In my own way, to show that I do things for my own reasons and not for other people’s reasons, I’m taking on what I call kind of a meme, which is based off this article on a blog called TwitterMoms titled Share 10 Little Things that Lead to a Happier, Healthier You. Actually, the title is much longer, because it’s actually part of some contest where you can win a gift card and some Tropicana juice stuff. Frankly, I don’t care about all of that, which is why I’m not doing all the other stuff they’re asking for. Instead, I thought it would be fun to do this particular thing.

Why am I doing this? A few reasons. One, because I want to show some of the things I write about on my business blog, which includes motivational stuff here and there; I sometimes do that here as well. Two, because I want to show that I do know some things that might make me healthier and happier, even if I don’t do all of them.

And three, because I love some memes. I hope you clicked on the link above if you don’t know what one is. However, you can check out the other 3 memes I’ve played with: Passion Quilt; Soundtrack of Your Life; and 7 Things You Don’t Know About Me.

Anyway, here’s my list of 10:

1. Hug the people you care about at least once a day. I hug my wife multiple times a day, and when I see friends, I try to get hugs in as well. Had to learn how to hug my guy friends, but that only happens if they can handle it as well.

2. Find something that will make you laugh at least 30 minutes a day. I don’t do this one every day, but I find when I do it that I feel really good.

3. Eat in some kind of moderation so you don’t feel sick to your stomach. When I plan my meals I do very well, but a night like Monday night, when I was at a meeting, convinced me that I could break from my pattern and eat a lot of pizza, which I don’t eat at home; ugh!

4. Have at least one small sweet treat a day. If I don’t have a sweet treat every day I tend to get into a mode where I want a lot of it, and of course that’s not good for me. So my wife doles it out to me a little bit at a time, and I appreciate that she does that for me, even if I can’t figure out where she’s hiding it.

5. Find a reason to get at least 30 minutes a day to yourself in some fashion. I’m bad at this one because even when I take a break, I do it at the computer. I need to convince myself to get away from it here and there.

6. Find a way to get at least a little bit of exercise every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes. Yeah, this one I’m really bad at. I do something maybe 3 or 4 days a week, but when I can get myself into a good mode, I’ll try to do something longer and at least twice a day. When it gets warmer, if I’m home this summer, I’ll be at the lake in the morning and the afternoon walking.

7. At least a few times a day, do a little bit of stretching. What I’m learning is that it’s not necessarily that my being out of shape is what injures me here and there, it’s that everything is so tight. I’ve taken to doing some stretching exercises daily, and a few times a day I’ll just stop and stretch in a few positions for about a minute or two. It all helps.

8. If you feel bad in any way for 7 days or more, see a doctor. I refer you to my story of how I discovered I was diabetic back in 1997 by paying attention to some signs that many people ignore.

9. Try not to take yourself too seriously. Sometimes I have problems with this, but I also laugh at myself many times a day. I tend to view almost every situation as some kind of story, which means I try to recall it so I can tell it later on. If it ends up being funny, even better.

10. Feel good about yourself. When I talked about the movie The Secret, I mentioned this thing about the laws of attraction. If you feel good about yourself and think positive things, positive things come into your life. A motivational speaker named Zig Ziglar says “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” I like to add “and you’ll feel pretty good as well.”

And there you go. Now, I always ask people to do their own meme based on my participating, and to date no one has ever followed me and given it a shot. For this one, I wonder who’ll step up to the plate and keep it going; maybe one of my Power 50 friends? 🙂