While I love going on vacation, I know it will create an interruption to my daily routines. While away, I am not bound by time constraints and schedules. With this sense of freedom, the daily non-negotiables become a little more negotiable. Pivots are necessary so I can release the expectation of what things "should" look like.

If we hold on to our routines too tightly they can actually make us feel stuck. They can keep us rigid and inflexible making any deviation a source of irritation and discomfort. Routines are important and necessary, but so is taking a break, resting, and learning the art of pivoting.

My recent trip to Italy gave me a renewed sense of inspiration for life and reminded me of what's important.

The truth is if something in your life is not a priority you won't make the time or space for it to be a possibility.

I have a big birthday coming up. To celebrate, Dave is taking me to Italy.

Along with this amazing trip, comes a lot of organizing and admittedly, some stress. The nuts and bolts of traveling require a lot of work on the back end.

My never ending to-do lists have been waking me up in the middle of the night. I wake up exhausted and feeling anxious that I may not get it all done before I go.

The other morning, I opened up Insight Timer to meditate and saw a quote by Maya Angelou that said, "This is a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before."

What a gift to look at the world through that lens because we so rarely do that. Most of the time we are lost in the past or busy thinking about the future.

A lot of my clients have been in a situation lately where they don't believe they can be the person that they want to be.

What’s so interesting about this is that these people are doing the things that they want to be doing, they are creating the exact habits they set out to achieve. Yet, they still don't believe they are the type of person who does the thing.

You may be wondering how someone can be doing a habit and still not believe they are someone who does that thing. It's an interesting question and exactly what we are going to be diving into today.

Over the last few weeks, I've been taking a business class. In our second class, the teacher asked us to think of someone in our lives we care about. Then he asked us to list at least 3 things that they are good at.

Our next task was to list at least 3 things that we are really good at. He started the timer and most people just sat there staring at their paper or scratching their heads.

It was very apparent that it's a lot easier to find things that other people are good at but pretty challenging to list things we're good at.

My students and clients have been talking about how hard things feel lately. Everyone seems to be exhausted.

The pandemic gave so many of us that slow down that we didn't even know we needed. It opened our eyes to the fact we weren’t satisfied with our lives and we got a glimpse at how things could be.

Surveys show that around 60% of people in the U.S. report feeling lonely on a regular basis. This has definitely been fueled by the Pandemic but also by our reliance on technology.

People don't go out and forge new friendships, which is hard and requires us to be vulnerable.

It is truly courageous to put yourself out there and be vulnerable with people. Life is too short to get lost in our thoughts and fears of being hurt. There is nothing greater in this world than sharing a connection with people.

Recently, I had to buy a new car. Not my favorite experience in the world. Anyone else with me?

While I usually have my wingman with me, either my dad or Dave, I decided to go this one alone.

It was anxiety-producing, to say the least. But I leaned on what I’ve learned through years of yoga, meditation, pranayama, and journaling, and applied them directly to my car buying experience.

One of my goals has been to create a life that I don't need a vacation from. I love coaching and teaching and don't ever feel like I need a break from doing either. But it still feels nice to change up my scenery and allow all my responsibilities to take a back seat.

My life wasn't always like this. I was so sick and stressed out most days that I constantly dreamed about getting a break.

We can get lost in our daily routines and practices. We repeat patterns that we aren't even aware of and create habits that we may not want to have. Daily practices can create a healthy sense of routine and pattern, but they can also reinforce the things we don't want in our lives if we don't pay attention.

It's helpful to have someone who has walked the path before us as a guide. They can share their perspective and give insights and information that only come with experience.

We’re about halfway through February and I’m wondering, how life is going. Did you set a New Year’s Resolution?

Resolutions are big business. The whole New Year, New You idea is a multi-billion dollar business. There has been a ton of research on resolutions and why they don’t work.

One in three people fail at their New Year’s Resolution in the first month and only 10% of people are successful at keeping their resolutions throughout the year. 80% of people don’t stick to their resolution at all. Let’s face it, folks, these are not great odds.

In addition to being a health and wellness coach, I am also an Ashtanga yoga teacher.

There are so many similarities between what I see in the yoga room and what happens with coaching. In both realms, people let past experiences and self-doubt get in their way.

We are rarely good at something when we first start. It takes time and practice to become proficient but also to see what is working and what is not.

We lay a foundation and then continue to adapt and grow. We slowly build confidence and then we keep going.

I’ve been meditating daily for the last 5 years. It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. I absolutely love starting my day this way because it helps me feel grounded, centered, and more aware.

Last week I ended up getting the flu. Ugh, right? I slowed down and rested, moved my teaching online, and decided to prioritize sleep over my morning routine.

It was a necessary and needed shift but it left me feeling totally off.

The thing about habits is you don't ever stop working on them. We get to choose every day which direction we want our lives to go. We either make choices that move us towards who we want to be or further from it. It's a continual commitment, whether that is to ourselves, our health, or our relationships.

So this week we're talking about that thing we all want a little more of, it wears thin quickly, and once you have it you can easily lose it. If you guessed patience, you are correct.

I believe that comes with age, the ability to wait, to see with clarity how things really are instead of losing yourself in your emotions and making decisions from that space.

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I hope 2023 has been treating you well so far. Now that the holidays are over I have gotten back into more of a regular routine. It feels so good for both my body and my mind. I like to reevaluate my routines occasionally to make sure that everything I am doing is still aligned and working for me and my life.

When was the last time you reevaluated your habits to see what's working and what needs to change?

Another year has come and gone. Can you believe it? As the years end, I spend time reflecting on all that has transpired. Time feels so unpredictable to me. There are so many twists and turns in life that I could never have anticipated which is also why I take time to look back and recognize all that has happened. I guess that explains why I don't typically set goals for myself. There are so many external factors out of my control and my life rarely looks like I thought it would. Instead, I set an intention, in the form of a word, for the year.

What would life look like if you started believing in yourself so much that you didn't even worry about how the holidays would affect your habits and routines? If you knew that this time of year, or any time you are busy, is not about perfection but instead about pivoting and adapting.

I usually send emails out on Sunday to my community and intended to last week. But it didn't work out. Why you may ask.? The only reason is I choose procrastination over doing the thing.

The funny thing is, it wasn't the actual work I was avoiding, it was the thought of the work. Instead of just doing the thing, I probably spent at least 8 hours thinking about doing it. I was creating a huge amount of resistance to writing that took up way more energy than the actual task.

So how do we handle procrastination when it shows up in our lives?