Month: October 2017

Sometimes, life sidetracks us. Our days get away from us, plans fall through, ideas fail, intentions are set but not met.

Give yourself grace.

Grace to not hold yourself accountable for all of the problems.

Grace to accept that you’ve made a mistake, or misjudged a situation.

Grace to accept that you missed a day, a workout, a meal plan.

Grace to accept that you forgot a task, an item, an activity, an event.

Grace to feel the emotions, whatever they may be.

Grace to understand that you are doing your best and sometimes you can only do so much and what falls through the cracks or to the wayside, no matter how urgent or important, just will.

Grace to know that you aren’t defined by the misses.

Grace to forgive yourself, and grace to pick back up tomorrow.

Tribe = the trending word for a close circle of friends (unless I’m now “behind the times” which, if you ask my teenage daughter, is most likely the case).  I used this word once, as a caption of a photo that held some of my favorite ladies; I had consumed just enough Moscow mules to blur the boundary of words I generally dislike and avoid using.

I was not fortunate to be graced with the advantage of lifelong, intimate friendships; I’ve always been a bit envious of women who have those connections.  Although, looking back, I probably had a large hand in the series of events that led to this.  Regardless, I like to think that in my 30s I am making up for that lack in spades.

I am truly grateful to have developed a circle of friends who are near and dear to my heart; we get together for dinners, we celebrate birthdays and moments, we travel together on mini-vacations; we share so much with each other.

There is a small group of a few women who have been especially influential in my life; we are all mothers, all career women.  We began as a more unofficial accountability group and then grew into official accountability partners to each other.  The “meetings” that we have are some of my favorite times.  We inspire, encourage, support and are just generally there for each other.  We chase betterment together, in every aspect of our lives.  Without them I wouldn’t aspire to be half the mother, wife, or woman I hope to become.  We share our challenges, some of our darkest moments, as well as our triumphs; we’ve recently started sharing a daily gratitude practice, to focus on positivity.  There is no judgement, there is only space.

There is a certain magic in finding like-minded people who will share with you.  Who will listen to you, provide feedback for you.  Who will look for the same in you.  Not only do you grow in being able to confide in these people, but you grow by being their confidant as well.

If you are looking for a way to push beyond where you are at, evaluate your circle.  Are those closest to you on the same level, or, even better, aspiring to be a better version of themselves?  It’s entirely too easy to gather with friends or colleagues and unravel into gossip and drama, or worse, griping and complaining; to get caught up with people who are in love with talking about their struggles, but aren’t willing to put in the effort to change.  It’s easier to talk about our complaints; we find solace in finding others who feel just like us.  More often than not, we try to top their stories with one that might even be worse.  That shit wears us down; not just those who are doing the complaining, but those doing the listening as well.

If you find that your conversations and get-togethers with others drains you emotionally and physically, slowly start to change the social system around you.  Branch out.  Find people who are talking about growth, about change, about their joys, about finding their “thing”, those who are talking about abundance and gratitude.  Find new platforms to form relationships and bonds; find the inspirational, the supportive, the encouraging.  Even if you’re simply adding pages and profiles through social media, it’s a way to bring awareness into your day that makes you think a bit differently.  In elevating your circle, and your consumption, you will find that successful, motivated, aspiring people feed off of each other.  You will start to want to be someone who inspires others to better themselves.  Find people who are making things happen; you’ll find that you are inspired to do the same.

Find your tribe.  Find people who make you feel alive.  Who make you want to be a better version of yourself.  Find people who set you on fire.

I’m sure you’ve seen this quote kicking around the internet at one point or another.  I have this posted on my vision board (I don’t much like this term, but it’s what I’ll call it for lack of a better one) which is one of the projects I have undertaken since January.  I’ll share it with you in a future post, but right now there is something that I need to get out there.

I’m privileged to work alongside women who are also my closest friends, a few of whom are on the YearCompass journey with me.  These women are some of the strongest, most ambitious women I know and I hold them in the highest regard.  They are not only bringing their all to the table at every meeting they attend or every project that they work on, but they are also caring, compassionate, kind and endlessly generous.  Yet, regardless of how successful and accomplished we each are, we all have the ability to undervalue ourselves on a daily basis.  And not just undervalue; if you look deeply enough you will find self-doubt and self-deprecation.  We are our worst critics.  We are masterful artists, weaving the judgements, comments, and attitudes of others into our perception, our beliefs, our decisions.  It’s no wonder we are exhausted and lacking direction in finding our passions.  We’re burning out and a large source of this is coming from within.

Some of the thoughts that we have about ourselves is among the harshest criticism we will ever face.  We justify talking to ourselves in a way that most of us would never think to utter out loud about or to another person.  When I started focusing on where I was expending energy, I realized I was losing some of it to that inner voice, and what she was saying in certain areas was nothing kind.  I know that I am not alone; a friend recently shared a photo of herself and two friends.  The women were smiling and clearly enjoying each other’s company; they looked genuinely happy.  However, the intent of the email was for her to point out how disappointed she was in herself, that she had honestly felt quite good about herself that day until seeing the photo.  This was all shared as the marking of a moment of motivation for her, but it was heartbreaking.  It makes the hair on my arms stand up and tears well in my eyes because she is such a kind, loving, compassionate and beautiful person, and the amount of sadness and guilt and flat out terrible feelings about ourselves that we carry around and tell ourselves is such bullshit.

We need to stop replacing the happy.  We need to become aware of how we speak to ourselves, and break the cycle of negativity.  We need to be as nice, as loving and as encouraging as we are to our dearest family member or closest friend.

I encourage you to take some time over the course of the next day or so and really focus on your internal dialogue.  Celebrate yourself.  Accept compliments (this is a tough one I find).  Find pride in your accomplishments.  The foundation for building who you are, to pursuing your passions and putting yourself out there relies on your ability to support yourself.

In one of the many conversations that have taken place since the start of our journey in January, someone asked, “Why isn’t what we have enough?”  Her response to her own question instantly resonated with the rest of us:

“I feel so unsettled because so often what takes up my time doesn’t align with my priorities.  There is too much work time and not enough family and friends time.  There is too much spending and not enough money for travel and adventure.  Too much importance placed on negative input whilst dismissing (or missing altogether) the positive.”

If you haven’t identified what those things are that bring a feeling of fulfillment, of satisfaction, of energy, you may not know exactly what it is that will bring a sense of balance.  If you haven’t taken the time to evaluate and invest in knowing these things about yourself, you’re going to feel the effects of the imbalance.  Maybe not immediately, and maybe you wouldn’t recognize it: frustration, loss of energy, sadness, trouble sleeping, stress.  However, once you are able to pinpoint those things that fill you up, you will begin to notice a shift; when this shift occurs, you will recognize it and you then have to begin to prioritize those activities in order to create a life that feels balanced.

I used to think balance was a crock.  That was before the shift.  Balance to you is not necessarily balance for me; it’s certainly not something that we can rely on someone else to create nor prioritize for us.

You have to be intentional in setting aside time to evaluate how you are spending your days versus how you want to be; where you are focusing your resources, versus what you actually want to be focusing your resources on.  Then, you have to be quite ruthless in chasing the ideal versus what you know as the norm.  You must be able to understand where the imbalance lies, but also how to bring it closer to even.