Tag: Goals

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Journey to Entrepreneurship

Journey to Entrepreneurship: Update

I planned on doing an update to this series a month or two ago.  And while I had it written, I didn’t get around to publishing it.  But it is July, and we currently have half a year left, and I realized that a lot of my goals fell away thanks to some things going on in my life.  But I want to share with you why that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

What’s Been Going On?

COVID…Civil Unrest…Medical Issues…Schedule Changes.  What isn’t going on at the moment?  While I won’t spend a ton of time talking about the current pandemic or how a majority of the country somehow is just figuring out that racism still exists, I will say it has impacted our household a ton.  I have an autoimmune disorder and have no clue if my body could handle the virus, so I am 100% onboard with staying in my house 24/7.  My husband is military and is considered essential, so he has no choice but to go to work.  He has also had a vast schedule change that impacts how we manage our household.  And we are Black, so racism is an everyday thing for us.  We live in the south and in a fairly whitewashed area where, unfortunately, we always have to be aware of those around us.  And whether it is the stress of all of that or completely random, I have been dealing with some medical issues that have wreaked havoc on my routines, sleep, and appetite.  To say I have been struggling is an understatement.

BUT…I recognized all of this and knew that meant that I had to make adjustments.  My health is obviously a priority to me, so that means I needed to focus on fixing those issues first.  My marriage is a priority, so with my husband’s schedule change, we had to work really hard to ensure we stayed on the same page and connected.  That meant that some things became less of a priority to me.  You may have noticed a lot of social media breaks from me.  My page tends to focus on my faith and my life as a housewife and how I manage all the things.  I give you a glimpse into how I plan, cleaning and cooking, my bible study and sermon notes, budgeting, and creating a business.  All I have had time for has been my Bible study, so I continue to post that.  There are some things that because I have built automated routines in place, I didn’t have to worry about like our budgeting.  Others, like cooking and the business, just haven’t been happening because those are things that I have the ability to put down for the moment.

Business Update

So while some of my goals for the business had to be pushed off, I was able to do some things that either took a quick moment or set me up for future projects.  For example, I established our LLC.  Before my focus shifted, I worked with a Career Manager, Business Coach, and Business Consultant who were very helpful in helping me streamline my thoughts.  I wrote a bit about them and will be sharing those resources on the blog.  I decided to continue my education by getting a certificate that I feel will further help me in my journey to become an entrepreneur.  I also decided to start the process of gaining an accreditation for an area that I have been interested in since I was a teenager.  Both start this year, and I will be sharing what I can from them.

What’s Next?

When I started this journey, I set a plan for myself.  2020 was going to be all about learning.  Taking courses, learn how to create and do new things, and get better at things I have current experience with.  2021 was going to be the year that I focused on launching and building our business(es).  And 2022 and beyond would be all about growing our business(es) and legacy.  With half the year left, I am still sticking to that plan.  The certificate and accreditation fit nicely into those plans as I will be taking classes and courses this year.  Next year, I will continue to gain experience using our actual business.  I’ve set a goal to do at least one thing a month for the rest of the year to move the business forward.  I’m hoping I will do more, but I wanted to make sure I started with an attainable goal.  The plan is also to write at least one JTE update a month.  I promised to bring you along on the journey, and I want to make sure I continue to do that.

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Faith Family Planning Productivity

Getting My Life Together

There was a meme recently that said, do you ever feel like you want to get your whole life together at 2 am? That’s me.  I consistently think of all the things I forgot to do and all the things I need to do in the middle of the night.  I can’t do this for another month.  I have got to get my life together!

Back in the day, I had it all together.  Or at least I thought I did when I was a planner.  I loved all things planning.  I liked knowing what to expect.  It became like a brain dump for me and allowed me to take stuff out of my mind and put them somewhere before I forgot them.

I remember using the agenda’s they gave you in school from a very early age and usually had a cheap one anytime I was taking college classes.

I graduated to the big leagues of planners when I got my first Erin Condren back in 2013/2014, and I haven’t looked back since when it comes to paper planners.

I also, over the last year or two, have found a love and appreciation for using technology to plan.  My google calendar tends to keep me on schedule with its alerts and reminders.

But as a housewife and a budding entrepreneur, I don’t have a strict schedule that I am forced to adhere to anymore.  That has shaken up my planning routine a bit.  I’m mostly relying on to-do lists (or completed lists) and just don’t feel as productive as I could be.  With me wanting to be intentional with keeping my home and faith a priority while working on my entrepreneurship adventures, I know planning for me is what will help me find the harmony in doing all of those things.

I decided to sit down and plan the month of May.  But I wanted to go a little beyond what I have been doing as of late, which is just writing down appointments, meetings, and webinars.  I looked at what I wanted to accomplish this month:

  • I want to keep home a priority
  • I want to keep my relationship with God a priority
  • I want to make sure our finances are stable
  • I want to cook from what I have in the house already before my next grocery order
  • I want to be more consistent on the blog and social media

 

I knew these would be things that I need to “schedule” in if I wanted to accomplish them.  So I grabbed May’s calendar from my Erin Condren binder system and stared at it.

How do I get this blank calendar to bring me comfort with the five things that I had listed?  Let me break down my thought process for each one and show you what I did.

Keeping Home a Priority

How do I do this? For me, it is making sure our house is clean, and our home has a calming atmosphere and is a sanctuary for us to relax in.

I’ve decided to follow the FlyLady program again when it comes to cleaning and decluttering our home.  So I will use her routines and calendar to help me focus on what needs to be done cleaning wise.

Keeping God #1

The way that I build my relationship with God is by spending time in His Word, praying, and worshiping.  I also attend church each week.

Bible reading and studying is a passion of mine.  I love learning more about God and what His plan is for His children.  For me, this is a daily practice.  At the end of April, I finished my Day by Day Chronological Bible, which is what I was using for my daily reading.  But now that I have read the full Bible (and the NT twice), in less than 12 months, I decided it’s time to really add studying to my routine.

In May, I want to focus on one to two chapters a day for my studying.  I want to allow room for God to truly teach me His Word and see what fruit comes from that knowledge.  I will most likely be using the Dayspring Illustrating Bible.  And because I know I prefer to also get in additional reading, I am following along with Annie F. Downs and reading the four gospels each month, in a different translation.  In May, I am starting with the NASB translation and am just using the YouVersion Bible app.

I want to do better with praying for groups of people.  I currently have a list in my reminders app and want to be more consistent with praying over it.  My list includes The Church (body of Christ, church leaders, and missionaries), Chris and our future children/legacy, family, friends, unbelievers, our nation, and the world.

I also want to go back to the practice of reviewing the sermon and my notes from Sunday.  I use to try and rewatch the message during the week, make sure I didn’t overlook any relevant notes, and then transfer what I learned to my ESV Journaling Bible.  I haven’t done that in a while, and I miss the reinforcement of the message from my pastors.

Keeping Our Money Healthy

If you have seen our budgeting spreadsheet, you probably think it is a beast to maintain.  And while that can be the case, thanks to me doing budget reviews every week, it isn’t that difficult.  In less than 30 minutes, I update it with the previous week’s transactions, have a conversation with Chris, and set our goals and intentions for the next week.

 

We Have Food At Home

I hate meal planning mostly because I cook based on our cravings.  I try to keep a variety of items stocked at the house to make that possible.  But I haven’t been doing a great job lately of making us balanced meals.  And I’ve been stuck on more than one occasion on what I should cook.  So I decided to venture back into meal planning.

Consistency is Key

I have no idea why I struggle so much with this.  Well, I kind of do.

Honestly, I am 75% over social media.  I have worked hard to curate what I have coming into my feeds, but there can still be a lot of junk.  And because I don’t want to see that, I stay away from the apps.  Which is a problem when I love sharing and connecting with others.

And as for my blog?  Perfectionism, my friend.  This is draft post number 46.  Now to be fair, some of those are future projects.  But a lot of them are ideas that I have for a blog post, and during the process of fleshing them out, perfectionism has paralyzed me.

So I need to overcome this by planning out my content for the month and sticking to it.

See What I Did There?

My blog and social media are how I share and connect with people.  I share what I am currently going through and what I am currently working on.  So when it comes to planning out the content for May, I kind of just did that with this post.  My blog and social media posts, in a way, help keep me accountable.  If I know that I want to post what I learned from the sermon on Sunday, I have to be sure I did the review of my notes.  Now, to be clear, I am not doing these things for the blog or social media.  I am doing these things for me and am choosing to share them after the fact in hopes that they help others that may be struggling with finding harmony with all the things they are trying to manage in life.

Finally, since I used my Erin Condren monthly pages as my draft, I went ahead and added these to my Tanisha Rhenáe google calendar.  Now I know what my end goal is and can set up alerts to help me remember.  If you read this post here, you know that I am using time blocking to help make my day more productive.  That means instead of just randomly jumping from task to task, I put like items together and focus on only those items until the next block.  So while the doing of my five goals will be done in either my Homemaking or Admin block, I will use my Content Creation block to build these out for my blog and social media.

Let me know in the comments below what your biggest struggle is with planning?

*I included my Erin Condren referral link in this post.  In addition to you getting $10 off your first purchase, I earn rewards as well!

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases using the links included in this post.

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Family Finances Home

Our Monthly Budget Spreadsheet Part 2

I hope that you were able to get some valuable information from last week’s post on Part 1 of our Budget Spreadsheet.  I shared our Income, Giving, Saving, and Debt sections.  To read Part 1, head here.

While what I shared so far are some notable heavy hitters, I believe what I am going to share next are things that we most often have forgotten about.  The things that month to month may be a struggle to remember to pay, or they pop up unexpectedly.  Things like our household bills, auto-related expenses, and subscriptions.  These items for me are still sectioned off on the left side of my budget and grouped with their related bills.  On the right side, they are listed under our Bill Tracker, and most items have trackers to keep up with the day to day details.

Insurance

Our home insurance is connected to our mortgage, but we still have Life Insurance, Auto Insurance, and a Home Warranty to pay for.  If we had any supplemental medical insurance, we would include that here as well.  As a reminder, the left side of our budget consists of the following columns: Budgeted, Actual 1-15, Actual 16-31, Diff/Remaining, and Notes.

I am hiding the section of the Bill Tracker that I showed you last week, so you can still see the column headings.  But here is what the insurance section looks like.  Here I can document the exact Due Date, the exact Amount, the Method of payment (mail check, scheduled, autopay), which Paycheck it will come out of,  and if it’s Confirmed Paid/Payment Cleared.  Then I also have a Notes section here.

Utilities

Depending on where you live, if you rent or own, and what is included with your rent, this section could have less or more than what I have listed.  For us, we only have to worry about Electric, Security System, Internet, and our Cell Phone.  But for others, they may also include Cable, Water, and Trash.

Here is what the Utilities section looks like under the Bill Tracker.

Home

This is another section that will depend on your specific living situation.  In this Home section, we include almost everything else dealing with the home that hasn’t already been covered.  For us, that contains Groceries, Home Improvement (a sinking fund which I will discuss later), Yard Maintenance, Alarm Permit Renewal, Pest Control, Septic System Agreement, and Septic Permit.  A lot of these are quarterly or yearly payments and can be a considerable chunk out of a paycheck if it hits all at once.  So having it here in our budget allows us to put money towards it each paycheck.  For example, our Septic System Agreement can cost up to $450 a year.  So instead of paying all of that out of one check, we can set aside $37.50 from our “bill light” paycheck (meaning we don’t have a ton of bills coming out) each month.  Then when it is time to pay the agreement, we pull the $450 we have saved to pay it.

For the Bill Tracker section Home, I only have listed actual bills that need to get paid.  This section is essential, especially for the bills that are due quarterly and yearly.  When I created this sheet and going forward every year with my planning, I will include the estimated due date and amount here until I get the actual invoice/bill.  So, for example, I see last year in November is when we paid for our Septic Agreement.  It is yearly, so I know this year, in November, it will be due again.  My tracker will most likely show an 11/01 due date to help me plan out the monthly amount I need to save.  And then, when I get the invoice in September or October, I will update the exact due date and amount.

This section also includes the first of the specific trackers.  Probably like many of you, if there is one area of our budget that we are likely to overspend, it is on food.  I love eating, and I love cooking.  A couple of years ago, due to some health issues, I had to make a significant change in the type of food I was buying and cooking, which increased our food budget.  Knowing how easy it is to have this category get out of control, I knew I needed to create a Grocery Tracker.  One thing that has changed recently is I am going to the grocery store a couple of times a week (from 5 times in November to 12 times in December).  I am trying to reduce the amount of food we end up wasting because it stays hanging around for too long.  So each trip I document the Date I went, the Amount spent, the Place I went to, if the Payment Cleared and Notes. One difference is the total here gets automatically plugged into the Groceries category in the Home section of our budget. And that cell is merged because it doesn’t exactly matter much for me which paycheck we spend money on groceries. After all, it is something that is needed, no matter what.  Here is a sneak peek: Next month’s topic for Year of Healthy will be me going vegan (just for that one month).  This will be interesting to see how that impacts my budget as I always hear (and have experienced) that it is more expensive to eat healthily.  But cutting out meat and other animal products should help.

Auto

The auto section is where we have our Gas, Car Maintenance, and Car Registration listed.  I can also tell you that Driver’s License Renewal will get added to this section thanks to me thinking I lost mine last month and having to order a new only to find it later. Car Maintenance and Car Registration are both categories that we tend to save up for by putting money aside each paycheck mostly.  But due to the number of miles we drive each month, we have to get an oil change on at least one of the cars each month.  So at a minimum, we have to put that amount aside each month.

For the Bill Tracker, this is where we keep Car Registration #1 and Car Registration #2.  Ours come in the mail what feels like 3-4 months before they are due, and as someone who frequently forgets hers, it needed to be added to the budget.

Based on us having to get an oil change for one of our cars monthly, you may have concluded that one of our vehicles gets a lot of miles put on it, which means a ton of trips to the gas station.  While I can get away with going once a month, my husband sometimes has to go 2-3 times a week.  To keep up with how much gas is costing us each month and if we need to increase our budgeted amount, we track the Date, the Amount, the Place, which Car was filled up, if the Payment Cleared and Notes. This helps us keep an eye on which gas station tends to have the lowest price for gas, and we can plan better.

His/Her

His/Her section covers items that are specific to Chris or I.  This is where we will have our Blow $ allowance, Clothing allowance, and Personal Care (hair/nails/etc.).  You will notice that Chris has an Entertainment section, and I don’t.  At first, I thought that I don’t need one because Chris is more likely to go out to the movies with his friends, whereas if I go, it will be with him and will go in the next section we talk about.  But this would probably be a good spot for any books I buy. I usually put them under blow $.  I’ll try it for a month, and we will see.  Also, this is where I keep the categories for my Website Domain and Website Support.

Out of all of those categories, the only ones that go on our Bill Tracker pertains to my Website Domain and Website Support.

All others get tracked under the His and Her Trackers that we have.  Here we are monitoring the Date, Amount, Place, if the Payment Cleared and Notes.  This is only for transactions that we use our debit card for.  So if Chris and I decide to take out cash for our blow $, we wouldn’t include that info here.  But again, having this track the individual purchases helps with planning our budget for things like clothes or personal care that may not be a monthly thing or may have one month that has more spending than others (like when Chris needs a new uniform for work). Notes usually are where I will document which category the transaction would be apart of.

Sinking Funds

Another section that I picked up from following Dave Ramsey is Sinking Funds.  A sinking fund is a mini savings “account” that I may or may not use each month.  For us, this includes a Pet Fund, Date Nights, Eating Out, Gifts & Misc., Medical Expenses, and Home Goods.  Most of these are also areas that we can quickly cut if we need more wiggle room in our budget (except the Pet Fund and Medical Expenses).

We do have a Sinking Funds Tracker where we can track the specific transactions for all the sections mentioned above.  Here we document the Date, the Amount, the Place, which Sinking Fund it goes to, if the Payment Cleared, and Notes.  We also record our Home Improvement sinking fund transactions here as well from the Home Section.  Putting money aside in that fund monthly, helps me save for a larger project we do during the year like redoing our patio or my office.

Subscriptions

This is a newer section for us because when I was going through our bank transactions, these little suckers always came up unexpectedly because we didn’t plan for them.  While I usually would have generic categories here, I wanted to leave our exact subscriptions to help refresh your memory! This section took three months to build out because each month, I was saying, “Oh yea, we pay for that also.”  Some are monthly. Some are yearly.  Some we canceled for the moment but may use again.  Either way, it is all here, so I know that it comes from our budget.

I consider these bills, so they go under our Bill Tracker as well. Because most of these are on Autopay, it has been a lifesaver knowing when they are going to hit our account.  And seeing the number of subscriptions we had, made us do some cutting down.

Odd Balls/Summary

I keep this Odd Ball section just in case there is a random category that comes up that doesn’t fit any of the other sections or categories that I already have.  I have yet to use it, but just in case.  The final part of our monthly budget is our summary.  They are formulas that show what is left after our Actual Expenses are subtracted from our Actual Income and what is left after our Budgeted Expenses are deducted from our Budgeted Income.  This gives me a high-level view of if our budget is in the red for the month and lets me know I need to make some adjustments.

Here is a full view of what the Bill Tracker looks like.

What’s Next

Since Finances are such a big part of my life and super important to talk about when it comes to marriage and families, I am thinking about adding another month to focus on budgeting.  Maybe talk a bit about our goals, paying down debt, or even what it took to transition to a one-income family.  Let me know what you think about our Budget Spreadsheet and if you have any topics you want me to cover in the second month.

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Family Finances Home

Year of Healthy: January

This last quarter of 2019 was a doozy for our household. We’ve had two major appliances breakdown (one decided to go out twice) and our septic system is on the outs.  You are probably wondering, “Why is this an issue when things break?”  Well, we built our house four years ago and no way were we expecting things to start to go downhill in a major way. Let alone, all at the same time.  This has had my husband and I sitting down and figuring out what the heck we were going to do.  Because let’s be serious, no matter what others think, we aren’t rolling in dough.  My husband is active duty military and I’m a recent housewife who is trying to figure out this entrepreneural world.  With 2020 and a new decade here, it’s the best time to work on our budgets.

Been through some bad shit, I should be a sad bitch

Who woulda thought it’d turn me to a savage?

Background Info

I’ve always had a love for numbers.  I’m pretty sure it’s a love that was passed down from my grandmother to my father and then to me.  When I was 14, a family member started a business and I took on the role of bookkeeper.  I also started to help manage my family’s household budget.  I was able to get an understanding of what it took to run a home.  I learned about mortgages, credit cards, and groceries.  It may be different now but in the early 2000’s they were not teaching these things in high school.  I did discover accounting while in high school and enjoyed it so much I made it to a leadership conference for the state.  I honestly couldn’t tell you why I didn’t pursue that path.  But I did start working with finances and eventually financial institutions a week after high school.  Most of the time I was pursuing a college degree, it was connected to Finance, Financial Planning, Business or Human Services.  (I may talk about that path one day but I am honestly still trying to figure it out myself).  But when my job shifted to project management, I put finance on the backburner when it came to my dreams.

I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it
I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it

Personally, when we got married, we made the decision that I would handle the finances.  Combining our money was easy enough and paying the bills was the same.  We didn’t have any major issues.  When we planned on building our house, we knew we wanted to pay off all of our debt.  It would make it easier to get a loan and a good interest rate.  So that was our goal.  We paid off all my student loans, two car notes, and a couple of credit cards we had.  All in all, the total was over $50,000.  We then saved a bit to have a down payment (even though one wasn’t needed) and pay points (and I still don’t know if this was the best idea).  Then when we decided that I would quit my job and start a business three years later, we did the same thing.  We paid off all credit card debt we had. And while I know that debt (especially credit card debt) isn’t that great, it didn’t stop us from accumulating it each time.  We were impatient with things we wanted and used credit cards as a cushion.  Over and over again.

I don’t mean to brag, but I be like, “Put it in the bag,” yeah

When you see them racks, they stacked up like my ass, yeah

Fast forward to my Sabbatical in 2019, I was burnt out on all things including managing our household.  When I left to travel, I turned over everything to my husband.  I was being emotionally irresponsible but I was at a breaking point.  But the lesson I learned through that time was how not to spend money on things I didn’t need.  And even my idea of what I needed, changed.  It took months but I feel like I no longer cared about material things.  When I came back home, I didn’t take over the finances.  I was still very overwhelmed with life and trying to figure out my next steps.  I needed to know what my new normal would look like after being gone for five months.  That brings me to the present.  We decided instead of one of us having a hands-off approach to our finances we really need to do it together.  And this is where our goals and new routines come in.

Whoever said money can’t solve your problems

Must not have had enough money to solve ’em

They say, “Which one?” I say, “Nah, I want all of ’em”

Creating a Budget

I have a spreadsheet that I created from a Facebook post that inspired me back in 2016.  I decided to bring that back and update it.  I added new categories based on our current bills and expenses.  And thanks to a YouTube channel (review coming soon), I also added a yearly budget in addition to the monthly budget I normally do.  Having this spreadsheet alleviates me having to remember things from month to month.  Most of the due dates and amounts of our bills don’t change.  The hardest part each month for us was remembering all of those details including bills that didn’t happen monthly but we still needed to plan for.  Not to mention some type of savings to handle incidentals, goals, and wants.  Having a budget allows us to plan for our future and then follow that plan.

Buy myself all of my favorite things 

Initial Conversation About Goals

While I created our spreadsheet, I needed to make sure Chris was apart of creating it.  Which was helpful because I forgot things, he remembered.  I remembered things, that he forgot.  We also talked about what our goals were and realized they were just a tad bit different (after almost ten years together, that happens).  He wanted to immediately pay off debt and I wanted to build a savings cushion first.  I wanted to start planning out ways to generate income without us having to go to a job every day.  He didn’t want to have to wait to buy the things he wanted.  We need to get on the same page and create our short and long term goals.  We need to break them down into monthly, yearly and lifetime goals. Then decide what actions we need to take to make those happen.

Yeah, my receipts, be lookin’ like phone numbers

Regular Conversations About the Budget

I’ve always heard that finances are one of the biggest problems when it comes to marriage.  We didn’t have that problem because we didn’t talk about it.  When we both were working this was easy because we didn’t really have to say no to anything.  If we didn’t have the cash, we put it on a card and worried about paying it off later.  When we moved to one income and had to hear no more often, it really didn’t bother us too much.  But when things started to happen with appliances in the house, we didn’t have a way to say no without it really impacting our lives.  I like washing clothes daily.  I cooked way too much not to have a working refrigerator and I liked flushing the toilet after use.  All first world problems that I have become used to.  With broken appliances, comes repair or possible replacement cost.  And with costs moving into the thousands, we need to figure out how to come up with this money and quick. Which means we need to start talking about money.  What expenses did we have that we can get rid of?  What ways can we make more money without compromising our time and other goals we set for ourselves?

You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it

I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it 

Turning Plans Into Actions

After we create our budget and then talk about it on the regular, we need to actually make sure we are hitting our goals.  There are two ways to eliminate debt and save money.  One way is to decrease spending and the other is to increase income.  There are many financial gurus out there who advocate for one way or the other.  I plan on doing a bunch of research to find what are some of the best ways for us to do one or the other or both.  We also will start to include our finances in our prayers.  I know for me, I sometimes don’t want to bother God with those types of things.  Outside of praying to hit the lottery, I don’t talk to God about helping me come up with the money for an unexpected expense.  And that has to change.  I’ve seen God do some amazing things and my faith in Him needs to extend into all areas of my life including our finances.

I’d rather spoil all my friends with my riches

Think retail therapy my new addiction

Let’s Do This

Like previous months, keep an eye out on my stories on Instagram and Facebook to see how we plan on doing all of this.  I’ll share books, podcasts, and YouTube channels that I am diving into.  I’ll even share my spreadsheet.  Two major holidays just passed in December for us.  My birthday and Christmas.  Christmas is a major spending holiday and for the past two years, we have been able to avoid making purchases the focus.  Truthfully, my greatest gift would be for us to find financial freedom.  So I can do without all of the crazy spending that we normally do.  It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.  Plus, we can always plan for next year.

Enjoyed the quotes throughout this post?  Check out 7 Rings by Ariana Grande. Let’s continue the conversation in the comments below!

Music video by Ariana Grande performing 7 rings. © 2019 Republic Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

Categories
Family Productivity

Year of Healthy: November

If you read my Goodbye October post, you will see October’s goals did not go as planned.  I felt like they were all over the place, and when things shifted in my life, the habits I was trying to build quickly went out the window.  I decided to make a change with how I was going to do my monthly goals going forward.  I’m taking a page out of Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project, and selecting themes for each month, and that area is where I will focus on setting goals and building habits.  For November, I will focus on creating a nighttime routine.

A Great Morning Routine Starts The Night Before

One of my goals last month was to wake up at 4:30 AM at least five days a week.  My husband and I agreed on that time so he would stop hitting the snooze button, and I could get up a bit earlier.  The plan was that I would cook his breakfast, see him off for the day, and get my day started.  And while most days I was able to wake up, I spent way too many days going to sleep after my husband left.  Or some days just turning the alarm off and going back to sleep immediately.  But what I do remember is the days that I was able to get up and stay up, were some of my most productive days.  So why wasn’t I able to wake up and stay up?  Most of the time, it was because I didn’t go to sleep at a reasonable time the night before.  Actually going to bed and getting to sleep was such a challenge.  I realized that for me to wake up early, I needed to figure out how to get to sleep early.  Looking at my nights, I really didn’t have a plan.  I cooked dinner, hung out with my husband, and then went to bed.  But once I was in bed, most likely I was watching whatever Chris had on T.V. or on my phone or my thoughts were racing so much I was writing.  I need to figure out how to wind down, so when I got in the bed, I went to sleep.  So I did what I do best, I started to research and look on Pinterest and YouTube to see what others have done.  And while it was hard to find nighttime routines (there is an abundance of morning routines and a ton of kid nighttime routines), I was able to narrow down what I want to try at night that might be able to help me.

Testing It Out

I plan to spend the month of November trying out all of the different routines that I found during my research. Habits that I am hoping will allow me to wind down and get into bed at a reasonable time.  I read in The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma that the ideal amount of sleep is 7 1/2 hours. With Chris having a recent change of schedule, we decided to push our wake up time to 5 AM, which means the best time for me to go to sleep would be about 9:30 PM. So when I was picking out routines that seemed interesting to me, I needed to make sure that I could do them in between when I usually cook dinner around 4 PM or 5 PM and 9:30 PM.  I still needed to eat dinner and spend time with my husband, all within 5 1/2 – 6 1/2 hours.  Let’s hope this is as easy as it sounds.  Here are the routines that interest me:

Quick Clean Up

Although my husband usually takes care of putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I still tend to clean and shut down the kitchen at night.  Doing a quick clean up of the other rooms that we’ve used throughout the day always makes me feel better but isn’t something I do enough.  Getting this done will hopefully prevent me from laying in bed, wishing I would have cleaned up a bit.

Stretching/Yoga/Walking

I started walking around my neighborhood in September, but last month I came up with more excuses, and I stopped.  One reason was, every time I came back from walking, I wanted to sleep for hours.  I don’t know where all those endorphins are that I should be feeling, but they were nowhere to be found.  But I figured a good way to flip this side effect into a positive would be to do it in the evenings.  On days where I don’t feel like walking, I could always stretch or do a yoga routine.

Relaxing Baths and Showers

Normally, fall and winter are when I switch to taking showers at night.  And as much as I love my bathtub and baths, I don’t take them enough.  Add in some essential oils, Epsom salt, dim the lights, light some candles, and turn on the music. I did this the other day for the first time in forever, and it was amazing.  I was more relaxed than I have been in a really long time.

Warm Drink

In addition to my bath, I also made me a warm drink.  I tried some Vanilla Chia tea but used milk instead of water, and it was so good.  I’ve also read that golden milk helps with sleep and inflammation so I would like to try it.  A few nights a week, I normally make some tea that is geared towards relaxing or sleeping.  They don’t always put me right to sleep, but they help relax me and act as a signal that it is time to wind down.

Skin Care Routine, Moisturize My Body, and Oral Hygiene

I want to add face masks and scrubs to my current routine of cleansing, toning, and moisturizing.  I’ve also been wanting to find a body cream to use instead of regular lotion for after my showers and baths.  And keeping up the habit of brushing my teeth and flossing after I finish eating and before bed.

Gratitude, Journal, and Plan The Next Day

I tend to write in my journal all day long, but I would love to be able to take the time to reflect on what I am grateful for at the end of the day.  I could journal about my day or things on my mind and spend a few minutes planning out what I want my tomorrow to look like.  I’m hoping this will help get some things off my mind so I can be at peace at night.

Reading/No Technology

I am horrible about being on my phone in bed.  For hours.  I try and stay off of social media, although I don’t always succeed at that.  But honestly, I am most of the time reading or researching something that pops into my head.  I want to make our bedroom a no technology zone (or at the very least not use the technology in the bed).  My husband was sweet enough to buy me a new reading light last month, so I can still read my physical books.

Let’s Do This

I’ll be spending more time this month researching these routines and finding what works best for me.  Is there a particular essential oil I like best in my baths?  Is tea better for me than warm milk? I believe it is always important to find what works for you so while certain routines may work for others, it is all about tailoring them to fit my needs best.  Follow me on Instagram or Facebook to keep up with what this will look like daily for me.  Do you have nighttime routines that help you get to sleep?  Share them in the comments below.  I hope you join me this month in setting nighttime routines!

 

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases using the links included in this post.

 

Categories
Faith Family Productivity

Year of Healthy: Goodbye October

Check out my original October Goals post here. You can catch up on my word of the year here.

Goodbye October

October is officially over (Thank You, King Jesus).  And ugh…this month did not go how I planned it at all.  Its been an emotional one with some major hits to a few things that I had planned and some unexpected things popping up.  Dreams were crushed.  Multiple appliances quit working.  Doctor’s appointments didn’t go well.  It was one of those months where I would like to have swept it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen.  But instead, I really need to look at what went wrong.  Yes, all of those things were bad, but they shouldn’t have had the opportunity to shake me to my core and break my plans.  This was when I realized why I really need to have these habits put in place so nothing can shake them.  Even habits that I thought I already built came tumbling down.  Do you know how everyone says it takes 21 days to make a habit?  Have you ever taken that time, and on day 22, felt more of a relief that you can break the habit? And then actually break it?  Same here.

In The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma, he recommends taking 66 days to not only build the habit but turn it into an automatic response.  Making your habits automatic helps break decision fatigue.  Sharma breaks down the 66 days into three stages.  The first stage he calls Destruction.  The first 22 days are hard.  You are destroying your old ways, and as he says, “rewriting past programs of your heart and emotions.”  He explains that this is when you will want to quit and give up.  I believe this is probably why we celebrate so much when we do make it to day 21.  The second stage is called Installation.  So while stage one was all about getting rid of your old self and habits, this stage is about creating your new self and habits.  Your need to quit gets higher, and you are having regrets about doing this in the first place.  Sharma takes about some pretty deep emotions that you will feel during this stage: exhaustion, confusion, stress.  But being able to say yes daily to your new habit through this second set of 22 days leads you right to stage three, which is Integration.  This is the last set of 22 days where it all starts to come together and “integrates at a psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual level.” Doing all of this gets you to The Automaticity Point, where you no longer need to force yourself with your new habit.  Now all the energy you used to build that one habit can be used to create a new one.  And you can start another round of 66 days.

Another thing I realized with my goals for October is, they were kind of all over the place. Some were apart of what could be considered my morning routine. Some a nighttime routine. And while I tried my best to stack them so they could trigger each other, it didn’t work so well. Especially if I messed up one, then it seemed to be a tumbling effect. I realized that for the upcoming months during my Year of Healthy, I need a theme and to focus on that.  For a hint on what November’s theme may be, keep reading.  Here are specific updates on each goal from October:

Wake up at 4:30 AM 5 days a week

What was once going so well, just went down the toilet after a few emotionally moody days. I would wake up early, maybe 1-2 days a week to cook my husband’s breakfast and go right back to sleep. Or hear my alarm and turn it right off. What was the problem? I didn’t have a nighttime routine and therefore struggled to get into bed at a decent hour and fall asleep. I suffer from insomnia, and along with my fibromyalgia, I can struggle to fall asleep, although I spend most of my day dealing with exhaustion.  I realized that I needed a nighttime routine that really works.  From my quick research, I see a ton of morning routines, and a lot of people will even say it starts the night before but won’t give many details.  I need to master a nighttime routine before I can move forward on this one.  On a positive note, with my husband’s schedule changing, I was able to adjust this time to 5:00 am, and while I do still sometimes find myself going back to bed after cooking and seeing him off to work, it’s been easier to get up.

Finish reading the Old Testament this month

So this may be the only routine that I have made some movement on after a bit adjusting of the goal.  The only issue is, according to my calculations, to finish the OT in October, I had to read 16 chapters a day.  And that didn’t happen.  But there have been some things that happened with my Bible reading and studying this month.    Well, let’s just talk about my spiritual life as a whole.

  • I finally joined the church that I have been attending for the past few months.
  • I attended their Explore class to learn more about the church’s values and morals.
  • I signed up to start serving again (can I say how much I have missed serving every week!).
  • I signed up for a monthly group and a Bible Study Fellowship class.  The BSF group is currently going through Acts.
  • I was late, but I updated my IG to show that I finished the NT.
  • I’ve finished 2nd Samuel,  Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs.

 

In the Chronological Bible that I am reading out of, currently has me in 1st Kings, 2nd Chronicles, and Psalms.  I still have to get through all of the Prophets, and I have not read most of them, so I imagine I will be taking my time.

Write at least three times a week

I have been exceeding this goal.  I write almost every day.  I write prayers. I write about my Bible reading. I write about my day.  I write about my moods.  I write about the ideas that I have.  I write about my to-do’s.  I just write. And I have been feeling so much better afterward.  Quite a few crazy things have been happening around here, and it has been so frustrating, so writing out my thoughts and feelings has been beneficial.

Hit each timeline on my water bottle on time

Not only do I not hit my timelines, but I’ve also pretty much stopped drinking my gallon of water.  This all comes from not waking up early and then just not eating or drinking at the right times.  I’ve even been drinking soda because we were given a bunch of 2 liters.  Y’all, I can go months without drinking soda and then bam, here I have 1-2 glasses a day.  I have even been slacking on my lemon water.  It’s been bad.  Plus, I know all of this impacts how I feel.  I know that food and staying hydrated will need to be its own theme.  Honestly, I may even need to split them up to cover two months.  We shall see.

Walk for 30 minutes three times a week

I think this is what I am most disappointed in myself with.  Because I was doing really well with this.  Then I started making excuses for going out and walking.  I need to hold on to how accomplished I felt when I was doing it.  And I need to get it done.  One thing that I hope to do is, now that Chris’s schedule has changed, I’m hoping we can walk together a couple of times a week.

Read at least 30 minutes a day

Is it possible to be in a reading slump right after you launch a blog that has a bunch of book of reviews?  Well, that is what has been happening.  Truthfully, I’ve been reading a bunch of romances, and I can’t really learn anything from those. 😂 But on the other hand, I’ve been watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, and doing other things that have been helping me learn or to wind down.  I do read some nights, but it hasn’t been daily.  I haven’t made much of a dent in my October book: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg or the four other books I wanted to finish reading.

Downtime from 9 PM to 9 AM

This was going so well until it wasn’t.  I started by keeping the phone down most of the night.  Then I began to hit ignore limit for 15 minutes at a time.  Then I started to turn downtime off altogether.  I also extended it to have downtime through the weekend.  I turned that off, too, but I am known to ignore all notifications on the weekends.  But I will admit, on the days where I honored this goal, it was terrific.  I was able to do other things.  And most importantly, I was present with what I was doing.  This is such a habit that I want to keep because I’m not going to lie, I think I am addicted to social media.  It may be time for a fast.

What’s Next

So how did October go overall?  It was a major failure.  And I am okay with admitting that because I have a plan going forward.  Some rough days really knocked me down, and I realized that my emotions made me go from resting and recovering to just being plain stubborn and lazy.  I did have a couple of flare days towards the end of the month, and because I wasn’t so productive for the month, I felt even worst taking a day or two to recover.  But November is a new month.  I’m praying for a productive month since I have done a bit of planning.  Stay tuned for my November goals post coming soon.

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Categories
Down The TBR Hole

Down the TBR Hole #141-160

Welcome to Down the TBR Hole #141-160!  What is Down the TBR Hole?  It is where I grab 20 books from my insanely long TBR list on Goodreads and decide if I am keeping or removing the books.  Need to catch up?  Click here to go to the previous post.  As a reminder, here are the rules:

I am starting with 4,668 books this week on my To Read shelf on Goodreads.  I literally just added two new books, thanks to the YouTube video I am watching in the background while typing this up.  (Edit: before I finished this post, I added another book thanks to my reading last night.  Do you see why I have to do this post every week?  My list is ridiculous!) Let’s get started.

1. The Runaway Bride: Are you living for Jesus or are you running away from Him? by Heather Lindsey

The cover of this book makes it seems like it is going to be a fiction book, but it’s not.  This is entirely the wrong thought, but man, I feel like so many people should read a book about being a Sunday only Christian.  I’ve been there, and although things are far from perfect and let’s be honest, sometimes I feel like I struggle more now, I can’t imagine how people get through Monday through Saturday without the help of Jesus.  Now, with all of that said, I no longer feel like I need a book like this.  So I am going to be removing it.

 

2. The Pressure Trap: Breaking Free from the Pressures of Society to Become Who God Called You To Be by Heather Lindsey

I may need to actually buy this book and read it now because I feel like this has been my issue for the past few months.  With that said, I am keeping it.

 

3. Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist

I actually own this book and feel like it has been recommended to me a bunch of times.   This is probably a book that I should have read when I was experiencing burnout.  Both when I was traditionally working and when I had my own business.  I do believe this is something that I could still struggle with, so I am keeping it.

4. One Minute Business Woman’s Devotional by Mike Murdock

Obviously, the cover shows how dated this book is, but it was recommended on one of my business lists.  It would be interesting if someone were able to update this based on today’s business world.  Because I feel like it may be dated and this isn’t my current season, I am removing it.

 

5. The Perfect Find by Tia Williams

This seems like a quick, quirky little romance that I wouldn’t mind reading in between my self-improvement books.  Those books can sometimes be a bit heavy, so reading about a woman who is working on a second chance in her career with a side of romance sounds like it would be the break I need.  I am keeping it.

 

6. You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity by Francis Chan & Lisa Chan

I will say this with every marriage book on my list. Marriage is hard, and therefore I am keeping this book.  I absolutely love Francis Chan (check out my resource page on him) and have already read a few of his books.  So a book on biblical marriage is a no brainer for me to keep.  I also had this downloaded on Hoopla, but I had read quite a few Francis Chan books by this point and wanted to switch it up.

7. Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus by Ellie Claire

So here is some honesty.  I love buying these journals.  Yet I have not finished one at all.  I barely do them.  One of the goals I want to set for this year to help improve the health of my spiritual life is to add these types of devotionals for me to do each day.  But I do have a ton and don’t need to buy anymore until they are done.  So I will be removing this one.

8. The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God by Timothy J. Keller

Like I mentioned with the marriage book above, marriage is hard, so I will be keeping this one.  I need to read a book on marriage each month.  I’ll probably add this to my list of goals soon.

 

9. Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart by Kyle Idleman

I added this book because I was going through a season where I was allowing some pretty good and Christian things to become idols in my life.  Like going to church each week, serving at church, people, etc. I struggled with seeing these things as idols until I realized that anything that is taking God’s place in my life is an idol.  So I am keeping this one.

 

10. Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock

There are certain topics that to understand them truly, we need to read the most up to date information.  So while this is still a significant issue in today’s workforce, I would want to read a book a little more recent.  So I am going to remove this one.

 

11. The Career Code: Must-Know Rules for a Strategic, Stylish, and Self-Made Career by Hillary Kerr & Katherine Power

I love a good women’s empowerment and success story.  And I am so thankful that these women are willing to share what worked and didn’t work for them.  This book is apart of a series, and I would like to read them all.  So I am keeping this one.

 

12. Wild and Free: A Hope-Filled Anthem for the Woman Who Feels She is Both Too Much and Never Enough by Jess Connolly

I bounce between feeling like I am doing too much and that I’m not enough to do the things I want to do.  It’s a struggle, and I’ve realized that the more I don’t take care of my mental health, the more I struggle.  I own a copy of this book, and I look forward to reading it.  So I am keeping it.

13. How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living by Rob Bell

One verse that has made me realize that I deserve so much more in life is John 10:10b (CSB) “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” This tells me that Jesus gives me an abundant life.  I should be living my life that way.  So because of that, I am keeping this book.

 

 

14. May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness by Gabrielle Bernstein

This is probably one of those books I need to read during my Year of Healthy while I am working on building better habits.  Anything that helps with unlimited happiness is something I need to look into.  I am keeping this one.

15. Adventures for Your Soul: 21 Ways to Transform Your Habits and Reach Your Full Potential by Shannon Kaiser

Another book I should look into reading this year.  I think I tried to listen to the audiobook version, and I prefer to have my self-improvement books in ebook or physical book form because I love taking notes and highlighting.  But I am keeping this one.

16. The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

I’m a little torn about this book.  A life planning tool sounds like something right up my ally.  But it seems like this book may be borderline mystic, and those types of books can some times conflict with my faith, and I prefer not to read them.  So I will keep this one and give it a try.  I can always mark it as DNF (did not finish).

 

17. Healthy Happy Sexy: Ayurveda Wisdom for Modern Women by Katie Silcox

The first thing I needed to do was google Ayurveda.  I needed to make sure this wasn’t anything that was going to go against my faith.  I was stumped at first because the first articles that pop up are WebMD, National Institutes of Health, and Johns Hopkins. But when I dig deeper, I see that it has its origins with Hindu gods and is based on holistic healing. I can get down with Holistic healing, but I’m not about to open the door for any other “gods” to have any access to my mind, body, and spirit.  So I will be removing this one.

18. Miracles Now: 108 Life-Changing Tools for Less Stress, More Flow, and Finding Your True Purpose by Gabrielle Bernstein

I stress and worry way too much to be as blessed as I am.  It’s definitely something I want to work on this year. I also like the fact that these are small tidbits of info and practices for someone with only a minute or two.  I am keeping this one.

 

19. 100 Ways to Love Your Husband: A Life-Long Journey of Learning to Love by Lisa Jacobson

Again…marriage=hard.   Any book that I can read that can help me be a better wife, help me understand my husband more, help me love him more, I am all for reading.  I am keeping this one.

 

20. The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

I read the plot of this book, and my first thought was awww in such a sad way.  Have I ever shared how randomly emotional I am?  I cry very frequently when things get sad in a book, tv show, movie, or with a random thought.  And it’s usually boohoo crying.  It’s terrible but I chalk it up to feeling deeply.  I feel like this book will make me do just that.  So I am keeping it.

 

Final Count: Removing 5; Keeping 15

TBR Down to 4,663

Have you read any of these books?  Think I made a mistake removing one?  Leave me a comment below and let’s chat.

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases using the links included in this post.

Categories
Faith Family Productivity

Year of Healthy: October

Although my 31st birthday isn’t until December, I always felt that September/October represented a new year vibe for me.  It could be because of the school year.  It could be because of the Jewish calendar.  I’m not sure, but when I was giving healthy as my word for the year, I knew I wanted to start as early as possible. August and September were all mental challenges for me.  I wanted to see if I could wake up at 4:30 am. I wanted to know if I could drink warm lemon water every morning.  I wanted to see if I can drink a gallon of water every day.  After doing each of those things a few times, I realized that I could build these into habits, and that is what is going to help me break through my excuses.

After reading The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma, I learned that we should focus on taking care of what he calls The 4 Interior Empires: Mindset (Psychology), Heartset (Emotionality), Healthset (Physicality), Soulset (Spirituality).  All of these are areas that I knew I wanted to actively focus on getting healthy, along with relationships and my home.  While I have some ideas of goals that I would like to accomplish, this idea of getting healthy is one that is still growing inside of me, and I know over the next few months if not the whole year, I will be coming up with different areas and goals to improve and grow.  Hopefully, as I build some habits and accomplish some goals, I can use those as stairsteps to reach another level of getting healthy.

Right now, I plan on taking it slow, month by month, as I try and plan out precisely what I want.  I have a bunch of ideas in my head, and as much as I want to start building all the habits on day one, I know that will be my quickest way to failure.

Wake up at 4:30 AM 5 days a week

My husband and I came to an agreement.  If he stops hitting his snooze button a million times in the morning, I will get up and cook him breakfast.  We agreed on 4:30 AM since I wanted to get up as early as 5:00 AM, and he needed to get to work early.

Finish reading the Old Testament this month

Back in April, I started to read through each book of the Bible.  I started with random books in the New Testament, and then I switched to reading Chronologically using this bible.  I finished the New Testament last month, and I would like to finish the Old Testament this month, if possible.  After I cook breakfast for my husband to take to work, I usually dive into my Bible reading for the day.

Write at least three times a week

Writing for the blog, writing to clear my head, writing my morning pages.  I’ve started to journal, and to be honest, the thought of having a journal full of my thoughts and ideas is so motivating.  Seeing the pages no longer be clean and crisp is just so inspiring.  But I struggle with the habit of handwriting because it’s so easy to type.  I want to write after my Bible reading to talk about what I learned.  Maybe even write a little beforehand if I have something in my head that may be blocking me from my reading or understanding.

Hit each timeline on my water bottle on time

I bought a water bottle that allows me to drink a gallon of water a day.  The problem has been I find myself chugging the water in the afternoon once I get behind and then spend all evening and night peeing.  It’s been such a pain.  So if I could hit the timelines on time (7 AM, 9 AM, 11 AM, 1 PM, 3 PM, 5 PM, 7 PM, 9 PM), I am hoping that will help with my frequent trips to the bathroom.

Walk for 30 minutes three times a week

I mentioned how much I hate exercising, right?  Like, hate it. But I know it is essential to exercise. At my last doctor’s appointment, we talked about how to bring some exercise into my life, and she wants me to do at least 30 minutes a day, five times a week.  I’m not there yet, so we will start with three times.  My husband used to be a runner and has expressed wanting to get back into that habit, so we want to use these walks as his warm-up.  I’ve also been able to connect with a friend, and part of us spending time together is walking together.

Read at least 30 minutes a day

As much as I love reading, I do find myself burning out at times.  That has been my recent season.  But I have been reading Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris and the way it is formatted, it is little nuggets from each Titan.  I think reading this book for about 30 minutes a day will help me come out of my reading slump.  I sometimes read throughout the day, but I have been loving reading while in bed to unwind from the day.  I’ve decided that I am going to try and read one book a month that will help with my goals for the month.  I am picking The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg for this month.

Downtime from 9 PM to 9 AM

I mostly ignored Apple’s Screentime app because it gave me nothing but negative information.  I know I spend too much time on my phone; there is no need to be reminded about it.  But I was checking it out one day and somehow accidentally turned on the Downtime, which was set from 10 PM to 7 AM.  I decided to leave it and test it out.  And I felt so guilty every time I hit the Ignore Limit button, and I would put the phone down.  Since that has been mostly working, I decided to expand it from 9 PM to 9 AM.  This allows me some downtime at night and not have me starting my first few hours glued to social media or technology.

Let’s Do This

All of this may seem like a lot, but I hope you see how they are connected and I am hoping they will be easier to accomplish that way.  I’ve read multiple places that if you can have triggers, it helps make your habit-building easier.  Using one habit as a trigger (me waking up early) and stacking some of the habits together, let’s hope for success.

Do any of these habits sound like some you need to pick up?  Want to join me? Leave a comment below and let me know if you are in for making these happen for October.

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases using the links included in this post.

Categories
Faith Family Finances

2020 Word of the Year: Healthy

Want to catch up on my 2019 Word of the year? Click here.

I hate exercising.

This wasn’t always the case. My first few years after high school, when I was commuting to college, I enjoyed walking. I often went to the gym with friends. I enjoyed using the gym at my apartment after working an evening shift. But shortly after, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and FOR ME, exercising triggered my pain and made me feel worse. So I stopped. And every time I tried, it was painful. Even physical therapy didn’t help. So I decided that exercising just wasn’t my thing.

I love food.

I’ve always loved food. I’m pretty sure; I will always love food. This didn’t matter much when I was younger because I was still naturally on the skinny side. But after I stopped exercising, some of the weight hung on. And the older I got, the more weight decided to stick around. I’m all for body positivity and loving yourself, so honestly, this didn’t bother me at all. No matter what I weighed, I always loved my body. Smaller, bigger, in between it’s still crucial for me to love what I look like.

My body is fighting me.

Thanks to those milk cartons at school, I’ve known since I was very young that I cannot tolerate much dairy.  I’ve stayed away from most dairy, except cheese and ice cream, the majority of my life. But if I have too much, I’m going to get sick and throw it up. My symptoms were different from most people I know that are lactose intolerant, so I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was or not. I remember my doctor saying to stay away from dairy. I don’t recall having any other food-related issues while growing up.

But in 2017, I got sick. I couldn’t keep anything in my system (I’ll save you from TMI). It was triggered by stress, but it forever changed my life. After months of doctor visits and hours of testing, they determined that not only was I lactose intolerant but I also had fructose malabsorption. What is that? Basically, my body struggles to digest fructose. What’s fructose? It’s a type of sugar. What is it in? ALMOST EVERYTHING. It’s naturally found in most fruits and vegetables. We realized that due to the stressful season I was in, somehow, someway my body went into some type of shock and decided it was going to start hollering any time I had dairy or sugar. The pain and cramps we’re unbearable. I lived in the bathroom (sorry TMI), and on a couple of occasions I’ve passed out. Still not sure if that’s because of the intense pain or dehydration, but I no longer lock bathroom doors for my safety when at home. It was a scary time for sure.

After being sent to a nutritionist (thanks to my GI doctor being real and telling me I can’t do this on my own), I realized my diet had to change drastically. We tried Whole 30 before and knew from that time how hard it was to find anything without dairy and sugar. But it was possible, so I adopted a 95% Whole 30 lifestyle. This made a big difference because I was able to avoid all added sugars, high fructose corn syrup, and any other sweeteners. But because fructose naturally occurs in fruits and vegetables, I still had some episodes. But I decided to accept this new life and what I could control.

What Changed

My Word of the Year for 2019 was Growth. And when thinking about my future, I realized I don’t want to scrape by. I knew there was more that I could do to almost eliminate my symptoms. After some prayer, I realized I needed to get truly healthy.

When I talked to God about what that meant for me and what it looked like, I decided that my 31st year was going to be spent on getting and staying healthy. Then I realized, I was given my 2020 Word of the Year: HEALTHY. Here are the areas I want to work on:

– Creating and sticking with a skincare routine (face and body)

– Start some type of exercise routine

– Eating better and reducing my malabsorption symptoms

– Building and sticking with morning and evening routines

– Building and maintaining relationships (God/Husband/Family/Friends)

– Creating and maintaining a healthy home

– Creating better habits overall

My favorite book from this year, The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma, speaks to Mindset (Psychology), Heartset (Emotionality), Healthset (Physicality), and Soulset (Spirituality). I realized that everything I want to focus on and improve fits into these areas.  Each month, I’ll create goals meant to grow myself in each set and make them a habit.  If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you see that I have slowly started this.  I drink warm lemon water most mornings, I have started to get up at 4:30 am, and I drink a gallon of water most days.  Those are just some of the habits I am beginning to build.  But this year will be full of habits that will continue to allow my growth and move me into being healthy.  Stick around for my goals and updates.

Have you picked your Word of the Year for 2020 yet?  What habits are you trying to build?  Let me know in the comments below!

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