new year

Review of 2015

This year the term Morning Pages kept coming up. I checked it out and thought it would be a fantastic process for me because I’m an over thinker and I have a ton of scattered thoughts, seemingly in every waking moment. So, the idea of writing for 3 full pages, with no other purpose than to get what is in your head out of your head so you can look back and pick out the gold, got my attention.

And then it lost my attention. Who has time in the morning to write for 3 full size pages? And I know I could make time. But I didn’t.

But I do see the value in picking out the gold.

So, I made a “Review of 2015”. And I filled it in. And I got so much out of it.

I didn’t write down resolutions or goals for 2015 (changing this for 2016) but I know what I was hoping and aiming for all year.

Here’s my Review of 2015. (to see a better copy click on the picture)

In the middle of the page I wrote out the most important areas of my life right now and started acknowledging my successes.

And I made space for where I fell short. It’s important to accept and to understand this part. And to take full ownership for it. You can only get the learning from it if you are truly honest and take responsibility. Once I’ve done this I can later decide if it’s still important enough to put back on the goals list for 2016 (watch out for the next post).

And I made it for you too. It’s simple and extremely effective. Download your free copy below.

In comparing this years review to last years, here are the comparables:

Everyone is still staying active. Mindset is huge in sports and remains the biggest roadblock to success in at least 3 out of 5 of us.

Our new experiences this year were trips and camps and mountains and volunteering. It feels like we were able to keep up a good variety.

Last year I had a minor infatuation with Paint Nite. This year my walls are getting a breather from the amateur art I was creating and instead we’ve been enjoying the new (in Canada anyway) trend of Escape Rooms. Being a detective in themed rooms, figuring out clues to advance to new rooms and hopefully escape before time’s up really was fun. It was nice to do something different. Until it wasn’t different anymore, so now we’re taking a break from it.

I turned 41.

I still never dropped that elusive last 10lbs. Even while training for a 50km trail race – so annoying to have a talent in weight retention.

Self care was still pretty rubbish but I’m making a push for success this month, I’ll be having my second facial in 2 months, which I was desperate for as my skin was in awful condition, and I’ll be heading to the hairdressers. The massage will have to wait until the new year.

Our social life isn’t awful. Still not as rocking as the kids’. Will put it on my goal for 2016 to do better spending time with people we want to spend time with.

I think my biggest learning of the year is to be aware. You cannot improve what you are not aware of. Sure, once you know there’s something that isn’t working it takes effort to put it right but once you get that ball rolling it gets easier. I’m enjoying the benefit of being aware and making changes.

Now it’s your turn. Put your attention on 2015 and get ready for a Super Sweet ’16.

Get your Review of 2015 HERE

Vicky x

How Well Will I Survive with No Kids “Needing” Me?

I recently sent out a survey to moms of teens. I want to get insight into what women are struggling with in anticipation of this next stage in life.

When our children were young we marked time as “before we had kids” and “since having kids”. Soon time will be marked “when the kids were at home” and “since the kids left home”.

In the meantime there is also the grey area of the kids are home, but they hardly know we exist except to feed them, do their laundry and be their safety net if they screw up.

Women have been sharing very honest thoughts in my survey about this time of life. It brings up a lot of thoughts and emotions. And I wanted to process my own thoughts so I thought I’d answer my own survey and share with you my journey.

Q. How do you feel about this next stage in life? (w/ kids that can fend for themselves)

A. Such a mixed bag of emotions. My husband and I have already started planning our life when the kids are all old enough to be at college or home alone (youngest babe gets done Grade 12 in 8 years!!!) and that is exciting. On the other hand I’m acutely aware of my teenager and her ever growing independence. Thankfully they don’t change from snuggling, mommy centred kids to full grown adults with lives of their own over night. Instead it is a continual emotional readjustment to years of small tweaks that move our teens a little further out into the real world and away from our protective arms. I’m sensitive to the fact that I need to keep my opinions to myself about a mean friend so as not to frighten her off. Sometimes it feels like I’m approaching a deer and the wrong move will send her fleeing.

In an ideal world we will still have lots to do with them when they are living away from home and this makes it doubly exciting.

Q: How much do you think about this next stage in life?

A: Often

Q: How often do you think about making changes in your life?

A: Often

Q: What changes do you consider?

A: Lots of them, hee hee. What we eat. Where we live. Career wise I am slowly making changes to incorporate more of what I love – coaching. Our social life needs to get on the calendar before we fill it with other stuff. Get comfortable with camping – roughing it style. I grew up in the UK, nothing to be frightened of there. Canada has bears – I barely sleep in a tent.

Q: What motivates you into action?

A: If I think about changing where we live and moving more into coaching it has to be vision / daydreaming that motivates me, which means the great life I envision pulls me towards it. Sometimes though, when I’ve procrastinated for too long I get so frustrated with myself that I get moving. With the camping situation it has to be love that is motivating me. I personally could live without it but it’s part of my husbands dream and he has agreed to live in the South of France with me for a couple of months when we have independent kids so I am easing myself into camping now – it could be a long road.

Q: What stops you from making changes for you?

A: How I might affect others. Yes, I said it. I coach around this because it is such a limiting belief but I do suffer it too. Sometimes I think “who am I to have the life I am dreaming about 10 years out from now” which is dangerous territory because I NEVER want to stop moving towards that.

Fear stops me too. In my tracks. That’s when I find distracting and numbing things to do. I’m getting better at recognising that about myself and training myself to stick with the uncomfortable feeling – work in progress.

Q: Where might you be lacking confidence?

A: Crikey, where am I NOT lacking confidence? I’m trying to keep away from age reducing my circle of confidence in respect to trying new things. I’m confident where I’m comfortable but that is not where I want to stay. I think lacking confidence is not a problem as long as you are willing to work through it still to get to where you want to be. Lack of confidence can be expected, just like fear. It’s what you do with those emotions that matters.

Q: What would you do with a “magic wand for a day” to improve your life?

A: Oooohhh, what to do, what to do?!?! I’m wary of quick fixes because I believe in the value of the learning, however, I’d take that magic wand to reset my body clock. I’d love to get away with 6 hours sleep a night and get up at 5am bright eyed and ready to rock it. As it is 7am still doesn’t feel good to me and that’s even after 8 hours. Which leads back to knowing I need to change my eating habits and up my water intake. I’d use that magic wand to condition myself to drink my 8 glasses of water a day.

There’s a lot to be learned with self reflection. I feel we don’t check in with ourselves enough. It’s far easier to pick up our mobile devices and check in with others instead.

If you are willing, share your responses to these questions with me here.

Dream up some idea’s of what you can do for yourself when the kids don’t need you so much anymore. You’re worth it.

Vicky x

One New Years Resolution Taken Care Of

I have planned to sit down and write a 3 week menu plan for a loooooong time.

I was probably initially hampered by my husbands resistance to the repeating of dinners. Meanwhile I was repeating dinners more frequently than every 3 weeks basically from lack of mental bandwidth to come up with anything else as I did a supermarket dash for that nights dinner.

So, once I put that dampener out of my mind I decided I would get to the planning.

To feed my household over 3 weeks worth of week day meals meant I had to come up with 15 breakfasts, kid lunches and dinners, 45 kid snacks, plus 15 more mobile snacks for between school and swim.

And you know that with 3 kids, they ain’t all liking the same stuff either.

Quite honestly, I was overwhelmed before I even began. To another mother with 6+ kids (because they all (need to) have insanely great scheduling skills), or other women who can organize just as well, this likely seemed a minor task, but for me, an indecisive Libran, this required big focus.

For months I avoided this project like I’m avoiding the scales right now after indulging in all those holiday chocolates, a bottle of Baileys (not in 1 sitting) and sticky toffee puddings, but then, with New Year approaching, I hedged by bets that I could get the 3 week plan done far easier than removing the 5lbs I guarantee I put on over the holidays.

Anyhoo, I DID IT!!! The plan that is. It’s done. Here’s the proof.

Now I have my fingers crossed that it was worth it. I have visions of easy night before prep, clockwork school mornings and being able to partake in conversations because I’m not trying to figure out what to piece together and what won’t get my kids booed out of class when the school is doing a “freggies” competition (winners are the class with most fruits and veg over a week).

So, that was my accomplishment for this week. I’ll start on those extra pounds next week 😉

Happy New You

I don’t think you are appreciating how spectacular you are.

I’m just guessing here, but I’m thinking you have a lot going on. Like, all the time.

Are you even getting an uninterrupted sleep? And you can’t even blame it on the baby anymore.

It’s no wonder you are spacing out using TV, facebook, a glass of wine, whatever, to distract from the overwhelm.

However, if, like me, you’ve had an inkling that you are ready to start in a new direction, then there’s no better time to commit to doing this for yourself.

Make 2014 a year to put a bit of focus back on you. Get to know yourself a bit better. You’ll need to get quiet and listen to yourself, it’ll take some effort but will be SOOO worth it.

But, don’t listen to me. Try getting quiet, no numbing spacing out distractions, and listen in to yourself one time.

I’ll be right here when you are ready to discuss.