Rita Schiano's Blog (12)

Saturday, September 17 was a long and exhausting day. Truthfully, the whole week leading up to that date had been long and exhausting. Adding to the grueling schedule was excruciating pain caused by two bone spurs in my right foot. All I wanted to do that Saturday was teach my 5-hour leadership class at Bay Path University, get home that afternoon, take 800mg of ibuprofen, eat a meal, and get off my foot. That's what I wanted to…

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I love my birthday. I love celebrating my birthday. Sometimes I do so with friends; sometimes I prefer it be a simple and quiet affair. (There must, however, always be cake!) The joke in my household is that once the December holiday season ends, I begin the countdown to my birthday which, by the way, falls on the 110th day of the calendar year. (111 day if it is a leap year.)



Let me state clearly, I do not mind getting older. I embrace it, truly. And truth be told, there was only…

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H. Jackson Brown, Jr. wrote, "Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."



Time management, in a nutshell, is how we get things done. When you develop good time management skills you are in control of your time, your life, and your stress level. So, if you feel the need to be more organized, more productive,…

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1. It starts with self-reflection . . . It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. What does your self-portrait say about you?



2. Happiness is as much about what you don't want as what you do want. What’s on your “I Don’t Want . . .” List?



3. Once you free yourself of the illusion of who you want to be, the truth of who you are is crystal clear.



4. There is joy to be found in most any moment. You simply need to be willing to expand your vision…

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"Calmness of mind," James Allen wrote, "is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control." So how can we do this in the midst of a hectic workday? Often we stress about things we cannot change: the economy, the weather, our commute to work. Recognizing the difference between what we can and cannot change can help us live more peaceful and productive lives.



Managing stress is a pathway to healthy living, and mindful breathing is…

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"Never cease trying to be the best that you can be. That's under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things in which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control." - From John Wooden on True Success



The frustration or anger that can well inside us from situations that are not only out of our control, but have nothing to do with us, chips away at our peace of mind and releases stress…

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When it comes to resilience, attitude really is everything. Having an optimistic view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities creates conditions for success and healthier living.

To start, let me be clear. When I talk of optimism, I do not mean that rose-colored glasses, Pollyannaish-way of looking at the world. True optimists know bad things happen; they experience tragedy just like everyone else. But what separates optimists from their pessimistic brothers and…

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Can taking one, small step really change your life? Proponents of kaizen think so. (And for the record, so do I.) Kaizen is a means of making great and lasting change through small, steady increments. Kaizen's practical roots are based in the Japanese management concept for incremental (gradual, continuous) change (improvement): breaking tasks into small, manageable steps.

However, kaizen is also a way of life philosophy based on making little changes on a regular basis; it's about…

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Critical, and sometimes life-altering, situations can happen that throw us totally off kilter: losing one's job, developing a serious illness (oneself or a loved one), or natural disasters such as floods, paralyzing snow and/or ice storms, hurricanes or tornadoes. How well we weather these devastating, out of our control circumstances depends on the strength of our resiliency.



Resilience, as defined by the American Psychological Association, is the process of adapting well in the… Continue

Willa Cather wrote: "There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm." How well we weather the tempests in life, how quickly we bounce back from adversities and calamities, depends largely on our level of resilience.



Research on resilience has shown us that people who cannot deal with their emotions may become more narrow-minded and rigid in their view of themselves and their place in the world. A lack of understanding of our personal histories -- what Aristotle… Continue

I am now blogging for The Huffington Post and AOL Healthy Living. Read the entry here...