Summer 2011

"I can't change the direction of the wind but I can always adjust my sails to reach my destination."

Ah, I apologize for not having written much this summer. But I'm back! Let's start with something simple. For a lot of us college students, summer 2011 has officially begin. Everyone else, you just have a few weeks left until summer starts so this is a good thing to talk about for all of us: goals.

So let's take a look at resolutions and goals that we've set in the past. Have we kept them? If yes, then wow-good for you! But personally speaking, the answer is generally no. Except for my soda sankalp, I haven't been able to stay steadfast with any resolutions, but this summer, that's about to change! [Or it has so far!]

First of all, set your goals. If you have time right now, think of what you want to accomplish this summer or do on a daily basis or whatever. I'll list mine out so that it triggers some ideas.

• Do suryanamaskar every day
• Work out every day 
• Read inspirational & developmental books* 
• Not eating out*
• *Everything starred has special conditions in case you hold me accountable in the future :p

That's just a few that I've been working on for the past week or two. So now that you've thought about what you want to do, list the reasons that you want to do it all. Because honestly, if you don't have a reason, then you won't be passionate; therefore, you'll easily give up your goals. While doing this, make sure that your goal is realistic. It's understandable that you might want to go run a legit marathon this summer, but if you've never been much of a runner...then it'll probably require a lot of training. If you don't have time for that, then you might want to set another running-oriented goal. So look back at your goals and see if they are achievable or not because here's one more reason: if you set high goals and aren't able to accomplish them, then you'll feel bad about it and that will discourage you from setting goals in the future...and you definitely don't want that!

Okay so now that our goals are set, how do we keep them this time around? Well a simple way is to have people be accountable for your goals. Have someone text you a few times a week asking if you've been doing what you're supposed to, or tell your parents! They're usually good at bugging you to do the right thing, haha. Another way is to write about them every day. This gets exhausting at times, and it's easy to stop writing one night if you're really tired but promise yourself not to sleep without jotting everything down quickly [it'll take 2 minutes] so that you can look back to see which days were peaks and which weren't. It'll motivate you to make more days successful!

Someone awesome once said: "willpower is like a muscle. The more you exercise it/work it, the stronger it gets." Maybe someone famous said something similar, but it was Akon who said it to all of us girls...and it's true. If we look at great people, they all had willpower. But as a lot of us discussed, they weren't just born with this willpower. They were able to use it in small scenarios, which eventually lead them to become strong, great people. We can't put off strengthening our willpower anymore...time is not going to wait for us.

So together, let's make this summer incredible and live up to our goals! Thus far, my summer has been incredible. I love it and I'm trying not to waste time (even though I do watch a lot of TV). I miss all of you! And hope that you're all doing spectacular things this summer.

So long <3