Author: Mandy

This blog has been in existence since 2020 and a lot has happened since then. A lot has happened for me personally and for all of us as a country and even as global citizens. But then, each person in each time period has faced trials and challenges and scary uncertainties.

What remains unchanged is our ability to control our own minds. What else remains unchanged is how difficult this simple task can be to execute.

This task of controlling my mind has felt especially difficult for me in the past six months. I don’t know why the intensity has kicked up, but it has. I feel more irritable, more frustrated, more angry, and more depressed than usual. I’ve gained weight. I don’t sleep well. I lose my temper a lot.

Every day I tell myself that I am going to be better today, that I am going to finally get a handle on the areas in which my life is tail-spinning. I turn to books as often as I can, reading snippets in between changing diapers and running after toddlers who create chaos everywhere they go. I read Ryan Holiday as he talks about the ancient Stoics and how they spent so much of their energy striving to live a life of simplicity and courage and discipline. I read James Clear as he talk about how to form habits that will improve our lives. I read Mel Robbins as she talks about how to move past the point of simply wanting motivation and actually taking action in the difficult moments. I read Steven Pressfield as he talks about the many ways Resistance takes form in our lives. I read Benjamin Hardy as he talks about imagining our future self and acting in ways that will help us become that person.

And yet.

And yet, some days, many days, I feel no closer to being the person I want to be. I feel no closer to living courageously or forming good habits or acting beyond my own sporadic motivation or fighting the Resistance in my life.

Many days, I lose my temper and I feel drained and I wish for more time to myself. Many days I eat chocolate when I should eat salad. Many evenings I watch Netflix when I should be writing. Many days I express impatience when I should take an extra breath and smile.

Still, the fact remains that I have a choice. And the more I keep that reality in the forefront of my mind, the more I focus on that ability to chose, the more I hope to make the good choices. Even though many days it doesn’t feel like I am making progress, surrounding myself with great thinkers and making the effort to do even a little bit to strive toward my better self is a step. A tiny little step that will move me in the right direction instead of in the wrong one.

One other fact that remains (one that I often wish were not true, and perhaps didn’t used to believe) is that pushing through difficult moments will always be hard. For the rest of my life, for the rest of your life, making the better choice, the right choice, will be harder than making the easy choice. Striving for better will always be hard. It is supposed to be hard. When I was young, I don’t think I understood that concept. I thought you took those three weeks or five weeks to build a new habit and boom, you were done. Easy pease. The thing is, even if you master one habit, one dietary change, one art, there will be others. There will always be another one to work on and get better at and master. There will always be struggle in life and it is meant to be that way.

The key is to remember that our greatest strength is our ability to choose how we will show up to the struggle.

Have you ever looked at (or read about) someone else’s life and felt like they are living the life that was meant for you?

I have.

It is certainly easy to be envious of people, especially these days when all you have to do is open any social media app and find someone living “better” than you in about five seconds. This person has a bigger house. That person drives a nicer car. This woman has a smaller waist than you. That woman has a better job than you. This couple takes amazing trips every other month. That couple always looks happy and connected.

While one adage claims that a picture is worth a thousand words, we know that a picture can selectively focus on what the cameraman (or woman) wants us to see and edit out all the imperfections.

Looking at the lives of others on social media, or even those we know personally, and assuming that we know their inner state is a dangerous game. Envy does not have a place in our healthiest state of mind. Obviously, it takes work to push to the other side of envy, but I think it is worth the fight.

On the other hand, sometimes you might run into someone, online or in person, who really does seem to exemplify the life you desire. And I’m not talking about the car or house or dresses or vacations. I am talking about what they do and who they are.

For example, recently I started reading a lot of blog posts by Ryan Holiday. As I delved a little more into his posts and his life story, I began to think about how, in a perfect world, I would be living a life just like his. Well, similar.

From the little I know of him thus far, he started out in marketing but was lucky to obtain a writing mentor at the age of twenty. He knew he wanted to become a writer and his mentor encouraged him to use his spare moments to begin that journey, even though he was in a full-time job that he could have argued left him little time to devote to serious writing. Eventually, Ryan Holiday became a full-time writer and now owns a bookstore in Texas, where he lives with his wife and kids.

He gets to read and write for a living. He gets paid–really, really well by this point, I can only imagine–to do what he loves to do. What I would love to do. How amazing would it be to get paid to do the thing you love to do the most? If I could imagine a perfect life, two of the top things it would include (outside of my relationships) are time to do lots of reading and writing.

A turning point for me came when I realized that while his accomplishments up to this point do make me feel “behind” in the grand scheme of worldly accomplishments (because this guy is two years younger than me and has 12 New York Times bestselling books!), I was also able to take his life as an example of what mine could look like down the road if I put in the work.

So often, we look at others and envy where they are but we rarely ever think about what it took for them to reach their current state. And again, half the time, we envy people who are only giving us a filtered snapshot of a perfect moment in their life. Mostly, we just want the outcome of that moment, not the labor that went into making that life happen. We want the things, not the existence.

So while I think it is dangerous and even toxic for any of us to get caught up in comparing ourselves to others, especially on social media, I think it can be inspirational to look to others as proof of what we can become. But we need to learn to focus more on the process, the journey, than the outcome, because that is where the majority of life is done–in the process, in the trenches.

Ryan Holiday has spent the past fifteen years fully dedicated to becoming a writer and a published author. He has put in thousands of hours toward honing his craft by actually sitting down and writing. By sitting down and reading and studying and researching.

While I am in a different place than when he started, every single one of us has a journey that will look different from the next person. I don’t look at him as someone to despise for having my dream life–I see him as inspiration to know that I can also accomplish great things in my writing life if I buckle down and do the work.

That is what it takes. Do the work. Put in the time. Whether you are young or old, experienced or a novice, to accomplish your goals, you have to dedicate a little time to those goals every day.

And look at those around you as the promise of what can be yours if you put in the work. It doesn’t mean your life will turn out in exactly the same way, but if you work hard, you can achieve great things. There is proof of that all around you. Look for those whose work you admire. Gain inspiration and motivation from them. Don’t get bogged down in seeing the material things, but chase after the goals that will inspire others and help you fulfill your greatest desires and purpose.

Distractions abound in our world today. Even as I sit here trying to write, I suddenly see things around me that I hadn’t noticed before–the mess of chords on the ground nearby (I should really clean that up a bit, shouldn’t I?), the stack of movies I still haven’t put away (they have been in that corner near the movie shelves for weeks), and two baby towels on the floor that the kids used for the pool all summer (it’s been too cold to get in the pool for about three weeks now). Of course, those are things I have allowed to distract me because I feel like my writing is not good enough and am thus trying to avoid the task.

Countless other distractions exist. They come in the form of phones, computers, games, food, and well, just about anything. But so often we focus on these distractions because we are afraid. Afraid of failing, afraid of not doing good enough (that is, of course, a subjective measurement), and perhaps afraid of wasting time or money or both.

Sometimes I ask myself why I am writing this blog. I love writing–have always loved writing–but I know that there are many other blogs out there much more polished and well-written than mine. I question if anyone is reading these posts and if anyone is gaining even a sliver of encouragement or appreciation when they read my blog. I wonder if I might ever be lucky enough to make some money off this blog.

In those moments of questioning and doubts, I often actively turn to distractions. Or I at least let myself get pulled away by them. I find things to fill up the moments when I could be writing.

But I also always push back. And I think the reason I push back is because I know that despite all my doubts and fears, I love writing. I would love to have people read this blog and find it helpful. I would love to receive good reviews. I would love to make money from this blog. But even if none of that happens, I still love writing and I still know the core purpose for this blog: to uncover and explore areas of growth for myself, and in the process, share the journey to a better self with others.

I guess what I am saying is this: in the moments that you find yourself caught up in too many distractions, ask yourself what is driving you to these things. Often, we turn to devices or food or even busy work to keep from being alone with ourselves and our fears.

We have to be willing to sometimes put down the distraction and look our fears dead in the eye. Only then can we know what to do with it.

Maybe you are afraid to apply for a new job because it is in a different state but you use distractions like lots of evening television and reading to keep you from revising your resume.

Maybe you don’t want to ask that guy out because he might reject you so you use distractions like going out with friends to make you think you are already fulfilled with your social life

Maybe you don’t want to take that drawing class because you think everyone will laugh at your stick figures so use distractions like home renovations to convince yourself that you don’t have the time to take classes.

Sometimes our fears are valid and tell us important and useful information. You might be afraid to say yes to that two-day, twelve-thousand-foot hike that three of your friends are doing next week because you know you are out of shape and have a bad knee. But you also might be afraid to go to a business mixer simply because you are shy, even though you know this could open new opportunities for your career.

Don’t allow distractions–even useful distractions (like reading or home renovations or time with friends)–to squeeze out time for the most valuable, but often most scary, things in your life.

Set aside the distraction for a moment. Do the hard thing, the scary thing, the risky thing. Your future self will thank you.

Last night, I was listening to a podcast about a young woman who wrote a book and published it through Amazon with print-on-demand. Rachel Richards makes regular and fairly significant income from the three books she now has for sale on the site, but what struck me was her voicing her struggle with imposter syndrome. We have all come face to face with this insidious creature, which often causes the negative noise our own minds to drown out all other rational voices and give up on our goals and dreams.

During the podcast, the Richards said something that really struck me. She spoke about how she actually gave up writing the book about four months into the process because the negative noise in her brain became so loud. It took a good friend encouraging her to not quit that got her to continue and eventually finish the book. Richards said it really started to sink in how damaging imposter syndrome is when she started getting positive feedback from hundreds of people about her book in the months after it was published. This made her realize that if she hadn’t written her book, there might still be people out there struggling with money who now have a much better direction because of her.

It sounded counterintuitive to me at first, but the truth is this: if we lock our gifts and talents away because we are too afraid of not being good enough, we are doing a disservice to those who could be helped by those talents.

For example, when I was twenty-seven, I got a job teaching at a very good charter school. I was super happy to get the job, but I developed severe stress almost immediately. I had knots in my stomach all the time in the weeks leading up to the school opening because I knew next to nothing about how to prepare lesson plans–and I was required to create full lesson plans for six separate classes.

Rather than lean into that challenge, I will be forever embarrassed to admit that I quit the job four weeks into the school year. The voices in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough became so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else. But when I look back at that time, I recognize the truth of Richards’ words: I could have touched the lives of at least some of those students. I might not have changed any lives or worked any miracles, but I believe without a doubt that I could have done some good and helped any struggling student learn to believe in themselves. I am good at that, even though, ironically, I have not been able to do that for myself.

So I guess I just want to reiterate what Richards was saying, because it helped me and I know it can help someone else out there who is maybe struggling with feelings of inadequacy and fear: You have something amazing to offer the world. You have talents that can affect the lives of others in a positive way–if you let them. To live in fear of not being good enough is actually depriving others of your light and your strengths. You don’t have to do something perfectly, especially in the beginning.

Picture in your mind those people you want to reach. Are you a personal trainer? A teacher? A freelance editor? A photographer? A stand-up comedian? Over the past two weeks, I have been listening to a number of comedians who perform at the Dry Bar, and while it might not have changed my life, it has numerous times lifted my spirits and given me something I desperately needed in that moment–laughter.

Whatever you do or aspire to be, there are absolutely people out there who will benefit from your talents. Don’t hide them away because you aren’t “good enough” yet. By doing the thing, we will become better. And the better we become, the more we will be able to tune out the devil in our ear telling us we aren’t good enough. We have always been good enough.

I am in a bit of a rut right now. And when I get in a rut, I eat too much. Of course, I don’t eat too much broccoli or zucchini; I eat too much chocolate and chips and muffins and pizza. I might not eat all of those things every day, but lately I have been eating at least one of those things every day. I have a huge weakness for dark chocolate, and while I’ve heard that a little bit of it can even be good for you (I’m not sure I totally buy that), even if that were true, I know the experts who tout this aren’t talking about half a bar of chocolate (sometimes even more) in a single day.

Here is the thing though–I want to change but if I am being totally honest, I know I just don’t want it enough right now. I haven’t been taking any action to change this behavior, like not having chocolate or chips in the house. I haven’t sworn off any foods completely, which, believe it or not, actually has helped me in the past. Something about not allowing myself the option of even eating a little of that chosen food made it easier for me to cut it out of my mind (I’m not saying it was easy but it was easier than trying to rely on willpower alone to make a decision because the decision was already made).

We always talk about our struggles after we have triumphed. But we rarely talk about those struggles when we are raw and bare and broken from the struggles. We don’t want to admit that we have a problem and that we might or might not want to change. Well, often we do want to change, but we don’t want to more. We don’t want to talk about it when we have been doing the same thing over and over and over even when we know it isn’t good for us.

But maybe, just maybe, it is okay to sit in your own crap and admit that you are sitting in crap and don’t know exactly how to get out. Maybe the very act of being honest enough to admit the truth can have a kind of jump-start effect toward us taking the next step. And maybe the willingness to speak out on our struggles will reach someone who is struggling too and help them recognize that they aren’t alone.

We all go through periods where we struggle harder. It could be mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. But when we know that we are not completely alone in the struggles we are fighting, it feels good, it feels comforting. It can also be encouraging when someone around you confesses their struggle as well and might even offer a solution that helped them move forward.

We were not meant to go through life alone. And while very few of us are really alone, we can feel alone when we don’t share of ourselves honestly. It’s not that we have to share every thought we have, but when we hide away all the parts of ourselves that we worry might be perceived poorly by someone, that can get very restricting very fast.

Perhaps one answer to the question of how to work through struggles is to be a little more honest when we are struggling.

We are going on a trip, my family and me. We are driving to Sea World with our two young children, our two older dogs, and my husband’s parents and grandma. The drive is going to take hours and I must admit that I’m very nervous about the potential meltdowns we might encounter on the road between two kids under three years old. I once was on a drive home with my eight-month-old niece and while she had always done great on car rides, this one proved to be the exception with her screaming and crying nonstop for the last hour of our two-hour drive. It was rough. Both my sister and I were numb by the time we reached our destination.

More than once, I almost told my husband that we shouldn’t take the trip. It’s too early for them to travel, I want to say. They might not sleep well in a new environment. The dogs might not do well in a new place. The kids might get fussy and be ready to leave Sea World far before we are ready to leave. They might get too hot. It might be too crowded. They might not nap with all the excitement of the park.

All of those things are likely true. But all of those problems are workable problems. And all of those worries are just worries.

On the flip side, the kids might love looking at the animals and be fascinated by all the people in the park. They might sleep well because they will have long and active days on the trip. The dogs will probably do just fine as long as they have their comfy beds and get their morning walk.

Plus, the most important reason we are going is to spend quality time together as a family. My husband never too trips like this as a child and he is excited to have the opportunity to do this with his kids and his parents. We want to create memories that will last forever. Of course our kids are too young to remember this trip when they grow up, but we will remember and my in-laws will remember.

This feels like a reflection of the journeys in life that we all take. We are certain to encounter issues. We are certain to face some difficulties. But that shouldn’t deter us from venturing out and doing things that will reap beautiful rewards. We shouldn’t choose the easier path just because it is easier. This trip is going to require a lot more work for us than any normal weekend does.

We are all faced with choices about what kind of life we want. Should we take the safe job that will provide a secure income or should we apply for that overseas teaching job that we are both excited and terrified to get? Should we stay in the eight-year relationship we’ve been comfortable in or should we break it off because we know deep down that it isn’t where we should be?

Doing the riskier thing because it is risky and exciting and adventurous is not what I’m arguing for here. Certainly, there are times when we need to avoid risk and take the path well-traveled. But in matters of the heart and soul, in matters of growing the self, we need to be willing to challenge ourselves. And that often involves taking risks.

The moments we remember the most were often full of hardship and frustration. When we come out the other side of a difficult time knowing that we charged forward despite our fears and despite the risks, those are the sweetest moments.

I have been working on a book for four months now. It is something I am very excited about, and yet I find myself feeling discouraged because I am not making progress as quickly as I’d like.

Do you ever find this in your own life? You set a goal and even make regular progress, but it feels like you are advancing at a snail’s pace?

This is often the moment, when you feel discouraged and defeated, that people give up. I have been there and done that so many times. All the negative scripts go through my mind: “Why are you even trying to write a book? It’s not going to be good enough to get published anyway.” “You don’t have enough experience to do this.” “At this pace, it will never get done.”

My favorite line of all has to be this one: “Who do you think you are?” That snarly little bitch of a phrase has wormed its way into my mind more times that I can even count. It has tried–and very successfully so for a long time–to get me to believe that I am not worth of pursuing my goals and dreams. This doubt has made me succumb to quitting early on in many projects and pursuits.

And that of course is the problem. This negative self talk will go on and on in my mind and it has one single goal: to stop me from stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to be better than my former self. It is trying to keep me down in my little comfortable corner, safe and warm and dry. But now I finally–after many years–recognize that this little voice of negativity is only as powerful as I let it be.

I now finally recognize that it is not my job to cower and listen to that voice (because it is so powerful and booming that it must know best, right?). It is my job to stop that voice. And if I can’t stop it, it is my job to crush that voice and move forward anyway.

When that voice threatens to stop you in your tracks and make you retreat to your safe haven of familiarity, remember that you have the ability to tune out that voice of self doubt. It is trying to keep you safe because it is scared. But it is your responsibility to show that inner voice that you can move forward despite your fear. One of the greatest feelings in the world is doing something we are afraid of and getting to the other side of that fear.

Don’t let the little voice of negativity control you. When you hear it, remember that you have the ability to control your thoughts. You will have to start feeding your mind new scripts and new beliefs. Refuse to let that voice run the show. It will take time to retrain your brain to not respond to every line of negative self talk, but it is imperative to your growth to do so.

I enjoy reading books on motivation, habit formation, positive psychology and the like. Self help. I suppose I always felt a touch self conscience about my love for this genre of books but there it is just the same. Over the years I choose to shift the way I look at why I love these types of books. Before, I think I subconsciously felt that something was wrong with me and that I needed to find a way to fix myself. The funny thing is, nothing changed in my life even though I read many good books (and some bad ones, too) in the self-help genre.

The two main reasons for this were that, one, I lacked the belief that I could change myself, and two, I didn’t actively try to make any changes.

I was missing some of the most important ingredients in the ability to move forward and create success in life. Belief and action go hand in hand, but if you don’t have both of these factors working in your life, you aren’t going to get as far as you want. If you take action but don’t believe you can accomplish your goals, you will eventually stop taking action. If you believe you can accomplish your goals but you don’t take action to achieve them, well, the point is moot, isn’t it?

I think a lot of women struggle with belief. We want to believe in ourselves but we struggle, some certainly more than others.

Whatever your dream is, whatever your goals are, you have to believe that you deserve to accomplish them. I used to spend a lot of time delving into my psyche and trying to understand why I didn’t believe I deserved amazing things in my life.

I sometimes go back to my childhood and young adulthood and try to unpack my family dynamics, my circle of friends, my changing environments, and even certain specific experiences to figure out if something triggered this lack of confidence in myself. And while I do think that some reflection on the past can certainly shed light on the way we behave today, I have realized that spending too much time in the past usually has the opposite effect to the one we want: it keeps us stuck.

Instead, I now try to focus on telling myself why I do deserve good things in my life. Most importantly, I focus on working to become the best version of myself, the kind of person I know is deserving of good things. The belief that I have the ability to choose who I want to be makes all the difference. Taking ownership of myself has led to the ability to believe in myself and my potential.

Ultimately, it isn’t about what happened in my past or who I chose to be back then. It is about making a conscience decision about who I want to be today and every day.

New Year’s Day has come and gone. We are already in the second week of 2022. As 2021 drew to a close, I thought about what I wanted to focus on in the coming year. I questioned whether I was going to make specific New Year’s Resolutions or if I was going to focus on smaller monthly goals, or if I was going to simply try to “live my best life.”

While I certainly want to live my best life, I don’t think that is possible to the fullest extent without some planning and purpose and intentional action. Thus, I think goals or focused action plans or visualization boards are necessary, though perhaps not all of these things are needed depending on your personality and inclinations. Some people love making lists and actually use them while others only go so far as to write a task down but never complete it.

My dad is a list man. For years, I saw him carry around white 3×5 index cards and write down to-do lists on these cards; I also saw him constantly pulling them out of his pocket to cross an item off his list that he had just completed. For him, this method worked, and he still uses it to this day. For my mom, lists don’t have the same effect or appeal; in fact, I would say there were times when writing to-do lists actually hindered her desire or ability to get things done because the list served as negative pressure or a guilty reminder of forgotten tasks.

So far this year, I had two goals, if you will, and I have failed to reach either of them consistently thus far. For starters, I wanted to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Even though getting out of bed at 5am is hard for me, it creates a tremendous level of satisfaction to read and write at this time of day, especially now that I have two young children and this is really the best–and often only–time I can have to myself. And the best way to assure that I can get up early is to go to bed at a decent time, since I am not one of those people who can still seem to function and even thrive on little sleep.

Despite my best laid plans, life has merely laughed at me these first two weeks of the new year. Both my kids and I got sick with colds, and the sniffles held on in my daughter for days. This affected her sleep, which was only okay at best as she comes up on ten months old, and so for days she was waking up multiple times a night and sometimes staying up for hours. On New Year’s Eve, I was in her room almost without a break from 9pm until 1:30am, and then I was up again with her at 5am. I got less than four hours of sleep that night, and the next night was barely better.

So, I was faced with two options after this continued for a few days–while I really couldn’t control how early I went to bed when my daughter wouldn’t go to sleep for hours, I could still get up early and start the day with three or four hours of sleep, or give myself a break and sleep an extra hour or two and forgo my early morning quiet time.

Since I began to feel especially run down after a few days of this, I chose to take option B and sleep rather than get up early and operate on only a few hours of sleep. This decision made me feel like a failure with my New Year’s goal right out of the gate, but the logical part of my brain recognized two things:

First, if I was too exhausted to use that time well, or if I was extra tired and cranky during the rest of the day, getting up early was defeating the purpose that I had intended for that time in the first place. One morning, I simply stayed up after being awake with my daughter since 3:15am, and I was so tired that, during the hour I was supposed to be writing, I kept lying my head down on the desk. I didn’t get any quality writing done and was irritable the rest of the day, feeling overwhelmed by every little issue that came up.

Second, sometimes life is going to throw curveballs at me and I will stumble, but I can always course correct, or in the case where I fall down, I can always get back up and try again. The purpose of me going to bed early and getting up early was to carve out a bit of dedicated time to write and read every day, and to work on one specific writing project I have. Realizing that taking off a few days, or even a week or two, would not derail my overarching goal and purpose helped me keep things in perspective. Yes, I missed out on a few days of writing this month, but I still managed to find time to write in the evening a few of those days, and I am still dedicated to my writing project.

While I didn’t start out the year with quite the bang I was hoping for in the goals department, with me hitting the sack at 9:30pm and jumping out of bed refreshed and eager for the day at 5am, I am allowing myself some grace in the face of the obstacles that popped up.

If you have also stumbled in meeting your goals for whatever reasons already this year, remember that each day is a chance to start again. We are a mere 13 days into 2022 and there are 352 more days in this year to honor your goals. Don’t give up–just start afresh today.