Anne-Marie Faiola, Author at Soap Queen

Wearing my Crown … Around my Neck

January 12, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

I got the cutest (squealing, jumping, and clapping) necklace from a kind-hearted SoapQueen reader. I love it soooooo much! In fact, I’m wearing it right now. It was made just for me and I feel very special. It also came in its own cute, adorable bag handmade bag. Thank YOU to Holly P. from Lotion Bar Cafe for sending me such a thoughtful gift. **You are a doll!** (Side note: Her Baby Booty Balm has the cutest label on it. Swoon!)

And, though it might be hard to tell, the necklace is sitting on top of a bar of cold process soap. Guess what it is? It’s next Thursday’s blog tutorial! I can’t wait to share it with you but you’ll need to wait another week because tomorrow is a new episode of SoapQueen.TV. We’ve been in post-production editing for a few months on a nature-inspired melt and pour episode and can’t wait to share it with you tomorrow.

Finally, in industry related news, About.com Skincare is doing their Reader’s Choice Awards. Some of the categories include ‘Best Budget Lotion’ and ‘Best Indie Line’. I’m pretty sure I know a lot of indie beauty lines that would be great for this award. So go, speak up for your favorite brand (even if it is your own brand)! Click here to be taken to the About.com site and official ballot.

Green Tea Blends

January 11, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Green Tea is a perpetual staple in many diets for its reputed health benefits. Because of this, there’s a large cross over to bath and body care as well. Bramble Berry’s Green Tea fragrance is a “fantasy blend” meaning that actual green tea (the drink) has little smell so this is our interpretation of what green tea smells like. It’s herbacious, green and works well in other blends as a middle note. I hope you enjoy the blends I came up with to make this versatile scent go even further.

Sweet n Spicy Tea

2 parts Green Tea

2 parts Vanilla Bean

1 part Cinnamon Sugar

Citron Green

3 parts Green Tea

1 part Bergamot Essential Oil

1 part Lime Fragrance Oil

Iced Green Fruit

2 parts Green Tea

1 part Fresh Mango

1 part Moonlight Pomegranate

1 part Guava Cucumber

Green Tropical Tea

2 parts Green Tea

2 parts Cybilla Coconut

1 part Cucumber Melon

Refreshing Green Tea

4 parts Green Tea

1 part Sage & Lemongrass

Are you wondering what a ‘part’ is? A ‘part’ is simply a unit of measure – any unit of measure, a drop, an ounce, a cup. So 2 parts of Green Tea and 1 part Lemon could be 2 drops Green Tea and 1 drop Lemon or 2 ounces Green Tea and 1 ounce Lemon. And if you have any great ideas for a Green Tea Blend, share them! I’d love to expand my collection.

My Favorite Books of 2010

January 10, 2011 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

My favorite thing in the world to do (besides work and hang out with my family) is to read. I aim to finish 1 book per week and last year (2010), I did pretty good. I finished 50 books. I could finish more if I didn’t have so many magazine subscriptions but I do love the pretty pictures and immediacy of magazines for staying up on trends and news.My favorite books of 2010: Room

This book is a deeply moving, sweetly expressed book about a little boy, growing up in a room. His mom was kidnapped by a depraved man seven years beforehand and he is the product of his nighttime abuse. The storyline is incredibly difficult but the writing (from the 5 year old Jack’s point of view) is precious. The author deals with the practical issues: How do you keep yourself fit in a space the size of a shed; to the more esoteric: How would you view your surroundings if you didn’t know there was more outside? This was my favorite book of 2010.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky This book was set up as a mystery (a family falls from a roof; how did they fall? Were they pushed?) but really, that initial horror is set up to interweave the story of a girl who is neither white nor black. What part of herself does she identify with most? Whom does she choose to become? In addition to an exploration of race identity, this is a fantastic coming of age story.

Her Fearful Symmetry

Truly a creepy, lyrical, beautiful, supernatural thriller with a killer of a surprise ending. It is written flawlessly, with every cadence thought-out and every description deftly woven. This story is about two twins who go to live in their Aunt’s flat after she dies. The mystery they unravel and their relationship keep the story going until its implausible and twisted end.

Olive Kitteridge

This book is comprised of thirteen short stories about residents of Maine. The stories are all connected with one or two small threads or characters and end up masterfully connecting in the end to bring the entire book together. I fell in love with some of the characters and the quirky personality of the town Crosby, Maine. This book won a Pulitzer Prize so you have the added bonus of feeling like you’re in the ‘in’ crowd when reading it.

Zeitoun

This book is so powerfully written that it reads like fiction though, sadly, it is not. It follows the story of a Syrian born contractor in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He stays to help the citiziens of New Orleans, rowing everywhere, and rescuing many. Yet, one day, he disappears. Both a scathing indictment of Bush’s lack of emergency preparedness planning and a gem of a redeeming story, this book grabbed me and didn’t let go until the very end.

Cutting for Stone

Though a slow starter, this is an epic book for the ages. Fiction is interwoven with real events that took place in Ethopia, a plot device that both helps to develop characters as well as become its own character in the novel. The book follows an entire family for the bulk of their lives, contrasting the story of the poor who are rich in family connections with the rich in America who are poor in meaningful connection.

Freedom

This book is huge and daunting to look at but it is a worthwhile read. There’s a reason it took Franzen 10 years in between books; this book would have taken that long to craft. It is put together like a masterful puzzle, following a family from each person’s point of view, to tell the story of a 30 year span. The story has no major crescendo to build up to but rather, is a slow weaving of a story that gets more complex and dense as the book moves forward. Even at its lengthy 576 pages, I finished this book almost in 2 days because I found it hard to eat, drink, or want to move while reading it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Did you ever wonder what happens to the cells that are taken from your body during a routine Pap smear or when you check a mole to see if its cancerous? Yeah, neither did I. Until I read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” This non-fiction book delves into the science behind gene therapy, the race to cure cancer and how we made so many leaps and bounds in medical science studying live human tissue. It turns out that human tissue came from a person, a poor black woman who had the perfect cells to experiment on because they never died. Yet, her family for decades to come lived poor, in obscurity, without health insurance while others profited off of selling their mother’s cells. This book goes into the ethics behind the business of selling cells as well as follows the lives of Ms. Lacks family.

The Wave

If you’ve ever wondered how a tidal wave is formed or tried your hand at surfing, you’ll be fascinated by this book. Part science book, part biography of Laird Hamilton (the father of big wave surfing), this non-fiction book reads like a novel and is paced perfectly to hold your interest and educate you at the same time. As a sidenote, after reading this book, I am officially a Laird Hamilton devotee.

The Compound Effect

Though this book is not rocket science (and let’s face it, good advice rarely is), it is just the book you need to start 2011 off right. If you haven’t read a back to the basics business book for a while, this is the one for you. Written by the publisher of Success magazine, this book makes success and its friends (fame and fortune) seem like a few simple habits away (but oh how hard those simple habits are). Indie Beauty is doing an online book club with this book to start 2011 off right. Click here to read about the format for their club and find out how you can participate.

All the live links to books in this post go to Amazon.com and are affiliate links.

If you have any other books that you think I’d love, please post and let me know. I’m always on the hunt for new good material!

Winner from Goals & Declarations Post

January 8, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Reading through all the comments on the 2011 Goals & Intentions Post was absolutely overwhelming, in a good way. You all inspire me and I am thankful that we can learn and grow together. Winners, send us an email at info (at) brambleberry (dot) com with your addresses and we’ll get your goodies to you!

Read the two winner’s goals below and get inspired!

Melt and Pour Prize

Alissa 3 days ago

My 5 goals for 2011:

I will….

1. Do my paperwork every week! I get sidetracked and I procrastinate because I hate doing the accounting stuff. I put it off for months at a time (crazy, right??). I want to do better and while I would like to shoot for doing it every day, I know I won’t be able to stick to it so I figure that doing it every week should be manageable.

2. Walk every day that I have time. I’m too heavy and I feel like I’m caught in sludge. I need to exercise and so I will pledge here that I will do it! That means no excuses like, I’m too tired, or I don’t feel like it. I really love to walk and once I’m outside I don’t mind. It’s just getting my butt in gear that is the hard part!

3. Stop spending so much time impulse shopping for my soap stuff. I spend WAY too much time browsing your wonderful website and then filling my cart with things I know I can’t afford. I have a paper list of things I need and I’m determined to stick to it….unless you happen to have a fabulous sale going on that is!!! 😉

4. Focus on better time-management. I spend entirely too much time online not accomplishing anything. I check in on every site I sell on and spend too much time “window shopping” for things I have no money for. I should be listing, making, labeling, or packaging….something is always needing to be done, right?! I’m going to try to be aware of my problem and actually DO something productive with my time and not sit in my desk chair screwing around.

5. Finally realize that I’m not superwoman and that I cannot clone myself. For my soap business, I will be aware of which things I like to do for fun and which things I need to do for profit and find a happy medium. I sometimes get so busy making orders that it becomes a chore. And I want to continue loving what I do so I will make a bit of time to create something fun. If not for sale, then at least for the sake of feeding my artistic side.

I love being creative so I would definitely choose the M&P prize!

Note: After writing this I realized that it helped me focus on things I knew needed to be worked on. I printed this list and stuck it on the wall next to my pc to help me remember my goals. Thank you for this exercise!

Cold Process Prize

CarringtonCalamity 5 days ago

My goals for this year:
1. To find a workout routine that fits my capabilities and time frame, and stick with it. I’m trying out hiphop abs right now and I’m hoping I can dance my way to a healthier me.

2.Find a new job where I am happy, so I can continue to support myself through college. My father recently passed away, so I took a break from working to mourn and to collect myself. Now I really need to stop feeling bad and get back to my responsibilities. By the end of January I plan to be situated in a job that I truly enjoy.

3.Purchase a home. My boyfriend and I have been living with family members and now its time for us to leave the nest. By the end of January we plan to be pre-approved for a loan and making an offer on a house that will suit our needs for the next several years.

My Theme for this year:
Positivity
This past year has been a difficult one. This year I want to take with me the knowledge of who I am as a person and the strength that I have gained, but also have an over all positive outlook on life. Being caught up in past pains is a waste. I want for myself, to see the beauty in what is given to me today.

It was impossible to pick just two; so many of the commenters had such fantastic goals but two really stuck out to me because they were specific and measurable and covered different areas of their lives. So, I chose two Runners-Up for $35 gift certificates to Bramble Berry.

Philosoapia 5 days ago

Hi Anne-Marie,
I’ve been following and admiring your inspiriational blog for some time and first I would like to thank you for your helpful, fun and motivating posts! I am always looking forward to your new post (and take it as a mini-reward for things I have completed). Second, I must apologize for my faults as English is not my mother tongue.

So, these are my goals for 2011:
1. Concerning fitness and health: Work-out three times a week, preferably outdoor activities and pilates/yoga. Mini goal for Q1: do the sun salutation every morning. Mini goal for Q2: work-out 3 times per week. Mini goal for Q3: Create an activity group among my friends ( busy women, a lot of mums) to meet once per month (can be upgraded :)). Q4: Stick to my program despite cold and bad weather!

2. Concerning far-away friends/family: Stay in touch by calling for birthdays, writing a kind of newsletter once per month and establishing fixed dates for gatherings (like a German holiday in October when nobody has to work).

3. Concerning family: Do something special 6 times in 2011. All of our 4 grandparents are getting older and older and I want to spend some quality time with them until they are too weak to do something. Ideas for this: Visit a chocolate museum in France near our home town, have a Easter brunch, invite them to a concert…

4. Concerning the music club I’ve been a member for 14 years: Have 2 creativity days per year to bring together adult and younger musicians (in Q1 and Q3). Organize a Christmas market for our Christmas concert (Q4). Q2: Play a great concert (as always).

My overall-theme for the year is to have a good time management as I am starting the final part of my studies (which means pratical education in school to be a teacher) and having SO MUCH work to do. I don’t want this work to overtake my social life, though. So BALANCE could be my word for 2011.

This is a very long post, but I am so glad to have supportive people around here as my husband and our closest friends don’t really appreciate goal setting and planning. I think it’s overwhelming them to be confronted with their own weaknesses!

I wish you all the strength and discipline to stick to your goals for 2011!

Steffi from philosoapia

Uniquegardenessences 4 days ago

First, let me say THANK YOU for all of your posts on organization, goal setting and accountability. I have been reading your blog for about two years and have found many such posts to be quite enlightening and even inspirational. After allowing illness and other personal things to interfere with my business, my first goal of the year was to actually set goals (after an honest evaluation).

This year, like you, my word of intention for the year is BALANCE. I supply several stand alone shops [in a few states], as well as having some on-line shops. I have had a bad habit of letting the on-line presence go when I was faced with issues this past year. I really need to redevelop the balance that I lost.
My theme for the year is Developing/cultivating relationships, this is both a personal and professional goal.

A few of my goals are;
1) To get back to development (my love) by dedicating 1 day a month (minimum) to experimentation/cooking. Which will help lead to success with my next goal
2) To introduce at least 6 new products to my on-line Unique Garden Essences shop, 6 to the uniqueXpression shop, and 2 to the Unique Treat Dog Bones shop.
3) To finalize the organization of the brochures by Jan. 15, 2011 and to begin distribution by Feb. 1, 2011.

I have many more, goal, both personal and professional, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I gave myself a structured tract to follow for the year.
Since I make both types of soap I would love to win either, but if I have to choose I’ll ask for the mp items (of course if I don’t win those and you really need more in the other category, feel free to list me twice! lol).

Thank you to everyone that commented and shared their dreams, goals and aspirations for the new year. Now the hard work, sticking to your commitments day in and day out, is up to you! Here’s to a healthy, happy and prosperous 2011 filled with love, laughter and amazing experiences.

Mixin’ It Up

January 7, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Heavy Duty Bass Mold (made using non-bleeding colors and the MP Tool Kit)

Mini Mixer (a must-have for clump free colorant addition) I used it for the bass soap up top. Not sure how to mix pigments into your soap using this adorb mini mixer? This great post from SoapyLove is a good primer for using pigments in Melt and Pour soap.

Testing 1, 2, 3!

January 6, 2011 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Yes, I know I’m always declaring that this or that is my favorite. But I really mean it this time. . . for now, anyway. I love our new 12 bar square silicone mold. It is so perfect for testing soaps but also makes 12 perfect bars of soap in a flash! We do a lot of soap testing to ensure that each fragrance we carry is safe for use in cold process soap. For every fragrance you see at Brambleberry.com, we’ve tested at least 100 more (really, I swear, that is not an exaggeration) that didn’t make the cut.

Rather than go over the basics of how to make cold process soap again, I’m just going to share my basic technique for testing fragrances. If you’ve never made cold process soap before please learn about the safety precautions and basic steps first. My series of 4 videos about how to make cold process soap would be a great place to start. Episode 1: Lye Safety, Episode 2: Basic Terms, Episode 3: Using Fragrances, and Episode 4: Using Colorants. And if I catch you making soap without goggles, may the Soap Fairies forever take away your soaping luck.

This is a really great basic recipe that I frequently use for testing. It makes a nice, hard bar of soap and with the high percentage of Olive Oil it traces slowly, which gives me plenty of working time. Get everything you need to make this recipe (except the fragrances and olive oil) with the click of a button.

Whenever you make CP soap, prep is very important. When you’re trying to test 12 fragrances, it’s ultra important. I gather all of my safety equipment, ingredients, tools, containers and molds. Next, I mix my Lye solution. While that’s cooling, I measure out my fats and oils.

Next, I weigh out all of my fragrances. It is really important when testing fragrance oils, like I am here, that everything is accurately weighed so that you can duplicate your successes .And, when all the fragrances are weighed out, you can just do a quick ‘dump ‘n’ stir’ – you need 12 little dishes if you’re working on 12 individual fragrances.

Next I mix my lye and oil and bring it to a very light light trace, after everything is prepped. Then I weigh out 4 ounces of soap batter into each container. I fill all 12 containers before moving on to the next step. You may have noticed that this recipe makes a little more than 48 oz. This is because you can never get every last drop of soap out of the pot, and with this recipe you are sure to have 4 full ounces for each bar.

Finally, I thoroughly mix in the fragrance into one of the cups (by hand with a spoon) and pour it into the mold. Then move on and do the next one. I have 12 individual spoons waiting to go. It’s the only way to ensure no scent contamination.

For clean-up there are a couple of ways you can tackle the job. You can wipe out the wet soap with a paper towel and then immediately run very hot water into the cups to wash the oily mess down the drain. Or you can wait a couple of days and wash the fresh soap out the cups. The waiting method is easier – but it only works if you have the space and enough containers that you don’t need them for a few days!

Do you have other testing tips and techniques? I’d love to hear them!

Cold Process …. With a Twist!

January 4, 2011 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Add elaborate details to your Cold Process soap easily with fun melt & pour soap pieces. In the bars above, I embedded a basic brown and black layered melt & pour loaf and some experimental marbliezed soap in green and white cold process soap.

Tip: To ensure your melt and pour does not ‘sweat’ in the CP soap, let it sit out for 24 hours under a running fan before embedding into your CP soap recipe.

What You’ll Need
32 oz. Apricot Kernel Oil

20 oz. Palm Oil

18 oz. Coconut Oil

4 oz. Castor Oil

1.90 oz. Jojoba Oil

10.7 oz. Lye

25 oz. Distilled Water

4 oz. Hungarian Lavender

Blue Green Mica

Super Pearly White Mica

Tools:
Stainless steel or glass mixing bowls
Scale
Heat safe mixing spoon
Electric Stick Blender
Vinegar (in case of splashes)
Gloves, goggles and long sleeve shirt
Cardboard box lined with freezer paper or Bramble Berry Wooden Loaf Mold

Important: If you’ve never made Cold Process soap before, we highly recommend reading The Everything Soapmaking Book or watching our How to Make CP DVD, before you attempt the recipe below. Safety information about handling Lye is here. And, of course, SoapQueen.TVhas FOUR free videos on making CP soap that I can’t recommend enough.

Instructions:

Step 1: Gather all of your ingredients and tools. Weigh your oils and have all of your containers and molds ready before you even look at the lye. Also, plan out your embedds and make sure they fit in your mold the way you want.

Tip: You don’t need to invest in expensive molds to start making soap! We just used a sturdy cardboard box and lined it with freezer paper. To figure out how much soap your mold will hold, use this formula: Length x width x height x .55 = approximate soap in ounces. When calculating your height you don’t want to fill your box all the way to the top – so just put in the height you want your soap to be.

Step 2: SUIT UP! Put on your gloves, long sleeves, and eye protection.

Step 3: Wearing your full safety protection, mix your pre-measured lye into your water. Once it has cooled to between 120F to 130F, gently mix the lye water into your melted oils.

Step 4: Once your soap has reached light trace, add the Lavender essential oil and colorant(s) of your choice.

Step 5: Divide your soap into different bowls if you are making multiple colors.

Step 5: Pour about an inch of soap into your mold – if you are using multiple colors, pour both colors and give it a gentle swirl.

Step 7: Place your soap embeds in the CP soap. Wiggle them down a little (your gloves should still be on) to make sure no air bubbles are trapped.

Step 8: Pour more CP soap over the top to cover the embeds.

Step 9: Wait a minimum of 48 hours before attempting to cut. Remember, Cold Process Soap requires a full 4 to 6 weeks of cure and dry time before using.

Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!

Candy Cane Cupcakes

January 3, 2011 Filed Under: Soap Queen Cuisine

Wondering what to do with all of your leftover candy canes? Fear not, I have a solution! Candy Cane Cupcakes!

Now, mine are filled with a blue White Chocolate Ganache because that’s what I used to surprise my family with the sex of our baby (missed that post? It’s here). If it were me, I would skip the ganache for ‘normal’ cupcakes. It was just too much sweetness in one cupcake. But if you’re absolutely dying for the ganache recipe, just ask me for it in the comments section.

Vanilla-Peppermint Cupcake Ingredients:

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 tsp. baking powder
* 1/4 tsp. coarse salt
* 1/2 cup whole milk
* 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
* 1 tsp. peppermint extract
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 large egg , room temperature
* 2 large egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line the cupcake pan with adorable cupcake liners.

2. In a medium bowl, mix all of your dry ingredients together. Sift if you must but I always skip that step.

3. In a medium bowl, mix the milk and extracts together. Set aside.

4. In yet another bowl (yes, I am trying to give you a mountain of dishes to wash. Sorry ’bout that), cream the butter. This involves beating the butter until it’s light and fluffy. Normally, this takes around 3ish minutes. After the butter is creamed, start to add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time until it’s all in and fluffy.

5. Add the eggs to the sugar/butter mixture and beat on medium.

6. Drop the mixer speed to low and beat in 1/2 of the dry mixture. Now, beat in 1/2 of the wet mixture. Dump the rest of the dry in and the rest of the wet. Mix until just blended.

7. Spoon batter into cupcake tins, filling 3/4 of the way up. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Do not overbake. I did and they were a wee bit dry.

Vanilla-Peppermint Frosting:

* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1/8 tsp. salt
* 3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
* 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
* 1/2 tsp. milk

Crushed Peppermint Candy Canes (I used a rolling pin to crush. It was a labor of patient love). I used at least 8 candy canes.

1. Cream the butter and salt (medium speed for about 3 minutes) until light and fluffy.

2. Reduce speed to low and add in the rest of the ingredients.

3. When cupcakes are cooled, frost the cupcakes.

4. Once the frosting is as smooth as possible, take a paintbrush and put into warm water. Paint the cupcakes smooth (or as smooth as you can get it.)

Left – painted smooth; Right – original

5. Put the crushed candy canes into a bowl and dip your wet, smooth cupcakes into the crushed candy canes until the cupcake is covered nicely with the crushed candy canes.

Store these in an airtight container. Leaving out in the open causes the candy canes to weep and melt.

Even niece dog Samantha wanted in on the cupcake action; the frosting is that good!

Sadly, cupcakes aren’t for doggies so we got the pouty sad look. Don’t feel bad for Samantha; we did give her a dog bone. =)

Public Declaration AND a Contest!

January 1, 2011 Filed Under: Business Musings

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”
Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Click here for Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Click here for Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Click here Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

The last step of effective goal setting is to publicly share. Your idea of publicly may be just your best friend, your accountability partners, your entire office, or the world on your blog. Or in this case, THIS blog! There’s two ways to enter:

1) Post a comment and tell us all one (or two, or three) of your goals for 2011. Share as little or as much in the way of details as you’d like but share your SMART goal(s). One of mine is date night weekly (with a couple months off for newborn stage) and to write in my gratitude journal every night.

2) Post a comment with what your overarching theme for the year is. It could be your word of intention for 2011 (mine is ‘Balance’) or your theme for the year (yup, got one of those too; mine is “Taking the Perfection Beast”).

And last step? Tell me if you want to win the Cold Process Prize or the Melt and Pour prize. We’ll randomly choose one of each winner on Friday the 7th of January.

Do you want to win a prize? Of course you do! (silly question) Post with one of the two (or both!) of the options from above and you’re automatically entered. Don’t forget to tell me if you’re entering for the CP or the MP prize.

And here are the prizes you could win!

(Insert “oohhs” and “aahhs” here)!

The Melt and Pour Prize is on the left. The prize includes three “less than perfect” ELF molds, one plastic loaf mold , a Soapylove Sweet Treats Colorant set and a Soap Queen T-Shirt! On the right is the Cold Process Prize consisting of a “less than perfect” 5 pound Wood Log Mold with Removable Handles (minus one handle) and a Soap Queen T-Shirt! Good luck and Happy New Year!

Stumbling Blocks or Five Surefire Paths to Failure

December 31, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”

Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Click here for Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Click here for Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

We’ve all been there – excited, rarin’ to go and totally pumped up about a new goal or commitment that we make. And then a few weeks later, we find ourselves not keeping that commitment and within a few months, we pretend we never made the commitment to start with. I’ve done that. Everyone has done that. It’s human nature to make Big Hairy Audacious Goals and then let them slowly dwindle into nothing as life and time hammer us. I am going to touch upon the Five Surefire Paths to Failure when setting goals and give you tools to overcome each of these stumbling blocks.

1. You made a goal because your sister, husband, brother, mother, teacher, boss thought you should make it. You never truly committed to it.

I fall prey to this stumbling block often. I have a huge advisory board of people, all carefully vetted and chosen to help me along my path in business and life. Over the years, some of those advisers have given me downright bad advice. But, it sounded good at the time so I followed it. But ultimately, their goals weren’t the same as my goals and so I let those goals go.

The way to overcome this stumbling block is by doing exactly what we’ve done for the last three days: Determining our Values, Figuring out our Dream Future and using these tools to Create SMART goals.

2. Your lifestyle is years away from allowing you to reach the goal.

Yes, we all want to find time to work out 60 minutes per day, six days a week and cook healthy home cooked organic low fat veggie-filled meals daily (or is that just me?) but the reality is that very few of us, unless we’re independently wealthy or it’s our job to look good (a la movie stars) have that sort of schedule that allows us infinite amounts of time or resources.

Look at your goals. Do you realistically have the resources (time, money and/or support) to achieve your goal? If you are a Mom, working 2 part time jobs and getting your soap business off the ground, perhaps making a goal to become President of the Neighborhood Association AND the PTA isn’t a wise goal. You are lacking in the ‘time’ resource part of the equation. But, what you could make a small, reasonable (yes, realistic!) goal around is becoming more involved by attending one Neighborhood Meeting per month and going to one PTA meeting per month.

3. The goal is so big, so hairy and so audacious that there is no chance of meeting it.

In business school (well, at least the one I went to!), they taught us to dream big and make HUGE goals that were so big that they inspired everyone around us to help us reach those crazy, insane goals! I went along with this and have some insane goals from that time period of my life. And that’s okay. But for yearly goals, we want those goals to actually be achievable in a year. Take a look at your life (see step 2) and get real (see Day 1 of our Planning Your Best Year Ever series). There is absolutely no shame in downgrading or simplifying your goals. My goals for next quarter are laughably simple because my life is changing so radically with the addition of our baby boy into our family. But, laughably simple or not, they are still goals that get me along the pathway to my ultimate dream family and business life.

4. You always break promises to yourself. Why will this one be any different?

This is a toughie. Ultimately, lack of willpower is a character and practice issue. When you lie to yourself, it’s easy to lie to others. When you break promises to yourself, it’s easy to break promises to others. You are the most important person to always keep your promises to. Willpower and keeping promises to yourself is a daily practice. It is not easy. It is not a born, innate skill. It is a learned skill. It is something that is often a 2 steps forward, 1 step back type of practice. But every single 2 steps, 1 step gets us more along the path of ultimate success with willpower.

Wondering how to strength your willpower muscle? I wrote an article about it here. Additionally, there are tools you can use – simple things like setting Outlook calender reminders for your goals, buying Apps for your Smart Phone to put your goals into or gathering up a team of helpers (your kids!) to help keep you on the straight and narrow.

You are important. You are too important to continue breaking promises to yourself. Deliberately use 2011 to strengthen your willpower so that you can bust through any mental barrier set in front of you as you move through your goal list for 2011 successfully.

5. You don’t have a written plan in place with a support network.

This is my number one dynamic duo success tip. It did not originate with me. Many wiser people (including Jesus in the Bible) found that there is dramatic power in groups. I’ve written about this concept of Accountability Groups before (here, here and here). It is such a valuable success tool that this post would be remiss in not pointing it out, again. The concept of an accountability group is simple. Choose 2 people (not 1, it’s too easy to let things slide when it’s only one person you’re disappointing) and commit your goals TO PAPER and share them with one another. Make up your weekly and monthly plan and have it, on paper, to share with your accountability group. Check in with one another and give yourselves consequences and prizes.

Over the years, I’ve had a variety of differently structured accountability groups. My current one is comprised of three businesspeople (two guys and me) and we use DropBox to upload our goals and our progress for those goals to every other week. We speak on the phone every other week about our goals and meet in person 1 time per month to talk about our goals.

We have PAINFUL consequences for not meeting our goals. My consequences range from buying each smoking member on our staff cigarettes for the week to donating $250 to a charity I abhor. We also have celebrations and rewards for meeting our goals (as if the reward of meeting the goal wasn’t enough). Mine all revolve around cupcakes (no surprise).

Additionally, the important people in my life know about my goal and verbally give me cheering on to help me make the goals. In some cases (like date night with my husband weekly), they’re part of the goal! It’s important the people you are close with understand your goal so they can help support you in it. For example, if your spouse knows that your goal is to make yoga at 4:30 p.m. on Mondays every week, they will be less likely to expect dinner on the table by 6 p.m. on Mondays.

These are the major stumbling blocks I’ve experienced in my life as I’ve made goals, broken goals and succeeded in goals. If you have any stumbling blocks and great solutions, please share and post them here. I love group learning and I know there are more solutions out there than just the five I’ve listed.

Tomorrow is the big wrap up and a fun contest to kick off the New Year right! As for tonight, celebrate responsibly … =)

Chunk Into Goals – Planning 2011

December 29, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”
Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Click here for Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

Today is where Day One, Two and Three come together in one glorious whoosh of activities.

1. Read through your Values. Is there anything in your Values that isn’t currently being actively fulfilled or worked on? For example, if Family is a value of yours but you never see yours, a goal around family time seems like a natural. Write down possible goals for the areas that have holes in your Values system.

2. Read through your Essay from yesterday. Where are you on that path way? Write down 10 concrete baby steps you could take in a year to get you closer to your dream house, body, partner or whatever you wrote down.

3. Look at the following categories and pick 5 (only 5!) to work on for the year:

Financial
Spiritual
Physical/Health
Fitness
Leisure Time/Recreation
Career
Family
Public Service
Business
Health
Artistic
Learning/Intellectual
Living Environment
Personal Relationship
Psychological/Attitude

Write down possible goals for each of these 5 categories. You can write down potential goals for each of the categories but the bare minimum is to write down goals for your top 5 categories.

Putting it all together

Do any of the above categories have a natural fit with the answers from #1 (Values) or #2 (Essay)? Now it’s time to make some tough choices. What are you going to choose as your Top Five Goals for the year from all of the options (1, 2 & 3)? At this point, don’t be surprised if you have 5 or 20 worthy potential goals. Remember, goals need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, Time Oriented). I’ve written a few times about what a SMART goal looks like. If you need a refresher, here are 3 posts on SMART goal setting (here, here and here).

You should come out of this exercise with 5 worthy goals for 2010 based on your Values and your Idealized Life Essay. With the knowledge and understanding you gleaned from Day 1 (our ruthless self-assessment day), you’ll be well on your way to being 100% successful with your goals in 2011. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking a short break to post a fun winter tutorial (soap!) but on Friday, I’ll be back with a post on overcoming obstacles and pitfalls when on your path to achieving goals.

Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy.

– Bill Blackmun

Visualize Your End Point

December 28, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”
Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

“If you don’t know what you want, don’t say you never had a chance” Napoleon Hill

Have you ever started out on a trip and not gone to your trusty Garmin, or MapQuest or iPhone to figure out what turns to take? If you’re like me, you haven’t. We all love the magic of technology when it comes to actually getting to our destination and without getting (too!) lost. In order to get that accurate road map though, we need to know our final destination. We need to know the exact address of where we’re going.

It’s the same exact way with our goals. We need the final destination in mind. And not any destination. We need the specific address – the very specific final goal. Do you want to live in a new house? Don’t just say you want to live in a new house. Say “I want to live in a new house with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a pond for my dog to swim in and a 5 acre yard for my son to run around in. I want that home to be in this specific neighborhood. I want this home to cost XYZ.”

Do you have a weight loss goal? A fitness goal? A business dollar amount goal? A new partner goal? Anything and everything you want in the future can AND SHOULD be incredibly specific.

For this exercise, we are going to do a free form writing exercise for 20 minutes. The goal is to not let your pen leave the page. Not once. Keep writing. Even if it feels like gibberish. You can write longer if you want but if it feels like just forcing yourself to write each and every word, just give it 20 minutes for me. I want you to answer one very specific question:

In 10 years, when my life is ideal and I have reached all of my goals, this is what my life looks like.

If you read my idealized future essay, it is incredibly specific. It details getting up in the morning, the sheets I have (yes, they’re high thread count), the state of my white hotel-like bathrobe (fluffy and soft!), my polished toenails in slippers, what I see when I leave the bedroom, who is waiting for me at the table (yes, it involves children – plural!), what we eat at breakfast, how the conversation goes, what the emotions are at breakfast (enthusiastic children, loving partner, healthy breakfast food) how I get to work, what car I am driving, where I drop the children off at school.

It’s all the details plus the global stuff – how much we travel as a family, how often we see grandma and grandpa, how my business functions with and without me, how long my staff stay with my company etc… If you read it, it reads like the most perfect idealized life in the entire world. It is absolutely reaching for the stars and more. Much much more. And as kooky as it sounds, just dream with me for 20 minutes. Just do it so you can work on your final destination and get that end point for your personal road map clear.

Ready. Set. Write!

Determine Your Values

December 27, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

Click here for Day One: Examine Your Starting Point of ‘Designing your Best 2011!”
Day Two: Determine Your Values
Day Three: Visualize Your Ending Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)

My Values

One of the reasons that goals are not achieved is because the ideas behind the goals aren’t all that fully formed. The initial excitement wears off as soon as real life starts to wear you down. Sometimes, the goals aren’t the right goals. Maybe the goal to become an Engineer was your parents’ goal and not yours. And more often than not, your goals aren’t being made for the right reasons.

Making a solid base for your goals success starts with a figuring out the ‘Why’ behind your pursuit in life. Why do you do anything? What’s important to you? And, the most important, how do you want to live your life in the future?

If you’ve never done a Values exercise, they’re quick, easy and painless to do. I think they’re fun! There are a lot of ways to come up with your values but this is the one I like to do. Set aside at least 15 minutes for this exercise but don’t short change yourself. Take as long as you need to make sure you come up with values that are very reflective of who you are as a person.

1. Write down five people you respect and admire; an alternate method is to write down the five people who have had the most positive impact on your life.

2. Write down six qualities for each of these five people (so you’ll have 30 adjectives written down ideally).

3. Circle the adjectives that you think resonate most with you and your life. Aim for five or six values.

Bonus: Ask three people close to you if they feel the values you’ve chosen for yourself ring true. I did this with 8 close friends and they all had valuable feedback for me.

That’s it – it’s that simple! You have a great start on what your values are as a person. I have three sets of values that I live my business, personal and family lives by: one for my company, one for myself personally and one with my husband for our family.

The values you decide on are what are going to guide you through choosing well thought out goals that really resonate with you and your life. These values will be the filter with which you judge your potential goals: “Does this goal fit within my values?” Or, these values will direct your goals. For example, my core value that drives everything in my life is my Family. If my goals aren’t aligned with the idea of Family at the center, then it’s time to reevaluate those goals and the value. Am I just paying lip-service to the idea that Family is a value? Or do I need to change my goals to fit my values?

Here are a list of possible Values that will hopefully get you thinking about things that describe your favorite five people. It is by no means a comprehensive list – just a little zing! to get your creative juices flowing. Ready. Set. Write!

Designing Your Best Year … Ever!

December 26, 2010 Filed Under: Business Musings

I feel a bit like Oprah with that pronouncement but so be it. The reality is that having your best year ever requires work and planning. And that’s what we’re going to do for the next five days.

Day One: Examine Your Starting Point
Day Two: Determine Your Values
Day Three: Visualize Your Ending Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration (and a wee small contest!)

Long time readers of this blog won’t be surprised by this subject matter. I write about the same thing this time of year, every year. I choose not to feel anything but professorial in this consistent repetition though. Greatness doesn’t come in a day and gentle reminders are always a good thing. I read a lot of personal development and business development books yearly so everything I’m saying today and the rest of the week is an amalgamation of what I’ve been reading this year (and my entire life). So if you’re reading this and feel like you’ve read something similar before … you probably have. =)

If you’re looking back over the year and wondering why your year didn’t go as planned, congratulations! You’re in good company. Many use the end of the year as a time for reflection and planning. And the first step to making next year different is to do a full autopsy on 2010. It’s time to figure out what is going to make your plans different this upcoming year so that your goals really do become your reality.

Step One: Get RUTHLESS. Today is not for the weak. Today is for a clear, level-headed assessment. Pull out your calender for the last year. Make a hot drink. Get in a quiet space. Grab the tissues. Grab a pen and paper. Find thirty minutes. Plan for an honest assessment; don’t spare yourself. Being kind to yourself has a place in most of your days but this is not that day.

Step Two: Look at the goals you set out for yourself last year (Didn’t set goals? Not to worry. If you had set goals, where would you expect to be today? There’s still a place for you to have an honest self-assessment, starting with “Why didn’t I set goals? What held me back?”). Which goals did you make? Write out your 2010 goals (or resolutions) on your sheet of paper. Check the goals off or put a line through them if you successfully completed them.

Step Three: Look at the goals that are left without a check mark or a line. Spend a minimum of FIVE minutes on each goal, writing down, free-form like a journal, what happened with that goal. Answer these questions:

(a) What happened? What physically held you back? What emotionally kept you from making this goal?
(b) What could you have done differently?
(c) Is the goal still important to you?

If the goal is still important to you, go back to (a) and write out all the corrective actions you should have taken and that you can take in the upcoming year. If you notice that all of your answers to (a) are things like “So and So did XYZ and so I wasn’t able to….” turn the mirror on yourself, and take a hard look at yourself again and take personal responsibility for what you could have done. (I’ve railed on this subject before. If you’d like a personal kick in the pants, read this blog post).

Step Four: Re-read all of your answers. Are there any patterns? Is anything jumping out at you? Now is the time to really mine the reasons that you didn’t make those goals and ensure that whatever needs to be changed for next year really and truly does get changed. Answers can range from: “I’m terrible at setting goals. Of course I wasn’t going to lose 120 pounds in one year!” to “I didn’t make it a priority in my schedule” to everything and anything in-between that.

Step Five: Now is the time for your grace. You were ruthless with yourself. You objectively looked at what went wrong for the last thirty minutes. Now, let it go. That was last year. This is now. You’ve done the play-by-play. You know what went wrong. You can fix it in 2011. And now, we can start this year off with a clean slate. Pssst: are you still feeling down? Yeah, you were pretty hard on yourself. Quick picker-upper? Write down all the things that you DID accomplish in 2010 that you are proud of, whether it was a goal or not. There. Now are you feeling better?

Stay tuned; tomorrow we’ll get to work on 2011 by starting at your very core, your foundation, your base: your values.