Sacrifice Comfort for Style?

I took a road trip to Montreal-Canada for ester weekend. I thought I went prepare with some nice flat shoes, boats and tennis shoes (for running) but seems like I was not prepared enough for it.
Due to long walks, my flat shoes were killing me so I ended up buying new stylish sandals. Seems like people from Montreal really care about fashion no matter how hot or cold it is. We were in average 70 F degrees and because of this nice weather giving the welcome of spring, many people went out to enjoy the weather while doing some shopping as well.
What I learned from this trip regarding fashion is that “You don't have to sacrifice comfort for style” but how to avoid their threatening injuries?

• High Heels: For sure, it makes us look sexy, but they can cause a lot of damage too. You can easily sprain an ankle or develop heel pain, plantar fasciitis. "We see heel pain often when changing from high heels to flats, but you can avoid this by doing stretching exercises after wearing heels," Also the recommendation is to limiting heel height to 2-3 inches, and buying shoes with a rubber sole or pads in the ball of the foot.


• Oversized Purses: They are very popular because they can house an endless amount of stuff. But toting around a heavy bag can lead to postural imbalance and other back-related ailments. What you lug in your purse and how you carry it makes all the difference
  Large Carry-All"A large bag slung over one shoulder is a neck problem in the making,” To combat this you should continually switch shoulders and look for bags with adjustable straps. "An adjustable strap is great because you can carry it on either shoulder or across the body. Doing this will use different muscles and reduce the chance of aches and pains from overuse


• Small Tote (worn at the elbow): Another common trend is to hold your purse perched at the elbow. Doing this can cause a lot of strain on your forearm.
  Messenger BagThe mailman-inspired bag is a huge fall trend and, luckily, a better option. A well-designed one keeps the weight close to your body and prevents you from raising your shoulders unevenly.


• Dangly Earrings: Wearing heavy earrings can damage the ear lobes and, in some cases, lead to tears and surgery. "Any dangling type of earring that pulls down on the earlobe--especially if it distorts or lengthens it--is too heavy to use,"
  If your pierced hole starts to sag, there are surgical procedures to repair it, but that should be a last resort. Don't write off dangly earrings altogether, but limit them to an hour or two, as long as they don't cause you pain.

Tips for Beutiful Hair

Hair tips # 1: Don't over-wash your hair
Ever wonder why women in Europe or Asia, or for that matter anywhere outside the United States, have such amazingly healthy-looking hair? They do not, I repeat, do not wash their hair every day. They go at least two or three days between washes, letting their natural scalp oils coat and nourish their strands. Now I know there are some women out there saying, "You're absolutely nuts. I go to the gym, run, do yoga, and sweat, so my hair has to be washed every day." Take it from me, it doesn't. Instead, just give your hair a good rinse with water and follow with minimal product to avoid buildup. I promise, soon you'll find that you have a head full of lustrous, healthy hair.

Hair tips # 2: Learn to love leave in conditioner
If you give your hair a break from shampoo, it will dry out less and won't require much conditioner. That said, I am sort of addicted to leave in conditioner and recommend massaging one into damp hair on days you do wash. It gives your do just the right amount of moisture it needs to stay soft and adds a bit of texture and hold too.

Hair tips # 3: Stock up on dry shampoo
This is a permanent fixture in my styling case because it has so many uses. For example, you can dust dry shampoo on to absorb excess oil when you've gone too long between washes. Or you can use it to give fine hair some oomph—just apply it at your roots all over your head and brush through.

Hair tips # 4: Accessorize with caution
Steer clear of elastic bands with metal closures; although they might look harmless, they literally rip out your hair. Instead, use cloth-only ponytail holders to create "cruelty-free" tails and updos.

Hair tips # 5: Layer styling products
When working with a new styler—anything from mousse to pomade—take baby steps. Remember, you can always add product, but removing it is not so easy and can leave you with a serious case of the greasies. Begin with an extra-small dollop and build up from there. Another smart move: Apply stylers to the back of your head first. That way, even if you accidentally used too much product, you won't end up with a big, unsightly glob of it where everyone can see. And when it comes to hair spray, spritz it onto your hands first, then smooth them over the top of your head for a nonsticky finish.

Hair tips # 6: Make the (right) cut
If your hair is fine, ask your stylist to "blunt-cut" it. This is a styling technique where scissors are used to snip straight across each and every strand, creating thickness at your ends. And if your mane still lacks body, wrap large, dry sections around Velcro rollers, mist with hair spray, blow-dry briefly, and unwind for insta-volume.

Hair tips # 7: Pick the best brush
I have tried just about everything out there to get rid of static— and feel strongly that boar bristle hair brushes are the best at detangling and boosting shine without inducing flyaways. But the catch is that these brushes can be costly. The perfect compromise? Choose one of the boar bristle hair brushes that combines natural and synthetic bristles for all the gleam minus the price.

Hair tips # 8: Color your do on the cheap
I'll let you in on a big secret: If you're on a tight budget, do a little research and find a beauty school near you (go online or look in the yellow pages under "cosmetology"). On Fridays and Saturdays, the students usually run a salon, and for a small fee they will color your hair. Even though a student is applying the dye, she is being watched over by an experienced teacher. It's a win-win situation: The students get the training, you get the discount!

Hair tips # 9: Fix wayward strands
Got a strong cowlick or part? Once you've styled your whole do, go back to the section that's misbehaving and run a drop of gel through it (any level of hold will do). Then brush the area to the side you'd like it to gravitate toward and blast with a hair dryer.

Hair tips # 10: Avoid a "blow-fry"
If you have a dryer with a metal nozzle, be careful not to touch your hair with that thing! It can get really, really hot and do damage to your hair. Use the nozzle only to direct heat, and opt for a dryer with a plastic attachment.

Hair Style

Last night I was trying to do something new with my hair, after fighting about it, I decided to put this hair clips and I love it! It sticks like glue but still looks natural.

To be honest, I bought for $13 dollars but I decided to make some by myself so I just bought some material and I will be working on it during the week.

I will take a picture to show it to you ok?

Regarding Hair Style, I found 3 types of ways how I do my hair during the week and here are my advices for each of them:

Waiver: Use a defining hair curls with a moisturizing cream. Work it in when wet, then air-dry-practically hassle-free. You can use sunsill captivating curls de-frizz lean-n creme $4

Sleek: For a straight hair with sleek, grassy effect, air dry, then flat iron with a heat-protecting, sleekifying hairspray. You can use Straight Sexi Hair Smooth & Protect Flat Iron Hairspray $16

A chic Ponytail: 1. Starting with dry hair, spray volumizer at your roots, then blast them with a blow dryer (this is the way to activate any wet product you want to use on dry hair, Dornan explains). 2. Spritz the rest of your hair with texturizing spray all the way to the ends. 3. Brush your hair into a low, loose ponytail. Concentrate on pulling the sides tighter as you leave volume at the top. Secure hair tightly with an elastic at the nape of your neck. 4. Set only the sides with hairspray. Then stop—you’re done. “It’s tempting to polish up, but try to resist,” says Dornan. “You want it to look a little raw.”

How to Develop Self-Discipline

Hi Everyone,

Its finally Friday and I am happy planning how I am going to spend my weekend. Lately I start doing yoga and running and so far I am feeling good but I just need to put more discipline on it.
I was looking for a good topic to share with you today and because of what I am going through regarding exercise; I decided to search for how to develop self discipline.

"Perhaps no other skill is as important to develop as self-disciple or self-control. It is the key to self-mastery and the achievement of your dreams."

Now, let’s look at some steps you can take to increase your personal power.

1. Acknowledge your own responsibility. Admit that if you sit around doing nothing, you will achieve nothing.

2. Allow yourself to feel the resistance. For example, if you are like me who is trying to achieve self discipline working out, but don’t feeling too much energy to do it, say something like the following to yourself. “I don’t feel like working out today. I feel like pursuing some pleasure instead. But rather than running away, I allow myself to feel the resistance and I admit I need to work out. I also need to develop self-discipline. And doing what we don’t like to do develops self-discipline. So, I welcome this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone (work out for my own health and develop self-discipline).”

3. Take a few deep breaths. Relax and let go of any tension. Pause and visualize the action as if it were already completed. Study the image of the completed project in your mind for a few moments. This step prepares both your conscious mind and subconscious for action.

4. Now act. After doing so, you will feel a sense of relief as you free yourself from the stress that comes from ignoring an important task. Second, you will enjoy the pleasure of accomplishment. Third, you will discover the task was easier to do than you first imagined.

5. Relish the relief and pleasure you experience. Remember it. Savor it. Focus on it. For it will become the source of motivation. At first, the lure of relief and pleasure will be weak and the memory of it dim, but as you repeatedly do what you don’t feel like doing, the motivation to act will grow stronger and stronger, until a firm habit is formed.

6. Those who haven’t yet developed the habit of self-discipline avoid tasks because they focus on the effort that needs to be made. In their minds, effort is synonymous with discomfort. Change what you focus on. When facing a new task, focus on the relief and pleasure you will be experiencing. Also focus on the memory of how your imagination tricks you, always blowing things out of proportion. Remember that the task will be easier to do than your now believe.

7. When you launch your personal Self-Discipline Development Program, you will do two things: complete tasks and develop self-discipline. Of the two, developing self-discipline is more important. For once you have mastered that you will be able to do anything. So, it is important to be successful. Therefore, when starting out, don’t decide to work on the most urgent task, but choose the easiest one first and work your way up. Pretend you are working out in a gym for the first time. If you begin by trying to lift 100 lb. weights, you will probably feel overwhelmed and quickly give up. But if you start with 10 lb. weights, your workouts will be easy to do and your successes will motivate you to move on to bigger challenges. Take baby steps and work your way up. Trying to bite off more than you can chew will lead to failure.

8. Be gentle but firm with yourself. Act firmly in that you stop running away. Face your task, accept it, and accomplish it. Finish what you start. Follow through on every project. Focus on one task at a time. Don’t scatter your attention. But be gentle in the sense that you don’t have to do all your tasks immediately as long as you start doing some. Don’t expect to go from zero to a hundred in one second. Work up to it. Start slowly, but gradually pick up the pace as you develop your skills.

9. Expect to be tempted to avoid your tasks. Your mind will come up with rationalizations and excuses for putting off till ‘tomorrow’ what can be done today. Remain aware of your feelings and learn to think before you act. Use your reason (rational mind), not your emotions, to guide your actions. Do what is good FOR you instead of what FEELS good.

10. Once you learn how to quickly act on all the tasks, responsibilities, and challenges facing you, you will want to remain fit, always ready to act. Keep in shape by deliberately going out of your way to do things you don’t want to do, even if they are unimportant. The truth is, nothing is unimportant, for if doing something trivial helps maintain your self-discipline, it is no longer trivial. Remember that it is just like working out in a gym. After all, the workout I choose to do is unimportant; it is only the result (physical fitness) that is important. The same is true for your mental fitness. Look for opportunities during the day to ‘work out. ’

11. Once you can keep your level of self-discipline, you will be ready to move on to the next level by stretching yourself. Now you deliberately seek out difficult and complex challenges that you only dared to dream about in the past. Now that you have mastered self-control, you are ready to make those dreams come true. At this point, you are no longer paralyzed by task-avoidance. Each task you do frees up more time to work on the next project. You have now started on the path of endless growth.Life is not something that happens to you, but you are something that happens to life. Decide today to give up the blame game and take responsibility for your own life by mastering the art of self-discipline.

5 Tips for Effective Business Planning

• Clearly define your business idea and be able to succinctly articulate it. Know your mission.
• Examine your motives. Make sure that you have a passion for owning a business and for this particular business.
• Be willing to commit to the hours, discipline, continuous learning and the frustrations of owning your own business.
• Conduct a competitive analysis in your market, including products, prices, promotions, advertising, distribution, quality, service, and be aware of the outside influences that affect your business.
• Seek help from other small businesses, vendors, professionals, government agencies, employees, trade associations and trade shows. Be alert, ask questions.

10 BlackBerry Commandments

I am not a big fan of cell phones. To be honest, I don’t really like to talk in mine; I prefer texting, or chatting in person. However with the technology boom and all this new kind of cell phones, everyone has one, and something that annoy me most is to see people who plan a meeting with you but spend half of their meeting talking with someone else in her cell.

So, this post goes for those who are starting to be concern of why they are spending less time physically enjoying people who they love, or why their children are jealous of you spending time with your PDA or cell, boyfriends/girlfriends who start a fight just because you cant leave your cell resting.. Step away from the Blackberry, at least every once in a while and enjoy life!!!

Here it goes the 10 commandments:

1. Thou shalt not take the BlackBerry to any table with food on it or family around it. A BlackBerry is not a fruit, nor does it come from a tree.

2. Thou shalt not use the BlackBerry as reading material in the event of insomnia. It will only worsen your situation.

3. Thou shalt not BlackBerry in lieu of responding to a child's request (e.g., "Wait a second, I'm reading something.").

4. Thou shalt not place the BlackBerry within distance of hearing its incessant beeps while at home. It is not a bird.

5. Thou shalt not check BlackBerry as if it were your baby. It will not cry or stop breathing.

6. Thou shalt not confuse number of e-mails with self-worth.

7. Thou shalt do everything possible to misplace your BlackBerry on weekends. "There's No Place Like Home" will never be the tagline for the BlackBerry company.

8. Thou shalt remember that a BlackBerry is not a body appendage. It is a device that belongs in your briefcase or on your desk, and not in social settings.

9. Thou shalt refrain from bringing the BlackBerry to events involving family interaction. Extraneous dialogue with this contraption in lieu of real conversation suggests addiction.

10. Thou shalt never, ever, ever bring the BlackBerry to bed. Do this and you are BlackBuried!

A Checklist for Successful Onboarding

An interesting article:

"Onboarding — easing a new hire into his or her job as quickly and efficiently as possible — is a technique that a growing number of businesses are adopting. But while onboarding programs are becoming increasingly popular, it's also true that many businesses fail to exploit the process to its full potential. That's a shame, because a little time and energy spent helping a worker at the beginning of his or her employment can pay big benefits in terms of job performance and loyalty for many years to come.

This checklist can help any company get the most out of its onboarding program.

• Be professional. While new employees are typically concerned with putting their best foot forward, the hiring company also needs to leave a good first impression. An ad-hoc or slipshod onboarding program will make the new employee feel as if he or she has just signed up with a second-rate company. Over time, a poor onboarding program will damage employee morale, productivity and, ultimately, retention.
  
• Be clear and precise. Onboarding is a particularly terrible time to deliver weak or inconsistent messages. Miscommunication at the start of a job can lead to disastrous mistakes down the road as the employee naively performs actions that are contrary to best practices. To reinforce verbal instruction, companies should give a new hire an employee manual and other critical documents before their first day on the job.
  
• Keep it simple and low-key. Even if the employee's new job involves complex duties and responsibilities, the onboarding process should be kept as simple and as low-key as possible. This means that while you should divulge the information that the new hire needs to know to become a full team player, you should not overload him or her with every possible bit of available intelligence. There will come a time when the new hire needs to know that the company holds a picnic every Labor Day and that Nov. 21 is the company founder's birthday. That time, however, is not the first week on the job.
• Keep it interesting. Onboarding, by nature, will always require new employees to fill out forms, watch orientation videos and perform various other mind-numbing tasks. But try to make the process less boring by alternating rote tasks with more engaging activities, such as touring production facilities, examining new tools and meeting colleagues.
  
• Designate a mentor. The new hire shouldn't feel like a lonely piece of driftwood bobbing in a vast ocean. Assigning an experienced mentor to the new hire, preferably someone in the same general business area, will give the newcomer a reliable escort and contact source. The mentor should be available for consultation throughout the business day for at least the first week or so of a new hire's employment. After that, you may trim access back to scheduled meetings.
• Take time to listen. Onboarding is a two-way process: The mentor provides facts and support, and the new hire asks crucial questions about his or her job. To facilitate the ongoing flow of information, build time into the onboarding schedule to allow both parties to sit down and discuss — uninterrupted — whatever happens to be on their minds.
  
• Prepare the workspace. Onboarding's primary goal should be to get new hires comfortable with their jobs and working at near peak efficiency out of the starting gate. But this isn't possible if the person's workspace isn't available or is missing essential tools or materials. That's why it's important to have a permanent workspace ready as soon as the new hire arrives for work.

• Provide follow-up support. Too many companies take a "sink-or-swim" approach to onboarding, designing the process as a stand-alone system with specific starting and ending dates. Actually, onboarding should be viewed as just the first step in an ongoing employee-support program. During the onboarding process, employees need to be introduced to the company's full spectrum of career-advancement, wellness, recreation and other programs, as well as encouraged to seek information and other assistance whenever the need arises."