Why change my life?

One day I started think over my life while I read a self development article on the internet. The article said to take every important aspect of your life (health, money, career, relationships...) and give them a rating from one to ten, one been the crappiest that aspect can be (like if your broke you give "money" one) and ten meaning it couldn't get better (like if your happily married, you give "relationship" a ten). So while I read it, I started doing that in my head, and the result came as quite a shoke. I think only my career and family got a rating above 6.
So here's my list:


Aspect / Rating
Career & Work 7
Financial 6
Social & Relationships 4
Home & Family 8
Health & Fitness 3
Mental & Learning 6
Emotional 5
Spiritual 5
Character & Integrity 4
Purpose & Contribution 5
Fun & Adventure 4-9


That means, I was ending every month with a negative bank account, I'm away from all my close friends it has not been easy to make new ones were in France, I'm in a crappy relationship with I guy here and I want out. I'm overweighted, I've been eating really badly and doing nearly no exercises at all. I feel sad about 10 times a week and I'm away from my meditation group. I've been acting like a really jerk with men lately. I had been making no real contributions to anyone other them my close friends. And fun and adventure for me only happen in the holidays (that's why I gave it a 4-9), so it varies a lot, and most of the time I'm not having any fun at all. Looking at that, I quickly realised something had to change, and soon.
A lot of things contributed to the idea of creating this blog. Frist was the Steve Pavlina blog, from here a got that list. I also watched recently the Julie & Julia film, which really inspired me. And also that growing, desperate urge to change my life. So basically I hope this blog will help me keep on track and at the same time, hope to change my "contribution" rating! ;)

I really recommend this exercise to everyone, especially those who aren't satisfied with their live's but don't know exactly how/what to change. After you do this, you can tell precisely what needs changing, after that the "how" part comes easily.

Proper Introductions

So here's the deal, about two or three days ago I started assessing my life. You see, I'm a Brazilian college student doing a year abroad in France, my life should be full of excitements and a real thrill just about now, but it isn't. Don't get me wrong, after 4 months here I've lived lots of great experiences, met lot's of amazing people and traveled plenty of times. But that was mostly during the vacations, I'm talking about my day-to-day life, the Mondays, the Tuesdays, the Wends days... Those days. Which, let's face it, is what most of our lives are made of. Turns out that on those days I look a lot like a deeply depressed person.

You see, been an exchange student is a lot like been in vacation for a year. You don't care to much for classes, either because their too hard, too easy, too in French or simply because no one really expects you to do a great job anyway. It's true, every time a professor asks me if I'm having a hard time understanding the class and I tell them I can understand just fine, they give me the "you can tell me the truth look" and ask -Are you sure?. So it's very easy to no really give a damn. Another point is that in my case, I'm not really taking that many classes. Because of that, I have a lot of time to spare, and I mean A LOT! So it's very easy to do nothing, when you have a lot of nothing to do. The problem is that once you've started doing nothing, is very hard to stop. So that's what happened to me, after new years' I started spending a amazing amount of time in my bed, on google, on facebook, and surprisingly not in my (other) blog.

Then, right about the 10th I realized that I'm actually graduating from college this year. And that was it, a got desperate I started think whether or not I should go to grad school, if I should look for a job, if I should postpone my graduation. A started doing all kinds of searches on google (who is my mentor by the way) and them a simply stop sleeping. Just stop. Then a started sleeping 6 o'clock in the morning every single day. About the same time I stop eating to. I mean, I would eat a couple of power bars and an apple a day give or take. It didn't take long until I realised that wasn't going to end up well. I'm sure that lots of people go throw fases like this, but that shouldn't be happing to me, not right now any way. And not in that scale. I'm studying abroad for crying out loud! I should be having the time of my life!

So, while a had a serious "talk" with google "he" showed me that there are in fact a lot of people who dedicate their lives to help others live better, and feel better about them self's. And I actually ended up discovering a lot of interesting technics and studies on the subject. So then it hit me, I have to implement these things to my life, or better yet, show them to people, and help them make a definitive change in their lives. So I'm going to do both here, I going change my life drastically, share my experiences here and hope to inspire some people along to way. And try to get some support also, maybe that's the kind of motivation I need.

P.S: I hope there aren't too many grammar/spelling mistakes. I'm writing in English to try to access more people.