Ten Ideas To Make Your Life Better in 2010

Last week I was featured in a piece in the Chicago Sun-Times. Freelance writer, Sandy Thorn Clark asked me to contribute my top ten ways to make your life better in 2010. You can click HERE to see the whole article but I thought I'd post my ideas here along with the photo that ran in the paper. It was an honor to contribute these and I hope they make a difference for you. They truly represent what me and Real Food Rehab are all about.

Remember that quality always trumps quantity. This is true of shoes, friends, food - everything. Be selective. Keep your standards high, and always be true to yourself, your taste and your means.

Take back control of your health by listening to your body. You know in your heart there’s a connection between what you eat and how you look and feel. There’s no doctor or pill that can do for you what you have the power to do for yourself.

Stock your fridge and pantry with fresh, high quality, chemical free foods. The food you buy should inspire, excite and energize you, not bore, repel or deplete you. If you have to question the integrity of anything you're bringing home or its effects on your well-being, then perhaps that's something to think about and change.

Embrace and elevate the foods you love the most. For example, say you love a grilled cheese sandwich every now and then. Excellent. Now, elevate it by using an artisan loaf of sourdough from a local bakery, real, organic butter and some handcrafted local cheddar like Brunkow or Otter Creek from Wisconsin.

Break out of a diet rut. Explore farmers’ markets, ethnic markets and natural food stores to get your juices flowing. Find a cooking buddy to shop and cook with once a week. Sign up for a free subscription to NoTakeOut.com to learn how to make fast, easy, step-by-step dinners for yourself and your family.

Create a living space that reflects who you really are. How? By only bringing things into your home that a) move you and bring you pleasure b) make your life better in a practical way or c) have personal meaning for you. Let go of everything else. This will change your life.

Stop thinking and start feeling. In my opinion, we spend way too much time as a culture thinking instead of feeling. I’m convinced when we over-think, we lose touch with what it is we truly want. Try approaching things with your senses and from your gut - not your head.

Get clear on what you really want from your life. Not what you think you should want or what your friends and family want – what you want. Make a list and keep editing it over time until it’s the deepest reflection of who you are. Then, hold that vision and go for it.

Create! Find ways to passionately express your true self in the world. It can be anything from the way you dress day to day, to writing a journal; making bread, singing at an open mike, making art from found materials, decorating your home; it all matters and the world needs your self-expression now more than ever.

Realize that change is a process. Take comfort in the fact that your process will not look or feel like anyone else’s and that nothing that matters was ever built in a day. Always be kind, tender and loving with yourself because it takes great courage to change. Small steps are definitely worth celebrating.

photo by Ryan Robinson