Pursuit of Contentment

Last year I made a goal to have a plant in each room of our house.
Being new to purchasing plants means I do a lot of googling in the store when I see a plant I like. No sense in buying a plant that will be too tricky to care for. All our plants get watered once a week to keep things on a reasonable schedule. So far – we’ve had a lot of success!

I’m intentional with planning decor for our home, and plants seem to have a perfect place in each room. Not only are they vibrant and fresh, but the benefits of house plants seem to be plentiful. 

Plants are much more than a pretty conversation piece. Extensive research has validated the purifying elements that plants bring to their home environment.  Not only do plants increase air quality and  improve overall well-being, they are linked to elevated levels of productivity in humans.  Much like being surrounded by outdoor nature, indoor plants can be said to create a more natural work-environment, cultivating creativity and clarity.

Pretty with a purpose. My kind of decor.

Suggested readings:

Best Air-Cleaning Plants, According to NASA

Low-Maintenance Houseplants: 

I was never a morning person.

I decided I needed to be one, and here’s why:

I needed time to myself, without interruptions to focus on my personal development. This had to be a priority, and I decided if I could commit to getting it done first thing in the morning before anything else, I would start my day off with great accomplishment.

At first I started getting up 30 minutes earlier than usual. Then, it gradually increased because I found it  to be such a valuable use of my time, that I wanted even more.  Depending on evening schedules, my alarm is set for 4:55-5:10am.

When my alarm goes off at 4:55am,  I don’t hit the snooze button. I get up. Before my mind can convince me to stay cozy in bed my feet are on the floor.

As soon as I’m up, I grab a drink of water and splash some water on my face.
5:00 I’m downstairs in the basement. Everything is ready – I am always certain before I go to bed at night that all of my gear is ready for the morning. My gear is simple. A couple books, some exercise equipment, and head phones.

5:05 I’m changed and on my mat ready for meditation. My meditation will last anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

5:30 (ish) I move into exercise. I have limited equipment and it works well for me. I gave up listening to my workout music and instead listen to something that I find interesting. Something that will fill my brain with inspiration and learning. I feel like my mind is so open at this time of day, it really absorbs new learnings. Often whatever talk, podcast, etc I’m listening during my workout, I will finish listening to on my drive into work.

6:00 I move to my writing. I first read through my affirmation notebook. These are short affirmations I’ve added along the way, many come from books or TED talks. Throughout my day I always have my notebook with me. That way, I can jot down thoughts or phrases, and later add a select few to my affirmation book.
After reading my affirmations, I write one daily goal in my goal journal. This goal is short and realistic and by writing it down, I’m committing myself to make it happen.
I then move onto reading something positive. A few pages in a book, or sometimes more.

I take a moment to visualize how I want my day to go, and then I am done.

I do keep an eye on the clock, but I allow myself the freedom to  extend or shorten certain aspects on my routine, depending on how I’m feeling that particular day.

By the time I head to the shower by 6:30, I’m so ready for the day. This would normally be the time my alarm would have started to go off, and I’d begin the routine of hitting snooze until I reached a time of panic and the mad rush would begin.

If you find you are guilty of hitting the snooze button, a couple weeks ago I came across this talk, and I think Mel explains things so perfectly. Her 5 second rule sums up exactly how I feel when I make myself get up. You either choose to GO, or your mind will convince you otherwise.
Suggested TEDx talk: Mel Robbins, How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over

 

I gave up the gym.

Perhaps I’ll be back sometime, but not anytime soon.

In an effort to simplify my life, I was tired of trying to make my trips to the gym a priority. I hated the struggle. If I wanted to simplify my life, I had to think about what things were causing me grief, and figure out if they were needed in my life.

Exercise was needed in my life. For me, that is a non-negotiable. The gym? Was not.

I gave up the equipment the gym had to offer, and gave up my well-developed muscles, too.  I’ve been exercising at home since the summer, and I have to say it has been a great decision for me, at this point in my life.

It took a bit of time to figure out the best way to make it work, but I’ve been going strong since I’ve realized one key thing:

Exercise, isn’t a stand-alone for me. I’ve shifted my regular exercise into a larger personal development strategy, that works for me and provides me with so many things I was missing.

Next post: My personal development strategy

 

 

Two weeks ago I heard Neil Pasricha speak at Western University. He asked the audience of a couple hundred people how many had heard about the benefits of meditating. Pretty much all hands went up. He then asked how many people have a routine of regular meditation – my hand was the only one that went up. Six months ago, my hand would have been down with the rest of the audience.

Most people have heard about the benefits of meditation. I had heard about it, many times. I had brushed it off, many times. Who has time for that, anyway?

With a commitment to personal development, I realized the concept of meditation kept surfacing for a reason. So – I did the most appropriate thing; I googled “easy meditation for beginners”.

I clicked through some pages, and then I landed on this one. I stopped on this one because it was brief – to the point, and exactly what I was looking for, with no fluff. It told me what I needed to know, and how I could do it.

Here is where the foundation for my mediation began: https://zenhabits.net/meditation-guide/

When beginning a new habit, one of the top considerations, for me, is setting realistic expectations. I’ve been through the process of habits failing many times, and you, too, can likely agree that for any habit to stick, the expectations have to be realistic.
The process that Leo Babauta outlines has a realistic time commitment, and realistic outcomes. Win-win, for me.

I followed his outlined process daily. I would meditate for only two minutes at first, and within several weeks I worked up to a comfortable 15-30 daily minutes of meditation in the morning, and often another 5-10 at night. However, I don’t think there is any wrong or right here, two minutes a day long-term is more than most people ever do.

My personal preference is to have silent meditation in the morning, and I often opt for a guided meditation at night. There are many guided meditations out there (check out Headspace: Guided Meditation and Mindfulness on the App Store), my personal favourite is Kris Carr’s evening meditation: http://kriscarr.com/products/self-care-for-busy-people-digital-meditation-album/

For the first several weeks of forming my meditation habit, I made it as easy as possible. I would meditate before I got out of bed in the morning.  How empowering it was to commit to this practice first thing in the morning before starting anything else. I mean, the moment your feet touch the ground in the morning, you have already achieved something that enhances your wellness and personal development. Talk about starting your day off right – and it only took two minutes.

As silly as it sounds, if you try this method, don’t forget to smile at the end of your meditation session. Not only will you self-acknowledge that you did something wonderful for yourself before you did anything else that day, but putting a smile on your face will make you feel a sense of happiness, even if you are not a morning person.

Without a doubt, meditation has been the most important habit I have committed to. It has been life-changing for me. If you haven’t tried it – I encourage you to give it a go. Be realistic, be kind to yourself, and you will most definitely succeed.

 

 

The success of my creative side-business was not because I was a talented seamstress. Unlike many international doll-makers who had been sewing since they were a young child, I had only ever briefly turned on a sewing machine in grade 8 home economics class when I unsuccessfully attempted to make a miniature pillow.

When I decided to learn how to make dolls, I didn’t know the name of stitches, how to replace a bobbin or even how to properly cut out a pattern. Not only did I lack those skills, but the skills did not come naturally.  What I did have though, and what proved to be absolutely key for my success, was discipline.

I’ve discovered that I am a person of powerful habits and I use discipline, as a way of creating these habits. Thinking back to the process of creating a doll, it was always the same series of steps and the same process repeated, with the same resting places. If I ever tried to change the process, I would run into difficulties.

Was all this clear to me when I was in the midst of my business? No, I never gave it any thought. People would often tell me I had such talent – well, if talent could be defined as repeated processes and discipline resulting in a desired outcome, then sure – I was talented.

Discipline. I’ve since come to understand that when considering the range of discipline, there is a middle point at which discipline leads to success, and at either end of the range, it can lead to failure. The lack of discipline leads to achieving nothing. Too much discipline, can result in burn out, and discipline that is enough to create powerful habits – the magic point.

Next post: Using discipline to form the best habit for my overall wellness.

 

I recently wrote about how liberating it was to go through the process of decluttering my home using the Kondo method. Both during and after the process, I felt lighter, refreshed and more energized.

I started to wonder, if purging items in my home provided me with such a “lift”, perhaps I needed to see what I could purge from my lifestyle.  I was feeling committed to only keeping things in my house that brought me joy or served me purpose, but what if I wholeheartedly tried to do that for my life, too.  After all, it seems quite cluttered to consider a lifestyle full of things that do not serve purpose or bring joy.

My first lifestyle consideration was a big one. I had a side business that was incredibly consuming. It provided me with some extra income, and I had quickly become well-known in the industry. However, did it serve a purpose or bring me joy? Two years earlier it most definitely had.  It provided me with an enjoyable creative outline. However, right then and there, when contemplating the value of the business, I discovered that it no longer truly brought me joy or served purpose. Although the extra income was nice, I didn’t need it. What once brought me joy and excitement – now did not. Right then it brought me exhaustion, pressure and stress. I had been continuing the business because, well, I get easily consumed by things. I get caught up, drawn in too deep, and fail to realize when something is no longer a good “fit” for me.

Well then, I had quite easily identified one area in my life that no longer brought me the level of joy or purpose that I valued in my life.  There were many “what ifs” circling in my head – but, I realized none of those considerations devalued my original conclusion: The business didn’t bring me joy or serve me purpose.

I made the decision to pause the business completely for three months. Know what happened after three months? I realized I had zero desire to keep the business going. I wasn’t giving up, instead quite the opposite. I was rising up. I was brave enough to press pause, even with customers knocking at my door. I’ve found that the willingness to listen to my own intuition can be a struggle at times. Lifestyle routines often become so comfortable that questioning such a drastic change can so easily be dismissed.

Taking time to pause can provide the opportunity to see things with a refreshed sense of clarity. Now that I had removed such a consuming piece of my lifestyle – I was ready to do some more shuffling.

 

 

Let’s rewind about two years. There was this nuisance in my life.
Clutter.

For a house with two young children and two big dogs, I’d say our home was average for cleanliness. However, there was a recurring situation I’d find myself in. It went something like like:

I would need to find something. Let’s use the example of my child’s birth certificate, because it’s always the things you shouldn’t lose that you actually end up misplacing. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I would open drawers, look in cupboards,  I’d repeat the process, going in circles, each time feeling more frustrated. No luck. In that particular situation I did end up finding it several weeks later. What a waste of time and energy.

I’d put in the effort to declutter and organize, but before long, the clutter would be back. It was relentless. I also had a bad habit of putting things in a “safe”place, only to completely forget where that place was. Clutter and “safe places” drove me crazy.

 I’m a busy mom. Some day, when the kids are grown I will have time to clean my cupboards and I will know where everything is.

If I posted that on Facebook, I would have received many “likes” from my mom friends. Mom friends have your back on mom-ish posts like that.

I didn’t do that, though, because it actually really did bother me.

Sometimes, when I felt like my house was cluttered, I’d sit on the couch and watch a show about hoarders on TV. I would watch ridiculously cluttered homes, and then all of a sudden my own house wouldn’t seem that bad. In fact, my house would seem quite tidy and organized.

Um, temporary fix – but, not a permanent solution.

Someone suggested a book. I quickly dismissed that idea. I didn’t have time for reading – it wasn’t a priority for me. Someone suggested the book again.  At least three people suggested the same book – so I finally got the book.

The book:
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo.

At first, I was completely uncomfortable with the concept and found myself raising my eyebrows. It was so out there.  I mean, not only did the author live with things that only brought her joy or served her purpose, but she wholeheartedly appreciated all of her belongings. She would thank her clothing for the service they provided her that day. She would empathize with the elastic on people’s socks if the socks weren’t folded correctly. I couldn’t quite grasp her extreme level of rationalizing this type of practice. However, the more I read, the more intrigued I became.

In theory, the concept was quite simple: Each object in your home should bring you joy, or serve purpose. If it didn’t, it shouldn’t be in your home. There was a process to follow, and although I did some adapting as I went, over a series of months I did complete the process to the best of my ability. It was really, truly effective. The more I purged, the lighter I felt. By the end of the process, I knew where pretty much everything was in my house. I felt less stressed, more energized. I immediately had a lower desire to purchase items, and a stronger desire to take care of my belongings. Is my house completely clutter-free today, two years later? No. Keep in mind I have others living in my home, too. The state of the clutter in my home today is totally tolerable for me. It’s much less than previous, and I still know where the majority of things are in my house.

I mentioned that the process took months. It’s important to note that the process itself is rewarding. You can read the book, or you can commit to the process. For me,  it was worth committing to. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, by conquering this, I was stepping into new territory and opening the door for a new journey.

Find your passion.
Right.

Makes sense – but, doesn’t that put a lot of pressure on us? How are we suppose to “find” our passion, our “calling”, when many of us are working full time, raising children, maintaining a home, paying bills….keeping track of a to-do list, and don’t-do list while trying to carve out just a bit of time to relax before we hit the daily repeat button? Did we miss our chance when we were younger? Is this a trap?!

By default, we start to accept that although we are incredibly grateful for all that we have, a balanced life is not a reality. At least not now. Maybe someday. Someday. 

As a result, we “go with the flow” and take things as they come. Finding passion within the chaos? Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. How are we to muster up the energy to find our passion? Two years ago I couldn’t even find the energy to read a book – let alone, find my passion. If I happened to find time to myself, I’d rather sleep.

Through a series of events and happenings, a major shift occurred for me. Like, a big “holy-smokes-is-this-for-real”, kind of shift. Today, I’ve embraced a much different approach to living. Most days I feel a true sense of high.

Curious? Follow along.

I believe we rise by lifting others, and this is my way of doing a little bit of that while reflecting on my own journey, too.