Do you smoke? bite your nails? overeat? In truth, we can all let go of a bad habit or two. With these five following tips, it may be easier to quit than you imagine.

Here they are:

1. Commitment. Make sure this is something you truly want to accomplish. It’s wonderful to “talk the talk,” but you’ll need to back that up by “walking the walk” as well. Be honest with yourself. Do you truly believe that this is the right time to kick your bad habit? Remember, it has to be done for the right reasons.

• Don’t let yourself be pressured by others. Search your soul and be certain you’re doing this for only one person – you! It’s your time and energy you’ll be using to make your goal a reality, so make your decision carefully.

2. Start a journal. Jot down every time you practice your bad habit. This isn’t to be used as a punishment, but to give you more of an idea when your undesired behavior is occurring, so that you can better devise ways to break it.

• Include your thoughts and feelings that precede or accompany the behavior. This can give you an idea if you’re doing this when you’re under stress, bored, tired, and so on. Though it may seem time consuming at first, recording these thoughts and actions can be a wonderful tool to speed up your success in breaking the habit.

3. Choose an alternative behavior. This behavior can either remind you of your desire to quit or be a permanent replacement of your bad behavior with a desirable one instead.

• For example, a friend of mine once put a rubber band on her wrist when she was quitting smoking. Each time she had the urge to light up a cigarette, she would snap the rubber band on her wrist instead. Naturally, this was only temporary to remind her not to smoke.
• Some more ideas are to take a walk, read a book, sing a song, or cook. Any activity can be used as an alternative behavior. Of course, you don’t want to replace one bad habit with another one, but anything that can redirect your focus works well.

4. Start a replacement schedule right away. Start immediately replacing your bad habit with your alternative, but a gradual shift may work better for you than a complete change.

• You may want to start with once a week, then maybe twice week, then three times, until you’re consistently practicing your alternative behavior instead of the bad habit.
• Remember, this won’t happen overnight, so please practice patience. People learn different behaviors at a different pace. Don’t be discouraged if your best friend stopped smoking in three weeks and you’re on your fifth week and still craving a cigarette.

5. Don’t keep this a secret. If you’ve made the decision to break a habit, tell others. This is the time when you need the support of your family and friends to help you be successful.

• Whether you succeed or not, you’ve taken a major leap in a positive direction. That’s why it’s so important to share what you hope to accomplish with family and friends. Those who love you will be there to encourage you, offer support, and help you wherever they can.

Breaking a bad habit can be difficult, but it isn’t impossible. Use these techniques to make your journey easier, then celebrate your accomplishment when you’ve succeeded – you deserve it!

There are four primary areas of anxiety and stress when it comes to work-related anxieties:

• Work overload
• Difficult co-workers
• Demanding bosses
• Fear and uncertainty about these tough economic times

Don’t despair, there really are things you can do to relieve work stress. Most of them are easy enough you can start today and begin seeing results immediately.

1. Overloaded And Overwhelmed

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your workload, the first step should be to examine your schedule. Maybe you can change your routine or rearrange your schedule so you have more time in the day to get the job done.

Perhaps there are some tasks you can eliminate or spend less time on. You can also try to delegate the work to others in your office or even outsource some work to freelancers online.

If you’re still feeling swamped, you’ll want to speak to your boss. Communication is the key to working things out and finding a way to lighten your load.

2. Co-Workers Who Don’t See Eye to Eye

There are always going to be difficult co-workers at every job.  It’s something you’ll face no matter where you work. Even if there’s someone who is just a pain to deal with for one reason or another, you don’t have to let it stress you out.

If you have a co-worker that’s continually trying to ruffle your feathers, confront the issue. You may want to do this with your boss present as to avoid any chance the difficult co-worker can turn on you or say things that didn’t really happen. If the problem still continues, however, and you simply can’t ignore it any longer, see if you can get moved to a different department or area. If not, then I suggest killing the difficult co-worker with kindness. When you turn the other cheek, so to speak, the offender will usually back off eventually and leave you alone or better yet, befriend you. Either way you get the desired results.

3. A Boss Who Rules With An Iron Fist

Okay, what do you do when your boss is demanding? Remember, your boss is your boss and it’s usually not wise to come across in a confrontational manner. However, you can try talking to them in a peaceful, non-confrontational tone.

To do this, schedule a meeting ahead of time and write out your thoughts. This will help you state your case and stay on topic. Stick to the issues and the issues only. Never place blame or come across as if you know better than your boss. This kind of talk could only lead to a worse situation, if not get you fired.

However, if speaking your mind doesn’t seem to make your boss any less demanding, then you’ll have to let it roll off your back. Easier said than done, I know. But, it can be done with determination and effort.

4. Questioning Your Future

Right now, probably the biggest cause of stress in the workplace is fear of uncertainty in these tough economic times. Even if you’ve done everything to ensure your position at your company, like increasing your value as an employee, there are still no guarantees in this economy.

So, what can you do to help relieve some of the stress and fear?

One thing you can do is start preparing for the future. Perhaps you could start taking classes at your local community college to learn a new skill or trade.

You could also start building an online business. Even though the economy is struggling, online businesses are booming. If you make crafts or jewelry, or you’re artsy, you can start selling items on eBay or open an Etsy shop. There are many ways you can begin securing your future now. All it takes is a little research and planning.

Let it Go! Release Your Frustration

The best way to relieve work related stress is to work out regularly. Getting regular exercise helps relieve stress of any sort, but especially work related stress. If you don’t belong to a gym, begin working out at home. Going for brisk walks regularly also greatly reduces stress.

Top 5 Work Stress Relieving Strategies

1. Examine your schedule, delegate, outsource, or talk to your boss when you’re overloaded.
2. Talk to a difficult co-worker or kill them with kindness.
3. Communicate with your boss when he’s too demanding.
4. Prepare for the future when you fear losing your job.
5. Work out regularly at home or at the gym.

Stress has become a part of your everyday life, but it doesn’t have to control your life. By incorporating these strategies, you can overcome the major causes of stress in your workplace in no time!

Hello entrepreneurial women!

Today’s little tidbit is designed to help your mental health, and shape how you think about your business and entrepreneurial venture towards a more positive angle.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the proverbial glass: It’s the same glass, and when you look at it, is it half full or half empty?

Okay, so it’s a cliche and I too have heard it for years. So often, in fact, that I’ve stopped listening to it.

But recently I’ve had cause to revisit that phrase. And because I’ve had to re-hear it, so too do you my entrepreneurial dear!

My grandmother, who shall simply be referred to as “Nana” for the purposes of this article, recently suffered a STROKE. The term, stroke, immediately conjures up images of life-long debilitation, and I think of people who have lost significant functionality of speech or bodily mastery of half of their body.

Nana went to the hospital and spent three days in the hallways of emergency while the hospital tried to find a room for her. On the first day, she couldn’t speak. She had lost her ability. Prone to drama and unable to verbally impart her suffering to the world, this caused her HUGE distress. But by the second day, she could speak again (though when over-tired her language skills would slip, she would panic and the stress would further erode her language skills, and then she would FREAK). By the second day, she was wondering through the emergency halls and checking out everyone else’s distress. By the third day, she was talking up a storm. And walking. And chewing gum .

In other words, Nana had fully recovered from a stroke after only three days. The hospital eventually found her a real bed, kept her for two more days for observation, and then sent her back home, where she lives independently.

This was three months ago now.

Were her glass half full, she’d look at her experience and count her blessing. Not many 85 year old women get off so easily after a stoke! Many are wheelchair bound for the remainder of their lives, some are locked into their own bodies having lost the capacity to communicate through words, some have compound speech and muscular issues.

Nana is up and running, fit as a weasel. You’d never look at this woman and see any signs of a stroke.

But Nana, dear negative-bound Nana, is committed to reliving only misery. She remembers only her suffering. The inconsistant care (in emerg, the nurses rotate frequently), the roughness of one nurse, the panic of not being able to speak, the fear of that feeling returning, and on it goes.

The result is this: when she gets locked into her past experiential misery (and, yes, it’s true, it all DID happen) she spirals into the future possibility of the return of that pain.

The glass half empty is where you focus on the upper part of the glass, the content that has gone and will never re-appear in it’s original form. And you cling to holding on what is left. The scarcity mentality sets in. I can never consume this because LOOK WHAT HAPPENS it all disppears and my life depends on me hanging on to what is left. Wo! is me. In Nana’s case, life now begins and ends with her miserable hospital experience. Any little headache turns into weeping sobs. Any mention of hospital turns into a repetition of what was.

Many of you may know someone who has suffered a stroke, and may be amazed at Nana’s incedible outcome. She’s gotten away with suffering stroke, and being able to walk away in three days and lived to talk about it.

So the glass half full is where you focus on the wealth of what is left. You can still look at the upper part and savour the flavour of what was. And then you look at the remain part, and anticipate what joy it will bring you. The spiral here is a positive one. And as ANYONE who has ever drank a glass of anything knows (pay attention here!), that glass can always be refilled again.

• Abundance instead of scarcity.
• Joy instead of sorrow.
• Anticipation instead of fear.

And the only thing that is different, the ONLY thing, is how you think about it.

What you carry with you in the present is what your future will bring.

To your abundant world,

Britt Santowski

Life can be truly busy, hectic, and heck, even chaotic, if we don’t stop now and then to take a few minutes for ourselves. This is true for entrepreneus as well as anyone else! With the invention of computers, our working lives, our businesses, and our aspirations were supposed to get easier (just like the industrial revolution promised), but it’s gotten busier than ever before!

The original mentality was that computers would allow us to get the same amount of work done in half the time. That idea went out the window when we realized we could now get twice the work (or more) done in the same time.

Now our world has become so fast paced that it’s hard to keep up. If you don’t stop the pandemonium, you can begin to feel as if your life is descending into a chaotic jumble. Luckily, there are ways to deal with these overwhelming feelings and put some order back into your life.

Here are a few tips on how to re-learn how to relax, already:

1. Take a break. You deserve one, and no, I’m not just quoting some goofy clown. Give yourself a chance to take in everything going on around you. Even if your break is a nice hot bath instead of a shower, it can help.

• Find a little time here and there to get some peace and quiet while you reflect on the events of the day.

2. Meditate. Ooommm. Meditation can be very helpful in bringing you peace. Contrary to my opening grunt on this point, meditation doesn’t mean sitting uncomfortably and chanting like the monks in the movies. Instead, it’s a very comfortable and soothing way to calm your mind and bring you the serenity you desire.

• With a little practice, anyone can meditate. Just find a quiet, dark room and close your eyes. Begin at first by just focusing on your breath.
• Picture yourself at a black board. And on the black board are written all the thoughts that are in your head. Calmly, see yourself picking up an eraser. A BIG eraser. And begin erasing.
• This imagery will help you settle into your meditation. Once you’ve cast away your burdens, you can imagine how peaceful your life can be.

3. Find the positive. No matter how chaotic things get, you can always try to find something good and positive in your situation.

• Actively look for the silver lining. It could be something as simple as a favorite song, a picture, or the smile of another person that gives you some inner peace. Look for these things and you will find them. Relax, hun, it’s there. And you will find it.

4. Slow down. While we have to multitask almost constantly these days, doing so tends to wear us down even faster. Multi-tasking adds to the chaos around us. And while we women are great at multitasking, sometimes we neeed to let go. Of everything!

• Take one thing at a time and allow yourself to focus on that task alone. While you may be able to handle three or more things at once, the quality won’t be nearly as good as if you focused on them one at a time.

5. Don’t let anyone drag you down. Know that the very fact that you EXIST makes you a miracle, a piece of magic. Be wary when considering the (especially the negative) opinions of others.

• Don’t ignore everyone, but don’t let yourself get bogged down with other people’s baggage and their issues, either.
• Remove your personal chaos causers, even if one of the causes is other people.

6. Take out the drama. Eliminate the drama in your life, especially other people’s drama. It’s not your concern, so stay out of it and don’t get caught up in it.

• Focus on solving your concerns positively rather than enjoying pity parties. This will reduce the drama and turn your focus to something positive.

Everyone has some chaos in her life. It isn’t always a bad thing. Stress can be productive as well. In fact, without stress and responsibilities, some people would never get out of bed!

Life will always have stress and problems, but how you react to them can dictate the level of chaos in your life.

The first step is realizing that you need to make some time for yourself. If you don’t, nothing you do will really make that much of a difference. You can’t be there for everyone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself.

Use these tips every day to bring order to your life, and soon you’ll find peace instead of chaos. Comfortable relaxing, and getting on with life.

To your perpetual success my friend!

Britt Santowski

The following article comes to you by way of I’m Allowed.com:

Entrepreneurs Must Master the fine ART of Self-Discipline

One of the greatest gifts any entrepreneur can give herself is learning to master the art of self-discipline. Learning how to tell yourself “NO” is an important step to become a stronger, wiser and more mature person. (And I thought saying “NO” to my five year old daughter was hard enough!)

While practicing self-discipline isn’t easy, there are many benefits to mastering this art of personal control:

Self-discipline can help you achieve your goals and realize your dreams.

Many times, achieving the goals you set for yourself requires you to sacrifice time, money and energy you might prefer to spend on other things. Are you willing to have this dedication?

• Self-discipline helps you get more done. By cutting out time wasters in your day, you can accomplish more every day and reach your goal sooner. Without the self-discipline to stick to a task, you can be easily distracted by less important details. Are you willing to remove these distractions?
• Self-discipline helps you have greater focus. By shutting out the things that take you away from your work, you can focus on what is most important. You can’t say yes to everything and everyone; you must be able to focus on one thing at a time and do it well.

Focus is nearly impossible to achieve without self-discipline, and goals are nearly impossible to achieve without focus. Are you willing to focus intensely on your goals?

The keys to self-discipline are simple. There are two rules you MUST adhere to:

If you make a commitment to someone, keep it. If you make a commitment to yourself, guard it with your life!

Part of self-discipline is self-respect. In order to live the life you truly desire, you need to care for yourself properly.

Respect every part of yourself:

1. Respect your body. Pay attention to the signals your body sends you. We’re masterfully created, and your body will tell you when something is out of balance. Listen to the signals and treat yourself with VIP handling to be the strongest and most productive you can be!

• Consider adding exercise or yoga to your daily routine to help you achieve balance in your body and mind.

2. Nurture your mind by filling it with positive, engaging information.

• Read books for the sheer joy of learning.
• Engage in meaningful discussions with people of all backgrounds and philosophies.
• Avoid negative people and conversations.
• Listen to joyful, uplifting music instead of letting the television flood your mind with commercialism and negativity.

3. Respect the spiritual part of yourself. It’s important to feel connected to something larger than you are. Connect with your Creator by meditating, praying or spending time in nature.

• Attend worship services at a local church, if that’s part of your belief system.
• Allow the spiritual side of yourself to become stronger and more important to you.
• Base decisions on the greater good rather than simply what feels good at the time.

4. Respect your physical health. Taking good care of your health requires self-discipline. Your body will help you accomplish amazing things if you treat it properly!

• Eat a healthy diet.
• Get plenty of rest and exercise.
• Strive to maintain a healthy weight.
• Refuse to smoke. (Or if your smoking, resolve to quit.)
• Avoid over indulging in caffeine or alcohol.

5. Respect your time. This includes your work time, family time, playtime and personal time. Make space in your life for every area. Schedule family time and alone time just as you do work time and other obligations.

• By adding everything to your written agenda, you create a priority within yourself and self-discipline helps you stick to your priorities.

If you want to live your life to the fullest and achieve your goals, self-discipline is a must. Learning how to control your impulses and make strong decisions is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Self-discipline can bring you the life you always wanted.

Brought to you by I’m Allowed.com, the entrepreneur maker!

Do you define the success of your entrepreneurial ventures in dollar value only? Sure, money is nice. Definitely money is NOT evil. Banish that thought from your mind! Money affords you the lifestyle you desire, and lets you live your purpose fully. Success is BEYOND the dollar value. Far beyond.

Beware The Closed Mind, the Singular Thought

Success in its broadest meaning is not limited to only monetary and material possessions. Success unveils abundance in countless forms in both your life and the nature that surrounds you.

The universal spirit of consciousness craves to continuously manifest and express itself; this longing naturally wants to develop, to grow and become bigger and stronger.

Realizing this longing and natural inclination for growth is repressed in many of us, because of negative thinking and nonconstructive programming. Bottom line, of lack of faith in our abilities and natural talents hinders us dramatically.

Every individual has dual natures. One part wants to move forward and embrace change; the other wants to pull back and keep things the same. What you focus on expands. The part that you cultivates determines your final results in life; both parts will seek to dominate; you can control which side wins.

People with closed minds often believe their own experience as being a universal truth. “Because I see this tree from this view, this is all there is.” People with opens minds accept their own experience as something that happened and realize there are many truths. “Because I see this tree from this view, it is what I see. And there are other places to stand, and other ways to experience this tree.” From the ground, at any angle, from a plane, from the moon, from under the earth, from inside the tree. As a tree, as a seedling, as a piece of lumber, as a chair, as firewood. The list goes on.

Having an open mind matters. A lot.

Become the Open Mind, the Abundance Mindset

An open mind first considers the possibilities of other interpretations before reaching any conclusion. An open mind does not just gather information. It gathers possibilities. (The closed mind gathers dust.)

When one closes her mind and becomes stubborn, one in essence tells her higher self, including the “powers of the universe” that she cannot grow and encounter new things. So there will be no progress, no transformation.

Whatever your mind can envision, you can achieve. What your mind sees, believes feels and thinks are all conveyed to the subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind determines how you will react when opportunities present themselves.

“Luck,” according to Seneca, the famous Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician 5 BC – 65 AD, “is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” If you are closed to the possibility of opportunity, all the preparation in the world won’t serve you.

Bear in mind though, always and forever, that it is not sufficient to merely imagine and hope it materializes. Having the power to imagine means also having the power and the capability to work on it to achieve it.

Focus on possibilities, rather than limitations and expand your thoughts to what is that you believe as yourself.

Here are four basic steps you can take to better program your thoughts for success:

1. Continuously and abundantly display images of your “model” persons, whom you want to become, and things that you want to accomplish. Read magazines containing stories and pictures of lives that you wish to attain.
2. Read autobiographies of successful people. Constantly read self-progress materials packed with examples and ideas of women and men who had set goals, overcome hardships and misfortunes and accomplished what they aimed for in the end.
3. Always affirm yourself. In each undertaking, take the time to focus, “close your eyes” and set a clear mental image of the outcome.  Then repeatedly say and claim that you have already achieved it.
4. Nourish your mind with positive thoughts before sleeping, after waking up, at lunch break, anytime.  Do not give a chance for negative thoughts to enter into your mind.

Thoughts hold great power. Be conscious of the thoughts that comes into your mind; let the positive in, never entertain the negative.  Open up your mind to possibilities and never be afraid to try; if you fail, take it as an opportunity that you have learned so much from failing and try again.

Open your mind. Your success, monetarily and beyond, depends on it!

To your exponential success,
Britt

Today’s offerings is short and sweet: I’m attaching Reprogramming-Your-Subconscious-Mind, a free shorty-guide on how to reprogram your subconscious mind.

Yesterday, I spoke briefly about old programs that may be running subconsciously in the back of your brain, and I touched on the power of creating affirmations (or, as T. Harv Eker likes to call them, “Declarations.”)

Today’s shorty guide will give you a more detailed description of how your subconscious works (remember, there have been VOLUMES written on this … this is the STAY-AWAKE while you read version). It will then give you three (3) ways you can consciously alter the subconscious:

1) Environment, which includes positivity and choosing your daily influences

2) Visualization

3) Affirmations

There are also bonus blurbs on Binural Beats (See Thresholds of the Mindby Bill Harris if you really want to know more about this) and Hypnosis.

Yes, each of these topics is HUGE in and of itself. This shorty report I’m attaching is intended as an introduction only. For those of you who are new to this kind of stuff, it will give you enough information to get by conversationally. Hopefully, it will then tweak your interests, and you will explore more. See the books page on this blog for suggested BASIC reading for more detailed stuff.

To your infinite success, my friend!

Britt

Okay, so that’s just a title. Really, wearing a dress has nothing to do with overcoming obstacles. Though granted, a woman may look better in the dress than some men (and I do mean some, for others look better in a dress than I do!). But I digress. Already. And the day has just begun. Uh oh!

Anyway, back in the real world, what I meant to write was…

In order to be successful as an entrepreneur, you have to overcome a great many things. These “things” can typically divided into one of two categories (can’t everything?): Internal, and External.

Internal obstacles, though usually the HARDEST to overcome, are also the ones that are the most under your own control. External obstacles you can respond or react to.

External Obstacles

The number one way to deal with external obstacles is to have CLARITY. Understand your vision. Know exactly what it is you’re trying to do. Have some goal. You can’t just run in without a plan of some kind. Take the time to plan out your goals and the steps you intend to take to reach them.

• Even with an exceptional plan, the reality is that things rarely go exactly as you’d expect. You’ll have to stop and make changes at times, and that’s okay! Be prepared for the unexpected with ideas on how to handle a situation if it arises.
• Identify the parts of your plan that may become problematic and lay out alternatives.

Good planning will help you deal with the external obstacles when you get there. That, and a great imagination. Remember that there are ALWAYS multiple ways to solve a problem. One of my favorite memory acronyms for dealing with external obstacles is TLC: You can Take it, Leave it, or Change it.

Internal Obstacles

Some of those obstacles are created internally. Doubt, fear, and self depreciation are some of the more common culprits. You can overcome these self-created obstacles with a little hard work and determination.

Trust yourself. You’re in charge of your journey to success. You set your goals and you’re the one making it happen, so you must trust yourself. If you truly have a great passion for what you’re going to do, then you’ll be the best judge of what you want.

• Follow your instincts. That little voice in the back of your head may very well end up telling you exactly what you need to succeed in your goals.
• Nix the nay-sayers. There is no shortage of these people. Even though they are typically coming from a good place in their heart (they either don’t want to lose your friendship and be left behind, so they hold you back; or, they are trying to “protect” you from disappointment and failure and don’t know enough that any entrepreneur fails their way to success), set them aside for the time being. Find the one or two people that champion your idea. That will nurture this newborn with as much love, care and enthusiasm as you do. Then, once you have momentum on your side, THEN bring in the nay-sayers. But sparingly. And sift through the emotion to get to the content. It’s YOUR job to maintain your vision, your dream, your passion, not theirs.

Also, get help. You will need it. No success is ever achieved in a vacuum (unless you ARE a vacuum, and then it’s a different story). If there’s something in your way and it’s too big of an obstacle for you to remove on your own, get help! You can’t do everything by yourself. As humans, we’re social beings and we need help from those around us.

• Get your friends, family or co-workers involved and welcome their input on how to get around an obstacle in your path. This will bring in new ideas and fresh perspectives on the problem in ways you may have never considered.

Remember to periodically step back (or aside) and gain a fresh perspective. There are times when, no matter how hard you try, things just don’t go your way. This is where you need to stop, take a step back, and look at things from a different perspective.

• You become used to your routine, so the fine details can easily slip past you. Take a break and walk away for a little bit. Change your focus for a time; then come back to the problem and you may see something you missed.

Finally, and I can’t emphasize this enough, never ever give up. Nothing has ever been solved or accomplished by giving up. Vince Lombardi said it best: “Winners never quit and quitters never win!” This is as true as it gets.

• Being too rigid on something can be counterproductive. In order to succeed, we sometimes have to change our approach completely. Keep at the problem until you find a solution. It’s there; you just have to find it.

Sometimes you may find you need to start again. Sometimes, despite all your efforts, you need to rebuild from the ground up. Maybe one of your fundamental ideas was wrong and had an effect on everything else. This happens, and while it’s a setback, it’s not the end of your dream.

With a little more effort and hard work, you can do it!

Being successful isn’t easy and it involves a lot of hard work, dedication and sometimes sacrifices. With these tips, a good plan, and positive people around you to help, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.

To your success my friend!

Britt

Good morning, women! Today, I’m going to offer you something different. Today this blog will feature a sound track that runs for about 3:23 minutes — short and sweet — where I talk about letting go of perfectionism.

Take a good look around you. Everything you see comes from someone’s vision and pursuit of that vision, and as you use each object in your life, as sure as day, there is something that can be improved about that object.

Your job as an entrepreneur, woman, is to get the product or service out there, and then tweak it to your heart’s content. But if you wait for perfection, then your dream, your vision, your drive will NEVER see the light of day.

Anyway, having ranted, here’s the piece. It’s an MP3. Just click on the link to the right and enjoy! As I let go of perfection

ADDED LATER THAT SAME DAY…

Below is a video from TED tv, that kind of puts perfectionism into it’s proper scale. (If you can’t see the video below, go here). Watch this, and suddenly you will find that letting go of the inane notion of perfectionism is really incredibly easy!