Mandy

Build Little Bricks

This morning, I had a real battle with myself to get up. My baby woke up at 4:30am and I fed her, but fifteen minutes later I was in my room fighting the urge to crawl back under the covers. My inner dialogue was like a standoff between two enemies, with each one throwing verbal punches.

“You have to get up. It’s almost five o’clock.”

“I have a second alarm set. Maybe I can just rest for a few more minutes.”

“If you get back in bed, you know you won’t get up with that second alarm.”

“Well, what if I don’t? I am exhausted. Don’t I deserve to sleep?”

“You’ll never make any progress on your writing goals if you don’t get up early. It’s the only uninterrupted time you have all day.”

“I can try to write when the kids take a nap this afternoon.”

“But you won’t.”

“I don’t even know exactly what my writing goals are at the moment. Besides, my writing stinks. I’m no good anyway. I should just rest. Sleep is important too and I’ve only had four and a half hours.”

“You can sleep eight hours a night when you are dead! Now get up, you loser!”

“You’re right, I am a loser. I don’t know why I bother with these goals. I’m going to fail like I have so many times before.”

And on and on this dialogue went for about five minutes. I even laid back down on top of the covers and buried my head in the pillow (a smart move if you want to have a good chance of getting up, obviously). Finally, the mean girl in my head won and I dragged myself out of bed, eyes burning and body aching. Now, I am here at my computer with my cup of decaf coffee (another five months until I am done breastfeeding and will go back to regular coffee, yay!).

I am writing. I am showing up. It is important to give myself credit for showing up. It is important that you give yourself credit when you show up too.

There was a time when I thought perfection was the goal. Shoot for perfect, aim for excellence or don’t bother trying. But I have reframed that concept in my mind because I don’t think it was serving me well. I’m not saying the goal should be to half-ass everything. Rather, I have determined that it is better to show up, even when I am half asleep and crying inside for my comfy bed and soft pillow and even when the writing isn’t great. It is better to get the words down, to do the act of writing. Show up and do something, even if you don’t think it is your best work. Over time, those little moments of showing up will add up. It is within the doing of something that we get better.

I love reading and have spend my whole life reading a lot. But it has only been in the last few years that I have come to realize that reading is not going to take the place of doing. I can read about traveling the world or cooking or money management until there are no books left on the subjects (not possible) but that will not take the place of actually traveling and cooking and taking control of my money in concrete ways.

My nephew has just started the violin. For the first few weeks, he wasn’t even allowed to use the bow. He has a few strips of white tape on the fingerboard to help teach him about finger placement and he has been plucking the strings to learn how to play a basic scale. He started out by showing up and doing and practicing.

When it comes to fulfilling our goals, sometimes perhaps less is more and slow is fast. Show up and do the thing, even if it is a small amount, even if it takes more time than you’d like it to. A thousand little imperfect bricks will build a stronger wall than a few dozen big bricks of perfection, and it will tell a beautiful story.

To Thine Own Self Be True

I am so grateful for the strong relationship I have with my parents, and for all the wisdom they imparted to me over the years (not that I always follow that wisdom). Knowing how many people have a poor, complicated, or nonexistent relationship with their parents, I recognize that having a solid, respectful, and loving relationship with my own is a beautiful gift.

One of the lessons they taught me was to not get too caught up in what other people think of me. Of course, it is natural that we want to be liked, and I would venture to say all of us want to avoid being actively disliked where possible, but when that is of utmost important, it is a problem. That desire to please others above all else, to fit in at all costs, is destructive and dangerous.

Growing up, my parents weren’t afraid to be different. My dad drove the same car for twenty-five years, even long after he could have bought a new one. My mom always dressed conservatively, even though it sometimes brought her perhaps a bit of extra attention (such as people asking her questions about her choice of clothing). Because of their religious beliefs, my parents didn’t allow my sisters and me to participate in certain activities on Saturday, despite the ribbing I’m sure they received from some people in their social circles. As their commitment to their faith deepened, they no longer attended certain family functions on my dad’s side because some of those functions involved lots of alcohol and gambling, things my parents chose to remove from their lives.

All of these choices sometimes made them the target of questions, judgment, and even distain, but both of my parents are strong individuals who know their minds and their values. They were willing to endure teasing and comments and questions from friends and family; they were even willing to accept it when some people tried to sway them from their beliefs or even pushed away from them because of those beliefs.

When I was younger, I wanted to fit in. But as I got older, I recognized the strength and courage it took my parents to stay true to their own personal principles and it made me want to strive for the same thing in my life. When you stop caring about what other people think of you, you experience freedom. It means you can be happy even without the approval of others. I saw both of my parents walk through life with a kind of unflappable sense of self, a quiet but deep strength.

It isn’t bad to want others to like you, or to hope others approve of you. We are all hardwired for some sense of community, and that can’t come without connection. But the key is to first learn to like and approve of yourself. If you are living out your core values and principles, you will draw others to you. Not everyone, mind you, but those who will truly appreciate you for who you are and not something they want you to be. Those are the kind of people you want in your life anyway.

So before you spend too much time focused on what other people might think of what you wear or where you live or how you spend your time, remember to take some time and figure out what you really want to wear and where you want to live and how you want to spend your time. Connect with yourself and make sure you are embracing your values, and then you will naturally begin to care a little less what other people think of you.

I don’t need to be that person who is ready to give the bird to anyone who doesn’t accept me. I need to be the person who lives my life with quiet confidence in my values and choices.

Spend your time focused on why you do what you do and the rest of the noise — people judging and dissecting your choices — will fade. And I will argue that we will all be healthier and happier in the long run.

The Power of Belief

Belief. Perhaps one of the most powerful forces in our lives is our belief system.

What do you believe? About yourself, about others, about the world around you? What we choose to believe will shape our today, our tomorrow, and our next year.

I believe this truth and yet I still get in my own way all the time by allowing my mind to focus on negative thoughts and negative beliefs about myself. Women, especially, seem to struggle with this issue. We know that we are healthier and happier when we focus on our strengths, when we forgive ourselves quickly for missteps, and when we give ourselves kind affirmations. We are stressed and unhappy when we focus solely on our weakness, when we beat ourselves up over every failure, and when we live on an inner dialogue of negativity and self-loathing.

For years, I have wanted to believe that I am strong, capable, hardworking, smart, reliable, and creative. Somewhere in my inner depths, I do believe those qualities could describe the best version of me. But most of the time, I have the strong suspicion that I am weak, unfocused, lazy, fickle, and wholly, completely average. That suspicion took hold many years ago and has actually become my image of myself–it is the version I see when I look at myself.

When we live with a belief system based on the assumption that our worst characteristics are our strongest and most enduring, that is exactly what they become. I have lived up to my expectations of myself as being all of those things. When we believe we have nothing better to offer, we don’t try to offer anything better. We don’t strive for greatness, but rather, we huddle in a quiet corner hoping not to be noticed as we shuffle through a life of mediocrity.

It sounds corny to say that I am going to strive to be the best I can be, but that is exactly what I want to do. I don’t want to live a life where I believe I am only mediocre (at best), which is the belief I have embraced my whole life.

From now on, I choose to believe that I am strong, capable, hardworking, smart, reliable, and creative. I choose to believe that I am friendly, steady, giving, and positive.

Beyond choosing those beliefs though, I choose to put those beliefs into practice. I think it is important to note a distinction between wanting something and choosing to take steps to make those desire become realities. I recognize that desiring to be a certain type of person won’t make me that person, but I whole-heartedly believe that practicing those attributes which I most desire to obtain WILL help me become that person.

Thus, if I want to be hardworking, I will work hard. If I want to be creative, I will make time to practice creativity. If I want to become smart, I will spend my time learning. And if I want to become reliable, I will commit only to things that I believe are worth my time and then I will follow through on those commitments.

All these years, I’ve had it backwards. I wanted the results of these attributes without the practice. I took piano lesson from six years old until I was seventeen. I practiced between thirty minutes and an hour every day (my teacher even had a practice chart on which she made me record my practice time and had my mother sign it each week) and I became a very proficient pianist. I would never have become any good if I had not practiced, and it is no different with developing into the person I want to become. It does not happen overnight, and while I certainly wish I had understood this concept years ago, I can apply the same principle to my life today. And so can you.

I encourage you to take a look at your beliefs, especially your beliefs about yourself. If you feel like you aren’t making progress in your life, ask yourself if you need to reshape your beliefs about yourself. This is not about becoming rich or becoming the next Oprah because we all have different goals for our lives. But it is about learning to appreciate ourselves and striving for the best version of ourselves.

It is my goal to choose new ways to see myself and then practice my way into those new beliefs.

Time Keeps Moving Forward–Move Forward With It

Just this evening it hit me that I’ve had this blog up and running for over a year. Fifteen months to be exact. It feels rather unbelievable to me because I remember when I first decided that I was absolutely going to put a blog up–no more excuses or delays–and it was in April 2020. Just a month after the pandemic hit and three months after I had my baby boy.

Now, life has continued to move on even though many things in our country and the world have changed. I have a baby girl as well, born in March of 2021, and my life is busier than ever.

Looking back, it feels strange that over a year has passed since I published my first post because time can move so fast and so slow at the same time. How can I have two beautiful babies–well, technically, one toddler and one baby–when it feels like just recently, my husband and I were just a cozy twosome? That was three years ago now. And how can I be nearing that big, scary number (the 4-0) when it feels like not too long ago I was in college and worried about making it in the big, bad world?

And at the same time, when I think back to just a few months ago when my daughter was up for hours and hours every night, time did not fly by; rather, the moments moved slower than dark molasses creeping down tree bark.

Time is a tricky thing. Yet it is important to remember that those hard days won’t last forever. Perhaps more sobering though is that the good days don’t last forever either. We have to embrace both as fully as possible and know that life keeps rolling forward one way or another.

As it keeps moving, it is critical for us to move as well. Move forward in whatever ways you can. Learn new skills, polish old skills. Do the things you love and spend time with those you love. Exercise your body and strengthen your mind. When you get derailed, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again.

I haven’t kept up with this blog with as much consistency as I would have liked over the past fifteen months. But that is no reason to give up on it. When I look back, I feel proud that I actually dove in and started my blog–something that I had been saying I was going to do for years. I feel disappointed with myself that I haven’t built it up as much as I wanted, but that is just an area that I can grow over this next year. Time keeps marching forward and the only thing I can do is continue to jump back on the horses that are running in the direction I want to go. Not every pursuit we choose will be worth our time so it is okay to let some of them go, but the ones you love, stick with them. Grow them and cultivate them. Believe in yourself and remember that time will keep moving forward.

Time will not stop for you or for me. Make choices today that you will be proud of a year from now.

Great Principles Don’t Change

I’ve just started the book “The Magic of Big Thinking” by David J. Schwartz. He made huge contributions to the motivation and personal development movement and the first edition of his book was published in 1959. Reading it makes me think about how the greatest principles of success don’t really change over time. So many things change—it seems that the only constant is change—but great principles do not change. The way we think about strategies might change. The way we present strategies might change. The way we implement strategies might change. But great principles don’t change.

Consider the following principles:

If you want a healthy marriage, don’t cheat on your spouse.

Don’t spend more than you make.

Treat others as you would like to be treated.

You become what you repeatedly do.

There are some principles I believe in, but from time to time it is important to take a few moments of quiet reflection and review the principles we believe and value. It is easy to get caught up in the everyday tasks of life and neglect our ability to be intentional in our choices (which are tied to our beliefs). But if we don’t maintain alignment with our deepest-held beliefs, we will find ourselves getting off track in life.

David Schwartz highlights principles that so many in the world of personal development discuss still today:

You are what you think.

Your thoughts make you who you are and directly guide your future.

So what do you spend most of your time thinking about? What do you spend your time focusing on? What is your perception about the events and circumstances in your life?

All of these things deeply affect the way we operate in life and the returns we will see in our lives.

Five years ago, I was proofreading legal documents all day. I worked in a small, windowless office with about eight other people, and I was always under a time pressure to rush through each job as quickly as possible. The environment was, by my estimation, borderline toxic, with most coworkers trying to do as little as possible to get by. This often led to petty spats among people and heavier workloads on some. Although my attitude wasn’t great, I always took pride in working hard, which sometimes meant that I might have two or three jobs to proof in the time certain coworkers milked just one.

Oh, the injustice!

I don’t remember what caused the shift in my thinking—it could have been the numerous conversations I had with individuals who advised me and listened to me during the months that felt unbearable at work, or it could have been the books I began reading, or it could have been the slow realization that I was the only one who could change my situation. Whatever the culmination of reasons, I remember reaching a point where I told myself enough was enough and that I had to change.

I started reaching out to coworkers in other positions who could teach me things I didn’t know. Rather than just sticking to my job as a proofreader, I started to learn about how to style documents and navigate Excel and other programs (this likely seems very elementary to most people, but for an English major who never had any interest in technology or computer programs, it was a step forward). I started actively seeking out the quality controller on our team to ask her about my performance and where I could improve. I started dressing a little nicer and showing up a few minutes earlier. I eventually asked my boss for a raise and got it.

Was the environment still negative? Yes.

Did numerous coworkers still not care about their jobs and thus do subpar work and complain regularly, and did this sometimes affect the work I had to do? Yes.

But I came to realize that I did not have to be among that group; in fact, the harder realization was that I had been a part of that group on some levels and I hadn’t even known it.

Only when my outlook shifted did my experience at work shift. This is not to say that I wanted to stay in my current position. I do believe that it is important to seek out work that is fulfilling and challenging, and that being in a negative environment on a daily basis is draining and unhealthy. More than ever, I came to see that I needed to actively look for a new job, but it was only when I shifted my mindset that I began to see new employment as a necessary change. I decided to challenge myself to learn and grow as much as possible until I could find a new position.

I had started to develop a growth mindset by taking an active role in my own career and going beyond what was expected of me at work and beyond what I had expected of myself. It is not enough to just get by or just do what the boss asks of you and nothing more.

A short time later, I applied for a promotion in a new department within the company and I got it. I believe I was able to obtain the new position because I made the choice to challenge myself and grow. I made the conscience choice that I wanted better from my work life and myself. When I started taking charge of my own actions, I made progress.

Things changed for me when I changed my thoughts.

It doesn’t happen the other way around. We can’t expect to make progress and get promoted and make more money and live a better life when we are not actively growing and learning and making conscience choices for our lives.

This is one of the guiding principles I discovered in my journey: My thoughts make me who I am and directly guide my future.

Who do I want to be? I have to think about who I want to be next year and in five years and start being that person today. My thoughts will shape my actions and my actions will shape who I become.

So who do you want to be? You can be that person—it all starts with your thoughts.

Seek help without shame

It is 1:15am on a Friday morning. I have been up since 6am this morning and I am exhausted. When my daughter finally went to sleep at 11:30pm, I decided that rather than go straight to sleep (which I usually do when she goes down around this time every night) I would fold laundry and start the sleep training program I just purchased this morning.

My daughter is four months old today and she has been very much like my son was last year in that she doesn’t sleep well. Until I had kids, I thought all babies loved to sleep, but boy, was I dead wrong. Now, it might just be that I don’t know what the heck I am doing and I haven’t been reading their signals correctly, but I have struggled hard core to get both my babies to sleep well.

It is funny how we are all willing to shell out money for certain services without much thought. If your car is having issues, you will probably find a mechanic, right? (Unless you happen to know how to get under a hood and make your own assessment.) If your pool pump stopped working, you know you’ll likely have to pay a guy to come out fix it. If you’ve ever owned a pool, you know that you don’t want that pump to stay dead for long or you will run into bigger issues. And if you have ants marching on your kitchen counter in long lines, you can bet most people will be calling a pest guy to ensure those ants don’t take over your kitchen completely.

Somehow, paying for these services don’t make us feel inadequate or stupid.

Yet when it comes to seeking out help for how to parent, I have been resistant. I suppose it stems from this false notion that I should know how to do this already. I should know how to get my baby to fall asleep. I should know how to get them to take good naps. I should know how to work through these frustrating temper tantrums. I should know how to wean my baby when he doesn’t want to be weaned.

And yet, I don’t. I don’t know how to do any of those things intuitively. Or at least I am always second-guessing the choices I make surround these (and other) parenting bumps. But what I have realized—what I try to remind myself every day—is that it is okay to admit that you don’t know everything. In fact, it is an important part in any growth process. If we already think we know everything about a certain issue, we often won’t be open to learning more.

Today I decided that I’ve had enough. I have spent the last four months—and I spent at least six months with my son—trying different things to get my daughter to sleep and nothing I have done works consistently. So I am going to put my trust in someone who has more knowledge and experience and expertise than I do and follow their advice for a change. If that still doesn’t work for my baby, at least I tried something new.

I think that is an important lesson for life. We have to be willing to try new things and we have to be willing to fail in order to move forward. If one thing doesn’t work, try something else. There is no shame in admitting that we need help, especially in areas where we are inexperienced.

My hope is that this program helps my baby (and me) get more sleep in the coming weeks and months. If that happens, I will be back here sooner than later, writing and sharing growth strategies once again.

Ditch the Complaining

I have the app Marco Polo, which, if you aren’t familiar with it, allows you to record videos that go directly to an individual—or group—and won’t take up endless space on your phone (though I’ve found that it will eat through data quickly if you aren’t careful). I only communicate with my sisters and one good friend through this app and it can be fun to exchange little bits about our days. It is convenient because we all have different things going on in our lives and can’t always connect on the phone. I can listen to the message at my leisure and can respond when I have the chance.

While the messages between my sisters and me are usually quite short, the messages between my friend and me are sometimes quite long. We are both big talkers and if we get started, sometimes it can be hard to stop us.

Now, I am grateful for technology and the ability to communicate with friends and family in different ways. Long ago, communicate took place primarily through snail mail or the phone—growing up, I remember talking on a corded phone that kept me rooted in one place for the duration of the call. (How long ago that seems!)

But I also realize that it is possible for anything—even good things—to be a hindrance in our journey toward accomplishing incredible goals.

When I think about how much time I have spent using this app to talk about myself—my stresses, my frustrations, my problems—it causes me to step back and question if this is contributing to the future self I want to be or if it is causing me to focus too much on things that will keep me right where I am.

As with everything else I am learning about growth, it all starts in the mind. If I allow my mind to be focused on the negative, that is what will find its way out of my mouth. Instead, I need to make a conscience choice to focus on positive things—or at minimum, not focus on negative ones—and then talk about those.

For example, when I am on the phone or receive a message from a family member or friend and they ask how I am doing, I am often tempted to launch right into every bad or frustrating thing that has happened in the past two days.

The baby was up three times last night. I am so exhausted that I couldn’t get up early this morning.

Our pool pump broke down and now we have to call a repair guy—what is that going to cost us?!

My dog knocked over the lamp in the living room and spilled my water all over the carpet this morning.

And on and on the list could go. It is actually amazing how quickly I can zero in on a negative event, no matter how minor, and then talk about it at length. If there was a competition for how to find the negative in anything, I could have taken home the gold medal more times than I’d like to admit.

Ever since I began to shift my mindset, I have been able to improve this bad habit, but it is still a struggle. In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about triggers that can cue behavior, whether good or bad, and how we have to learn to recognize these triggers. The Marco Polo app I mentioned above has, at times, been a trigger for me that cues negative talk and pity parties.

Certainly, it is okay to sometimes talk about events in our lives that are frustrating or negative in nature. If I only slept four hours last night due to a colicky baby, it is understandable that I might mention it when asked how I am feeling. Or if my friend’s boss berated her at work yesterday, it is natural that she might want to walk through her feelings on the situation.

But even these events can be discussed without delving into long-winded complaint sessions. And, as with any event that happens in our lives, we can choose what lens we will use to frame it. Yes, I might have had a bad night but it does not have to affect my entire day unless I choose to allow that. Yes, my friend might have gotten yelled at by her boss, but she doesn’t have to believe that means she is a bad employee.

Getting out of old patterns and into new ones takes time. This is normal with anything we have been doing for years—usually it takes a good amount of time to reach that ideal new normal we set for ourselves. But the key is learning to be aware, learning to examine areas in which we can improve, and then taking action steps to do just that.

I have been using this video app with my friend for almost a year now. It is only lately that I have made a conscience effort to avoid complaining and ranting about the same thing over and over.

So often when we start focusing on a new habit or skill we want to establish, it leads to additional positive changes.

Fist, making that one decision to NOT complain as much challenges me to think about positive things going on in my life that I can talk about—and they are more abundant than I deserve.

Second, it has led to me making more effort to be a good listener and respond to topics that my friend brings up in her message. When we get too focused on our own problems, we tend to not be fully present for those around us.

Third, it has pushed me to be more selective about what I say in general, and thus, keep my messages shorter. There is nothing wrong with talking, but, as with everything, there should be a balance.

I am grateful for this form of communication because without it my friend and I would have rarely connected over this past year (we both have babies that are just over a year old now and with our different schedules, phone conversations were rare until recently). But I don’t want something good to become a hindrance to my growth (or hers, because if I spend more time focused on the bad than good, I am contributing negativity to her space and her life as well).

I have found our exchanges to be much more fulfilling since I have decided to shift my focus. Just yesterday we had an exchange about some of our future goals and it energized rather than drained me. It felt good to be sharing positive goals and hopeful desires for the future and only helped to reiterate why it is so important to reach for new challenges on a regular basis.

Nurture Your Relationships

I am writing this blog to share insights with others and contribute what I believe are meaningful tips on growth and development, especially as it relates to improving one’s self. We are all on a journey through life—one that will ultimately lead us to increased fulfillment and purpose or one that leads to frustration and disappointment.

So far on my blog, I have focused on the “I” in personal development. How can I improve myself? How can I grow? How can I become more confident, skilled, and purposeful?

These are all incredibly important questions but today I want to focus on an aspect of personal development that goes beyond the “I.” Current culture has become very “me” oriented, and not always in a good way. It is all too easy to get caught up in a “me mentality” where everything is centered around self. While it is very important to cultivate one’s self, it can also be easy to become so focused on this cultivation that the cultivation of other relationships can be overlooked.

Focusing on improvement of ourselves will improve the relationships around us, but sometimes we need to focus specifically on our other relationships as well. One of the best reasons to push ourselves to grow is for the benefit of the important relationships in our lives.

Over the past few days, I have skimmed through a few books that focus on marriage and relationships. Having a 13-month-old (and another baby coming in less than three weeks) leaves far less time for my husband and me to really connect like we used to. We have very different interests and support each other in the pursuit of those interests, but we also have always enjoyed spending a lot of time together. Even if we were just at home and not doing the same thing, we were usually in the same room together—say, him watching football and me reading a book next to him.

These days it often feels like we are a relay team, handing our son off to each other at different intervals so the other can get something done. While I’m making dinner, he is in charge of getting the baby’s food ready and feeding him; when he gets work calls in the late afternoon, I take our son and follow him as he walks all over the house, talking in his own adorable language. When I clean the kitchen after dinner, my husband takes him to the living room to play with toys; when he needs to mow the lawn or clean the pool or fix a leak in the sprinkler system, I hang out with him inside or take him on a walk.

The point is, we don’t have much quality time together. And I know that is normal with a baby. When our daughter comes along soon, we will have even less time together because we will be juggling two babies under two.

After skimming through those two books—this was in the quiet moments after my son has gone to bed and I actually have a few minutes of free time—I realized that lately I have been focusing most of the free moments I have toward my blog and my own personal development and very little on my relationship.

And what’s worse is that while I’ve been feeling a bit disconnected from my husband these past few weeks, I’ve been blaming him. Rather than take responsibility for my role in our relationship, rather than look at what I was—or wasn’t—doing, I fell into a victim mentality and looked at what he wasn’t doing for me.

And what I focused on was really quite petty. For example, I felt upset that after our son went to bed, he would begin working on his personal projects and hobbies rather than express a specific desire to spend time with me. This was especially petty because at the same time he was working on his projects, I have been devoting a lot of time to writing and editing blog posts and learning about how to become a better blogger through videos, courses, and books. In other words, I was upset at him for not specifically asking to spend time with me when I wasn’t specifically asking to spend time with him either.

We both need time to pursue our interests and I have never had a problem with that, but the problem was that while I was feeling a bit neglected and lonely, I didn’t voice this to him and didn’t communicate in a healthy way. Instead, I let my frustration build up and then one night last week, I made a few snarky comments about how his behavior was hurting my feelings.

After a few nights of this, I realized how unfair I was being (and as much as I’d like to blame it all on my pregnancy hormones I know I can’t because that would be making excuses) and we were able to talk things out. I expressed my feelings in a healthy way and we were able to make some minor tweaks that have made me feel more connected again.

In the last few nights, we have worked on our projects in the same room so we can still talk as we work and just enjoy hanging out together.

I have also stopped expecting him to read my mind. If I want to do something—to watch a movie together or just sit and talk—I speak up. I tell him what I want.

I have always been lucky in that my husband enjoys doing things with me; we have always liked spending a lot of time together, and we probably do more things together (even before we had kids) than many couples. Some friends I know are much more independent in their marriages and do most activities separate, and that is okay too, but this works for us.

It’s funny that we sometimes get so focused on one area of our lives that we neglect other areas. This is normal, but that is why it is so important to clarify our biggest priorities. Working on my own personal development is a priority for me, not only for myself but because it is the main focus of my blog. But nurturing my personal relationships is also a priority for me. The problem is that sometimes we let other things get in the way of this priority because we take our closest relationships for granted.

Relationships are work sometimes. They take communication, vulnerability, and patience. But when we prioritize them, when we prioritize the people we love the most, it is always worth it. Strengthening our relationships with those in our inner circle–especially our spouse–is one of the best investments we could ever make!

Don’t Get Stuck in the Past

Do you ever get stuck in your past?

I certainly do, and sometimes without even knowing it. Thankfully, over the years, this tendency to get stuck in my past doesn’t happen often. But it has taken practice and an understanding of triggers that can send me there in the first place (and then avoiding or pushing past those triggers).

Sometimes getting stuck in the past means that I think about a specific event and get sad or upset. For example, for a few years after my breakup from my college fiancé, I would get upset and sad whenever I thought about the events surrounding our breakup (and I thought about the a lot). I found out he had lied to me often and even cheated on me during our three-year relationship and I was devastated.

Even as I slowly learned how to accept the reality of the situation, and even as I moved on, the negative feelings associated with that experience didn’t leave me for many years. While I did heal and find happiness in a life with someone new, the scars of that experience remained for a very long time.

But eventually I realized—and it took me years to see this—that the scars ran so deep because I had allowed certain feelings to become engrained into my very identity. After I discovered my ex-fiancé’s deception, it stripped me of my sense of worth. As a sensitive and rather insecure young woman, I had struggled with my confidence and self-worth even before knowing about his infidelity, but after we parted ways, I began to see myself as ugly and unworthy of love. Somewhere deep inside of me, I worried that I was responsible for his behavior. Maybe I wasn’t good enough. Maybe I wasn’t sexy enough. Maybe I wasn’t adventurous enough. Maybe he never really loved me.

So I allowed those feelings to fester in me and they spilled over into my next relationship and even into the way I saw myself. I became depressed, withdrawn, and very doubtful of my abilities to succeed in life in general.

Ultimately, I did not take ownership of my feelings and push myself to look at the situation in a healthy, logical way. I simply wallowed in feelings.

Of course, it sucked that my fiancé was deceptive and that he cheated on me, but that was not my fault. We were both young and we had a lot to learn about being in a relationship and becoming mature adults. This is not an excuse for his behavior, but an acceptance of the fact that he was simply not fully ready to be in a committed relationship.

In the end, his choices did not determine my value as a human being. When I finally came to embrace this truth—after years of secretly feeling ashamed, devalued, and unworthy—it freed me.

As I talked about in a previous post, I never thought the word responsibility could equal freedom, but that is exactly what it means when we start taking responsibility for every single thing in our own lives.

This can related to things other people have done to us—bullied us, cheated on us, backstabbed us—or it can related to things we have done to ourselves—failed on an important exam, let a relationship fall apart, quit a job in an irresponsible way. When things happen to us or because of us, we can either ruminate in negative feelings or we can choose to look at the situation from a realistic perspective and learn valuable lessons we will carry with us into the next chapter of our lives.

I certainly believe in allowing yourself a period of mourning over loss—whatever that loss might be for you—but then it is important to let go and move forward, armed with the knowledge that you can choose how you are going to live your life from this day forward. You can either let that negative experience shrink your sense of self or you can allow that negative experience to be a springboard for learning and growth.

Don’t allow your past to control your future. Don’t let yourself get stuck thinking more about the past than the future. Give yourself grace and understanding for mistakes you made and hurts you experienced, but then turn your sights on the horizon of the future because it is full of possibilities!

Living Our Principles

Ever since having a baby, I’ve had new questions and concerns on my mind. For example: How will I teach my kids about money, about persistence, about loyalty, about respect?

My ideas about these subjects were concrete before having kids (at least, I thought they were) but now I realize that so much of what I thought I knew is incomplete. Of course, I still have solid ideas about, say, money—how to handle it, how to invest it—but how do I pass on the more subtle, and arguable more important, concepts about money? How do I teach my children about the philosophy behind our choices regarding money?

For example, how will I help my children understand that while it is okay to want nice things—say, a pair of expensive Nike shoes—it is not okay to believe you are entitled to those nice things? How will I teach them that you have to work hard for the things you want—whether they are material or not? Will I cancel out this lesson if I buy them a pair of Nike shoes instead of going to Payless and buying a pair that is thirty-five dollars cheaper? While I will expect them to earn their own money and pay for some of their own wants eventually, at what age does that start?

When can I treat them to a nice gift and when do I refrain, even if we can afford the gift?

These are certainly never questions I had to ask myself two years ago. When I did think about how to teach kids life lessons, I often just referred to the way my parents did things with my sisters and me. And I still have more respect for their judgment and wisdom than anyone I know, but relying blindly on their choices as parents to be my own rulebook is probably not the best idea. At minimum, I have to understand the reasons behind their choices rather than say, “well, that’s how my parents did it and I turned out just fine.”

Cognitive awareness is an important part of parenting—and hell, an imperative if you want to live a life that goes beyond ordinary.

This morning, our son was throwing temper tantrums like nobody’s business. He was whining as we fed him his breakfast; he screamed when he couldn’t take off his bib; he threw a fit when we got him out of his highchair; and he cried when we put him in his playpen so I could wash dishes. It is hard to know what methods to use to help him understand that it is not okay to scream and throw tantrums just because he doesn’t get his way.

I know he is young (just over a year old) but I believe training needs to start young. Babies are incredibly smart and they understand more than we give them credit for. I supposed this is why they act different with Dad than with Grandma—they learn very quickly who will pick them up right away if they cry, who will give them candy before dinner, and also who will swat their hand if they are touching something they shouldn’t be.

Over the past year, I’ve realized that being a parent is forcing me to examine who I am, what my principles are, and what actions I take on a regular basis. At the beginning of this post I was reflecting on how I want to teach my kids about persistence, money, kindness, and respect. But perhaps I need to ask how I feel about these principles? How do I practice persistence, kindness, and respect? How do I handle money? How do I show loyalty?

I’ve heard it said that if you want to find out if you really know something, teach it to someone else. Having head knowledge about an issue is not the same as finding an effective way to disseminate that knowledge to someone else. I know the sky is blue, but if my son asks me why, I won’t be able to give him a good answer. I suppose this is a good lesson for us all. We need to be able to go beyond just head knowledge when it comes to the important issues in our lives.

Say you are saving some of your paycheck each month. That’s great, but do you have a clear vision for what that money is going to be used for or is your reasoning just, “Well, that is what my one friend suggested I do and she seems good with money.”

So you know that time management is important. But do you know what you want to do with the time you have after work? Do you know what a good schedule would look like for you? Are you fitting in the your top priorities or the ones that are easiest to do—exercising for you health as opposed to crashing on the couch with two hours of television because you are tired?

Maybe sometimes we need to rethink our philosophies in terms of how we would teach them to others and that will allow us to see our priorities and philosophies more clearly.

I still don’t have all the answers for how I am going to teach my kids about my values and priorities and philosophies. But I do believe that examining these questions and delving deeper into why I believe what I do and how I practice what I believe will make that path to teaching them much clearer for me. Too often we live our lives just shooting from the hip—or mindlessly dragged along by the currents of life—and we can do better than that. We will be happier living from a place of knowledgeable practice than mere guessing, from intentionality rather than the path of least resistance.