Welcome back to my blog everyone, and happy autumn season here in the northern hemisphere. As baseball season is transitioning from its regular season into playoffs; I thought this was the perfect time to highlight how great of a sport it is! And of course, {read more}
Well hello! Happy Valentine’s Day. My wish for you, my dear reader, is that you feel at least one moment of whimsy and magic today. Regardless if you have a special someone, or if you are celebrating with friends, please take the time to show {read more}
You asked for it! So here it is. Below is a typical ‘day in the life’ of me 🙂 Most days I try and mix things up, but the activities contained in my day are usually the same. The theme of the pandemic and being home all the time, and not really seeing many people is apparent in this post, simply because we are still living through it. One day Ill do a day in the life of, once things are back to normal!
This post brought back memories of my this or that post about a perfect day!
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First, waking up, sometimes to an alarm, sometimes naturally. Typically, 6am-ish wakeup, dependent on how early my first meeting is. And immediately taking Bianca out for her morning walk. Sometimes she is grumpy in the morning, however with the temperatures cooling down she is a bit more chipper in the morning!
Next, we make coffee, meditate and enjoy the morning. I especially love mornings where it is still dark when I get up and I can sit outside and watch the sun come up. Sometimes I’ll take my journal outside and others I’ll sit with my hot coffee and enjoy fresh air.
After a nice slow morning, next it is time to get ready for the day. The means either a quick shower, or at the very least washing my face applying lotion and brushing my hair. Followed by makeup some days, others none.
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As you may already know, I am an intermittent faster, so you’ll notice no mention of breakfast. Coffee only and it is basically black. Most days I log on 30 minutes before my first meeting to catch-up on emails and make sure I’m prepared for any meetings. Working from home because of the pandemic has been nice to be close to more coffee and the ability to take Bianca out whenever she wants.
I do try and take breaks while I can and do little stretches here and there. Around lunch time I’ll heat up something prepared (see my last meal prep post here). Now that we’ve been in work from home for so long, I typically actually take a full lunch. Either by taking a longer walk after eating or doing anything by going in the office in my house.
Once the day is wrapped up, I change back into workout clothes.
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By this time, all I want to do is be outside and moving. This means walking around the neighborhood, or going to a local park. Sometimes meeting up with friends to walk and enjoy one another’s company. Either way, getting additional steps in, either full out exercise or chatty walking! Afterward I’ll pick up dinner or heat up whatever I meal prepped.
Then it’s time to do all the things I love to do … yoga, deep breathing (more on that one day later), more meditation, reading, watching shows or talking to friends.
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Once it is time to wind down, I’ll take off my makeup, take a shower or tie up my hair, get Bianca outside for one last time and get in bed. I’ll admit, sometimes I stay up on my phone way too long, and other times I’ll go right on to sleep. Sometimes I’ll stay up reading and others I’ll barely lie down before I’m out!
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I’d say this is a mostly typical day for someone with a job like mine who is still work from home! I’d love to hear your thoughts and how this differs with your own day in the life of! Would love to hear from you in the comments down below!
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Welcome back fam! I’m going to get straight to the point: for the longest time I forced myself to be someone I wasn’t. Instead of embracing the delicate, soft parts of myself; I showed the world only my thorns. Randomly finding this little quiz on {read more}
STORYTIME That gorgeous view I vividly remember sitting at my computer, looking out at my amazing view and thinking to myself, ‘the possibilities in life are endless… I want to do it all.’Â It wasn’t for another decade that I would truly believe I could “do {read more}
Yesterday was a big day here in the States. Our new President and Vice President were sworn in to office!
Inauguration Day is such a big event for so so many reasons and a beautiful day it was today with sunny skies, a fresh perspective and a general what I compare to ‘first day of school’ vibe. That hopeful anticipation, a little nervous, lots of smiles and unfortunately this year not as many hugs as normal!
An incredible event – not just for those watching, but just think of the President himself (and one day herself) – and of course the many many people it takes to put such a huge day on – the secret service, the entertainers, the stylists, the planners!
Every single person that played a role today *most likely* saw this as a BIG DAY.
Whenever I watch events with world leaders, I have started to wonder what goes through their minds and how they prepared – did they sleep okay the night before? Are they wearing a special pair of socks out of superstition? How many times have they practiced their speech, their performance? Or double checked their paperwork and coordination? Does their wardrobe choice make them feel confident? Is their memory of past etiquette lessons serving them well? How many times have they rehearsed the days events in their minds?
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Over the years I have observed those I especially admire or simply want to be more like during these events to determine how I can become better and have also listened to their stories to come to realize that we are ALL human. And all of us being human can take the pressure off because it means it is okay to make a mistake but also reignite your dream because YES that means, YOU TOO can be and do whatever you want!
Either way, preparing ourselves for days like what we saw today – dreams officially coming true should be cherished!
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Pick one dream in your life and imagine the day it ‘officially’ becomes true.
What would be thinking the night before the dream is official?  Do you have an ideal outfit, hair and makeup for such a big event?  How would you feel that first day in your new house? Will you be comfortable wearing the graduation gown overtop of your suit?  Are there special products such as waterproof mascara to purchase? What thoughts will go through your mind when you hold your first published and printed book?
I hope you get that giddy happy feeling thinking about whatever it is on your heart!
Thank you for so many sweet comments, texts and messages on the vision board and goal-setting posts. Happiness fills my heart to know that this site is becoming a source of inspiration! Now that we’ve explored the visual and verbal side to our goals, it {read more}
Over the years, goal setting has become the one habit that has brought the most deliberate success. One of these days we will dive a bit deeper into why goal setting did not originally come natural to me and how I have cultivated my mind {read more}
Today is the last day of 2020 and we now have the opportunity to look forward into 2021and all it has to offer! The start of a new year (and even a new month to be honest) has always made me a tiny bit eager. Over the years, especially in college I was one to just want to hurry up and get to the next ‘level’ (as though life was a video game). Slowly but surely this feeling calmed down. Although I doubt I will ever be the type that floats through life, I have been able to appreciate the journey. To become more deliberate in recognizing the process and enjoy the ‘now’ moment much more so than ever.
One of the tools I have used to rein in my restlessness and start living to create memories is: a vision board. Today, I’d like to share with you how I personally create a vision board, why it has been a useful addition to my planning and hopefully inspire you to create one too!
Let’s start with the reason behind why vision boards are useful. As a person who has always had a determined, goal-setting, fast paced attitude toward life, I found myself becoming burnt out. I was achieving consistent results no matter what I set my mind on. Including travel, fitness, nutrition, finance and career but (… you saw that coming right ;)). Once I accomplished my goal, I was not taking the time to look back and appreciate the steps or even acknowledge that it had been done. Instead, I would set a higher goal and try to achieve it even faster than the last. Somehow I kept going at this speed until one day I woke up and realized that with all of my accomplishments I barely ‘felt’ anything.
If you can relate to this – you know how real this strange phenomenon is.
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As is my true nature, I immediately started set goals more related to connecting with myself and my community. I dove deep into spirituality from a new perspective and got to know myself. I stopped using external examples of achievements and success as a foundation and instead did some soul searching.
All of this led me to Vision Boards! At its most basic, a vision board is meant to be a reflection of YOUR own personal dreams for YOURSELF, not based off culture, family or external expectations. And let’s be honest – it can be so fun to sit down and gather pictures or make a digital board!
Okay… so now that you know my story and why I started doing yearly vision boards, I want to walk through the process I take to create one each year.
Write a bunch of words, ideas and phrases down in general on how you want the following year to ‘feel’. Include any thoughts around goals, travel, career aspirations – anything you really want to experience or accomplish!
Select ONE word out of all the thoughts that will be my theme for the year. Selecting just one word can be difficult, so looking up potential words in the dictionary and doing a general google search can help to make sure its the word for your year!
My theme for this year is “CREATE”.
Some other themes I considered were:
Once you have a theme, it is then time to start categorizing all of your other thoughts into focus areas. The vision board queen (Terri Savelle Foy) recommends up to 10 focus areas. This year I am trying something new and only doing 4 focus areas. In the past I’ve done more or haven’t categorized my thoughts and I found it to be more scattered than helpful.
My four focus areas this year are:
Using Pinterest is always helpful to find visuals related to your focus areas, goals and themes. Sometimes I start with this step because it really is so fun! I use Pinterest and my own pictures, while I’ve known some folks to use magazines, their favorite influencers or photoshopped images!
I found a picture from last year’s board creation (so fun!)
YAY this part is where you will either print, cut and glue OR copy, edit and paste depending if you are doing a physical or digital board. This year is the first that I am doing a digital one – partially so I can share it with you and also because I no longer have a printer :-p.
Arrange your board in a way that is pleasing to you!
Now that you have your board put together, it is time to display it in a location where you will see it often. This will keep your top goals, desires and dreams for the year at the front of your mind.
At the end of each month, I check-in with myself and make sure my board is still reflective of what I want, but also to see how far I am coming. This isn’t meant to put pressure on yourself, but to really determine if you are taking action that is leading you down the path you want to be able to experience. Depending on your season of life, your thoughts and goals may be in more flux than other times and it is important not to stick to something that you may have already grown out of.
For example, maybe you tried that new hobby and didn’t particularly like it… time to move on! Or, one personal example… I broke a bone one year which limited my physical ability and therefore I didn’t meet my fitness goal for that year.
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Hopefully, this was helpful! It would be great to hear if you decided to make a board this year!
Stay tuned for the follow-up post later in the month, and of course at the end of 2021! I cannot wait to look back with you all and see how far each one of us has come.
In 2023, I updated this post with: THE MOST IMPORTANT thing I’ve ever put on my vision board. Watch my below short to see what it was: