I'll be sharing my daily journey, come join me!

Over the weekend, I felt stressed, overwhelmed, anxious.  Why? Because I hadn't been practicing all the really effective and valuable tools I share with others, coach with my clients and know from past experience are the key to my success.

Doctors make the worst patients.  And over this last few weeks, I've been the Doctor prescribing for everyone but myself.  So I'm putting myself on the line to show you how I'm getting back to the basics and then will be posting my progress on a daily basis with you.  I hope some of you will come along side and post your baseline and your goals and then update us on how you're doing.  It sucks always being your own cheerleader...so I say, "Let's cheer on one another!"

Let me tell you where I am at in my life and the important things that I'll be working on or have been working on overall.

Weight loss and Overall Health
Business Plan and Business Launch
Intentional THINKING. Watching my thoughts, being sure I am eliminating negative self-talk, making sure I am thinking prosperously, making sure I am keeping any fear and uncertainty under control.

In order to make real progress, right now there are three key items I must focus on:

1. Take control of my time by creating a new PERFECT DAY/WEEK CALENDAR. This I will also post so you may do the same. (See below, simple change that I've made with massive positive impact.)
2.Re-establishing my most important goals, based on what I need to achieve personally and professionally at this time in my life.  I am choosing three.  I will be putting these into a SMART goal template for myself.  This week I will work on the Health Improvement Goal and post it here by Friday.
2. Re-establishing my affirmations, as many are old and no longer applicable to my life. I will also present a blog tomorrow on how to write a powerful affirmation.

Here is the progress I have made on controlling my time this week:
(TO SELF)
First.  In the morning, I MUST take control. 

As the mother of a toddler, a business owner and a human being, I need to make sure that I am intentionally creating the morning I NEED to be able to get the right start on my day.

As a look back, before my littlest daughter came to me three years ago, morning was always my time.  I'd get up early, have my coffee and quietly enter the world.  Next, I'd say my prayers and gratitude, plan my big rocks and little rocks for the day, and then get myself showered and dressed. Working from a home office, I find this critical to feeling energized and ready for work, even though most days no one really sees!

Now, most mornings the baby and dogs are waking me up.  Still early, but it has swallowed the time I used to have for myself.  A few weeks ago, I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to get Lily ready for daycare, myself ready, and ended up running out the door with out my phone, her lunch, and the daycare check. Since I had had my quiet time while she was having breakfast, when it was time to get going, I was trying to get her dressed, myself dressed, her lunch made, her swimming gear together, and make sure I had everything as well. Meanwhile, the dogs still needed to go out. 

Naturally, my two-year old didn't understand "hurry", "let's go", "REALLY, let's go!". 

The morning became frantic. Lily was miserable. I was miserable. And, if my dogs could talk, they were probably miserable, too. 

This has to change, I told myself. Well, the only one that could change it was me.  I had to take control of what was happening.  Letting this continue was not fair to Lily or myself.

So: I planned out a new morning. And today a week later, it's like a piece of cake.

First, I get up at five instead of six.  I take that hour to have my coffee, pray and do my gratitude.  This morning, I added back in my affirmations (so important).  I packed her lunch and belongings while she had her breakfast.  I dressed her and did her hair while she watch a little bit of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. 

By 7:15 a.m., I had her all set and dressed well before I needed to take care of myself.  When I did go to get dressed, all I had to worry about was getting her teeth brushed which we did first.  Then back to Meatballs for a bit.  We walked out the door calm, peaceful, happy and organized....and got to daycare by 8:15 rather than 9:15...a late start to my day which also was causing stress. Now I have an extra hour and I'm in a positive state of mind.

So, here we go. What time of day for you is OUT OF CONTROL? Or, what just doesn't seem to be working and feeling good?

Let's start improving our day by taking control and doing things differently.  No one can do it for us. So, let's all plan our perfect day and perfect week.  Putting in time for family, work, exercise, sleep, learning, and REST and rejuvenation.  Think about that today and I'll post a sample of mine, so you can see how I've schedule my perfect week (always knowing that Meatballs can come careening out of the sky at any moment, so stay flexible!)

Also, if there is a time of your day when things are not working, break it down into steps...seems crazy that we need to do this, but it puts the new way into our thinking pattern.  We need to change our thoughts in order to change our habits, and only one habit can subdue another habit.  So let's replace one bad habit this week with a good one.

Here's Our Homework:
1. Think about your perfect day/week. Get ready to make a new calendar that you can refer to this week.
2. Think about your TOP three goals, professionally and personally.  I will post a SMART goal template for my personal health improvement this week.
3. Re-script any portion of your day that is not working and creating stress. Write down the steps you are going to move through to re-create this time for yourself.
4. Get ready to review your affirmations and create new, powerful ones.  Think about what you want...not where you are.  We will work through these together.

OK...let's go!  I can't wait to share my daily journey with you!