Tips to Increase Your Home's Value

Increasing the value of your home is easier than you think. Follow these tips, and your home will be worth more before you know it.

Plan your remodel.

Whether you just bought a house or you have lived there for a while, the fastest way to increase your home's value is by making a plan.

You will fare better if upgrades are made intentionally and not on impulse. Home improvement projects cost about 20 to 25 cents on the dollar. The other 75 to 80 cents spent go directly back into the home through increased value.

Tackle one room at a time.

How can you harness the energy that comes from new ideas and still be smart when you make those improvements? Make the commitment to tackle one room at a time. Whether it's a simple coat of paint or knocking down a wall, by tackling one room at a time you keep projects achievable.

Make a list of all the things you dream about doing, break your list down into categories based on cost and write down how much time each project may take. What this does is help you get results. If you only have a day or a weekend, choose a project that fits within your timeframe, comfort level and financial commitment.

Small improvements can really pay off.

Are you torn between improving your home's decor, versus making upgrades you know will increase your home's resale value? Many homeowners are surprised to hear that doing a little bit of both will actually pay off.

Start by making two lists — upgrades for your home value and upgrades just for you. Upgrades for your home may consist of replacing old faucets, permanent lighting and doors. Upgrades for you are furniture, artwork and window treatments. Gone is the dartboard approach to picking projects and wondering if what you are doing is really making a difference. With this plan, you will see real progress.

Clean your house now for profits later.

If your house is on the market, a bright and sparkly home can attract buyers like a magnet. A house can never be too clean. If you were a buyer, would you choose the house that is slightly dingy or the home down the street that is clean and welcoming?

Curb appeal counts.

Want a fresh perspective on the value of your home? Walk across the street, turn around and ask yourself, "Does my house have curb appeal?" Does your home look attractive, welcoming and structurally sound at first glance?

Make a list of ways to enhance the positive and eliminate the negative. If you have a nice curvy walkway, accentuate it with flowers or lanterns. If the first thing a visitor sees is your big wide garage, try to guide their eyes into a beautiful front yard, or paint your front door red to guide the eye there. These things add value.

Take a digital photo and look at your home in black and white. When the color is removed, the truth comes out. That is where you see the cracks in the walls and the glaring flaws.

https://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/design-101/10-tips-to-increase-your-homes-value

Western Slope Nonprofits

In 2017, the Western Colorado Community Foundation distributed more than $3.4 million in grants and scholarships from its charitable funds.

Grantmaking is one of the Western Colorado Community Foundation’s community-building strategies. WCCF also administers scholarships, provides training and support to nonprofits through its NSTAR program and manages Agency Endowments for organizations.

The work of local nonprofit organizations impacts the quality of life for everyone in western Colorado. Recognizing the essential role they play in the economy and health of our communities, the Western Colorado Community Foundation is committed to sharing knowledge about the nonprofit sector with our larger community and strengthening our nonprofit organizations through grants and training.

http://wc-cf.org/nonprofits/

How to Immediately Change Your Life For The Better

1. Address the choices you've made in the past and change the choices you'll make in the future.

Life is made up of choices--some we regret, some we're proud of, some that will hurt us. Everything in your career and your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want different results, start making different choices.

2. Speak up with honesty and stop holding back what you think.

People may believe that honesty won't win you many friends--but even if that were true, the friends you make with honesty will be the right ones. Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and the ability to perform cannot exist.

3. Forgo being a perfectionist. Perfect doesn't exist.

Once you realize perfect doesn't exist, you can ease up on yourself. There's no harm in being wrong or making mistakes, as long as you're willing to make corrections. Just be yourself, flaws and all, and let people see the real you. Each of us is an imperfect human being, aware that we can't push away our failures and our flaws.

https://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/how-to-immediately-change-your-life-for-better.html

Helpful Tips for Undergrad Admission

Be inquisitive

Ask a lot of questions and be thorough in your research; don't leave any questions unasked. Learn all you can about Marquette: scour our website, take a tour and meet with current students.

Be prepared

It's never too early to start thinking about college. As early as your sophomore year, you should be taking tough classes — and doing well in them.

Be organized

The college application process spans a lot of time, and you will likely apply to several schools. Make a file for each school and keep them organized for easy reference. Have your materials (transcripts, essays, etc.) prepared and neatly organized.

Be aware of deadlines

Marquette's application process is deadline intensive. Make sure you know the deadlines for all paperwork and deposits. Be familiar with our deadlines and give yourself enough time to complete all the necessary materials.

Be careful

Read application materials carefully and be sure to follow instructions. Ask parents, teachers or guidance counselors to review your application materials, especially essays, before sending them in. And then revise once more!

Be The Difference

Brag about yourself in your application! We want to know more about you than your GPA and test scores. Talk about what you have accomplished outside the classroom in activities or organizations. Marquette students have a reputation for academic excellence and service to the community. We look for those qualities in potential students. But we also want to learn more about your interests and your passions — the things that make you who you are.

https://www.marquette.edu/explore/application-tips.php

5 Tips to Achieve Anything You Want in Life

1. Focus on commitment, not motivation.

Just how committed are you to your goal? How important is it for you, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it? If you find yourself fully committed, motivation will follow.

2. Seek knowledge, not results.

If you focus on the excitement of discovery, improving, exploring and experimenting, your motivation will always be fueled. If you focus only on results, your motivation will be like weather—it will die the minute you hit a storm. So the key is to focus on the journey, not the destination. Keep thinking about what you are learning along the way and what you can improve.

3. Make the journey fun.

It’s an awesome game! The minute you make it serious, there’s a big chance it will start carrying a heavy emotional weight and you will lose perspective and become stuck again.

4. Get rid of stagnating thoughts.

Thoughts influence feelings and feelings determine how you view your work. You have a lot of thoughts in your head, and you always have a choice of which ones to focus on: the ones that will make you emotionally stuck (fears, doubts) or the ones that will move you forward (excitement, experimenting, trying new things, stepping out of your comfort zone).

5. Use your imagination.

Next step after getting rid of negative thoughts is to use your imagination. When things go well, you are full of positive energy, and when you are experiencing difficulties, you need to be even more energetic. So rename your situation. If you keep repeating I hate my work, guess which feelings those words will evoke? It’s a matter of imagination! You can always find something to learn even from the worst boss in the world at the most boring job. I have a great exercise for you: Just for three days, think and say positive things only. See what happens.

https://www.success.com/10-tips-to-achieve-anything-you-want-in-life/

3 Steps to Becoming a Better Version of Yourself

1. Break the Norm

Sometimes you already know the changes you want to make in your life. But sometimes, it’s not as clear what behaviors are holding you back from your full potential.

The best way to figure it out? Start trying different things. Make a list of productivity tips you’ve read about or friends’ behaviors you’ve been wanting to try, and challenge yourself to do things differently. It doesn’t have to be big things: If you usually get up and check your phone, instead get up and relax for five minutes to start the day fresh. If you usually check your email first thing when you get to the office, instead try spending an hour working on your big task for the day first.

Not every change you make will be one you want to continue, but experimenting like this will start to give you a sense of what’s holding you back and what will help you move toward the better version of you.

2. Do it Regularly for a Month

Oftentimes when people get excited about improving themselves, they’ll think about all the things they want to do differently and make it a goal to change them all at once. I fall prey to this far too often, too—this week, I’m going to stay organized at work, devote time to side projects, eat healthier, and actually exercise. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens in this scenario: Monday I’m gung-ho for all of them, but by mid-week I’m back to my old ways.

Changing habits is hard, but it’s nearly impossible when we overwhelm ourselves with too many changes at once. Instead, it’s better to focus on one major change at a time, and give yourself ample time to establish this change as a habit. I find the most effective way to do this is to practice the new habit every day for a month. Even if you aren’t looking for this to be a daily habit in the long run, doing it every day at the start makes it easer to condition the behavior as a regular part of your life. Scott Young explains this well in his article on 99U.

For example, over the summer I was working out approximately never. I wanted to get to the point where I was active three or four days a week, so I made it a goal to work out every day in September. By spending a month focusing on how working out could fit into my life every single day, doing it a few times a week is now a piece of cake.

This could apply to things at work, too. Want to start devoting more time to special projects at work? Devoting even 15 to 30 minutes a day to these projects for a month can help get you there. It may feel like slow progress, but in just a year of doing one thing a month, you’ll be closer to your better self in 12 major ways.

3. Give Yourself a Performance Review

Nothing makes a goal fail faster than not keeping yourself accountable. It’s all well and good to say you’ll wake up half an hour earlier every day, but if you’re not checking in on yourself, you’ll probably start hitting the snooze button again before you know it.

So, set up a regular time to check in with yourself on your goal. Every evening, once a week—whatever cadence you think you need to stay on track. Sit down and think about what you’ve been doing well and where your weaknesses have been, and then come up with action items for how you’re going to overcome them. Better yet, write them down so you can keep up with your progress.

And if you’re still having trouble staying on track, find someone else to help you stay accountable. It could be your roommate, your best friend, or even your boss. For example, I had a goal to start writing more. After sharing it with my boss, we set up regular times during my work week that were blocked out for writing, and she checks in with me at the beginning of each of those times to see what I’m working on that day. She’s even started joining me in this writing time—meaning we’re both making progress towards our better selves.

All of this is not to say that you should be constantly self-critiquing and never be happy with where you are in your development. But when you do find ways you can change your habits to make your life a little easier? These strategies will do wonders.

https://www.themuse.com/advice/3-steps-to-becoming-a-better-version-of-yourself

SELF IMPROVEMENT TIPS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER

1. Create a meal plan. Planning out your meals ahead of time will help you spend less money and stick to your health goals. A great meal plan is the $5 Meal Plan. People love this one!
2. Stop eating fried food. Fried food makes you feel awful for ~24 hours (not to mention it lacks nutrients). You’ll feel better if you cut out fried food.
3. Don’t go more than 3 days without exercising. Exercising gives you energy, helps relieve stress, and helps you get fit. It’s too hard to squeeze it in every day sometimes, but don’t go more than 3 days without it.
4. Eat minimal dairy. If you have a sensitive stomach, try cutting out dairy. For some people this can eliminate digestive problems.
5. Cut out one of the following: pop, coffee, alcohol, or sugar. If you could cut all these, then even better (but I would think you are a superhero)!
6. Get enough good sleep. This may be 5.5 hours or it may be 8 hours – whatever it is for you, make sure you get it. The quality matters just as much as the time spent sleeping. Sleep allows you to regenerate and gives you greater concentration.
7. Focus on building strength more than on being skinny. This will create positive goals that are attainable and healthy for you.
8. Make sure you get enough Vitamin C and D. Both of these can impact your health in a positive way if you get enough (and can have the opposite effect if they’re lacking). Check with your doctor which vitamins she recommends.
9. Drink enough water every day. A good rule of thumb is to divide your body weight by 2 and that’s how many ounces you should drink.
10. Keep track of your annual, routine doctor appointments and don’t miss any. Put a recurring reminder on your calendar for things like dental checkups, skin checks, and physicals so you don’t miss any. Take your preventative care seriously.
11. Take fitness classes or hire a personal trainer. If you struggle to get fit, classes or a trainer are great ways to go. Just make sure you can afford it!
12. Subscribe to a health blog. Learn about healthy living as a lifestyle practice little by little every day. Here’s a list of 10 of the best health and wellness blogs.

https://nataliebacon.com/self-improvement-tips/