Valuing Yourself and Your Needs (As a Parent): This is about taking care of your OWN needs as a parent because when you consistently put yourself last to be taken care of and habitually continue to sacrifice your basic necessities to make everyone else happy…Essentially, what you’re teaching your children is that they’re here to be of service to others, then themselves. In other words, you’re teaching them to take advantage of you and use you as they please, which in turn communicates to them that they’re most likely to be used. To prevent this from happening, you need to set consistent limits that protect you from demands that could be overbearing and unfair. That way, you’re communicating that your basic needs are just as important as theirs. It’s true…often times parents that are constantly sacrificing themselves are idealized and praised by other parents. You know… the ones that have no hobbies, no friends and no avenue of enjoyment. Is this really desirable? Parents constantly stressed about the needs of others in the family are usually irritable, and unmotivated to try anything new, fun or exciting. How can parents do this long term with no outlet? Instead, us parents need to enjoy ourselves and focus on being re-energized. When you take good care of yourself, you provide the means to take better care of your children. Going out to dinner or cocktails, trips to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, date night with your spouse or even some alone time reading or going for a walk allows you to be a more productive, interested and patient parent.”

“One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not to be done at all.”

“Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?”

“This is the process of “systematic desensitization.” By confronting your fear, and by repeatedly doing the thing you fear, the fear eventually disappears.”

“Develop the winning edge; small differences in your performance can lead to large differences in your results.”

“You can get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities.”

“The better and more persuasively you speak, the more you like yourself. The more you like yourself, the more optimistic and confident you are. The more you like yourself, the more positive and personable you are in your relationships with others. The more you like yourself, the healthier, happier, and more positive you become in everything you do.”

“You have within you,right now,everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”

“Between you and every goal that you wish to achieve, there is a series of obstacles, and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Your decision to be, have and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties and challenges that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.”

“The seventh key is that you must have a major definite purpose for your life. You must have one goal that, if you accomplish it, can do more to help you improve your life than any other single goal.”

“Your mind is designed in such a way that you cannot have an idea on the one hand without also having the ability to bring that idea into reality on the other. The very existence of an idea in your conscious mind means that you have within you and around you the capacity to turn it into reality. The only question you have to answer is, How badly do you want it?”

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

“your ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop

“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.”

“How shall we live in order to be happy?” Your ability to ask and answer that question correctly for yourself—and then to follow where your answer leads you—will largely determine whether you achieve your own happiness, and how soon.”