As deciding on my very first blog entry on clean, balanced living my thoughts turned to that of new beginnings….. and as always with new beginnings I feel drawn to reflection, as what got me to where I am today is quite important in shaping my future path.
My journey of introspection was sparked by a recently viewed TedX, talk, "Embracing Discipline" by Capt. Casey Whitson, of the U.S. Air Force (you can view the 18:07 minute video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeMt5NUsFRo), she spoke of discipline, and how we really need to redefine what that means, as so many see it as a very negative thing, as in “he was bad, and had to be disciplined”, the best way to define was given Coach K (Mike Kryzewski) “ Discipline is doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it.” Simple, and to the point, right?
And one other thing that she said that really resonated with me was “How you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING”, this is so powerful, yes? It sure is for me, and hearing those words really put me in a place of reflection, which resulted in a self imposed electronic “black out” yesterday, as I put pen to paper and spent the day on the patio, in my favourite lounge chair, with my thoughts, my journal, and my affectionate pup curled up in my lap, and filled MANY pages.
It all began with the simple task to “map out a plan, for each aspect of my life, including my WHYs”….. in taking this soul searching journey I was extra conscious to remove ALL external validation, to make this ALL ABOUT ME, it was no easy feat, let me tell you, I lost track of how many times I had to reconsider a why that did not include, “because that’s what you do” – as this is a judgement that I put on what I THINK other people think, and truly THAT is of no consequence to me and MY life.
Completing this exercise was so incredibly freeing!
On my new path I am changing the way I look at everything, and I have the wonderful guidance of Jennifer Alexander, through her mindfulness meditation teachings, to thank for the gift of being able to “just be”, and most importantly be ok with that! In addition I have really looked at how I look at everything, in particular the judgements I place on things, including myself. It is a work in progress but I strive to consciously remove judgements from my observations. With this in mind, here is what I have uncovered during my day on the patio:
I KNOW what I need to put in to get the results I feel that I want, in relation to the Best Me Program, what I neglected to have firmly in place, at the beginning of the 90 days, were my hard and fast WHY’s, sure I had my why’s listed, and reviewing those now I see how very superficial and vanity focused they were.
My heartfelt WHY is to live my healthiest life, to gift Future Heather with as few health issues as possible, including keeping her mind ;). Looking hot in a bikini at 70 MIGHT be one of Future Heather’s goals, however I’m quite certain that still being alive and able to move under her own power is far more important than that or setting new records on how many pull ups she can do!
Putting down on paper what had previously only been floating around in my head and actually plotting it out; not just the goals themselves, but also the WHYs behind them has lead me to the epiphany that I really have been living a half-assed life until now. I am not passing judgement, as that only accentuates the negative and when we judge ourselves the ONLY outcome is regret and disappointment!
So simply by recognizing my behaviours I OBSERVE that in the past I have been a procrastinator, which resulted in performing tasks with as minimal effort as possible and always with the same mediocre results, which, needless to say was not with a lot of pride! I have long said if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got….. So, how is a girl to break a lifelong habit as damaging as procrastination? It has been a many step process and the straw that tipped the scale for me was very recently happening upon a couple of different webinars that REALLY spoke to me – now I use that term “happened upon” quite loosely , as I am a firm believer that the universe has a plan for me and when I stray too far off that path it places gentle reminders right in front of me J - the first webinar was on abundance blocking, and how we are getting in our own way of allowing abundance to flow to us, and the second was on mindset, now neither of these concepts are new to me, but there was just something that struck a chord with me……
The anniversary of the news of the end of my career is approaching, the end of this month in fact, and I must say that it has taken me most of this year to a.) uncover my passion (psst, it was there all along), and b.) decide how to begin to pursue it <3
Yesterday morning, as I sat and reflected on my 90 Day Best Me program wrapping up, I observed that previously a lot of my WHYS were tied to external gratification. I recognize that that does not appeal to me, it never really has; now don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear “awesome job”, but my success does not depend on it, in fact I have come to the realize that external pressure, has in the past actually thwarted my success.
Now, with my internal WHYs firmly planted, I am thankful for this slight extension (that is how I am viewing the time between now and photo shoot day J ) to put into practice my newly plotted plan.
So while I (here’s judgement again) am not where I had planned to be, physically, at the end of the 90 days, I know that I have obtained EXCATLY the results from the work I put in, but I do FEEL like my BEST ME, as I finally have a holistic plan in place, that is based solely on my own internal WHYS. And I want to thank the members of the 90 Day Best You group for the support, and above all, Coach Cindy for the structure, support, guidance, and vehicle to get here <3
So, without much effort at all I have successfully completed my very first blog post for clean, balanced living.
bidh mi 'gad fhaicinn
(In keeping with the learning new things to keep my brain healthy vein, I have decided to familiarize myself with my heritage, and thought I’d give a lovely Gaelic phrase a try)
My journey of introspection was sparked by a recently viewed TedX, talk, "Embracing Discipline" by Capt. Casey Whitson, of the U.S. Air Force (you can view the 18:07 minute video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeMt5NUsFRo), she spoke of discipline, and how we really need to redefine what that means, as so many see it as a very negative thing, as in “he was bad, and had to be disciplined”, the best way to define was given Coach K (Mike Kryzewski) “ Discipline is doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it.” Simple, and to the point, right?
And one other thing that she said that really resonated with me was “How you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING”, this is so powerful, yes? It sure is for me, and hearing those words really put me in a place of reflection, which resulted in a self imposed electronic “black out” yesterday, as I put pen to paper and spent the day on the patio, in my favourite lounge chair, with my thoughts, my journal, and my affectionate pup curled up in my lap, and filled MANY pages.
It all began with the simple task to “map out a plan, for each aspect of my life, including my WHYs”….. in taking this soul searching journey I was extra conscious to remove ALL external validation, to make this ALL ABOUT ME, it was no easy feat, let me tell you, I lost track of how many times I had to reconsider a why that did not include, “because that’s what you do” – as this is a judgement that I put on what I THINK other people think, and truly THAT is of no consequence to me and MY life.
Completing this exercise was so incredibly freeing!
On my new path I am changing the way I look at everything, and I have the wonderful guidance of Jennifer Alexander, through her mindfulness meditation teachings, to thank for the gift of being able to “just be”, and most importantly be ok with that! In addition I have really looked at how I look at everything, in particular the judgements I place on things, including myself. It is a work in progress but I strive to consciously remove judgements from my observations. With this in mind, here is what I have uncovered during my day on the patio:
I KNOW what I need to put in to get the results I feel that I want, in relation to the Best Me Program, what I neglected to have firmly in place, at the beginning of the 90 days, were my hard and fast WHY’s, sure I had my why’s listed, and reviewing those now I see how very superficial and vanity focused they were.
My heartfelt WHY is to live my healthiest life, to gift Future Heather with as few health issues as possible, including keeping her mind ;). Looking hot in a bikini at 70 MIGHT be one of Future Heather’s goals, however I’m quite certain that still being alive and able to move under her own power is far more important than that or setting new records on how many pull ups she can do!
Putting down on paper what had previously only been floating around in my head and actually plotting it out; not just the goals themselves, but also the WHYs behind them has lead me to the epiphany that I really have been living a half-assed life until now. I am not passing judgement, as that only accentuates the negative and when we judge ourselves the ONLY outcome is regret and disappointment!
So simply by recognizing my behaviours I OBSERVE that in the past I have been a procrastinator, which resulted in performing tasks with as minimal effort as possible and always with the same mediocre results, which, needless to say was not with a lot of pride! I have long said if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got….. So, how is a girl to break a lifelong habit as damaging as procrastination? It has been a many step process and the straw that tipped the scale for me was very recently happening upon a couple of different webinars that REALLY spoke to me – now I use that term “happened upon” quite loosely , as I am a firm believer that the universe has a plan for me and when I stray too far off that path it places gentle reminders right in front of me J - the first webinar was on abundance blocking, and how we are getting in our own way of allowing abundance to flow to us, and the second was on mindset, now neither of these concepts are new to me, but there was just something that struck a chord with me……
The anniversary of the news of the end of my career is approaching, the end of this month in fact, and I must say that it has taken me most of this year to a.) uncover my passion (psst, it was there all along), and b.) decide how to begin to pursue it <3
Yesterday morning, as I sat and reflected on my 90 Day Best Me program wrapping up, I observed that previously a lot of my WHYS were tied to external gratification. I recognize that that does not appeal to me, it never really has; now don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear “awesome job”, but my success does not depend on it, in fact I have come to the realize that external pressure, has in the past actually thwarted my success.
Now, with my internal WHYs firmly planted, I am thankful for this slight extension (that is how I am viewing the time between now and photo shoot day J ) to put into practice my newly plotted plan.
So while I (here’s judgement again) am not where I had planned to be, physically, at the end of the 90 days, I know that I have obtained EXCATLY the results from the work I put in, but I do FEEL like my BEST ME, as I finally have a holistic plan in place, that is based solely on my own internal WHYS. And I want to thank the members of the 90 Day Best You group for the support, and above all, Coach Cindy for the structure, support, guidance, and vehicle to get here <3
So, without much effort at all I have successfully completed my very first blog post for clean, balanced living.
bidh mi 'gad fhaicinn
(In keeping with the learning new things to keep my brain healthy vein, I have decided to familiarize myself with my heritage, and thought I’d give a lovely Gaelic phrase a try)