101 Days to Make a Change

Roy Leighton, Emma Kilbey, Kristina Bill

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781845907686
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Self Improvement

101 Days To Make a Change is a constructive and compassionate companion that will help get you back in the driving seat of your life - in just over three months. Its expansive ideology is grounded by an achievable process with a realistic timeframe to help chart progress and acknowledge results. This programme will give you rigorous tools in order to truly understand what makes you who you are, so you can plan for your best future, both personally and professionally. You'll be led by clear and practical steps to uncover your drives and motivation and identify your attitude to learning and change. Armed with these valuable insights your confidence will increase and your stress levels will be reduced while you develop new skills and start achieving firm goals.

Section 1

Survival

Getting the Basics Right
Are You Waving or Drowning?

Day 1

Begin and end with gratitude

You don’t have to see the whole staircase – just take the first step.

Martin Luther King

Perhaps the most fundamental element to get right in life is our ability to experience love and feel gratitude, so it seems appropriate to start right there. Why is gratitude so important? Feeling grateful for all that we are and have is deeply satisfying and enriching. It also reduces feelings such as inadequacy, envy and frustration which are the usual stumbling blocks to reaching our full potential. Plus it aids acceptance of other people and their situations, and thereby creates greater empathy.

We will introduce a simple but effective exercise that is designed to top and tail each day. This exercise will, over time, reduce negative thoughts, aid clarity, increase a sense of contentment and lead to greater inner peace.

Today’s exercise

Wake up with gratitude

Take a few moments, just as you wake up, to immediately ‘catch your mind’ and think about a person, a place, a song or an activity that you love. Stay with the thought, elaborate on the visualisation and really go into it until you experience a sensation of love; then set your intention to go into your day with that loving feeling. It may not last all day but the fact that you did it first thing becomes a habit and has an accumulative effect.

It is also important to round up the day’s events and experiences and to clear your mind for that all-important sleep to have its full regenerative effect. Before going to sleep, lie down flat on your back and relax (in bed or on the floor). Gently rest your hands by your side or on your chest, whichever feels right. Now start to run a list in your head of all the things you are grateful for. Start with yourself, including your body, mind, soul, achievements and so on. Move on to all your relationships, experiences, comforts and joys. Imagine that you gently hold all this gratitude in your heart and set your intention to wake up the next day and be even more grateful for all your gifts.

Exercises throughout this section		Exercises throughout the book
		Wake up with gratitude

Day 2

Wake up your body

A healthy mind in a healthy body.

Buddhist proverb

We all know that it’s advisable to look after our bodies, yet it can seem impossible to prioritise the time and the space needed to do so. If we eat unhealthily and refrain from exercising or taking adequate rest there is a risk of a build-up of toxins in the system. In time this can lead to disease. Traditional Western ideas, both scientific and religious, have in some ways led to the belief of a separation between the physical body and mental and emotional activities. This can make it difficult to appreciate to what extent general mental and emotional health can impact the physical body, and vice versa.

The body is full of sensory centres that make it possible for us to experience feelings of love, contentment, ecstasy, pain and so on. Toxins left in the body can start to consume vital energy and clog the system. When our energy is low we may become less focused, attentive, open-minded or thoughtful – less aware of and in touch with our feelings. Furthermore, various additives in foods can create chemical imbalances in the body so that physical ailments as well as mood swings and depressive symptoms may ensue. The more toxins are eliminated, the greater our ability to feel energised, alert and relaxed.

As well as causing harm by neglecting our bodies physically, maintaining a negative body image can also be very destructive. This may stem from a variety of sources, such as pressure from popular culture, religious beliefs, traumatic personal experience and so on. An essential element of personal development is to fully accept who we are. A negative body image equates to a lack of self-acceptance which can hinder personal growth. These are extremely personal topics and can be very deep-seated.

The process of investigation and the consequent discovering and demystifying of those beliefs can be painful but ultimately hugely freeing an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Section 1 : Survival
• Section 2 : Tribal
• Section 3 : Self
• Section 4 : Order
• Section 5 : Enterprise
• Section 6 : Community
• Section 7 : Complexity
• Section 8 : Holistic
• About the Coral Collective
• Bibliography
• Index of exercises
• Copyright