• Get Listed in ILLUMINE life!
  • Login

Logo

Navigation
  • Features
  • Community
  • Escapes
  • Traditions
  • Inspiration
  • About Us
    • Our Founder & Publisher, Lourdes Paredes
    • Our Creative Director, Jason Campbell
    • Columinists
      • Cathy Beres
      • Debi BUZIL
      • Pam UDELL
    • Featured Writers
      • Andrew GURVEY
      • Jim KULACKOSKI
      • Ruth Diab LEDERER
    • Contributors
      • Maria BOUSTEAD
      • Loong CHEN
      • Chris de LIZER
      • Kyle GATI
      • Adam GROSSI
      • Jillian SCHIAVI
      • Siddhartha V. SHAH
      • Linda Mura O’TOOLE
      • Danielle ZHU
  • Newsletter

Here’s a more illumined way to plan your month:

#shinesobright Chicago directory Illumined Life Inspiration

October illumined life list

October illumine life list

Instead of a To-Do list, consider how you want To Be and plan your month accordingly. We have so many demands and other people’s agenda’s pulling on our time and attention. Last week at Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy, we learned a few more ways to live a life that feels empowered and has us shine so bright.

30 Day Challenge: It’s not too late, and if it’s your first, just get started. Every month create a challenge to create some change in your life. It might be Whole 30, or going sugar free, or writing a thank you note every day or drinking more water. Make it something that pulls you forward in life, evolves you to be a better version of you.

Grow: Get out of the comfort zone: Take a new class, intensify your workout (and thus your mind) at least once a week,meet with your mentor and set a stretch, but realistic goal to accomplish by the end of the year.

Nourish: Self Care. Try something new like flotation, meditation, or a walk in nature to care for your soul. Minimize the audio/visual noise in your life. Listen in on who YOU are, or just the magical silence of being. It sounds counter intuitive that less is more, but on the level of our brain, minimizing stimulation and maximizing focus increases alpha and theta brain waves which are associated with creativity, compassion, insight (alpha), creativity and intuition (theta).

Connect: Call/visit a good friend you HAVEN’T connected with enough yet this year. In the end, it’s the relationships we have made, that will be most meaningful to us. Who doesn’t end or begin a year resolving to connect more often and more deeply with friends. So take a look at your address book and make a phone or person date with that friend. Being proactive about our relationships will speak volumes to your friend about how much they mean to you and will give you both the needed “good” neurotransmitters (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin) to keep our mood naturally elevated, our mind motivated to stick to our goals and mission, and feeling connected to loved ones.

Laugh: Girls/guys day or night out. There may still be a few warm days/evenings out to enjoy activities with a group of friends. October may be a good time for apple picking, pumpkin carving, day trips out of the city instate or to Wisconsin or Michigan where leaves changing is picturesque. Again connecting with people for fun social activities releases the endorphins and neurotransmitters for a natural high.

Learn: Check out Chicago Ideas Week. Get tickets for Chicago’s week of collective learning. We love the opportunity to be a student again, where world-class speakers, writers, and experts offer lectures, experiential labs, and conversations. Their core belief: When a broad spectrum of thinkers and instigators share ideas, we have the power to transform our world.

Save on holiday travel: Look ahead and make plans for travel at the holidays with family and/or friends. We just scored $99 flights to from Raleigh, NC where we will be for the holidays. There have been years when we waited too long and ended up with $600 flights to So Cal, so I always start looking around late September because I’d rather spend that money on gifts or splurge on saving! ProTip: Sign up for Scott’s Cheap Flights for notification of airline mistakes or sales offering unbelievably low flight price. We scored round trip ORD>FRA for less that $500.

Seasonal: Make winter clothes easily available because today it’s 80’s and tomorrow it’s in the 60’s. Always looking and feeling your best means being ready for the right weather so as NOT to distract you from your focus. Transitional outfits include leggings and sweater, long skirts, light shirts with long sleeves, jacket or sweater to layer. Also go through Winter clothes and see if anything needs to be cleaned, repaired, let go sold/consigned, what are you missing? Put away clean summer clothes, and let go of anything that didn’t spark joy this summer.

For more:

It’s all connected: write your life

Wheel of Life

#shinesobright: Katy Hanlon

 

Share this story:
  • tweet

Tags: BeingchallengeIllumined Lifeliving yogatravel

Recent Posts

  • Part 2: The Post COVID Digital Shift: Working out at home and other “innovations”

    June 5, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • Jenny Kaufman, Yoga Teacher and manager at Yogaview Wilmette

    May 19, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • Lauri Stern, Yoga and Hot Tone Teacher

    May 19, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • Wellness Professionals in the City of Big Shoulders Flex Muscles at the Pandemic

    May 18, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • 4 Questions to Keeping Stress In Check

    December 23, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • Gift-giving Time of the Year: Still Checking Your List??

    December 21, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • With love: 2019 Last60 Best60

    December 20, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • Special offer from photographer Rose Yuen

    August 15, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • An Illumine Ode to Summer

    August 1, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • A Mid-Summer’s evening in the Summer Garden at City Grange

    July 29, 2019 - 2 Comments
  • Illumined in the Big Apple

    July 9, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • Upcoming workshop: Family + Systemic Constellations with Candice Wu

    July 8, 2019 - 0 Comment
  • This Is Love: Respect for our elders

    March 1, 2019 - 2 Comments
  • Career: making your life work

    December 13, 2018 - 0 Comment
  • Let’s take an adventure!

    December 12, 2018 - 0 Comment
  • Breakfast of Champions

    September 25, 2017 - 0 Comment
  • Teacher Feature: Patricia Moreno, Founder of intenSati

    August 11, 2017 - 5 Comments
  • Summer “With Love” from Lourdes: Nourish

    August 1, 2017 - 0 Comment
  • She #shinesobright: Tess Staadecker

    August 31, 2016 - 0 Comment
  • With Love: from Lourdes

    June 18, 2020 - 0 Comment
  • Jaq Howard

    June 5, 2020 - 0 Comment

Related Posts

  • Let’s take an adventure!

    December 12, 2018 - 0 Comment
  • Join the illumine team

    March 23, 2017 - 0 Comment
  • Sutra in the City – Sailing Through Life’s Storms

    July 8, 2016 - 0 Comment

No Responses to “Here’s a more illumined way to plan your month:”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sign Up Here

Illumine on Facebook

This message is only visible to admins.

Problem displaying Facebook posts.
Click to show error

Error: (#200) Provide valid app ID
Type: OAuthException
Solution: See here for how to solve this error
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No posts found.

Make sure this account has posts available on instagram.com.

Click here to troubleshoot

© 2013-2019 Illuminating Inc. All Rights Reserved.
web customization by Blue Canvas Inc.