When was the last time you REALLY celebrated how far you have come instead of worrying about how much further you have to go? Are you overly critical of your progress in life? Remember that cheesy saying – “progress not perfection” – Sometimes we mistake our unconscious need for perfection for a healthy and natural drive toward progress.
When it comes to making positive changes, start with the minimum effective dose. Usually this concept is applied to exercise as a way for the body to adapt to the stress of a workout without getting injured, but I believe we can apply it to most things.
There’s this false narrative in our culture that more is always better – and I think this pervasive idea has done a lot more harm than good. Not only are we always looking for more, doing more, being more to the point of exhaustion – but we believe that things are only worth doing if we give it 110%.
If we can’t commit the full hour to the gym, why even bother? If we can’t meditate for an hour every morning at sunrise, why not just sleep in and not meditate at all? Well – I had pizza this weekend so might as well order takeout tonight and start my diet again next week.
We trick ourselves into thinking it’s all or nothing. But what if we started with the minimum effective dose? What if we started with adding in more greens instead of depriving ourselves of every “bad” food we can think of? What if we start by doing a 5 minute meditation before we begin our day, whenever that may be?
By starting with the minimum effective dose, we give ourselves a fighting chance to do better and be better consistently over time. Healthy living is not a race – it’s about showing up for yourself a little more than you did before.
2019 is not messing around guys! On Saturday all the dominoes fell and it was finally time for me to resign from my sales job. If you know me, I had been debating leaving for quite some time but it never felt like the RIGHT time. I had very little cushion or idea of what was next. But Saturday forced me to go all in and make a plan, and fast! Which inspired me to make this post! By now I have a very specific strategy for navigating dark times and I want to share it because I have a feeling I’m not the only one going through it right now. Warning: this gets woo woo real quick but that’s just who I am *shrug*
I can admit that I have struggled for a long time with successful goal-setting, and I started to reflect this year on why that could be. Slowly over time, I’ve realized that the goals I start with often feel too lofty and unachievable. In other words, I don’t believe deep down that I can accomplish said goal. And in this article, I’ll talk of the importance of scaling back and starting smaller because the loftier the goal, the more time it will take for you to accomplish it. And the more time it takes to accomplish a particular goal, the more room there is for many hurdles along the way. And the more hurdles there are, the more chances you have to give up. This can have a really negative impact on your self-esteem in the long run and will discourage you from setting goals in the future. But I think there’s a reason many of us are locked into operating this way that maybe you haven’t considered…
For most of my life I have felt unwell. I remember as young as age 4 having chronic ear infections, intestinal gas, constipation, and muscle tension. By age 12 I was seeing psychiatrists for depression and gastroenterologists for my chronic acid reflux. Nobody ever found anything “wrong” with me. They just shoved anti-depressants, antacids, and prune juice at me and told me I was fine. But even from that early age, I had an inner knowing that something wasn’t right, regardless of what the specialists insisted.
The clock strikes midnight and you’re already thinking of how you’re going to start the first morning of 2018 with a green smoothie and a matcha instead of a bagel and a large coffee. Dread begins to make its way in and you block it out of your mind, returning to the party to linger in holiday bliss for just a little while longer. It will be worth it, you tell yourself. I’ll finally lose the 20 lbs that I resolved to lose last year. And the year before that. I’ll finally fit into that dress stashed away in the back of my closet.
As the smoke continues to come barreling into Portland, I gaze out the window at a hazy sky. The sun is on fire and the forests are burning. Ash rains from the sky and covers cars, vegetable gardens, people, animals, everything. It is relentless and unforgiving. It does not judge or discriminate. It simply falls.
It was the fall of 1997. Gusts of wind were swaying the trees left and right and I watched them over my left shoulder as they waved goodbye to the stillness of suburban summer. It was my last first day of preschool and my mother was walking me across the parking lot to the line that formed outside the doors of my school. It was tradition on the first day to show up in your best, most colorful outfit. Hair all neatly brushed. Shoes double-knotted. Velcro if you were cool. All the kids would stand in line with their friends anxiously waiting for the school bell to ring and the doors to come swinging open. But before we were to run through the halls and into our new classroom, moms were taking pictures on 90’s film cameras to commemorate the day. I darted my eyes looking for my best friend Madison so that we could take a picture together. Then my mom broke the news. “Cailee…Madison doesn’t go to your school anymore remember? Why don’t you find another friend to take a picture with?” My stomach dropped. Another friend? I looked around at the sea of kids smiling and posing for pictures, finding no one I would label as “a friend.” My eyes broke out into tears.
I am absolutely one of those people whose bookshelf is filled to the brim with 50% unread material. Yet I continues to make lists of books that I MUST read day in and day out. My mind tends to grab on to and obsess over a certain subject for weeks at a time but the novelty wears off and I’m on to the next subject. NO MORE! Here is my 2017 checklist of what I will be feeding my brain(and mastering!) in the new year.