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Make It Happen Monday: Living Your Passion At Work (Plus a VEDA)

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Living your Purpose at Work

Happy Monday Joy Chasers.

How are you feeling today?  I”m especially curious if you are reading this post on your way to work or shortly after arriving.  It is Monday and time for Make It Happen Monday goal setting.  However, as much as we like to try to focus on starting the week off positively, Mondays can be a challenge, especially if it is the start to your work week.  I’m curious as to how you are feeling heading off to work as I was thinking a lot about if I am exercising my purpose / passion at my day job after attending church yesterday.  I talk about it in today’s VEDA Video below, Living Your Passion At Work.  You can watch it directly on  my YouTube Channel by clicking the link here >>> Living Your Passion At Work <<<.

Tell me how you feel about your day job and if it feels purposeful or feeds your passion.  If your day job does not, tell me what you are doing or are thinking of doing to feel more passionate and purposeful about life.

Have A Joyfully Safe Summer

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June is almost over.  Before you flip the page on your puppies and kittens hanging calendar ( I know I’m not the only person who has one) let me remind you that June is National Safety Month.  I am reminding you because I want all of us to have Joyful summers without any mishaps.  Plus, I was not even aware that it was National Safety Month until I received a reminder email from the good folks from the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance.  
It is Monday, so I know many of you are writing out to do lists and updating your tasks with your goals for the week in the spirit of Make It Happen Monday.   Here are a few safety tasks to add to your list. 
  • Check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
  • Check the screens in your windows and doors to make sure they are secure and don’t have any wholes (especially if you have a cat like mine who has been known to scratch his paws on the screens).
  • Check your gutters.
  • Clean the filters in your air conditioners.
  • Check all of  your power strips, outlets, and surge protectors to make sure none are over loaded.
  • Brush up on your pool and swimming safety guidelines.
  • Stock up on sunblock.
  • Make sure you are up to date on your routine car maintenance especially if you see a summer road trip in your future.  
The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance created the info-graph below with a few other ideas on how to stay safe this summer.

What safety tasks are you adding to your list?  What tasks do you do each year to ensure you’ll have a joyfully safe summer?

Getting Back to Making It Happen On Monday

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This  year I have tried to be more laid back, my zen more, at ease.  Sometimes I am those things and some times I am not.  The positives of being more laid back, zen and at ease is feeling less stressed, not trying to control everything, and  having more faith that things will be alright.  The negative is that I have gotten kind of lax with setting my goals each week.

One of the features of Chasing Joy that I really like is sharing my goals and hearing your goals on Make It Happen Monday.  I have not been good about my Make It Happen Monday goals this year and I am changing that today.

Here are my goals for the week.

  1. Not stress over upcoming doctor’s appointments (mine and my mother’s)
  2. Do burpees and butt workout 2 times 
  3. Housework 
  4. Add to the #1000Gratitudes
  5. Drink more water
  6. Get more sleep
  7. Laugh more
  8. Listen to my mantras
  9. Cook instead of ordering or eating out
  10. Select the winners of the two $15 Starbucks Gift Cards from the Chasing Joy 5 year Blogaversary giveaway.

Not a bad list of goals if I don’t say so myself.  I’ll be sharing my goals today on my social media accounts using the hashtag #MakeItHappenMonday.  I’d love to hear about your goals.  Tell me what you want to accomplish this week in the comments below or in response to me social media posts.

Now I can quickly cross one goal off my list.  The two winners of the Starbucks Gift Cards are……..

Rosie and Theresa

These Joy Chasers have been contacted!

What’s on your Make It Happen Monday goal list for the week?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!

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Happy Thanksgiving Joy Chasers!. I normally don’t post on Thursdays (post days are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) but I definitely wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to you and to express how thankful I am for all of you readers.  I kind of stumbled into blogging without any knowledge of where I wanted to go with it.  This journey has been truly amazing and life changing.  I have grown as a person since I started writing Chasing Joy.  I am in a much better place where I am happier and more confident.  I have a purpose in life and know that I can help people by sharing my experiences here.  You all have  helped me get here and I am thankful for each and every person who has read a blog post and or left a comment.

Other things I am thankful or are:

  • having my mom in my life and having such a good relationship with her
  • everyone who has prayed for my mom’s  health
  • everyone who is part of the Chasing Joy Prayer Group
  • my job and it’s flexibility
  • the money I have made blogging this year
  • my cat peanut
  • my car
  • my home
  • that I have been attending church regularly and enjoying it
  • for my friends from childhood, high school, college, work, blogging and those family members who also count as friends
  • my nieces and nephews
  • my health
  • my looks (is that shallow???)
  • all of the great things God is doing behind the scenes
What are you thankful or today?

Get Your Mind Right For Joy

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R is for Right, as in Right Frame of Mind.

I know you may think that I am A naturally happy person since I write about Chasing Joy,  but i’m not.  While I am careful about what I say and I tend to speak positively my thoughts usually fall more on the side of melancholy.   I worry too much. I have too many anxieties.   I am all too good at Always Thinking and Fortune Telling.   I am Chasing Joy to combat these tendencies.

One of the downsides of having a more melancholy personality is that I rarely have the right frame of mind for whatever I am facing.  I tend to be filled with worry and dread and all sorts of negative outcome What If scenarios.  The good thing is, over these last four years of Chasing Joy, I have learned that with a little bit of focus I can have more positive thoughts and minimize some of my melancholy tendencies.  So with a little effort I can head into new ventures, challenges, and the unknown in the right frame of mind.

Today I have a great opportunity to put this into practice.  When I get to work I will have a new supervisor.  There has been a lot of anxiety and worry amongst my co-workers as we do not know anything about our new leader.  I have been very positive in my tone and in conversations with my co-workers.  However, that does not mean that I have not had my own worrisome thoughts.  But instead of focusing on the negative I am going to focus on getting in and staying in the right frame of mind as we adjust to the new boss man by doing the following:

  • Understanding what is and is not within my control.  
  • Putting my efforts toward the things that are within my control
  • Setting some personal goals that are measurable and achievable (#MakeitHappenMonday is a perfect time for that)  
  • Rely on my faith and prayer
How do you get in the right frame of mind before new ventures and challenges? Do you naturally focus on the positive, or does it take you a bit of work and focus, like myself?

Joy From A to Z

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This year is going by so fast.  I cannot believe a quarter of it is over already.  Tomorrow starts April and boy are you in for a treat.  OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Boy are you in for more blog posts from yours truly.  I hope you think that’s a treat??? 🙂

What am I talking about?  I am talking about the A to Z Challenge. The A to Z Challenge is posting a new blog post every day in April, except Sundays.  Normally, new posts go up on Chasing Joy 3 times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  For the month of April there will be two more posts each week on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  I will not be switching to a new theme or anything for the month of April.  I will still be writing about Joy, things that bring it and  things that may be blocking it. Oh, and the #FlashbackFriday Link up will still happen every Friday.  Come May, I will be switching back to our normally scheduled programing of 3 posts a week. 
I am doing the challenge because I like challenges.  I am not particularly competitive. But I do like to push myself and see improvement, hence the #100DaysofFitness Challenge that I’m close to completing (Be sure to watch my YouTube videos about #100DaysofFitness).  This writing challenge will require me to push myself creatively as I write about all about Joy from A to Z. Lastly, I am looking forward to reading some of the other A to Z posts and finding some new blogs to read.
Do you like personal Challenges?  Have you ever done a writing Challenge?  Are you participating in the A to Z Challenge.  If you’d like to sign up here -> http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html.  If you participate in the challenge leave me a message in the comments so that I can check out your posts.  


PS. Don’t forget to enter my Find Joy in the Journey giveaway  for a chance to win your own Joy in the Journey Necklace.  TUESDAY IS THE LAST DAY!!!  Enter -> here! 

#MakeItHappenMonday: #100DaysOfFitness Update with Videos

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Happy Monday Joy Chasers!

No coming down with a case of the Mondays today.  Instead, focus on the good things that will be happening this week and set some goals that will help you have a good week.  My two top goals this week are to continue working out every day, with no days off, for the #100DaysofFitness Challenge and to make better choices with my diet.

I am over a quarter of a way through the challenge.  It is going pretty well.  Today is day 30 so I’m actually almost a third of the way to the goal.  I have not missed any days.  I’ve done a variety of workouts including, Zumba, walking, jogging, weight training, and even Yoga.  Despite how successful I have been it is still a challenge to work out daily. At 30 days in it still has not become second nature.  Maybe by 60 days in.

I have posted a few videos about covering my progress. Take a minute to watch them.  Make sure you have subscribed to my Youtube channel and are following me on Instagram to keep up with any new videos.

See, things are going pretty well.  Honestly, this challenge is hard and the main thing keeping me going is the positive feedback I am getting from you all on Facebook and Instagram.  Thank you for the support.  Please keep it up!

One of my other goals this week is to eat better.  Eating healthily has always been more challenging than exercising.  I guess in general, it is easier for me to add activities than to deny myself.  Even though eating well is not really about denial.  At the frequency that I crave foods on the not so good list a certain amount of denial is necessary.

Food Prep!

To help me with this goal of eating better this week I cooked a bunch of stuff, steamed chicken breast, steamed flounder, baked chicken drumsticks, ground beef & turkey chili, ground beef & turkey taco filling and crustless spinach and broccoli quiche.  During the week I should only have to cook some turkey bacon and steam some veggies in the microwave.  I should be good to go!

What are your goals for the week?   Feel free to share them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using the hashtag #MakeitHappenMonday.

Today’s Lunch: steamed chicken breast
with broccoli & marinara sauce

Remember, Mondays don’t have to be bad days.  Focus on the good things happening this week and on setting goals.

The Joy of Enviornmental Wellness

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Happy Monday Joy Chasers!  Remember no coming down with a Case of the Monday’s today.

I know Mondays are not easy.  For a lot of people they are even more difficult if they are going into a work or other situations that are just sucking the joy right out of them.  That’s why I thought Monday would be the best day for this guest post from Chasing Joy Ambassador Cherise Rollins on Environmental Wellness.  We can’t always control our professional situations but there are other aspects of our environment that we can control.

Environmental Wellness

Many people refer to “environmental wellness” as an awareness of the earth’s resources and your individual impact on these resources.  This is certainly part of the definition, but there is another essential, less talked about aspect – the health of your personal environment.  This is the space that you personally occupy on this earth.  Think of it as the sphere of space that follows you wherever you go.  You control what comes in and out of that sphere.
There are so many factors that contribute to the health of your personal environment – who you interact with, how you live, the activities you engage in, what you eat, think, say, do…the list goes on and on.  It may be easier to list some characteristics of a person with a healthy personal environment. This person may:

  • Keep the company of healthy people, both at work and at home
  • Purchase foods that are nourishing for the body and mind
  • Avoid activities that risk his/her safety or well-being
  • Engage in activities that inspire, encourage, and uplift
  • Live in a home that is a comfortable place to relax and recharge daily

I’m especially compelled to share my thoughts on personal environmental wellness because I’ll be the first to admit how easy it is to lose sight of how important it is to maintain a healthy personal space.  I want to be happy in my “sphere” but often times I don’t do a good job at playing gatekeeper.

I recently started a new job after being out of work for over a year – I’m a single gal living alone in my 30’s with a mortgage to pay, so I accepted a job with an extremely negative and draining environment that has adversely affected my emotional, physical and mental health.  I may not have the luxury of quitting, but the point is that I should be aware that this situation can’t be long-term and I should be actively searching for a plan to try to change the situation.

 Just to make sure I’m being clear – an environmentally healthy person probably doesn’t live the “perfect” life.  We all have challenges in our lives, but an environmentally healthy person is aware of all the environmental factors that impact their health and does what is within their control to create a healthy “sphere.”  For the most part there is no right or wrong answer.  The choice that is healthy for you as a person is most likely healthy for the earth at large too.

If you’ve ever been in a situation like mine where you feel a major part of your life is out of your control and isn’t nourishing you the way it should, do something supportive for yourself in an environment you do have some control over – your home environment.  As an interior stylist, my life’s passion is to help people understand how important their home spaces are to their lives and to help them create a space that is positive, supportive, inspiring, nourishing and all of the things you need it to be.

You may not know where to start inside your home and that’s ok.  Organization is a great place to start. Visit my post “Magic Vertical Storage” to discover a few simple steps to create an organization system in your utility closet – a place that is often times very challenging to organize.  The steps are easy and once it’s done you will have a better idea of how to organize other spaces in your home.  If you have a room or a closet in your house that feels “out of control” – tackle that space as best you can.  Reduce clutter and organize it.  

By organizing your space and focusing on your environmental wellness you will be sending a message to the universe that you are doing what you can to take care of yourself and you are making room for better things in your life.  You are getting in the right mindset to accept all the good coming your way.  Additionally, you will feel good about your ability to take care of yourself at home and will find that organization makes your everyday life easier, even if it’s just saving you a few minutes of time in the morning to locate your shoes and coat because you finally know where to find them.

When there are things happening in your life that are sucking the joy out of you but are out of your control, do you focus on the areas of your life that are within your control like Cherise suggests?  Does having your home enviornment in order make you feel like other areas of your life are more manageable?  Is there an area of your home environment that you need to get organized so that you can feel more in control of  your environmental wellness?

Cherise Rollins contributes to Chasing Joy as a Chasing Joy Ambassador.  Cherise is a Professional Interior Stylist & Lighting Expert. Her mission is to make home personalization accessible to everyone.  On her blog, ispaci, Cherise provides design tips and ideas to help people create homes that are fully equipped to support their personalities and lifestyles.  As part of the Chasing Joy team, Cherise helps others find joy by maximizing environmental wellness, order, and beauty within their homes

Keep up with Cherise:
on Twitter @CheriseRollins
Especially check out her post â€śMagic Vertical Storage” mentioned above.

Things That Make You Smile

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I could not figure out what I wanted to write about for today’s blog post.  I stared at the screen for at least an hour before I started writing. It’s not that I have writer’s block.  I have a few posts in my head.  I’m just not in the mood to write about any of those things.  This week started off stressful with the shooter situation at the Navy Yard in DC.  I have a good friend who works in the building where the tragedy took place.  Thank God she is ok.  After that stress I just want to think about light hearted things that make me smile like rainbows and ducklings.  So here are a few things that have put a smile on my face over the last few days.

I now officially hate the song Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.  I hear it at least once a day, usually more often.  I must have heard it at least 5 or 6 times during the 3 hour drive to #PowerUp2013 last weekend.  I am officially sick of it. However,  this combination of Blurred Lines and the theme from the old TV show Sanford and Son made me smile.  Who knew these songs went so well together. Here is the link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zClaFW3rsJg (YouTube won’t let me embed this one)

The week before last my blogger friend Rachee from Say It “Rah-shay” liked up her post Let the Parodies Begin for #FlashbackFriday.  This is officially one of my favorite Flashback link ups.  She did a parody of Carly Rae Jepsen’s song Call Me Maybe.  I love the way her daughter and sister are smiling in the video.  I had the biggest smile while watching it.  She also included a few other parodies in her post as well.  My favorite of the other parodies is the cookie monster one.  

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook and I really did laugh out loud. I did not just smile or chuckle to myself and type LOL in the comments.  I actually laughed out loud.

Achieving my goal of losing at least 4% of my body weight for the Neon Fresh  Dietbet, #NFDietBet, and losing 11.5lbs put a huge smile on my face.  I did it! I did it!

Seeing Chasing Joy listed among the nominees for the 2013 Black Weblog Award had me smiling as well.  I’d greatly appreciate your vote.  You can only vote one time per computer.    Go to http://www.blackweblogawards.com .

Lastly I am smiling because of my blogger friends who have applied to be a Chasing Joy Ambassador.  You can read about that here –>> http://www.chasing-joy.com/p/off-blog.html .

What has made you smile over the last few days???

#FlashbackFriday & the Big Anouncement!!!

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Happy Friday!  It’s Friday the 13th!!! (Cue scary music.)

Thanks for taking time to stop by Chasing Joy today before you get your Jason marathon going.  I know you are here for the big announcement but before I get to that, it’s time for the Flashback!!!

On #FlashbackFriday we share links to some of our favorite oldie but goody posts.  My favorite posts from last week’s linky are:

Let The Parodies Begin made me feel happy.  This will be my go to blog post when I need to smile 🙂  

Vodka Calling also made me laugh.  It’s all about a mom’s eventful shopping trip with her kids.  

My Flashback this week is Chasig Joy Brunch & Learn August Recap.  This post is a recap of all the fun I had at the last Chasing Joy event.

It’s your turn. Add your link below.  Share your post on the Chasing Joy Facebook Page and use the hashtag #FlashbackFriday on Twitter and Instagram to promote your Flashback posts. All are welcome to join the fun!!!  The only rule is to visit AT LEAST TWO other flashback posts from the linky.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for, the big announcement.  Are you ready???  Drumroll please…………

THE NEXT CHASING JOY BRUNCH & LEARN WILL BE SATURDAY JANUARY 11, 2014 IN WASHINGTON D.C.!!!!!!

That’s right the Chasing Joy Bruch & Learn is hitting the road and heading south from Philly to DC.  This road trip is going down thanks to an invitation from Curvy CEO. She loved hearing all of the positive feedback about the first two Brunches and did not want her D.C. area readers to miss out.

The D. C. Brunch will give D.C. area (and any of you who want to visit D.C.) bloggers, blog readers, and entrepreneurs the opportunity to come together in the spirit of starting the year off right by pursuing a happier more joyful life all while enjoying, networking, giveaways, speakers and a yummy Maggiano’s brunch.  Our speakers will be Jese Lewing Gary of Luxe Giving and Erika McDaniel of Your Chic is Showing.

If you are a blogger, blog reader, social media enthusiasts, motivator or person who has decided that personal happiness, fulfillment, and a Joyful life are goals worth pursuing then this is the event for you. If you believe gratitude, giving back, accomplishing goals, and trying new things are all methods of improving quality of life then this is the event for you.

Stay tuned to the Chasing Joy Event’s page for additional info.  The page will be updated regularly with info on our speakers, hostesses, and sponsors.  Be sure to join the Facebook Event and share it with your friends.  That’s the place for you to start connecting and networking early.  Also be sure to follow the hashtag #CJBL on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for up to date info.  

I hope to see many of you there on Saturday January 3, 2013 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm at Maggiano’s Chevy Chase, 5333 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC.

Registration is now officially open!  Act now to get the early bird pricing.

Have you been to a previous Chasing Joy or Curvy CEO event?  What did you love about it?  Will you be joining us in DC?

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