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My journey of changing my life started in June, so technically this is a 7 month update, but with the holidays and all, I gave myself an extension.
If you’re wondering if my life has done a complete 180 yet… No, it has not. While this is not surprising, I make the point because I feel that a lot of times, we as a society want things to happen immediately. We want amazing overnight successes and inspiring stories of meteoric change.
However, this is not often how it works. This stems, in my opinion, from T.V. and movies as our staples of entertainment. I’m not saying to give up your favorite shows and ban movies. I’m sure not going to do that.
What we need to remember though, is that we have become used to seeing an entire year play out in 15-20 episodes, or decades pass in a matter of 2 hours. All of the work, all of the highs and lows and mundane daily tasks, they actually need to take place in real life. All of the things that would be condensed into a montage or skipped over all together on the screen.
Yesterday I had a fairly average day. I exercised, I worked, I watched my daughter in the afternoon when my husband went to work, I made dinner and put the kids to bed. Super boring, not worthy of even a montage, but it totally got me closer to my end goal. Boring, but productive.
Things don’t change over night. It is the everyday effort that you put in that adds up to changes.
OK, that’s not always true. Sometimes things change over night. Maybe you get a promotion that goes into effect immediately, or your book is picked up by a publisher, or your post goes viral and affiliate money is starting to pour in. Those are things that could happen and change life that quickly. But, your book didn’t write itself and your boss didn’t promote you on day one. The work that went in before those things happen takes time.
So, it’s still the every day effort that makes the difference. Jim Rohn said, “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced everyday.” I would say that any big change you want to make in your life starts with the so-called “little” things, the “simple” things that you do every day.
So, back to where I am, 7 months from the decision to start changing my life.
The most noticeable change to other people is that I have lost about 60 pounds. I bet on myself through HealthyWage (and won over $1,000 for beating my bet, which was pretty exciting as well.), I started exercising daily, drinking the recommended amount of daily water for my weight and eating healthy foods based on my recommended calorie intake.
This change seemed like an “overnight” change to a lot of people, because those people didn’t see my daily life. I had so many days that I didn’t want to exercise, and many times I got on the scale and had gained weight from my previous weigh-in. Just like any other big change, it wasn’t easy. If it were, I would’ve done it years ago. The difference this time was my mindset. I was ready to do what it took, and ready to stick to it.
Around the time that I started on my weight-loss journey, I also started meditating daily.
Meditating helped me to calm my mind, and hear my intuition (along with many other benefits). Through meditating, I could see that at the core of my being I believe in following your intuition. I want to share that with other people and help them learn how to listen to theirs. Even more, I want to focus my work on health, wellness, and most of all, mindset– both mine and helping others with theirs. Not only do I want to focus on that, but I realized I already had knowledge to share about these things.
I decided to trust the universe and take action by making the biggest change of the past 7 months.
Which was leaving my direct sales business to pursue a career as a full-time blogger. Not only was it a big change, it was an extremely scary change as I no longer have a company to rely on for product to sell. It’s just me, my words, my content and creations. It is the ultimate step out on my own, and it is terrifying. But it’s also empowering and exciting, amazingly fulfilling and in a way, freeing. I have finally found a path that embraces the writer I’ve always been, and the life-long student I intend to continue being. I can share my knowledge about the things that have not only helped me through my journey so far, but that truly mean so much to me.
7 months ago when I started on this journey, I said that one of my goals was to grow my business.
Of course, having left direct sales, I did not grow that business. The amazing thing though, is that the 6 months spent primarily on my blog (I did need to spend some time tying up some loose ends) showed me what growth could really be. In the five months before I switched directions I hadn’t written one blog post, in the 6.5 months since then, I have written 25. My page views for the year went from 9,030 in mid-June, to 43,797 on December 31st.
So, I have absolutely been able to work on growth, even with having changed businesses. I am not where I wanted to be, but have found myself some place better.
Also I mentioned, 7 months ago, that I would like to be more present with my children.
I think I am, but I am not yet where I want to be. The next step towards changing my life should be able to help with this, and that’s scheduling/time management and organization. Anyone looking at my desk would wonder if it’s actually used as a desk. I know this doesn’t seem like a big thing that will change lives, but it is. With organization and time management I can be with my kids all of the time that we are together. Or I can be easily hiding from them because they are driving me crazy, in a neat and organized place. It will also help me and my business grow to the next level. As I said earlier, it is the little things that make the big changes possible.
Overall, I think I am at a great place 7 months from the start.
I didn’t keep everyone updated as often as I had planned, but I realized that I have so much more to offer on a regular basis than my daily, or even weekly, progress.
Now I want to take the time to challenge you.
Think about what you want to change, and get to work on it. It is not an overnight process, and you won’t see results as quickly as you’d like. Just keep at the daily tasks to get it done, and remember to look back at where you started every once in awhile to remind yourself of how far you’ve come.
If you don’t feel quite ready to take a big leap, start with something small like my 4-week Mind/Body/Energy Detox e-mail program. It is a great first step to life changes, and a great way to show yourself how ready you are to make the bigger ones.
Follow me on Facebook or Instagram to see more of the little stuff everyday that goes into my big changes!
OH! And, I am still working on preparing myself for the runDisney weekend half marathon in 2020. Just now my son is wanting to do the kids 5K the same weekend!
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