Are you ready to change or ready to make excuses?

Ok, so I have another blog post.  I am feeling inspired.  I found this on facebook today.  Not even sure who posted but man is it good!  Then a friend emailed me that she was struggling with consistency and discipline and thought that the message in the picture above probably applied to her situation.  So, I was simply sending her a response to try to help her and I realized that maybe what I said to her could help someone else too.  So, here it is.  That big black post translates to your situation very much. It says it all. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how bad do you want it...??? Do you really want it? Really? Really? Because if you don't really want whatever it is you say you want. I can promise you, you're never gonna get it. For years I was fat, for years I said I need to exercise, I need to diet, I'm gonna start tomorrow. I'll start Monday. Then Monday or tomorrow came and I found a different excuse for why I wasn't going to do it. I was too stressed. I was too tired. I was too busy. It wasn't until I decided I didn't care what it took I was NOT going to be a "fat" mom. It wasn't until I had kids that it really became important to me to not be fat.  So for years, I made excuses instead.  But then I decided I was not going set an example for my kids of how I didn't want them to live and then expect them to live differently.It became important for me to not be fat.   And there are times when it sucks, when I don't wanna do it. I fall constantly. I fail at something everyday. But you know what I no longer use my failures today to justify more failures tomorrow. Every day you have to get up and say today I am going to do better today that I did yesterday. And you know what you can do that. You can do better everyday. And when you screw up, because you will, just say to yourself, well I will do better tomorrow and MEAN IT!!! Tomorrow DO NOT get up and think, well I might as well eat like crap today because I did yesterday or because  I am going to eat like crap on Thanksgiving. That is little life. That is making an excuse to justify doing something you know you shouldn't do. Do what you can when you have control over it. Don't deprive yourself of Thanksgiving or date night or beat yourself up if someone invites you over for dinner. At those times when you can't control what you eat, control how much you eat. And please remember the next time you eat bad is probably not your last supper. You don't have to eat four desserts. Eat one dessert or eat one piece of pie and half a piece of another. If you eat Taco Bell, eat one burrito, not a burrito, a mexi melt, and a taco (that's what I used to do) eat one. One is enough, you can have the other next time. Plan your work outs. Commit to following your plan and don't waiver from it. Make the decision that if it's on your calendar its because this is when you believed you could do it and should be able to do, and then do it. And if you screw up and don't do it when you are supposed to, forgive yourself, move on and by golly, you better do it next time. Don't excuse yourself out of doing it next time just because you didn't do it last time. So here's a reminder of what I did last year. I weighed 221 pounds the day after Thanksgiving. By new years day I weighed 203. That's roughly 8% of my body weight. I believe you can  lose 5% of your body weight by New Years day.And I will make the commitment to you that I am going to do the same. For me it's 8 lbs.What are your goals that you want to have met by New Years Day? What is gonna make you feel like you have lived a big life, lived your best by New Years day? What's your work out plan for the next week. Find someone who can be your accountability partner.  Share with them your work out plan, share with them what you eat.  Hold each other accountable.  It's hard to be consistent if you don't have any accountability. It's hard to be consistent until it becomes a habit. It's hard to be consistent until something becomes important to you. So when you set goals make sure they are something that are important to you, not to me, or your friend, or your husband, or anyone else in this world. Only you. Then your accountability partner will help you stick to it. So do you really want to make a change? Because if you really wanna make a change you can. You just have to decide it's important to you and stop making excuses.  And remember you don't learn discipline over night, it is a process, a greuling process.Are you ready?


I hope this helps someone else.  And I hope it helps her.  By the way, for anyone who wants an accountability partner, I am willing to be that for you.  Really I am.  I really feel like part of God's plan for me is to help others through the same journey that I am going through.  If you have my number call me or message me through Facebook and I would love to help you meet your goals!   

Finding time

So, I have been feeling a bit uninspiring and a bit unworthy of writing something that I think might help someone else.  Now that's not to say that I haven't had some major break throughs and made some major life changes.  I guess I am struggling with the fact that it's a bit embarrassing and I am a bit ashamed of some of the things that were "wrong" in my life.  Really a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog.  I have been struggling through making to-do lists and blocking out my time.  It's a love hate relationship.  You see the thing is, I used to make excuses for why I couldn't do this today and I would put off until tomorrow what I should have been doing today.  So I started doing to do lists and I found it incredible what I could get done in a day.  Then I stopped after three or four days because I realized that I had spent the last month to month and a half getting all the "stuff" done that needed doing in my life.  You know the "stuff" no one really enjoys doing.  We're talking deep cleaning the house, cleaning out all the closets and storage spaces in our house, the kitchen, the dressers, the whole nine yards.  I cleaned until I couldn't see straight for days. I have added more work outs.  I have added time with friends.  I have added and added and added things to my life and I have reached a point to where I have more time than things to do.  Nice problem, right?  Well not really.  It's a bittersweet thing.  I look back over the last two years and am filled with regret about what I should have been doing.  So that's something that I am having to deal with.  I have realized that I have been living a life without much purpose outside of these four walls.  Not that my life within these four walls doesn't have purpose.  I am raising two wonderful kids and getting to experience things with them by staying at home that many don't ever get to experience.  But I know that God is calling me to something bigger than that.  So I am in the middle of this journey to find what I can do to make an impact in this world.  How can I use my time to make a difference.  You see I used to give all this time to trying to do tasks perfectly.  I would spend two hours cleaning my floors, now I spend 30.  And no they are not as clean as they were when I spent two hours on them but they are cleaner than they were before I started and now I have an extra 1 1/2 hours that I can spend doing something different and bigger than sweeping and mopping floors.  I used to spend all day Monday picking up the house and doing 7 or 8 loads of laundry.  Now I just do laundry on the fly, a little bit every day and same goes with the picking up the house.  I do it as I go.  So there is a whole day now that I can dedicate to something different, something bigger than laundry and picking up.  You see, I have learned through my coaching with Lonnie that I used to use perfectionism as an excuse.  I used it as an excuse to do it later when I have enough time to do it perfect instead of doing it right now in the time that I have.  He introduced me to the "law" that tasks will expand to fill the time you allow then to.  He encouraged me to block out half the time that I thought it would take to do something and I found rather quickly that sometimes I could still get it done quicker.  So, the moral of this blog I guess is that if you find yourself not getting enough things done, I encourage you to make a to do list and block out time on your calendar of when you are going to do things. You will be amazed at how simply setting a schedule for yourself of what you are going to do and when you are going to do it can change how much time you have and how much you get done.  Try it for one week.  I can almost guarantee you that you will get more done than you ever thought possible.  Setting a schedule has changed me.  I schedule my wake up times, my work out times, my cleaning times, everything so now I don't lay in bed and think should I get up?  I don't walk around the house and think, what do I feel like doing?  I wake up look at the clock and see it's 5:00 and I get up.  I have a run scheduled or a task scheduled and I need to do it.  I look at the schedule and see it's time to clean the bathrooms and I do just that instead of standing there thinking, I need to clean the kitchen, but I don't really feel like it.  I do it regardless because if I don't do whatever it is I have scheduled, I won't feel like when I go to bed that night that I have given my best.  By following my schedule I know everyday that I have given my best because I sat down the night before and said to myself, what do I need to get done tomorrow in order to be successful?  And I put it on the schedule.  Now I will tell you there are days when my schedule gets off and there are days when I get done more than scheduled.  But even on my "off" days, I get WAY more done than I ever used to.  And now I have time to do something that can make a difference in this world.  I don't know exactly what that is yet but my heart and mind are open to finding ways to make an impact.

Is it really this simple? It's all about perspective

So, this week I started my coaching with Lonnie and Pamela Crim.  Monday night I talked with Lonnie and the thing that struck me the most was he said, in regards to me grumbling a bit about "having" to clean my kids car seats which are long overdue a cleaning, "Jennifer it's all about your perspective.  You need to change your perspective.  Do you know how many mamas would LOVE to be able to clean their babies car seats.  What about all the women whose children are sick and in the hospital." And then my mind went to or what about all the women who are struggling to even get pregnant.  You can betcha I will never grumble again or say I have to clean my kids car seats.  Now my week has been rough and tumble a bit.  I was completely out of commission on Tuesday with a chest cold and didn't get home until Wednesday.  I was still feeling pretty rough then too.  Long story short I haven't gotten to clean the car seats because I have needed to use them.  The covers have to hang dry so they take a while to dry.  But I can guarantee you Sunday we aren't going anywhere and I am going to clean those car seats like it's nobody's business.  I am so thankful to have my two beautiful children to put in those car seats, the car to put the seats in, the funds to pay for the car and the seats and the gas to drive the car down the road.  And as life has a way of doing, I got another lesson in perspective yesterday.  My cousin Bonnie and my Aunt Rhonda came for a visit.  Bonnie was oogling and googling over different things about my house.  And it made me laugh because you see, when I went to Bonnie's I did the same thing.  I oogled and google over the fact that hers was newer construction, mine was built in 1979.  And her furniture was newer and looked like it belongs in her house.  I used to feel that mine looked off because I had picked it out to match a entirely different house.  She oogled and googled over my "vintage" light fixtures and design.  Which again makes me giggle because often times my husband and I grumble over the fact that it's not new construction, the real master bedroom has a tiny closet, and a myriad of other things that we find to be imperfections.  But that's not what Bonnie saw.  You see Bonnie fell in love the instant she drove in the driveway.  She said it was the most beautiful house she had ever seen.  She drooled over my white kitchen cabinets (my 1979 made cabinets which I painted and put new handles on, which my husband and I constantly talk about replacing) she loved the really cool see through fireplace (which has always driven me crazy because it makes it hard to arrange furniture) and she even loved the old brick hearth.  And you know what is even funnier to me is that the kitchen table with chairs from a different table, her and her mom just both loved, and let me tell you now seriously those mismatched (dirty) chairs and table have made me hesitate to invite people over....oh my how embarassing is that to admit.  So, the long and short of it is...I have changed my perspective...I do have the coolest house ever!  I have a house that was built by my husband's grandpa.  It's imperfectly perfect because it is a non-traditional design with a floorplan that you're sure to never find again.  2100 square feet spread out on three levels.  A master bedroom on the main floor with a tiny closet perfect for Griffin.  Which leaves us upstairs with Sydney, which is perfect because Sydney comes to sleep with us every night at some point, so she doesn't have to climb stairs.  Perfect because Griffin will never be the kind of kid that wants to crawl in bed with mom and dad.  A kitchen filled with cabinets that his grandpa made by hand that has deep indentations and scratches on them on the doors that Rob's grandma used a lot that came from her wedding ring.  A counter built for her that's built to her 5'1" frame (I'm 5'9") that is the perfect place to pull up stools to and let the kids eat.  A house that was built so sturdy the basement is as dry as the Arizona desert with plenty of wall space to display my kids pictures.  A house that is a home to my beautiful family that was full of a wonderful history already before we ever started making our own here.  It really is amazing what a shift in perspective can do for you.  It has totally change my view on almost everything including food.  Food is fuel.  Food is not a reward.  and because of that shift in perspective I have lost 11 lbs since attending the Smokin Hot Mama Retreat the first weekend in October.  Wooooo hoooooo!!!  I'll end this post with Lonnie's example that I will never forget.  He shared with me that maybe I was watching the 3D movie of my life without the 3D glasses.  You see you can watch a 3D movie without the glasses and you are still watching the same movie as everyone else in the theater, but how much cooler is it when you wear the glasses.   So my glasses are ON!!!