For today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I want to talk about an idea I recently heard about from another YouTube creator, normalizing a normal life. I follow her channel because she does a lot of reaction videos to overconsumption, especially amongst influencers. As many of you know, I am doing a no buy year in 2025 as a way to challenge myself to prevent overconsumption in my own life. I think when we are constantly exposed to content online where people are showing shopping hauls or restocks (often with unnecessary stuff, or stuff you could not possibly use before the expiration date), we begin to think overconsumption is just normal. We also are exposed to people who seem to lead out of touch lives. I get that some of these videos are purposefully overproduced, but it really can get in your head none the less!
In addition to my no buy year, I have been pursuing minimalism for over a decade now, slowly but surely decluttering our home. And more recently I do feel like I have gotten pretty ruthless with decluttering in the pursuit of a more simple life. In today’s message I just wanted to encourage you that it is okay to lead a simple life. It’s okay to have a normal life. I truly believe that there is beauty in the mundane if we allow it or see it.
Part of the reason I wanted to discuss this topic now is because as we come up on the holidays, we may feel more inadequate than any other time in the year. We may feel like we aren’t doing enough family activities, or we don’t have enough holiday decor, or the right decor. I’m here to remind you that you don’t need to go out and buy all new holiday decor with the theme of the latest trend (cough cough Ralph Lauren Christmas coughcough). I do love to share my holiday clean and decorate with me videos on YouTube to inspire people, but I never do it with the intent that they would go out and buy the same things I have. I just want to get people excited about the upcoming holiday season! And most of my stuff I couldn’t link if I wanted to because I have had it for many years, or it is a vintage or thrift find! The holiday decor you have is good enough! One thing I like to do is style my existing decor differently every year so it feels fresh and new!
I have always tried to be authentic on my YouTube channel, and share as candidly as I can here on my blog. Yes, I do like to edit and present it in such a way that hopefully is artistic and interesting, but I am sharing my real (and normal) life! I do wish normal lives were more popular on social media. It does seem like the easiest way to become successful online is to have a non-normal life. Maybe a normal life is not interesting or exciting, but I’m okay with that. I will continue to pursue a simple, quiet life. I think a majority of people in the world lead a normal life, so I am just here to remind you that it is okay if your life feels normal or ordinary. Don’t let what you see on social media steal the joy of your beautiful, normal life! Embrace it and appreciate it!
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
For today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about aging gracefully. I wanted to share on this topic because I know a lot of people are surprised when they find out my age. For those of you who are new here or just don’t know, I am 50 years old. Aging gracefully is not just about creams and ointments, exercise, drinking plenty of water, and getting good sleep. Don’t get me wrong, I think all of those healthy habits contribute to aging gracefully, but it is far more than just surface level habits.
The first thing I wanted to talk about is relationships. I’m talking about genuine relationships. Those relationships where you have deep and meaningful conversations, hard conversations, remembering birthdays and other special dates, and showing care and love for one another. Dr. Mark Hyman has shared on this topic, the importance of relationships for health and longevity. On instagram he shared that if you have a loving, connected conversation with someone, it will turn on the genes that shut off inflammation in the body. He also shared “an 85 year old study following 700+ people found that the #1 predictor of long-term health and happiness wasn’t diet, wealth, or even genetics. It was the quality of relationships. Community is really the ultimate medicine for the body and brain.” This isn’t easy. Especially in this fast paced culture we live in. It is difficult to prioritize relationships, but it will help us to age gracefully!
Something else that can help us to age gracefully is similar to prioritizing relationships is to look outward instead of inward. When we focus on listening to others, helping others, serving others instead of constantly focusing on ourselves and our own needs, we shine a little brighter!
We also must hold on to curiosity if we want to age gracefully. Have you heard that phrase, “he or she is set in their ways.” This is usually referring to someone who is older and has become closed-minded. Staying open-minded and curious can help us to stay more youthful. We can do this by listening to others’ perspectives and opinions, but we can also do this by being life-long learners, challenging and examining our own beliefs. Prioritizing education throughout your life will help you to age gracefully!
The next thing I have to share I would say is totally underrated. I think it is so important to hold onto whimsy. Typically, whimsy is something that is associated with children. Kids have an excitement and enthusiasm for life that is often lost in adulthood. Finding joy in the little things in life can help us to stay youthful! Look for ways to make life playful! Go play in the rain, skip into a store instead of walking, stop and ride on a swing when you pass one! Don’t lose your wonder for life! Make room for fun and laughter. Don’t run yourself ragged saying yes to everything, but instead be intentional with your “yes.” Say yes to spontaneous adventures. Play isn’t pointless, you can get excited about things that aren’t necessarily useful or productive.
Another way you can age gracefully is by being gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace because no one is perfect. We all just do our best and if we have unattainable standards for ourselves, it will make us irritable and frustrated. I recognize that this is easier said than done and can take time to get there through practice! This shift is not something that can be bottled up and sold, but it definitely changes your demeanor, the way you carry yourself. Similarly, stop “should-ing” yourself. It’s okay to want to make changes in life and want to challenge yourself to do better, but don’t put unreasonable expectations on yourself. Self compassion softens you. You unfurl your brow, you lower your shoulders. This ease with yourself shines through and helps you to age gracefully.
You know what else softens you? Doing the inner work: processing your emotions, feeling them instead of fixing, denying, or covering them. Once you do this work, you relax physically – your shoulders lower, your jaw unclenches, your gut is at peace. You aren’t in a constant state of fight or flight and needing to protect yourself. In general, doing the hard thing over and over helps you to age gracefully. I’m not talking just about things that are physically hard like exercise and eating healthy, although those things are good! I’m talking about being emotionally honest with yourself, I’m talking about getting out of bed every morning when you don’t want to (or even have to). I’m talking about leaning into your healthy habits even when life circumstances start spiraling.
Something else that I have found to be so important is to prioritize rest. Making time for rest is not being lazy. Rest gives your body time to repair. Your physical body, but also your mind and your emotions. When you prioritize rest, you must be intentional with your time. A couple years ago I felt like God was calling me to take a true sabbath. I was working 7 days a week and often felt exhausted or burnt out. Now that I take Sundays off from working, I must be intentional with the other 6 days.
Even though I wanted to focus on things other than the obvious things that will help us age gracefully, let’s talk about exercise. When you age gracefully you learn to shift the focus from a certain body size to exercise for your mental health, appreciating the fact that your body can move. This is certainly not easy as we are undoing decades of programming from society. But this mindset shift is so important and honestly just freeing! No longer exercising because we ate a piece of cake or because we want to fit in a certain size of jeans, and instead habitually moving your body because it makes you stronger and more energized! When you learn to move with your body instead of against it you unlock a freedom you have not known!
Lastly, aging gracefully comes from living with integrity, heart, and contentment. When your actions and habits are in alignment with your values and priorities, you show up in this world in a different kind of way. You shine brightly because you are living in freedom. This kind of peace slows down the aging process!
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about a quote I shared on Instagram earlier this week. I am often so inspired by quotes, so I like to share them with you and chat in more detail about what it means to me. The quote is from Vincent Van Gogh and says, “If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass in the beginning.”
I was curious as to whether Van Gogh actually said this quote, or where it originated. As is common on the internet, there were conflicting beliefs about whether this was a Van Gogh quote, but the most common information I saw was that it was from a letter he sent to his brother Theo where he was predicting that he, like many other artists, may become famous after death. I’m not sure the timeline of when Van Gogh’s work became popular, but I can assure you that he painted a lot of artwork that was not of notable importance. It reminded me that becoming successful takes time. Yes, there are a few who experience overnight success, but for a majority of people success takes trial and error, hard work, consistency, and time.
I think this idea that success takes time is not popular. We live in a time where everything is fast, easy to acquire, right at our fingertips. We can find information easily, communicate with others quickly even if they live across the country or across the world, and buy things with one click. We must accept that success is something worth working towards. We must accept that we will have to put in the hard work consistently to get to where we want to be. It usually does not happen overnight.
Oftentimes, when we see someone who is experiencing success in their lives, we see the success – where they are now. But we don’t see what it took to get there. It’s a process. We see the wheat, but we did not see the stage where they looked like grass. Even in those earlier stages where they had failures and setbacks, they still were on that trajectory to becoming wheat! The difficult part is we never know how long that path of failures, set backs, and learning will take. And I think so often even when we reach success, we are still looking for something more. Many of us have that “what now” feeling when we have achieved a milestone or goal.
Because it is human nature to look towards the next achievement, it is important to learn to be at peace with where you are. Believe me, I know how hard this can be. I still sometimes struggle with this, looking towards the future instead of just enjoying where I am now. As I look back at my life, I do think I wished some of my life away waiting for the next stage. Finding peace in your current stage of life can happen when you stop resisting where you are. Name the stage you are in. Is this a season of building, healing, transitioning, grieving, growing, or resting? Sometimes naming the stage gives you more grace with yourself to lean into this chapter. Letting go of the “shoulds” – like “I should be further along” or “I should be doing more” – will help you to be more grounded in your stage of life.
As I often share, being present in life is so important. There are many practices that can anchor you to the present. Having healthy routines will help you to stay grounded, like mindfulness or meditation, journaling, exercise, eating healthy, and keeping a regular sleep schedule. All of these things can help you to live in the moment.
Often when we feel unrest it is because we are trying to control our circumstances. If we can shift our focus from control to curiosity, that will help us to feel more at peace. Instead of trying to problem solve, or just ruminate on how to get out of this stage, ask yourself what this stage is trying to teach you or what are you learning about yourself in this stage. When you shift to curiosity, once again it makes space for grace for yourself in this season. Also, honor your pace. Quit looking at what others are doing and recognize that we are all on our own journey, and that is okay!
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday topic I wanted to talk about honoring your limits. I think this is something that is very difficult to do these days. It’s so easy to over-schedule or just spend more time than intended on scrolling or binge watching media.
For those of you who don’t know, I do have a YouTube channel and I always share these thoughts over on my channel in a video. I coincidentally had it on my schedule to share on this topic prior to filming the “day in the life” video I shared this week, but it turned out to be such an appropriate topic on this day. I had a lot that I needed to get done on this day, so I actually didn’t film a lot of active things. I just had a lot of chatty footage. I had planned on cleaning out my laundry room on this day so I would have more cleaning motivation other than the few clips cleaning my dining and living rooms, but I honored my limits and scratched the laundry room off my to-do list for the day!
We all have our limits. Each of us has a different bandwidth to manage responsibilities in life. Some of us need more down time and margin in life, and others can go, go, go! I think it can be difficult sometimes for those of us who have less bandwidth in this age of social media and seeing what other people are doing with their lives and their time. But honestly, so often what we see on social media is curated and may not be the full picture. We must honor our limits so we don’t risk getting burnt out.
I do think there are times we need to and can push ourselves a little more than usual, as long as we can schedule in rest afterwards. There are times where we have to push because of extenuating circumstances, like going on vacation, celebrating birthdays or other holidays, moving, or other situations that are not our usual day to day. The day I filmed this DITL was especially busy for me because the next day I was going to take the day off to go with my girlfriends to a mineral springs spa near Austin, so I wouldn’t be able to get any work done that day. Honestly, this whole week was busy as I was also trying to catch up after being down a couple of days for my routine colonoscopy a couple weeks ago.
This was taken at the Mineral Springs Spa my girlfriends and I went to! Ottine Mineral Springs.
We all have physical limits, and must pay attention to our bodies’ cues to slow down. But we also have relational and emotional limits as well. If you are someone who is an introvert, you will need more time alone to recharge, and that is okay! But you need to honor those limits and realize when you need to recharge. For some people, they can manage several friendships and relationships in general, while others feel more comfortable with just a few close friends. Once again, that is okay!
Something similar to managing relationships is honoring your emotional bandwidth. Just like some of us have a bigger capacity to manage relationships, some of us have a bigger capacity to manage emotional input. If you find yourself constantly drained by certain people, content, or any input in general, you need to evaluate that to determine if it is something that is pushing your emotional limits. It’s okay to step back or even away from a relationship for a time if that person is taking too much of your emotional energy. It’s okay to unfollow and quit watching content that drains you emotionally. It is not always easy to determine if someone or something is too much for you emotionally, but we must be aware of our emotional bandwidth.
We all have daily responsibilities as adults, so we must evaluate those responsibilities. Are there things that are not as important or urgent that you can eliminate from your list on a given day that you don’t feel you have the bandwidth to carry out? Or can you delegate some of your responsibilities to someone else? Can your spouse, children, or a friend help you with something that needs to get done? I have found it helpful for me to structure my day with the non-negotiables at the front part of the day, then if I still have energy and time I will tackle some of those other things on the list.
It’s not always easy to honor our limits, but in the long run it is good to be aware of our limits and do what we can to honor them. Since I was honoring my own limits and didn’t film that laundry room clean, the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this post is pretty chatty! So if you like that type of content like you’re on a Facetime call with me, go check out that video {{linked above}}! And at the end of that video I share some footage from my day at the mineral springs spa!
Hey friends! I know it’s been a while since I posted here! Life has been busy, and it is just now slowing down! For today’s Thoughtful Thursday topic I wanted to encourage you to quit making excuses. Please know that when I tackle topics like this that sound a little judgy – I am talking to myself too. I have said this before: these posts are just as much to encourage me as it is to encourage you!
I think it is human nature to make excuses for why we don’t do certain things or why we do certain things in life. It helps us to feel better about ourselves and our choices. We rationalize to comfort us when we fall short, and to protect our egos from failure. But one thing I have noticed for myself is that it can be helpful to be an observer of your thoughts (or even what you say) to really determine if you truly are living authentically, or if you are just making excuses to not do things that could help you to learn and grow. I’ll give you an example. I want to read more. I have been wanting to read more for years. Yet when I talk to people about wanting to read more, I tend to immediately make excuses for why I don’t read more. I blame my high energy and how it’s hard for me to sit still, my perimenopause induced ADHD which causes a lack of focus, or how I feel unproductive when I just sit and read. The truth is, I lack the discipline to make reading a more regular part of my routines. It would be one thing if I just accepted that I don’t have the discipline, but instead I make excuses so I don’t feel bad about myself.
Excuses often stem from fear – fear of failure, fear of judgement, or fear of change. When someone says, “I don’t have time to do this or that” what they actually mean is that they don’t want to prioritize it. When someone says, “I’m just not good at this or that” they really mean they don’t want to put in the effort to try that thing and/or they don’t want to risk failure. Excuses can come from a place of victim mentality. We may believe that our circumstances dictate our success or failure. While it’s true that we may have challenges or injustices in our lives, blaming others or our circumstances strips us of our autonomy and the belief that we have the power to change our circumstances.
Making excuses may protect our ego in the short term, but in the long term it sabotages our goals. Excuses prevent us from learning and growing. It can also diminish our self respect. Deep down we may know that we are not being authentic. This inner conflict can lead to anxiety, low self esteem, and lack of motivation. The more someone hides behind excuses, the more they drift from who they truly want to be. When we choose to quit making excuses, it doesn’t deny that life can be hard or that things are not always in your control. It means that while you can’t control everything, you can control your response to things. Taking responsibility instead of making excuses shifts the focus to what you can do instead of what you can’t do.
I have said this phrase so many times: you choose your hard. We often make excuses for why we are not doing the hard thing. But doing the hard thing up front makes the long term easier or at least more enjoyable. Often it’s when we don’t do the hard thing and we make excuses as to why we are not doing the hard thing, that later things actually become more difficult.
Excuses are easy, but progress is hard. If you want to live a life of purpose, achievement, and growth you have to quit making excuses. Stop blaming, stop delaying, and stop doubting. Take responsibility for your choices, your mindset, and your future. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s always worth it. Because the moment you stop making excuses is the moment you start making progress.
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
So for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about baggage. I thought this was an appropriate topic since I recently returned from a trip. As I was walking through the airport with my carry-on rolling bag, my computer bag, and my purse, I was thinking about what a great analogy it was to mental and emotional baggage that we carry around with us. I saw this gentleman on one of my flights and all he had was his phone and a reader tablet. I thought to myself how nice that must be to have so little to manage while traveling. That’s when I got to thinking about how this mimics mental and emotional baggage. How much easier, or lighter, it must feel to walk through life with little baggage.
I actually talked about this idea last fall while preparing to go on a trip. I can link that post here. But I wanted to flesh out a couple of different ideas regarding this analogy of physical and mental/emotional baggage. One thing that struck me on this trip was how much easier it was for me to maneuver my bags through the airport and on the plane (lifting them into the overhead compartment.) I realized my muscles have gotten stronger since last fall with the consistent weight lifting I have been doing. I realized when we deal with difficult circumstances in life and process our feelings around them, “carrying” this baggage gets easier. It doesn’t feel as cumbersome when our emotional muscles are stronger.
The other thing that struck me on this trip is the importance of help or having a community around you when you are dealing with heavy or difficult circumstances. Yes, even strangers have helped me in the past with lifting my bag into the overhead compartment, but my son came with me on this trip and I realized it was nice for one of us to sit in the airport with the bags while the other one went to the restroom, or went to get food or a coffee. It was nice to have someone take the load for a while. It reminded me of the importance of friends and family in life to help us with our mental and emotional load.
The other thing I thought about regarding baggage, is how maybe everything I brought was not necessary. To be fair, I did use everything other than one workout t-shirt, but for the sake of this analogy, I think it’s good to evaluate what mental and emotional baggage we are carrying around and what we could declutter. Y’all know I’m all about decluttering and living with less as I pursue becoming a minimalist. And I can assure you that it takes time! Especially if it’s baggage you’ve been carrying around for a long time and it has accumulated. I have been decluttering and working on minimizing our possessions for many years now! And if you regularly watch my YouTube channel you know that is ongoing! AND, not only do I have to deal with past stuff that has accumulated (like our past emotional baggage) but also deal with the day to day maintenance. We constantly have to deal with things coming into and going out of our homes. Mental and emotional baggage is the same way. We daily have to deal with relational interactions and continual self discovery and growth. It is a constant process.
Recognizing our mental and emotional baggage as something that needs to be “gone through” and processed is the start. Acknowledgment is always the biggest step we can take. And then being aware that it will be a process and not an overnight fix or change!
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I thought I would talk about when things don’t go as planned. I decided to share on this topic as it was on the forefront of my mind the other day when lots of things did not go as planned that day. My new workout routine took longer than expected, I was not able to accomplish the task that I have been trying to get off my to do list for weeks, and then a stomach ache derailed my afternoon!
I used to be the type of person who really did not like it when plans changed or things didn’t go as I expected them to go. I’m not sure when it was that I finally learned that if I hold my expectations loosely, life is a lot more enjoyable. It reduced stress and anxiety, and just made me a happier person in general. It wasn’t easy for me to get to that place since my personality is someone who likes structure, consistency, and routines. But honestly, raising 3 kids and two dogs, and having a husband who arguably has an opposite personality, has trained me to be flexible. Weirdly, as a kid I was very much a go with the flow laid back type. I think it was maybe in high school that I really started to become someone who liked the structure more.
One thing I did want to share with regards to things not going as planned, is how it affects relationships. Holding our expectations loosely will help in our relationships. If we cling to our expectations, it can cause strife and frustration in our relationships, which can ultimately lead to resentment. When we are open to things going differently than planned, we have a much more laid back approach to life and those curve balls don’t affect us as much. We are willing to pivot and move forward with the new plans or the new path.
A trick that I use for myself is to look for the silver linings in the plans changing. Instead of focusing on all the reasons it sucks that things didn’t go as planned, focus on the reasons it was good that plans changed. It’s never fun to not feel good like when I got a stomach ache the other day, but I did think to myself that maybe my body needed more rest. I was grateful that my life is flexible enough right now to take an afternoon nap and let my body heal. Shifting our focus to the positive is always helpful!
When things don’t go as planned it can also provide us an opportunity to reevaluate the plans in the first place! This could be a great opportunity to evaluate how you are spending your time and do an audit. Are there things you are doing that have a low impact in the long run? Could you devote more time to more high impact activities? Meaning, are there things that you could focus on to better achieve your goals or that line up better with your values and true priorities? Of course there are everyday life things that need to get done, but this could be a good time to evaluate what’s important!
Ultimately I think it would benefit us to view when things don’t go as planned as a positive thing. Maybe this is just me, but when you are running late or you get stuck behind a slow car, or stopped by a train, or anything that slows you down towards your goal for that moment – do you ever think that you are being protected from something? Maybe this is just my morbid way of thinking, but instead of getting annoyed I think to myself maybe I was protected from getting into an accident! We have a choice every day to view things from a positive lens, or a negative one. I know for some people it doesn’t come as naturally to view things positively. I fully recognize that I have always been a glass half full sort of person, so perhaps it is easier for me. But I do think we all have the choice on how we will view every situation we encounter. And I think it is always better to view things from a positive mindset.
Here is the Day in the Life YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Hey friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday I wanted to talk about desiring change in life. I thought this was an appropriate topic since recently I have been changing things up around my home. Also, I think a lot of people use the new year as an excuse to change things up – either in their lives, or in their environment. For me this new year I have desired change now more than I have in past years. I mentioned that I am doing a no buy year this year, and I am doing an additional challenge each month this year. In January I have been doing dry January and abstaining from alcohol. Along with my no buy year, I am being more intentional about the food I purchase and focusing more on whole foods and cooking from scratch. So far things are going amazingly well, but I do recognize we are only 3 weeks into the new year so things may get more challenging as the year proceeds. But I’m already seeing some wonderful benefits from the changes I have made, which I will talk about next Thursday as I plan to debrief about my no buy year at the end of each month.
So, with all of this change, it got me thinking about why we would pursue change in life. At first I was just thinking about my desire to rearrange my furniture and remove things from my spaces. I have heard that it is good to change things up in our physical spaces, but the more I thought about it I realized that it is just another manifestation of my desire for change. While change is an inevitable part of life, sometimes we choose change. Desiring change is most likely a symptom of a desire for personal growth, dissatisfaction with career or life in general, or a realization that our current lifestyle does not align with our values or aspirations.
In addition, upon doing a quick Google search about desiring change, a theme that came up was desiring change could be a trauma response. If we have past trauma that is unresolved, or we are in the midst of current trauma, naturally we want an escape from that. We may use our external environment, which we have control over, to change things up as a way of searching for peace and to calm our anxiety. I really think this is only a temporary fix, and if we don’t find healing for our trauma we will continue in this cycle of trying to find the “perfect” set up in our homes, the “perfect” amount of stuff. We are really searching for internal peace, but using our external environment to try to achieve that.
Often we desire change, and may take some steps towards change, but don’t have follow through or sustained change in habits. Breaking old habits and/or adopting new ones is not easy. It takes persistence, patience, and resilience. We must be prepared to face setbacks, discouragement, or criticism along the way – making it difficult to stay the course. While change is difficult, I have found so often it is more rewarding than I anticipated. It is worth pursuing change with tenacity if you find you really need a change in life.
While change is not easy, we can embrace it and navigate it successfully. The first step is self awareness. Recognizing you want or need a change in life isn’t always easy to acknowledge. But acknowledging it, and taking some time to self reflect and accept why you need or want a change is helpful in embracing the change effectively. Once we have acknowledged the need for change, we can begin to make a plan to execute the change. We must come up with detailed actions we plan to take in order to achieve the goal. While admittedly this year I have made a lot of changes at once, typically it is better to focus on small gradual changes as this more often will lead to sustainable change and make the transition less overwhelming. Also, when we focus on small changes we will have that immediate gratification of seeing the small wins which will propel us to keep going.
Having a positive mindset in this time of change will also help us to be successful. Reminding ourselves daily why we have incorporated this new habit, or ditched old negative habits will keep us on course. Surrounding ourselves with people – friends or mentors – who will encourage us on our journey will also help. I joined a Discord group with other people who are doing a no buy year and it’s encouraging to see their wins and to just have that camaraderie with others who are working towards similar goals. Practicing self compassion when you do fail is so important. It is easy to throw our hands in the air and give up completely when we fail, but we must view failure just as a learning experience instead of a reason to give up. We must view it as an opportunity to grow in reliance and confidence.
Lastly, we must take action. Maybe this is obvious, but so many times in my life I stayed in the planning and preparation phase. I once heard an author describe this as circling the runway instead of landing the plane. While planning and preparation are absolutely important, real change happens when we start taking steps towards the goal, even if it is baby steps. We must remain consistent. And as I have said many times before – progress over perfection. Keep taking those steps forward, recognizing that you will not always do things perfectly.
Well friends, I hope this chat encouraged or inspired you in some way! Please let me know your thoughts on my thoughts down in the comments!
Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about an idea I recently heard on a podcast. The host of the podcast was discussing with the interviewee about hardships in life and he suggested that instead of asking “why?” when we are going through trials we should ask “what?” Not why is this happening to me? But what should I do next? What could I learn from this? What is the purpose of this trial in my life?
I think it is human nature to ask “why me” when we are going through a difficult time in life. It’s human nature to want to understand why, to search for reasons. But the truth is we will likely never know why. Bad things happen to good people all of the time. We are wasting our energy, spinning our wheels, if we are just focused on trying to figure out why. If we shift our energy to answering “what” I think we will not only give purpose to our pain, but also we will find peace and contentment amidst the trial as we change our perspective. When we ask “what?” instead of “why?” We can focus on practical, actionable things which are more productive.
When we are going through something difficult in life, asking “why is this happening to me?” may lead to feelings of frustration or helplessness. Instead, asking “What can I do to improve this situation?” directs energy toward creating solutions and taking ownership. In this way, “what?” questions empower us by reinforcing the idea that, while we may not control external events, we can control our responses to them.
In personal growth and self reflection, asking “what?” questions can be transformative. When you ask questions like “why am I like this?,” “why do I keep doing x, y, or z?,” “why can’t I be more like this person or that person?” this keeps us caught in self doubt and insecurity. If we focus on what questions like “what can I learn from this?” or “what is in my control to change?” or “what small step can I take today towards becoming who I want to be?” encourages constructive thinking and leads us towards actionable goals.
“What?” questions can be helpful in relationships as well. In relationships “what?” questions tend to deepen understanding and empathy. “Why?” questions may feel accusatory and provoke defensiveness instead of mutual understanding. For example if you have a friend who is notoriously late and say, “Why are you always so late?” this can be perceived as an attack on their character instead of focusing on the issue at hand. If you say something like, “What usually causes you to be late?” it opens up the conversation to the actual issue at hand instead of perceived personal flaws.
Asking “what?” questions instead of “why?” questions helps us to feel more in control and there are actionable things we can do to change our circumstances or our perspective. When we focus on the “why” we stay in a defeatist mindset where we feel sorry for ourselves and just sulk about our circumstances which is not productive. Next time you catch yourself thinking a “why?” question, see if you can reframe to a “what?” question!
This is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.
Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I just wanted to share a bit of encouragement with you. As I have spoken about before, there is a lot that I have gone through over the past 5 years or so. One of the primary ways that I have dealt with challenging circumstances has been to focus on the positive. I have incorporated positive affirmations into my weekly routines and that has helped tremendously with my mindset and outlook on life.
BUT, I wanted to encourage you that it’s okay if you can’t always be positive. There are some days that we will struggle with keeping a positive mindset, and that’s OKAY! As I have frequently said – progress over perfection. We can do all of the right things to keep a positive mindset and to be healthy. We can listen to positive affirmations, follow through on healthy habits like exercise, eating healthy, and getting good sleep. But there are just some days that no matter what we do we just feel down, sad, disappointed, or even hopeless.
For me I am well aware that hormones play a role in how I am feeling, and acknowledging that and giving myself grace on those days has been helpful. Don’t beat yourself up when you are not feeling as positive as you would like. On these days you might benefit from spending more time than you ordinarily would on self care. Go get your nails done, take a bubble bath, or make your favorite dessert. I have also found it helpful to talk to friends and honestly to just vent when I’m feeling this way. If you are a friend receiving this sort of vent session – I think often we just want validation and to be comforted more than to have our problems solved. Oftentimes the problems are not something that has a simple formula to solve anyway.
I know I have shared before about the Marco Polo app, but I just have to tell you about it again because it has been on days like these that I appreciate that app so much! With this app you send a video message to a friend (or a group of friends) and you are basically just talking like a monologue and then your friends watch the video back when they have the opportunity. The thing I love about this is that you can just get things off your chest without any interruptions and it is surprisingly therapeutic!
I have also found that sometimes when I’m feeling down that it is okay to sit with those feelings. To feel those feelings. Cry if you need to. It can help to talk to friends, but it can also help to journal when you’re feeling this way. Sometimes we just need to feel the negative feelings and process them. Sometimes we don’t need to hear platitudes, instead we just want to feel the feelings!
If you are feeling down, sad, discouraged, or even hopeless right now, I just want you to know that you are not alone. If you feel comfortable sharing in the comments any difficulties you are going through right now, I would love to pray for you! And I hope you will have some better days ahead!
organized with joy 