SUCCESS AND FEAR OF FAILURE

Successful people frequently choose to put themselves in challenging situations. They step out of their comfort zones and face their fears. Why? Because it is what makes them stronger and wiser. 

They either succeed or not. It does not matter. What matters is that they have learned something new and added something else to their portfolio of skills and knowledge. 

If they no not succeed at first, they try and try again using a different approach until they succeed.

Once they succeed and reach their goal, they can't sit still for too long before they set themselves another new challenge and a goal. 

Successful people have this insatiable need to keep learning and growing. 

So face your FEAR and rise to new heights! 

Easter in Slovakia

I have many lovely memories of Easter in Slovaka. 

As a young girl, the Easter celebrations at school were wild, wet and fun! The boys would chase the girls and spray them with water using plastic siringes ( before water guns were invented) perfume and even toothpaste. It was kind of like a food fight without the food. It was messy but it was fun! 

My grandmother lived in a small village all her life and told me about the Easter traditions. On Easter Monday, the village young man and boys would dress in traditional Slovak costume, and visit a girl they fancied at her house. They would shout out to her to come out, and as she came out they would whip her with a young willow tree branch. It was regarded as good luck for the girl to be whipped. All the boys in the village would go from house to house, chase the girls out and herd them to the village creek, where they would be chased into or picked up and thrown into the creek. My grandma told me it was good luck and washed away evil and back luck. 

I remember my mum preparing and decorating Easter eggs. She showed me how to empty the eggs without breaking the egg shells. She pierced a small hole on the top and bottom of the egg, then would blow out the contents. These were later used to make Easter cheese. We then painted and decorated the eggs. She also hard boiled eggs in water with food colouring to colour the shells, and made several batches in different colours. These eggs were used for decoration later eaten. 

Later when we lived here in Australia, my father would prepare the Easter basket, with sausages, bread, cakes, cucumber, tomatoes, decorated Easter eggs and Easter cheese. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slovak-easter-cheese-cirak/

We would take the basket to church and have it blessed by the priest. After fasting all day, once the basket was blessed, we could take it home, feast and celebrate. 

Easter was a family and community celebration in Slovakia and later here in Australia in the Slovak community. Sadly, as I grew up here and married, I have not been following these tradition and lost touch with the Slovak community. Thinking about it today, they are lovely traditions, and I should show my children how we celebrated. Perhaps it is time to introduce my family to these. One of them is to pour a cup of cold water on the girls on Easter Monday morning while they are still in bed. I wonder how they will take that? ;) 

HOW TO SET AND ACHIEVE GOALS

Weekends are great to take a breather, and think about you goals. Reflect and think about your week, your year, your life so far, what you like about it, what you don't, what changes you can make and set some goals. 

If you want to get somewhere in your life, first you need to know where you want to go, before you think about how you will get there. 

Get a nice journal and start writing your thoughts down. Even if you are not sure, start jotting down your ideas, your wish list, or your frustrations. 

A good tip I once received when I said "but I don't know WHAT I want" , I was told to write down what I DONT WANT. It was a great start, most of us know what we don't want. So write all the things you don't want on one side of the page, then next to each point on the other side of the page turn it into what you DO want. For example "I don't want to run out of breath and struggle like that when I climb that damn hill." will turn to "I want to be able to climb that hill easily and without loosing my breath". 

Once you have determined what you do want ( your first goal, yey!) think about how you will get there. In the case of this challenging hill climb, I know in order to climb it successfully I will need to get fitter. It may mean I will attempt to climb it only part way up until I start to struggle, then come back down. I know I'll have to attempt this frequently and try to go a little further each time. 

So I make some plans to take action. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings I will climb that hill as far as I can go, and keep doing it, pushing myself that little bit further each time until I achieve my goal. 

Sometimes you will write a goal  down but have no idea how to get there, or perhaps think it's just not possible in your situation. Don't worry about it, leave it for now. Ask your mind to find a solution, and when ready come back to you. ( your mind is very much like a computer, it can work on problems in the background ) Trust yourself that you will come up with the right answer when you are ready and move on to your next set of goals. 

So in summary this is what I do: 

1. Reflect and evaluate my past experiences and jot down my thought in a journal

2. Write down what works what doesn't, what you like what you don't like, what you want and don't wasn't 

3. Turn things you don't like into what you would like. Things you don't want into what you DO want. This will be your first set of goals.

4. Think about each goal and what it would take to achieve it. Break it down to what actions you can take, and approximately how long it will take for you to achieve it. Put those actions in your diary, and DO IT.