Everyone should take strides to set one day aside each week that truly enables you to celebrate your family and relax!  My day is Sunday.  On Sunday morning I wake up early before the house is filled with hustle to enjoy a piping hot cup of uninterrupted French coffee.  I may take a morning walk through the garden or walk barefoot in the grass that is fresh with morning dew.  I use this as my time.  My goals for the day are to relax in the ways that serve me best and to enjoy time with my family without demands or expectations.  This is a ‘go with the flow’ day where things only get done if I want them to and tasks or chores may include planting my tomato plants or mowing the grass.  Things I enjoy!

In order for any of us to be productive in life we must be able to take a mental and physical break from our responsibilities.  We must be able to operate on a level that is not always concerned with getting something done or that feels guilty about not giving the baby a bath.  It is very easy to become so caught up in our routines and expectations that we become them and live them every day of the year.  By breaking the pattern once a week we remain flexible, relaxed and more able to perform better on those days when this type of life just isn’t possible.  Catch your breath, catch a movie, catch a ball with the kids in the yard or catch a few extra hours of shut eye in the family bed!  Always take time to relax, focus on your blessings and be able to step out of “do” mode.  After all – we are human beings not human doings!

One of the gifts that Wendy has given to me is the encouragement to keep a notebook.  When I say notebook I mean just that!  It can be a simple and useful spiral bound notebook or a beautifully bound decorative journal type book filled with empty pages just waiting to be filled.  Once you find your canvas, the goal is to start filling it.  Fill it with phone numbers and important to-do lists.  Keep track of conversations you have had with friends or colleagues, ideas that hit you while you are shopping for dinner and inspiring lyrics to a new song you just heard on the radio.  The point is – you should fill it with everything.  The notebook will then quickly become your ‘everything’ book.  Instead of having a to-do list, a phone book, an I-phone, your laptop, and the palm of your hand filled with all those things you want to do and remember it can all be neatly (if you are lucky) kept in your everything book.  You can take it with you and keep it nearby at all times, organize it however is comfortable for you (by date or subject) and always know the one place to look to find everything.

Keeping a notebook like this also makes it easy to look back over time and see your accomplishments and remain cognizant of all the things in life that you have handled successfully.  You can create journal entries along side estimates from the plumber to fix that hall bathroom and will end up with a scrapbook type collection down the road that will chronicle your life.  Many years from now, this can turn into a great gift for your self; but for now it is an easy and meaningful way to keep yourself on track in all circumstances.  

There are many people, myself included, who whole heartedly believe that the early bird catches the worm.  These people may be up before the sun and can have 3 loads of laundry done, the house cleaned, appointments scheduled and bills paid before anyone else has even thought to get out bed.  Others prefer the still of night and reach their creative and inspirational peak during those hours when the house is hushed of growl and peep and nothing is moving but the crickets outside.  It doesn’t matter when your most productive time is; it only matters that you recognize it and find a way to utilize it!

Knowing that my best work was normally done in the mornings I would find entertaining activities to keep my toddler busy for 15 minutes of blocks of time so I could capitalize on my creative and momentous sunrise rituals.  By 10am my energies had settled but I felt quite content with what it was I accomplished while I was making the most of my morning energy buzz.  Wendy accomplishes more in the evenings and feels that she hits her stride only when a night owl is perched on her tree. 

The point is that your time can be better utilized when you feel the best.  By making plans to accommodate your natural rhythm of productivity and energy you will be able to use it to your advantage.  Set your tasks accordingly and you will find that you can accomplish more in 15-30 minutes than you can when you are tired and not at your mental best.  Listen to your intuition and find ways to move things around in your life so that tasks which require creativity or concentration are performed at your optimum moments during the day.  You can mop a floor anytime – but the inspiration to write a book or prepare a business plan requires you to be ever present in your moment.  

It seems like everyone I meet these days is busy, busy, busy!  Everyone is too busy to do this or that and in such a rush that they are frazzled and weighted down with the obligations of their to-do list.  Raising children and taking care of families no doubt takes a toll on the 24 hours available in each day and most of us find ourselves wishing or begging rather for just a little more time to get things done. 

That being said every one of us who finds ourselves too busy to really indulge in the abundance of life should take pause and try to understand just where all that time is going.  Think about it.  In the course of a week there are 168 hours! On average we probably (hopefully) spend 50 or so sleeping, 14 hours eating and another 7 in the bathroom taking care of ourselves.  There goes 71 hours of existence.  If you work full time you give up another 50ish hours between work and your commute (if you work outside of the home.)  That leaves around 47 hours left in your week?  So what are you doing that is keeping you so busy that it consumes 47 hours of your time?

Recently I heard someone say that there were few things in life that deserved our time, energy and talent. Obviously, raising our children and being with family are two of those things that are of the utmost deservance. This comment prompted me to keep track of how and where I spend my time. By paying close attention to the details of where my time was going I was better able to honor the time I had and make better use of the hours left in my week.  I was able to partner with myself in deciding exactly what my energy and time was wroth being spent on and was awakened to the things that truly inspire me.  

There are many days as a mother that it seems difficult to accomplish anything outside of caring for the basic needs of my family.  Sometimes it will be near bed time before I realize that I haven’t taken a shower or eaten a single bite all day.  Every mom has those days or weeks when the kids are sick or school functions make it virtually impossible to get anything done.  Early on, I learned that by setting small goals that will facilitate me toward my larger goals I am less likely to feel overwhelmed and can find the time to take baby steps week in and week out despite the unpredictable needs of everyone and everything else.  I call this the power of 3!

Essentially I spend a few minutes each Sunday writing down 3 things of action that I can accomplish in a week’s time that will keep me moving toward my goals.  If one of my goals is to start feeding my family healthier meals - my action plan for the week might be to collect 12 healthy recipes and shop for and cook 2 of them the following week.  If I am planning to write an E-book then my goal for this week might be to get the outline done.  Similarly, if my goal is to run in a triathlon next year then my goal for the week might be to run 2 miles three times this week and maybe 4 times the following week.

By the power of 3, I am setting mini-goals that are easily attainable within my life and that are in line with the larger goals that I have for myself.  I take the power of 3 one step further by dividing my min task into 3 parts as well.  For instance I might want to collect 12 recipes for the week but find that I can collect 4 a day for three days without fail and without overwhelming myself.  It is similar to saving $20 a week.  Initially you don’t have much but in a years time you might have enough for that new couch you have been wanting. The bigger pictures in life are always filled with snapshots from a photo album that took a long time to cultivate.  Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day – neither can your goals be realized all at once.  Being patient with your progress and taking a proactive approach to goal achievement not only can help you succeed; but also ensures you can remain ever conscious to the things that mean the most to you and be able to handle the hectic routine of caring for your family 

Certainly it can be healthy to keep your eyes on the prize.  It keeps us motivated and working towards the achievement of the things that are most important to us.  I am extremely guilty of spending so much time in forward motion along the roadmap of my life that I forget to look back along the travels I have already made and rejoice in them.  Often time’s one goal is achieved just seconds before it becomes an even larger step to a bigger dream.  With this kind of momentum it is easy to lose sight of just how far I have come.  It is vitally important to stop and celebrate ALL of your achievements.  The small details of achievement were the stepping stones that enabled you to make it where you are today and they are absolutely the reason that you feel positively empowered and enlightened to broaden the spectrum of your successes to come.

Much of what we accomplish skirts underneath the conscious radar of our family or peers and by taking the time to bask in our own glory- we are renewing our energy tenfold.  The more we do the more we and our peers will expect us to accomplish and by reveling in your list of accomplishments you will feel no doubt about your abilities.  It may even be a good idea to keep a running list in a notebook of all the things you have done and pull it out every time you feel doubt or fatigue setting in. Never wait for someone else to notice or thank you for all that you have done not just today, but in the past year or 5 years as well.  Celebrate in any way that makes you feel proud and as more meaningful and inspiring things come your way reward your self for the incredible woman that you are!  Gratitude is the art of not just seeing your cup half full but celebrating the cup and the water source that fills it as well. Always remember that your cup of life is filled with the cool and sparkling elements of YOU!

There is an old saying that rich people have big libraries whereas poor people own big TV’s; and by learning how to add to your library you can quickly make yourself wealthy.  Why?  Because in order to become wealthy you must first be able to think like a wealthy person.  A wealthy person thinks differently, reacts to opportunity and circumstance uniquely and spends their time making them selves wealthier and retaining their assets.  By surrounding ourselves with people whose income mirrors the one we aspire to have we are learning how to think like a rich person and are exposed to challenging and inspiring ideas that may have passed us by otherwise. 

 

The Spanish saying “tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are” reiterates the aged old childhood lesson that we should choose our friends wisely.  Just because we are adults doesn’t mean that we should ignore the warnings.  Statistics show that our income is a reflective average of our 5 closest friends.  By changing our social or business circle to include those in much larger income brackets than we currently have we open wide the doors to investment and life changing financial opportunity.  Of course this doesn’t mean that you longest and most treasured high-school friend should be ousted because she doesn’t make very much money – the point is to surround your self with people, places, ideas, choices and secret opportunities that are a perfect match to your income desires.  You can’t learn how to play any game by remaining on the side-lines.  The game of wealth is exactly the same so get your self out there into the unfamiliar and challenging waters of the wealthy!