Winning Lottery Numbers.

I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with my husband a few months ago. It was nothing bad, I just know he’s an amazing writer, husband, father and all around human and I felt like he wasn’t living up to that potential. He’s got an MFA in Screenwriting and he’s damn good at it and yet he hasn’t sold a screenplay.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though he’s sits around eating bon bon’s all day, he probably has less spare time than just about anyone else I know, between an exhausting day job, a needy house (by which I mean a fixer upper who we consider to be a member of the family and takes up his time accordingly), our toddler and me he has very little time to sleep, eat and write.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned from my past months of research into self improvement it’s that anyone can find/prioritize time if something is really important to them.

I know writing is important to Justin, and I know it gets pushed to the back burner, I also know how easy it is to push things to the back burner, just ask my yoga practice… but I also wanted to encourage him not to let it go completely. I know it’s an important part of him and (just as importantly) I know it’s important to our goals as a family/couple.

We want financial freedom, we want flexible work schedules, we want to travel, take trips, buy all the things we want, hire someone else work on the house for once (instead of doing it ourselves and by ourselves I mean Justin).

I told Justin that I felt frustrated because I felt like I have the winning numbers for the lottery, I just can’t get him to buy the ticket. I know his writing could be key in changing our lives, I know he’s damn good I just can’t get him to prioritize his writing.

I too have the key to a winning lottery ticket, but I’m still figuring out the numbers, but until then I’m just going to keep encouraging Justin to buy the ticket and keep working to figure out my numbers.

What is your dream? What do you know could work, you just haven’t bought in yet? Why haven’t you bought your winning ticket yet? Leave me a note below or email me, I’d love to hear more from you. Is it time, money, resources?

Whatever it is, I can assure you that you can overcome it, and maybe I can help you!

Manifesting your Goals

I was listening to the Sean Croxton Sessions, the episode with JJ Virgin and she said “I’m super careful about what I write down because I can manifest like nobody’s business.” This struck me because at first I was jealous, thinking why can’t I do that? I want to manifest things like nobody’s business! (And just in case I can manifest like nobody’s business – I WANT A MILLION DOLLARS.)

And then I realized I have done this. Maybe not by writing something down (although I’m working on it) but when my husband and I decided to have a baby I got pregnant quickly. And then when we decided to have a second I once again got pregnant quickly. Getting pregnant consumed my thoughts, I wanted it so badly and I had no reason to thin it wasn’t a possibility for us (i.e. fertility problems). I constantly thought about being a mother, being pregnant, how would I look? When would I start to show? Would I feel good? And I believe the power of my thoughts enabled me to get pregnant quickly. (Please know that I am not saying that couples who are not able to conceive don’t want a baby badly enough, I don’t believe that’s the case, I simply believe that my husband and I were and are able to have children and because of that and our desire to have kids, my husband and I were able to conceive quickly.) I didn’t think about miscarrying or not being able to get pregnant, I simply decided I would get pregnant.

I know women who have worried, worried and worried some more and despite being completely healthy and able to conceive that worry prevented them from conceiving, i.e. it took them a lot longer to conceive.

I realized that when I decided failure was not an option that I was able to achieve anything, running a marathon, having my son, going to Disney World for my 30th birthday, and the list goes on.

The only problem is that I’d never used this power (I’m being slightly sarcastic when I say power) to manifest my career and money goals. I realized that if I could use the power of thought and manifestation for my personal life then why hadn’t I used it in my professional life? Surely it couldn’t be that different.

So here goes, I’ve been meditating and thinking about my current project – it’s a workbook for pregnant women, the working title is the Postpartum Action Plan. It’s written, I’m tweaking it and I truly believe it will be a wonderful resource for pregnant women to help them plan for their best postpartum. I’m so excited to accomplish two goals – getting published and helping pregnant women that I realized failure is not an option, even if I have to self publish. I realized hospitals, birth centers, churches and any other organization that works with moms and babies could benefit from this workbook.

Not only does it walk a woman through planning for their postpartum period, it also gets women to think about their postpartum in a way that I’ve never heard anyone talk about before.

So I decided this would be my first career manifested goal that I will accomplish. It feels so good that I’ve been on cloud 9 for the past 24 hours. So without further ado I’m going to get back to my Postpartum Action Plan, finish that sucker up and get it published! Then I’m moving on to the next 5 goals I’ve got planned.

The Easiest Thing You can do to Change Your Life ASAP.

Here are two of the gratitude items from yesterday’s gratitude journal entry.

I remember when I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11 I saw on Oprah that she writes down 5 things she’s grateful for every night before bed. I started doing this feeling like this would be more streamlined than my usual journal session about my day.

Unfortunately I stopped doing it, I’m not sure why but here I am 20 years later and I just started up my gratitude practice again. April 19th, 2017 to be precise and I can honestly say it has changed my life. Here’s the craziest part, nothing has really changed, at least not from the outside, I still have the same old car, my son is still awesome, my husband still works the same job, we still have our two old ladies (dogs) and I believe I weigh the same, if not more than I did when I started (thank you pregnancy).

Nothing new, but I no longer see all of it the same way. I used to hate and resent our cars, they’re old and there’s always something wrong with them, but now I’m just thankful to have them. Things, like a cranky baby or two dogs who believe they also have umbilical cords attached to me don’t bother me like they used to. I no longer see my husband’s job as taking him away from us, I see it as my opportunity to stay home with Julian and pay our bills.

And as for the extra padding, well, I’m working on it, and by working on it I mean working to love myself more, not working to get rid of it. As I told a friend recently, 2nd trimester isn’t really the best time to start P90X, but instead of feeling down about myself I realized, thanks to gratitude journaling, that I can work on the way I see myself.

It’s not about being perfect, it’s about accepting, loving and living your life right now, not when you’re rich, or have a 6 pack (beer or abs) because if you wait until you have all the things you want then you’ll never be happy because you’ve trained yourself not to be happy.

There were days when I sat down to write 5 things and thought “this day was absolutely horrible, I can’t even think of one thing to write”, but I didn’t write that because I thought to myself, in 20 years looking back through this do I want to read about how horrible my day was, or do I want to read about the good things? Trust me, you can find 5 things to be thankful for, even if you have to get creative. Sometimes just waking up in the morning (despite the horribleness of the day) is something to be thankful for, the flowers in your neighbor’s garden can be a thing. Your gratitude list doesn’t have to be life changing like buying a new car or remodeling your kitchen, they can be small, like wearing your favorite outfit.

And know that as you keep it up it will become easier for you to find things that were great about each day, now I usually have to decide which things I want to add and which things to leave out.

It’s not that tough, just spend the 50 cents on a notebook and start. It’s the cheapest and easiest thing you can do to change your life.