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Thursday, March 5, 2009

Building Your Support System

A couple days ago I was talking to my good friend, Laura, about subject matter for blog posts and she suggested that I write about the importance of having a strong support system. When I got to thinking about it, I would not be where I am today without a sound support system.

Support is crucial to success. It is essential for building character, encouragement, inspiration, and originality.

Fortunately, support can come in many shapes, sizes, and mediums and as we develop our own personal network of support we end up knowing exactly where to turn for codling, a shoulder to cry on, advice, the hard truth, or motivation. Support systems keep us accountable to our goals and facilitate conquering them.

Unfortunately, our network of support can become detrimental to our success. It is important that our support system shapes into a positive place where we can be ourselves and get advice that is significant. We need to be strong enough to identify the positive and negative places to go to for support and keep moving ourselves toward the positive type of support. Oftentimes it is much easier to hear someone tell us what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear. BUT without the truth where would we be?

As I said earlier, support comes in all shapes, sizes, and mediums. What works for one person may not work for you - sources of support are not one size fits all. Many of us work on several unrelated goals at once and will need many types of support for each of these goals. Be careful not to put all of your eggs in one support basket – but don’t spread yourself thin with too many sources of support or you will run the risk of not benefit from each resource and simply becoming burnt out.

Here is a look into the support system that I have built for myself by goal/area of interest:

1. Christianity – I believe that nothing is achievable without God and it is through Him that all things are possible.
  • Daily Bible Verse Subscription
  • Church Community, specifically the Choir (I am a Member and regular Soloist)
  • Christian Radio
  • Family Members that are believers (specifically my husband, Allan; my parents, Al and Trish; my godparents, Becky and Jim)
  • Close Friends that are believers (specifically Natalie and Sam, Melissa, Carrie)

2. Music – I am as much in love with singing as I am with Clean Eating.
  • Church Choir Member and Soloist
  • Christian Radio
  • Sharing my love of music with family (specifically my dad, Al and my husband, Allan)

3. Clean Eating and Fitness – I can’t imagine my life without this beloved interest, however, it was not long ago (August 2008) that my friend, Melissa, introduced me to Tosca Reno and Alwyn Cosgrove.

4. The Environment, Organic Foods, Organic Cosmetics/Health & Beauty, Sustainable Food Chain, etc. – I am a huge supporter of sustainable and organic food. I think that this topic goes hand-in-hand with Clean Eating. Why spend the effort to Eat-Clean and workout if you are not actually making yourself healthier inside and out? Pesticides and chemicals will kill you.

5. Design and Art – I am in love with simple, modern art of all forms… architecture, furniture, interior design, color, museums, screen printing, drama/musicals, etc.
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