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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

Who are your mentors? 

I have always been a shy, reserved individual and the biggest roadblock to me finding good mentors over the years has been my own reluctance to seek out relationships with those I believed could mentor me. This is a problem of my own making and I see that more clearly than ever now, but as I’ve been thinking about this topic of mentors it makes me realize two things:

1. I can change my behavior and reach out to find mentors now.
2. Even though I might not have had “traditional” mentors (i.e., a person at work I had lunch with who gives me advice and guidance regarding work and life), I have had numerous people in my life over the years who have been wonderful influences and mentors. I just didn’t see their contribution to my growth at the time. 

I am going to imagine that most of you have at least a few people you know who you could envision being of some help to you, who could mentor you. If you do, I encourage you to reach out to them and ask to take them to lunch and pick their brain for advice and insight. We grow by surrounding ourselves with successful people, those who are farther along in the journey than we are.

It is not just in the work place that we can find great mentors though. If you don’t have someone in mind with whom you can begin a mentor relationship, I would encourage you to look at your circle of friends and family for a start. Think about someone in your circle who has an awesome talent or trait you admire. Granted, this might not be a mentor relationship in the typical sense, but I believe we can also grow by learning from the strengths of those closest to us, often more than we realize.

For example, my youngest sister is amazing when it comes to organization. She is that person who has a specific place for everything in her home. When you go into her pantry, she has her noodle boxes stacked perfectly and her sauces lined up in a row like little soldiers. She also has two babies under two, and while the house definitely has more toys and baby paraphernalia now, she still manages to keep things organized at a level that amazes me.

She is someone I could go to if I needed help organizing my home and life. Organizational skills are an important and sometimes underrated expertise, but without them every aspect of life can be more chaotic and stressful.

Or take my mom. She has spent years studying nutrition, homeopathy, and healthy living. She is a vegan and has led numerous cooking classes through her church over the years. She walks a few miles every day and knows the names of countless plants and herbs, many of which she uses as natural remedies and in her cooking. She is in her mid-sixties and says that she feels more vibrant in many ways now than she did in her thirties, thanks to her healthy lifestyle.

My mom is someone I could go to if I desire to learn more about healthy cooking and living. We often take our health for granted but when we aren’t healthy, it has a profound affect on our physical, mental, and emotional state. Understanding how the body works and how we can keep it in optimal shape is incredibly important.

It is funny how we have people in our lives that have a wealth of knowledge or skill that we don’t have and yet we often don’t take advantage of it. We don’t reach out and say, “Teach me,” or “Can I get your advice?”

Reaching out to an expert in your industry or a leader in your own company will never be a waste of time. (Even if they say they can’t meet with you, the very act of you reaching out to them will give you more courage to try again with someone else.)

But don’t overlook the wealth of resources that might be even closer to home.

You don’t always have to go to a financial expert to get help making a budget and sticking to a financial plan (although I am not in any way discouraging this—going to an expert can be very beneficial, especially if you have more complex financial concerns). Perhaps your best friend is great with money and loves to track her spending and has an Excel spreadsheet for her own budget. Talk to her and see if she can help you create one for yourself. Ask how she deals with financial hiccups and if she has any good books to recommend on budgeting.

You don’t have to take your manager out to lunch to learn about all that her position entails and how you can work your way up to that position yourself. Again, of course this would be beneficial in many ways, but it isn’t the only way you can improve your job skills or learn how to become a manager. Perhaps one of your coworkers or a friend at your church used to be in a management position that is similar to the one you are seeking and you can take them out to lunch. Or you can check out books from your local library on business management and leadership.

If you have the opportunity to have a mentor, definitely go for it. And certainly don’t just wait around for a mentor to come to you—that will rarely ever happen. You have to seek out and pursue the growth you desire in as many avenues as possible. But if you don’t have the opportunity for a traditional mentorship at this moment in time, look around you and consider the people in your life that you admire the most. Reach out to them and ask if you can pick their brain about their area of expertise. Growth happens when you have a curious mind and are eager to learn from the strengths of others.