship. It’s an eye opener. I would truly love to have anyone do this exercise and see what your answers are. I’ll give a few off my list for examples, but just a few.

1. Has his own goals, but encourages me to pursue mine.

9. Has an amazing smile.

29. Loves and respects my family.

42. Is polite and respectful.

64. Will be willing to listen to me ramble about ideas and theories on life.

That’s it. Just brainstorm through what you have liked in people you have dated. I only put the positive things I want and skipped the negatives, but it’s your list. Do it how you want.

Happy thoughts,

Racy : )

Moving Forward

I learned today that moving forward is often one of the hardest things to do. While talking to my boss, I realized that I am going to miss my kids and work family so much. Life without them will be completely different. I have based the last three years of my life around being a role model for these kids. I have shared more meals with them in my last two years than I have my family. I eat breakfast with them, I share my life stories, and I love them like family. Having days withtout them will be hard, but I must remember that it is not impossible.

A friend recently played me an audio tape that told a story of a dog and a tennis ball. The story is basically that when you throw a dog a tennis ball he is excited, once it’s dirty and he is comfortable with it, if you try to throw him a clean ball, the dog will not want it. You will have to throw him the clean ball time and time again, before he will accept it. As humans we are the same. We fear the new, the exciting, we make excuses, and worst off we tell ourselves that we cannot do something.

However, Einstein once said, “I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”

This new job is my bright and shiny tennis ball. This job will require me to let go of everything I know and adapt to a completely different lifestyle.

This will be the hardest thing for me to adjust to as I move forward in life. I will no longer be at a job that requires me to only be exciting, educational, and entertaining. I will be selling a product I have no background with, in a company that is completely new. New people with new work dynamics. While I am scared, I must remind myself that learning something new will be exciting and that I can handle challenges. I am looking forward to sharing my story of letting go of this dirty tennis ball.

Keep looking forward,

Much love,

Racy <3

The Best Day(s) of Your Life

The best day of your life can be everyday! Yeah, yeah that sounds so over-exaggerated and dramatic, but that is exactly what it is! I made my most important goal this week and it was to not complain or say something negative once. If I even feel the urge of complaining or to say something negative I have to instantly remind myself of why I am grateful to be in a situation that makes me want to complain or to look for the postives in something that seems negative. Guess what? Three days down and I feel great. To make that better, it’s already almost becoming second nature. I am looking for positives without even thinking about it because I know it makes me happier. I realize that I don’t have a large fan base yet, but I dare anyone who ever reads this to try it. Do it for a week and if it doesn’t make you feel better you are doing it wrong.

There are things in this world that are easy to do and easy not to do. Complaining is a great example of this. It is easy to complain and look for negatives, but it just as easy to look for positives and reasons to be happy. What would make you feel better at the end of the day? Venting about how awful your life is or coming home energized because you had an amazing day! No matter what happend to you, your attitude prevailed. For example, I am a full time student, I work full time, and I like to be busy. I could complain about how long my day is, how I barely have time to eat or exercise, and that I am exhausted. However, I tell myself, I am grateful to have a job, I am grateful that I am making my life better, and thank God that I have a meal. Little mindset changes like this go a longer way than I thought a week ago.

My proof was Tuesday night. I went out with a few friends to grab a beer and catch up. Mind you it has only been a week or two since I had last seen these people and one of them remarked that I seemed way too happy. I replied that I was high on life and everyone laughed, but it’s a fact. When you see reason to be happy all day, you will be happy all day. How can you have a bad day if you can’t find a single thing to complain about because you replaced it with something better? This has been an incredible realization.

Stay positive my friends,

Racy : )

Everyday is a new day

Tomorrow, Monday September 12th, will be day one of my newfound chosen lifestyle. Over the last month I have met people who have impacted my life greatly and I have grown more as a person than I could have ever imagined. I have been shown how a positive attitude can have a major impact on your life. I have been taught how important it is to thank people around you for everything they do for you. However, I am not talking about a simple thank you whenever it is expected, but at every turn of event where you were really impressed with someone or you are just happy to have them in your life. A simple note of gratitude goes a long way.

With that said, Instead of complaining about the world and adding to the negativity that is already pounded into us 87% of our day, I have made my goal of this week to not complain about anything. In fact, instead of complaining, I will remind myself of all of the things I am grateful for. I did cheat and start today in church. After taking communion, we all bowed our heads in prayer. My prayer was not to ask God for help or to ask any favor for someone else, my prayer was simply to say thank God for everything I have in my life. I am thankful for the roof I have over my head, the car that gets me every where I need to go, my job that pays my bills, that I live in a country that allows me to go to school and further my education, and lastly that I have so many people who care about me in my life. When I was done I put my head up and looked around the church and all I could do was smile. I could sit here and complain about how I don’t have so many things in life or I could sit here and truly appreciate all the things I do have.

With that I turned a new leaf in life. I am going to lead a positive life, I am going to help others, and I am going to start a list of affirmations and goals with specific dates and stick to them. I am the leader in my own life and I am taking life into my own hands. It is one of my goals to write an entry to this blog as often as I come accross something that I want to remember later, when I want to make an account of something I am grateful for, and most importantly when I accomplish goals to remind myself how good it feels to do so.

Tomorrow starts day one.

Goodnight world.