10 Steps to Creating A Life You LOVE

If you are ready to make 2020 a year of clarity and purpose—and you know you want this year to matter— stay tuned here as I will be covering ten essential steps to leading yourself towards a life that you love. Today I will give you an overview and then for the next ten weeks I’ll be diving a little deeper into each of the steps. If you have a dream for your year, these steps will help you make your dream a reality! My work is geared towards those who struggle with emotional and stress eating, so going forward these steps will offer guidance specific to those needs, however, they fit well with anything you’d like to achieve and will offer everyone inspiration and motivation along the way!

Step 1: Self-Awareness

This first step is all about becoming deeply self-aware. In order to know yourself fully and understand your patterns and get comfortable with the discomfort of change, you must have self-awareness. This step creates the ultimate foundation for change. When you become self-aware you will explore and examine your internal emotional world, how you respond to life and any potential blocks to change that are standing in your way. Mindfulness allows you to create opportunities to know yourself and accept yourself completely. This step presents opportunities to create practices to live a truly mindful life. As you become more self-aware, present and accepting, you will begin to be able to tune into and listen to your inner wisdom.

Step 2: Aligning with a Sense of Purpose

Step two is about creating a sense of purpose that drives your motivation towards the change you’re seeking. When you can align consistently with your purpose you will be able to explore why change is important to you and why it is necessary. When you understand the change process and create a vision that supports your why, you will live in that alignment and remain motivated and inspired towards the change you desire. There’s a lot of talk about finding your purpose out there, which can feel daunting. This step allows you to break it down and offer a way to explore your sense of purpose if it isn’t clear—and how to work within why you want the change you desire and aligning that with your personal values. If your sense of purpose is clear to you, you will access that consistently to remain in alignment with your vision.

Step 3: Creating a Plan of Action

Without a plan your vision will remain only a dream. Step 3 will help you outline your specific plan and use it to create consistent action towards what you desire. Once you have a sense of purpose and a clear vision, you will focus with a new mindset on how to execute effectively in order to create a life that you love. Having a plan offers an opportunity to do just this and is an essential step to creating change. Creating a vision is fun and creative. Formulating a plan is practical and action focused. Your specific plan will allow you to move into a space of action, a space of change and is specific, doable and desirable.

Step 4: Evaluating Your Current Life and Lifestyle

Step 4 is all about evaluating how you are currently functioning in terms of living well, feeling well and being well. This step will help you understand and evaluate how you are integrating the foundations of wellness into your current lifestyle. You will have opportunities in this step to create greater wellbeing within your current life. There will be opportunities for self-reflection and to assess your current wellbeing within this step and where you might create more fluidity in your lifestyle that will help lead to the changes you desire.

Step 5: Monitor Your Process and Respond to Obstacles Along the Way

Step five outlines the need to monitor your progress in order to create the change you desire. It’s one thing to create a plan, it’s another to execute it! This step allows you to explore your inner resistance to change and learn how to build your resilience to ensure that change you desire shifts from a fantasy into reality based action. Resistance to change is the number one reason we don’t follow through. Resistance dampens motivation and zaps inspiration and keeps us stuck in this discomfort of our comfort zone and convinces us that that is better than the discomfort of stepping out of our comfort zone and into change. There will be opportunities in this step to build resilience as an anecdote to resistance and some serious reality checks to keep you moving forward!

Step 6: Create a Support Network

Step 6 emphasizes the need to have a strong support network on your side in order to make the changes you desire in your life. Without support change is way more difficult. Without support, life can be difficult and lonely. With support, you can reach out, stay motivated and feel inspired to move forward even when it’s difficult. You will evaluate the nature of your relationships, acknowledge the ones you’d like to improve, explore how to continue to develop new healthy partnerships all while improving your ability to communicate assertively, compassionately and effectively.

Step 7: Moving Forward with a Steady Pace to Create True Self-Leadership

Step 7 helps you create an understanding of how to continue to lead yourself through the change process at a steady, manageable pace. This step offers opportunities to evaluate and adjust your plan as needed, to continue to forge through any residual resistance and personalize your change process. Understanding leadership skills and becoming a strong leader for yourself is emphasized. We are often used to either being led or leading others, however, leading yourself is where your true internal power lies.

Step 8: Building on the Change Process

Step 8 is about celebrating your change process and nurturing it as it develops. With this step you will focus on the good, the wins you are achieving, and the positive shifts that are occurring. You will have opportunities to make adjustments when your motivation needs some tweaking. Developing a consistent gratitude and appreciation practice will be outlined and encouraged to integrate into daily self-awareness positivity practice. When you focus on what’s going well you tend to create more of it!

Step 9: Create Adjustments Through Self-Reflection and Acknowledging Change

Step 9 is about understanding how new learning can be integrated throughout your personal change process and how you can apply it to all areas of your life. Fine tuning your change process will be discussed which allows you to continue to deepen your self-reflection and self-awareness. This ensures that you continue to feel good about the person you are growing into on a daily basis. Celebrating any changes that have occurred is encouraged!

Step 10: Self-Reflection and Re-Evaluation

The 10th and final step is about graceful living and self-compassion through the growth process—which really is a lifelong process! With this step, you may find that your goals shift and maybe even majorly change. There will be opportunities for evaluating your personal change process and ensuring that you create a life-long dedication to being Wholistically, Unapologetically and Authentically You!

So consider something you’d like to shift, change or create within your life and join me over the next ten posts to lead yourself towards the change you desire!

Creating 2020 Vision: How to Get Clear, Set Goals and Create a Life You Love

When you have 2020 vision, you have clarity, direction, purpose and this creates a strong focused mindset. If you are ready to see what you want clearly and prepare yourself to remain motivated, inspired and truly live your vision, stay tuned all throughout this year! We are going to get motivated and stay motivated with a constant search for and connection to clarity.

This post today will walk you through three basic steps to create 2020 vision for your year ahead—the year 2020! First you will use clarity questions to dive deep within yourself and get super clear on where you’ve come from through reflecting on this past year. Then you will set specific goals to set you up to move towards what you want. Lastly you will create a life you love through consistent action and maintaining a determined mindset. Ready to get started? Here we go!

Step One: How to Get Clear

Clarity requires self-reflection. Inner reflection can be painful, or at least uncomfortable…so we tend to either avoid it through procrastination, busyness or through plain old denial. If you can reframe the process of self-reflection from painful or uncomfortable to a process of getting super clear on what hasn’t worked so far, so that you can make adjustments and create a plan for change, you might actually enjoy the process!

Getting clear is not about regret, self-deprecation, self-punishment or anything else that feels negative. Self-reflection and getting super clear in order to allow yourself to problem solve and use those solutions to move forward in a way that creates feelings of empowerment and deep self-awareness. Take time with these self-reflection questions to dive deep and GET CLEAR! Get out your journal, set your ego and fear aside and gain the clarity through self-reflection that you can learn and grow from to make 2020 your most purpose driven and powerful year yet.

1.    What was the most memorable part of this past year? Why?

2.    What is the biggest lesson you learned this past year? How can you apply that lesson to the year ahead?

3.    In what ways have you changed over this past year? Are you satisfied with that change, why or why not?

4.    If you did not create the change you desire in the past year, why? What held you back?

5.    What were your biggest distractions in this past year? How can you adjust those in the year ahead?

6. What did you prioritize over the past year? Did you prioritize yourself and your personal goals?

7.    When you reflect on this past year, what are you most grateful for?

8.    What is one area of your life that you’d most like to improve upon in the year ahead?

9. How will you ensure that you make these improvements that you desire?

10. What are the challenges that may present themselves as you attempt to create these improvements?

Spend time reflecting on your answers and then move into the next step.

Step Two: Setting Goals

When you set goals, you want them to be measurable, doable and desirable. If you can measure your progress you will know when you’ve achieved your goal. When your goal is doable, it will be something that you can fit into your current schedule and lifestyle without any major disruption. And the big kicker is, your goal has to be desirable—meaning you have to actually want it. When you know what you want (goal) and begin to create a plan for making it happen (doable) you can remain focused on why you want it (desirable) to ensure that you make it happen.

The biggest element of follow through is creating small action steps. When you have the baby steps outlined that will lead you to the bigger outcome of achieving your goal, you can get there. This leads us to step three!

Step Three: Create a Life You Love Through Consistent Action and a Determined Mindset

Taking action consistently is how you will ensure that you meet your goals and live out your vision for your life. Without a plan to take action it will most likely remain a dream, a fantasy, a simple wish. With a plan that you commit to taking action on consistently, your vision will fall into place with time. When you have a determined mindset that you have to do these action steps daily, you can do these action steps, that you WILL do these action steps NO MATTER WHAT, you will make it happen.

I know this is all easy to talk about however putting the plan together and creating consistent action is not always so simple...Over the next ten blogs, I’ll be outlining TEN steps to help create the change you desire over time and through a series of supportive suggestions that will help you create a life that you love. When it comes to living your vision, it is ultimately YOU that has to make the choice and the daily consistent work to make it happen. The 10-steps will offer the support to help get you where you want to go and continue to create clear vision for 2020!

I hope these three steps are helpful in your search for greatness this year. If you struggle to stay motivated feel free to reach out, having support is an essential element to growth!

How to Survive the 3 Most Common Holiday Stressors

Do the holidays totally stress you out? If so, you are not alone. Many people say that the holiday season is the most stressful time of the year. While this time of year can be filled with aspects of fun, sharing and joy, they can also wreak havoc on your wellness routine and cause some old patterns to trickle back in or, even worse, you might completely neglect self-care. This is not good and can leave you feeling burned out, tired and may even leave your more susceptible to illness.

Today I am offering this survival guide to the holidays as a reminder to focus on your health and wellbeing while covering the most stressful elements of the season: disruption in wellness routines, financial strain and travel anxiety.

DISRUPTION IN WELLNESS ROUTINES

The foundations of wellness are nutrition, sleep, movement and relaxation. When you have a routine that balances each of these, infused with some intentional self-care, you most likely feel well, live well and create inner and outer wellbeing. The holidays tend to disrupt each of these routines! We all know it can be something of a domino effect where if one piece is disrupted all of the others are consequently negatively impacted. An example would be, if I am over tired from not getting enough sleep I may skip my AM exercise in order to get a few extra zzz’s. Because I’m still tired I may go for that extra cup (or two) of coffee—increasing my sugar intake and now disrupting my nutrition. With all the extra sugar and caffeine I can’t focus during my daily meditation and it is hard to fall asleep at night… So that’s the domino effect. Here’s how you can catch it before it completely derails!

·      Create a meal plan for each week and be sure to highlight where the vegetables and fruits exist within this plan. Even if you indulge in some holiday treats, you will still be well nourished!

·      Make your bedtime consistent, aim for 7-8 hours per night.

·      Maintain a simple exercise routine, even 10 minutes of stretching, taking the stairs or anything at all is better than nothing!

·      Do a 1-5 minute meditation before bed. Insight timer is a great app has a TON of free guided meditations, or you can use their timer to stay on track! If meditation is not how you decompress, give yourself some form of intentional relaxation in any way that you can, an epsom salt bath, reading, taking a walk, sipping chamomile tea…

Use the tools that work best for you and keep it simple, but whatever you do, don’t give up on your wellness routines, this is the time of year you need these routines the most!!

FINANCIAL STRESS & STRAIN

There is a reason the commercials start getting us in the holiday spirit super early. They want us to buy stuff, and a lot of it. Which is totally fine so long as it does not come along with financial strain, debt and regret. While yes it is fun to give and receive, there is no need to do it out of guilt and without the financial means to make it feel good. Here are some suggestions to reduce your financial stress and strain this holiday season.

·      Set a realistic budget and STICK TO IT.

·      Get creative. Making gifts such as ornaments, bookmarks, writing letters, creating playlists, getting crafty, baking or anything handmade with love is a great way to give! Who doesn’t love something handmade?

·      Choose thoughtfulness over extravagance. Consider what might be a meaningful gift over a bunch of smaller items to open. While lots of packages might look fun to open, the gifts that are most meaningful will be remembered and used throughout the year. (You can click HERE for suggestions on how to give the gift of wellness.)

·      Choose experiences over gifts. Enjoy a holiday dinner out or take a trip to a holiday show rather than exchange gifts. Maybe volunteer with friends and family somewhere where you can make a difference, this will take your mind off of wanting and get you into a space of serious gratitude. Spending time together is more memorable than a new shirt and other random items. This can create fun traditions that focus on quality time over financial expense.

Whether or not the financial means are there, you might enjoy getting creative and experiences over going shopping!

TRAVEL ANXIETY

Traveling during the holidays can be tremendously anxiety provoking as we all have busy schedules and traveling can become one more thing on the to-do list. Here are some travel strategies that can help to ease your anxious mind.

·      Practice deep breathing to help keep your nervous system in balance. If you need a resource, you can follow my 5-minute guided diaphragmatic breathing practice HERE! This is useful on a plane, train, in a car or even at the dinner table! Deep breathing is free, calming and always available.

·      Pack light, book your plans early and take the extra day off of work.

·      Travel with healthy snacks that give you sustained energy like fruits and veggies and nuts and seeds. If you become hangry while traveling, you will feel just that much more unpleasant.

·      If traveling is too much, create a time other than the specific holiday to travel when the fares are lower, and the days are less hectic.

·      Don’t skimp on your wellness routines. While traveling you might over-eat, under-exercise, under-sleep or skip your relaxation altogether. This will make it that much more difficult to bounce back from any traveling exhaustion. Even if there is one area you can maintain, that will set up you for feeling better than if it all goes away!

Whatever your plans are for this hectic holiday season, I hope you remain, healthy, happy and full of gratitude. Whatever you do, don’t forget to breathe!