Category: December Tip Series

Day: 10

Spoke: Spiritual

Habit: Follow the Peace

I’ve written and deleted this post three times. I can’t seem to find the words to explain this experience well, and I think it’s because it doesn’t take many words.

This quote says it all.

When I decided to find my peace and arrange my life in such a way that it’s conducive to maintaining it, I took control of my life. I work really intentionally on the habit to not allow the bad driver on the road, the attitude of another person, or someone’s behavior to rob my peace.

I am responsible for putting together practices and routines that help me maintain my peace. Beyond that, I am just observing others. When I’m tempted to allow someone else’s actions to rob my peace, I try to quickly regroup and reflect on how I can handle this to restore my peace and manage the situation, if taking action is even beneficial.

Day: 9

Spoke: Physical

Habit: Water

You’re probably saying “I know…I know…I know…” I need to drink more water. But if we’re going to talk about habits, this is one that cannot be left out.

There’s lots of info out there about how much water to consume. The guideline I use is your body weight in pounds divided by two, in ounces. So, if you weigh 200 lbs, drink 100oz of water per day. And then Floridians add an extra 12oz/day for the high humidity we live in. If you drink anything that is a dehydrator (coffee, alcohol, etc), add more by doubling that drink in ounces of water. Had a grande latte at Starbucks? That’s 16 oz. Add 32 more ounces of water to your regular day’s figure.

Whether this math is backed by tons of science, I haven’t even bothered to look. It’s easy for me to remember and works as a good guideline to help me create the healthy habit of drinking lots of water, which is backed by lots of science.

I started this habit in 2012, so I’ve had several years to watch how my body responds. I have found that this habit plus the sleep is THE GAME CHANGER in how I feel and my weight loss/gain.

A few side effects in my body that came as a result of not enough water:

• Headaches

• Chapped lips

• Light headedness

• Low energy

• Weight gain (water retention)

• Mindless snacking (often times dehydration manifests as the munchies)

Getting enough water in is ALL ABOUT creating the habits to set you up for success. Here a few habits I do without even thinking about it:

• Carry water with me everywhere I go. Literally, I don’t leave home without my water bottle.

• Trained myself to make my default response “water” every time someone asks me what I would like to drink. Occasionally I may be in the mood to add something else, but never without doubling the water of whatever the other drink is

• Having a large glass of water as one of the first things I do when I get out of bed

• Having a large glass before bed (I mix magnesium into it at night)

• Have fun with it! I drink my water out of a wine glass to make it feel fancier. I makes me smile, and often times makes other people smile too

• Adding things to the water if I need. BEWARE of the flavor water options at the grocery store. I downright refuse to put artificial sweeteners in my body and most are loaded in them. I will do liquid stevia drops, and I’ll do fruit as well. If you smoosh the berries a little before putting them in the water, the juices will sweeten your water deliciously. Lemons and limes are obviously very popular for this. And of course, if you’ve spent any amount of time around me, you know I add fizz sticks to my water regularly.

If you’re doing the sleep challenge I wrote about last week, try adding this water challenge to it and see how your body responds. Once I got a taste of the quality of life it offers, I’ve never looked back.

Day: 8

Spoke: Mental

Habit: Podcasting

In 2016 I discovered podcasting. I had heard of it, but I didn’t realize the value it could add to my life. All I knew was my husband listened to a bunch of podcasts about fantasy football, film and some show his friend put out. He asked me to listen to an episode by his friend, and I didn’t know how. Like a little old lady needing help with her TV remote, he took my phone, opened the purple app that said “Podcasts,” and then showed me how to use the search.

Later that day I started typing my favorite authors into the search, and they all had been making podcasts! For years! Wait, these writers whose work I craved, who I would preorder every single release they put out had information I could have been digesting every week instead of every couple years? Mind. Blown.

I immediately started following my favorite authors. Then I literally sat down with the Wheel of Life. I had some significant discontent in a few of the spokes. I was struggling financially, spiritually and with my health (I was healthy but my weight was a constant yo-yo). I knew that quote “you’re a reflection of the five people you spend the most time with.” I decided I was going to spend a LOT of time with Dave Ramsey, Rob Bell, the Ziglar show and Ashley James (Learn True Health Podcast).

The habit I formed three years ago, that I still practice today, is to fill my mind with as many episodes as I can in down time. Driving five minutes down the road? Click play on a podcast. Washing dishes? Click play. Going on a walk? Click play. Cleaning the bathroom? Click play. Hour long commute each way? Click play.

Hours and hours and hours of allowing these leaders to speak into my life significantly changed me. I began to see the world differently.

Thanks to Dave Ramsey, I saw money in a completely different light. It took me about 8 months to get comfortable with the habits he teaches. Like any new habit, it was awkward for a while. It took lots of energy and effort; now it’s second nature and I don’t think about it.

Thanks to Rob Bell and some other shows I discovered along the way like the Liturgists, I have so much more peace spiritually. I felt so alone for so long. As my relationship with God grew stronger, my relationship with the church broke. I remember listening to some episodes while cleaning after the kids went to bed and something would be said that would bring me to my knees. I would find myself on my kitchen floor in tears, weeping with gratitude that I wasn’t alone anymore and there were thousands of other people having my same experiences, and it was okay. I was looking for a spiritual community locally, but I found it online.

On Learn True Health, Ashley interviews different people every week. I discovered Tricia Nelson with Heal Your Hunger there who helped me cope with my emotional eating habits. I gained lots of wisdom and insight from different naturopaths and experts over the years who helped me develop habits for my family that have been very beneficial for us.

Zig Ziglar always talked about “automobile university.” He was a motivational speaker and fervently believed that you should fill your mind with positivity and education that can help you grow. Hands down, one of the best things I have done for myself is to develop the habit of listening to podcasts that address the areas where I need help.

Day: 7

Spoke: Family

Habit: Respecting Boundaries

I could write a whole series of posts on family and boundaries. If you haven’t read the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud, it’s a MUST. He discusses relational boundaries, but today I want to discuss time block boundaries.

When I had my first child I chose to work from home so I didn’t have to put her in daycare. Every single day those first three years I weaved all the priorities together at the same time, and it was a hot mess.

By working from home, mostly my cell phone, I was always “on” for everyone. Small children have constant demands. I was working and living in a house that needed constant cleaning and picking up. And then I had the pressure and nagging feeling over me as a constant dark cloud of all the work-related things I should be doing that I couldn’t get to.

I was stressed and my body showed it.

My hips started hurting and it kept getting worse. I couldn’t figure out why until I went to a Japanese Acupressurist who completely cleared it up in one session, after a year of struggle for me.

I was carrying guilt and it was storing in my body. When I was playing with my daughter I felt guilty I should have been working. When I was working I felt guilty I wasn’t spending time with my family or cleaning. I was never present in the moment. I was constantly focusing on what else I “should” be doing.

The magical shift for me happened when I got childcare help. I was able to time block my entire life. This is my window to work. This is my window to do chores. This is my window to sit on the couch and do nothing. Sometimes they may bleed into each other a little bit, like I choose to answer a work text while at home, but I work very intentionally at keeping my time block boundaries as firm and consistent as I can.

Time blocking my life has been so beneficial because every time my mind starts to drift to something else that still isn’t getting done I can turn the chatter off in my mind and just say “I’ll get to that on Saturday morning, until then it will have to wait because these things are the current priority.”

Do you ever struggle with being present in the current moment? Do the never ending to-do lists overwhelm you? Have you ever tried time blocking?

Day: 6

Spoke: Career

Habit: Knowing Your Strengths

The average American spends more of their time at work than anywhere else, and yet the statistics tell us that (depending which report you read) somewhere around only 15% of Americans love their job. This breaks my heart.

I know that pain. I’ve lived that pain. What I found was the best medicine was to get to know myself better. The more we understand ourselves, the more we know where we could best thrive.

A few years ago a friend highly recommended the Strengths Finder test to me, and I decided to invest in it. When I read my top five strengths I had two very different reactions.

The first was reassurance. I knew those talents and gifts were inside of me, and it was so encouraging to see words on a paper that told me I wasn’t making it up.

The second reaction was sadness. I read the strengths and realized I was currently in a role that left about 60% of those strengths on the table. I was using some of them, so I wasn’t a fish out of water, but I was not fulfilled.

Understanding my strengths gave me the courage to start looking for new opportunities. I wanted to use my gifts and talents to make my community better. It surprised many people when I walked away from seven years of entrepreneurship into a full time, M-F office job. I felt completely at peace because what I saw was an opportunity to get paid to use most of my strengths on a daily basis.

I was only two weeks into my full time position when I felt like I needed to pinch myself. I said to my boss multiple times “I get PAID to do this?!?!?” I was having so much fun and making an income at the same time. Many people would not love my job. It’s a combination of details and high level thinking, while managing a thousand hats and bouncing from one project to the next, often times in the same hour. My brain was wired for this type of work and it feels like a square peg in a square hole.

I believe the small investment of around $20 is worth it to find out what your strengths are. Once you’re empowered with that information, you can seek out opportunities that will help you use those strengths on a daily basis. It may mean looking for a new opportunity like mine did, or it may mean staying exactly where you are but experimenting wearing some different hats at the same company.

Creating the habit to always seek out opportunities that will utilize your strengths will greatly increase your overall satisfaction and fulfillment in life. If you are one of those people dreading the alarm clock every morning because your job feels like dying a slow death, stop. Just stop. Re-evaluate yourself. Learn a little about where you can thrive. Begin to seek out a career path or a specific company that will help you become the greatest version of yourself. You are worthy of a job you love.

Day: 5

Spoke: Personal

Habit: Intentional 5

The quote “you are a reflection of the five people you spend the most time with” is so true. Last year, I got out a sheet of paper and wrote down five people in my life that I wanted to reflect, then I chose to invest in them with intention.

Self-care is ESSENTIAL to our ability to thrive. Sometimes self-care looks like bubble baths and manicures, but most of the time it looks like prioritizing our time, energy and resources on what matters most and loving ourselves enough to say yes and no in the right places.

2018 was a very, very challenging year for me. I had a difficult pregnancy while still having to care for a 4 year old and work full time with a side gig. My husband was gone (work travel) for most of it and then at 8 weeks old our baby ended up in the hospital for two weeks in ICU. I have a hard time asking for help. There were people who knew that and showed up for me in ways I didn’t know to ask for. Some people who I thought were my “good friends” didn’t make it a priority to be at any of the most important events for me that year.

I realized that life is a mirror and if these people were not showing up for me the way I had expected, then was I showing up for them? Were they just mirroring back to me my own actions?

At the end of the year I got out a sheet of paper and wrote down 5 names and made it a priority to invest in those lives. Because I know I am in a season where there is no window in my life to take a phone call and quality time is my strongest love language, I knew it had to be women local to me that I could weave into my life and create space to be together.

Sometimes it looked like carpooling to the same event. Other times it looked like signing our kids up for the same activities so we would have a buddy to sit next to. Sometimes it was agreeing to attend the same functions but then finding a corner of the room to hide away in and catch up on life. More than once, friends came over after my kids were in bed to watch a Netflix show with me.

It’s funny because I’m probably the most busy I’ve ever been in my life (and I’ve always had a habit of staying very busy) but this year I have had a tremendous amount of fun and deepened my relationships with some pretty amazing women.

The list is so, so, so long of amazing women I am blessed to call friends. I am so grateful for so many women who are in my life. This habit of a list of five is not a flashback to MySpace days and making an exclusive club of your top 5, but rather acknowledging that who you surround yourself with matters. They give you advice, share their experiences, and subconsciously rub off on you. I made the decision to be intentional with who I wanted rubbing off on me.

No matter how “busy” we are, we need relationships. We need fun. We need friendship.

[photo caption: Despite having a very full calendar my sister and I chose to host a “Galentine’s Day” party at my house to be intentional about making time for friendship, laughter and fun just because.]

In 2008 I was 21 years old and was introduced to budgeting for the first time. I had never been taught the concept of spending your money before you make it, or properly planning for categories.

When we got engaged in 2006, there was no debt in my name. Less than two years later we purchased a condo that was plummeting in value; we closed on that property the month the real estate market peaked. We purchased a brand new vehicle and a barely used vehicle. We financed tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and we opened some credit cards. In retrospect it was a series of foolish decisions, but in the moment it all felt very normal. When I sat down for our first Dave Ramsey financial class to learn about budgeting, we had a negative net worth that exceeded $120,000.

We finished the course but to be honest, we didn’t implement any of it. We were so far into debt and still not finished with college that it felt hopeless. We didn’t see a way out. We dabbled in the cash envelope system, but were too disorganized to follow through with it. If one category ran out of money we would just take it from another. And we couldn’t keep up with the receipts so had no idea where the money was going.

The lessons from the classes did not fall on deaf ears. We managed to short sale our condo to drop that debt and sell both cars to buy beaters, which knocked out about half of the debt. But we weren’t willing to part with the credit cards. We bought into the “points” concept and thought we were better off swiping for everything. Without a budget telling us what we could spend, this led to immense business debt because we justified so many purchases as a “need” for the business.

Our financial stress began to end when I started listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast. I heard story after story of people who were just like me. I was far from alone. I learned about the app EveryDollar and downloaded it. This one single habit of using this app was the game changer in our financial lives.

We synced the app to our bank accounts. We got rid of all the credit cards and only use the debit cards. We spend the money on the app prior to our paychecks coming in. We agree on our financial priorities and then follow through. We have paid off over $30,000 in student load and credit card debt this way.

We would be debt free probably 18 months ago if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. We cash flowed some home projects to get ready for the baby and then started spending more on childcare than our mortgage. So it slowed down our progress, but MAN we are SO CLOSE to being debt free. We’ve been using the app for three years and it’s hands down the best financial habit in our lives.

Setting a monthly budget and then reviewing it weekly has brought so much peace into our lives. We have alleviated so much stress over fighting about where the money went, verses planning together where it will go. We have control over our finances verses feeling like we are constantly surprised by every car repair or annual renewal.

I cannot recommend the app EveryDollar or the Dave Ramsey podcast, books and courses highly enough. They will change your life….for the better.

Day 3

Spoke: Spiritual 

Habit: Meditation 

Before I even start writing about this, there are people who have already checked out. Some who say “I can’t meditate. It’s not possible for me.” And there are others who think “I don’t know about that…it’s woowoo stuff.” The latter I surprisingly hear the most from Christians who for some reason think it’s not part of their faith’s heritage. (Spoiler…it is all over the scriptures!)

So, background on me, I was raised in the Christian tradition. But I wasn’t one of those kids who went because my parents made me. I LOVED church. As a teenager I went because I craved it. I was there every Sunday for Sunday school, “Big church” as we called it, and many times returning for Sunday night. Then I was there every Wednesday for youth group and any extra event the church was hosting. If a sermon was taught on a book of the Bible, I heard it. I used my spending money from my part time jobs to go to the Christian bookstore and would read my Bible and my devotionals in my bedroom. Literally, my friends would be at high school parties, and I would be at home studying the Bible. I have always been hungry for an active spiritual life. With all that church going, I heard a thousand ways to pray, a.k.a. talk to God, but at no point did anyone teach me how to listen. 

I was taught prayer journals and prayer requests. At one point I literally kept a journal of my prayer requests so I wouldn’t forget all the things people asked me to pray for. And I would sit there in my quiet time and actually read the list. 

I distinctly remember being about 20 years old on my back porch opening up the prayer journal and going through the list and then closing it and saying “This is stupid. Jesus, this feels like a kid on Santa’s lap reading a list of things I want. I don’t think this is what prayer life is supposed to look like.” 

I would try to pray and be quiet but one of two things would happen, I would either fall asleep or my thoughts would wander a thousand different directions. I was more likely to remember something on my to do list than to hear the voice of God. 

For years I would attempt meditation and I couldn’t make it two minutes without feeling stupid. I even bought the book “meditation for dummies.” I’m not joking. I literally bought the big yellow textbook with big black letters on the cover from Barnes and Noble. 

Finally, when I hit my burn out at 24, my sabbatical that you’ll hear me talk more about in my writings, I was tired of not having this skill. I remembered I had a professor in college who used to refer to his daily meditation practice and that he had recently retired. I needed help. I tracked him down on the internet and he invited me over to his home. 

I ended up spending an entire day with him asking a million questions about meditation and his spiritual journey. Peace overwhelmed me. There are people in your life who preach the Bible and then there are people in your life who actually live a life that reflects the words in red. At that point in my life, he was one of the few people I had ever met that exhibited all the love of Jesus. I saw him cry once in class because he loved his students so much and needed them to know he forgave them and loved them anyway when they cheated, even though he had no choice but to fail them on that test. 

Over time I encountered more people who walked a life of unconditional love, servant-hood, peace, kindness, joy and other characteristics that were reflective of a genuine faith. It made me think of the scripture “you will know them by their fruit.” Man. Read the fruits of the spirit and then try and find some humans on the planet that exude them. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is when you count how many churches we have in America. Whenever I would encounter another person that reminded me of Jesus’s teachings, I would interview them and they consistently had one thing in common…meditation. 

Here’s what I can tell you about meditation, it’s a muscle. It must be worked like one. You can not go from couch potato to a marathon the next day, but you can set a goal to train for it and find success. 

When I guide people in meditation I teach them to just sit in silence for five minutes counting your breath up to the count of 8 and back down to 0 for five minutes. Whenever your mind drifts, bring it back to the numbers. Just that exercise alone will begin to give you control over your mind. 

Today, if I am blessed enough to wake up before my entire family I can sit in silence for an hour in a beautiful meditative state. However, that’s rare. More common in my current season is to feel myself getting stressed and go lock myself in a closet or sit in my car by myself for five minutes and take many breaths while releasing all the stress I’m carrying. 

Someone said to me “prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening.” And this has been my experience. Learning to quiet the mind, intentionally reflect, and give space for new perspectives has been incredibly life changing. 

I’ve led some guided meditation classes before and I love hearing the stories of what people will discover in the quiet. Most of what you need to know is already inside of you. You just need to quiet yourself for long enough to hear it.