Adventurous Mom

Posts Tagged ‘intentions’

“How do you do it all Maken­zie?  You must be so busy!!”

I hear this all the time when I encounter peo­ple.  Work­ing on two busi­nesses from home, tak­ing care of my hus­band (whom I might add is recov­er­ing quite nicely and doing a great job at this point of tak­ing care of him­self!), and shut­tling the kids to and from school.  Home­work, base­ball, play dates, lunches, din­ner etc…!

It doesn’t really seem that over­whelm­ing when I am going through my day–well most days.

A LifeHacker’s Views on Time Management

It all starts with my morn­ing, I am not a morn­ing per­son typ­i­cally, so I “roll” out of bed around 0730, pray­ing that my hus­band has been able to make his way to the kitchen before me to put on my morn­ing “heaven” (aka cof­fee.)  Morn­ing really sets the tone for the rest of the day for me.  This is the part of the day that I have to really be present, to focus my ener­gies, to align with the stars, to regain my Chi.…and ALL of it!  Because if I ALLOW my morn­ing to go bad, then quite fre­quently I have a hard time get­ting in front of my day.

The con­cept of Time is a funny one to me, because some days just seem to go by so quickly and some are a mean­ing­less mess and drag out for­ever!  Yet, Time always Feels in my favor, when I have a chance to get my energy AHEAD of TIME.  Makes sense or no?  If I can be present in the NOW, slow down my “reac­tion speeds” and work on my “proac­tion” speed, then it seems like Time is on my side.  ProAc­tiv­ity vs. ReActivity

Of course part of this proac­tion speed is defin­ing my day! I define my day on sev­eral levels.

1. How do I want to FEEL today? What do I want my energy to be like?  Do I want to be a pissed off, angry mom?  Or do I want to be a happy, joy­ful, peace­ful, fun mom?  (I choose the lat­ter because it is more fun!)
2. What do I want to DO today? And for some this seems like a ridicu­lous ques­tion because you HAVE to do so many things.  So let me point you back to the idea of Proac­tion…  When you choose to do some­thing, you allow your­self to feel proac­tive, it’s your choice, it’s your deci­sion! Yay!  When you feel that you HAVE to do some­thing, you’re react­ing to out­side influence…and well 99.999% of the time you’re the only one that can make the choice for YOU!!  So are you being respon­si­ble for your choice, or are you giv­ing up your power of choice?  Think on this for a lit­tle while.…
3. What do I want to BE? This can be such a broad state­ment, but often I chose to be inspired, to be fun, to be happy!!  I also chose to BE a MOM, to be an Entre­pre­neur, to be a Run­ner.…  I get to choose these things every­day!  What do you choose?

A few sim­ple steps to align your Mind with Clar­ity and good energy will allow you to get ahead of TIME!

(PS — I also do this trick, that was rec­om­mended by Zig Ziglar that on days when I roll out of bed and feel just cruddy, I jump up and down 10 times, laugh and say “This is the best day of my life!” “This is the best day of my life!”.…then I look in the mir­ror and say “I’m talk­ing to you–turn that frown upside down!”  It is so ridicu­lous, but it’s a fan­tas­tic pat­tern inter­rupt!  Works!!)

I don’t know if you rec­og­nize that a lot of my posts are about get­ting your MIND and your ENERGY in the right spot.  Lit­tle of it has to do with how much time or effort I put into cer­tain tasks.  I used to be that very task focused-driven person.…but it didn’t work for me, I was a mis­er­able mess!  So I had to try some­thing dif­fer­ent.  Focus­ing on my thoughts before focus­ing on my actions was the BIGGEST dif­fer­ence.  IT works…no bull­shit here!

Two more “No Bull­shit” Life­Hacker Tips:

The best Wheat Bread on this Side of the Mississippi:

This is the EASIEST bread recipe I have found.  You have to do it 2 or 3 times until you find the rou­tine, and you will be ask­ing why you spend so much on bread at the store!!

1. 1 cup warm water
2. 1 Table­spoon Milk
3. 2 Table­spoons oil
4. 3 Table­spoons Honey (I usu­ally add more!)
5. 2 Table­spoons Brown Sugar ( I some­times sub­sti­tute Molasses)
6. 1 tea­spoon Salt
7. 1–1/2 cups all-purpose flour
8. 1–1/2 cups whole wheat flour
9. 2 tea­spoons instant active dry yeast.

1. Com­bine Ingre­di­ents #1-#6 in a large mix­ing bowl, stir.

2. Add flours and yeast, and knead (turn on the kitchenaid mixer) for 10–15 min­utes.  Dough should be smooth and elas­tic.  Place dough in a greased bowl, turn­ing once to grease top.  Cover with plas­tic wrap, let rise in warm area (usu­ally above the refridger­a­tor or oven works well.)

3. Punch down dough; knead for a few min­utes until smooth then form into a loaf.  Place in a greased loaf pan and cover.  Let rise again until dou­bled, about 30 min.

4. Bake at 350 for 30–25 min­utes.  Remove when done and allow to rest in pan just for a few min­utes (any longer and it starts to sweat!)  Easy peasy!  Enjoy!

HOMEWORK!!

I don’t know about you, but my biggest bat­tle with home­work is try­ing to just get it done!!  How many times have I asked him?  Is it done yet?  Finally I was exas­per­ated by my attempts to fin­ish it the night before it was due (for us, it’s a Wednes­day!) and I thought, well, I will do what many com­pa­nies do when they want the job done ahead of schedule…factor in BONUSES!!

So his home­work sched­ule looks like this:

Home­work comes home on Fri­day due on Thursday.

If it’s com­plete by Mon­day — $3 bonus.…

If it’s com­plete by Tues­day — $2 bonus.…

If it’s com­plete by Wednes­day $0!!!

Why $0 on Wednes­day? The goal was to get him to com­plete his home­work before crunch time, so now he’s self-motivated to com­plete his home­work on Mon­day or Tues­day.  He doesn’t have to do it over the week­end, and he gets to choose when he wants to do it.  Either choice has an impact, but it’s ulti­mately his choice!!

Thanks to all of my read­ers who so gra­ciously fol­low along with my posts!  You inspire me every­day to make great posts!  Feel free to drop me a line and make com­ments!!  Many Adven­tures to You! ~Makenzie

I really thought long and hard about writ­ing a post like this. I don’t like to seem vul­ner­a­ble, I def­i­nitely don’t like to seem like I don’t have things under con­trol.  But then I real­ized, hey this is life, and some­times life reminds you that you are not really the one in con­trol.  For a Type A…wanna be Type B, this is some­times a hard con­cept for me to grasp and I begin often by say­ing , “Well…all you gotta do is.…”

Then to no avail, my “All I gotta do is” doesn’t work.  In my sit­u­a­tion, we are con­fronting immi­nent surgery with my hus­band, back surgery.  Quite pos­si­bly the worst surgery that is out there. (Oh I pray he doesn’t read this any­time soon!)  Because I keep telling him that every­thing is going to be awe­some.  And I keep try­ing to be strong.  And then I real­ize that I’m not as strong as I want to be.  I’m not really strong at all. His surgery is out of my hands, literally.

This will be our third surgery in three years.  Note I said “our” because even though he’s the one that gets cut, I get to heal right along with him. I get to endure the sleep­less nights, the doc­tors’ vis­its, the pain, the adverse reactions…etc.…etc…   I remem­ber in sick­ness and in health part, but I don’t remem­ber sign­ing on for the grumpi­ness, the pain, the endur­ing difficulties.

So at these times of my extreme emo­tional weak­ness, I real­ize that I still may have some thing to learn.  Some­thing about myself, some­thing about life.  And as I am try­ing to quell my anx­ious­ness about his upcom­ing pro­ce­dure and hos­pi­tal stay, I am com­forted by the fact that I have made the right choice to cre­ate a loca­tion inde­pen­dent busi­ness.  (Guess where my new office is going to be? Yep — the hos­pi­tal room!) The Uni­verse smiled on me when I needed it to.

In addi­tion, I am real­iz­ing that I am not alone, as alone as I may feel.  An invari­able net­work of sup­port is com­ing out of the wood­work from my neigh­bor who has cre­ated a din­ner rota­tion for our fam­ily for the first few weeks; my mother and sis­ters who are going to help me with the chil­dren; my coach­ing friends who have expe­ri­enced sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions and are help­ing to walk me through the emo­tional cri­sis; my karate friends who are lend­ing us their Lazy Boy chair; my good friends who are going to sit with me and play scrab­ble to keep my mind busy dur­ing the surgery…and the list goes on.

So now, although, I feel like life is com­pletely out of my con­trol, life is show­ing me com­pas­sion.  It is reas­sur­ing me that even though I have lost the per­cep­tion of con­trol, the uni­verse, like a good mother has stepped in to hold my hand and take me step by step through the process.

I never try to ask WHY.  Because Why is such a futile ques­tion.  Instead I ask What…What am I learn­ing?  It has now become appar­ent to me that my gift here is to receive compassion.…so that I may learn what com­pas­sion truly is, and some­day soon rec­i­p­ro­cate that compassion.

Thank you to every­one ahead of time for your pos­i­tive thoughts for our fam­ily dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time!

Often when life doesn’t go your way, it’s not because it’s going against you, it’s just show­ing you another way to look at the world!  ~Makenzie

Many Adven­tures to you!

Dr. Wayne Dyer says that peo­ple that argue for their lim­i­ta­tions get only that, lim­i­ta­tions. Imag­ine if one argued for suc­cesses, or goals or dreams….. It is a known fact that you get what you man­i­fest or cre­ate what you focus on. The same con­cept were to be true if you were rid­ing your bike and you see a huge crack in the side­walk, you don’t want to hit the crack for fear you might fall off the bike, but you can­not help but to look at the crack, stare at it, focus on it—and then Wham! you hit it and fall off your bike. You tell your­self “see I KNEW I would hit the crack and fall off-I stink at rid­ing a bike!” You focused on what you didn’t want, and then pro­ceeded to argue for your limitations.

Women are espe­cially guilty of this lim­it­ing talk:

“I’m too shy”

“I’m too fat”

“I’m not good at computers”

“I could never make money, I’m not smart enough”

“I’m just not good at that”

“I can’t because I’m a Capri­corn, Tau­rus, Virgo….”

If you con­tinue to argue for the things you don’t want, your focus will zoom in on those things. Your inten­tion, or the energy that cre­ates the things you desire will focus on those lim­i­ta­tions and those lim­i­ta­tions will become real­ity. There is a PURPOSEFUL way to do exactly oppo­site of this, or to focus on what you WANT. It is very simple:

Reverse your idea of what you don’t want, into some­thing that you DO want:

Instead of “I’m too fat” changes to “I am healthy and fit!” (Notice I didn’t say skinny here… I per­son­ally believe it is bet­ter to strive for healthy and fit than skinny. Our soci­ety has too much of a dis­torted view of skinny, and ide­al­iz­ing skinny can mean becom­ing unhealthy.)

–or–

“I could never make money, I’m not smart enough” changes to “I gain wealth eas­ily because I am intel­li­gent and wise”

Now repro­gram­ming your mind takes a lit­tle bit of time, but it hap­pens. Imag­ine this: At one point you used to believe you couldn’t swim, or ride a bike, but after prac­tice, your body didn’t change, but your belief changed. The dif­fer­ence between being a swim­mer and a non-swimmer is merely a belief!! That is great news!!! So is the dif­fer­ence between believ­ing you can have, do or be some­thing or not….that is just a belief.

A good rec­om­men­da­tion for repro­gram­ming your mind is to write down what you want to HAVE, DO, or BE on 3 x 5 cards. Post them on your bath­room mir­ror and every time you pass by them, you look at them, focus on them, and place your inten­tions on those things. Dur­ing the day, at least twice, focus on those things. Keep your eyes open to the pos­si­bil­i­ties around you pop­ping up, and trust me they will. Be pre­pared to act….do not dis­miss the oppor­tu­ni­ties to act!! Those are small mir­a­cles hap­pen­ing right in front of your face!

INSPIRED

I am inspired to cre­ate this blog to share with oth­ers, espe­cially lead­ers, entre­pre­neurs, and other women regard­ing the jour­ney that I have dis­cov­ered. By no means has my jour­ney been solo, nor has it been easy, but it has def­i­nitely been reward­ing. I hope that with this blog I can inspire oth­ers, give some “AHA! Insights” or help to cul­ti­vate lead­ers. I cer­tainly did not get to this place with­out Men­tors, Coaches and Great Lead­ers. I still make mis­takes (a lot of them) but the great­est stu­dent is a teacher, the great­est teacher is a stu­dent.
From the out­side, my life seems to be charmed. Some would con­sider me “for­tu­nate, lucky, in the right place at the right time”, but I will argue against, that. I will say that I have been focused, clear and intent on my deci­sions. I have con­sis­tently made deci­sions, most of them good some of them poor.

WE ARE DESTINED TO MAKE DECISIONS

No one is proud of those poor deci­sions, nor am I, but those deci­sions have served purpose.…meaning that I have taken the lessons from those deci­sions and made pos­i­tive changes. Events in our lives, both good and poor serve us and allow us to learn. It never feels good, it is painful and some­times so painful that we do not repeat those lessons.

PAIN IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY

Imag­ine not being able to feel the pain of a hot flame.…we would con­tinue to touch the flame and burn our­selves. Pain serves a pur­pose, both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally. Pain allows us to make a deci­sion to change our per­spec­tive: is your job so painful you can­not stand it? Or is it painful, but the idea of chang­ing jobs is even more painful, so you chose not to? How about going for that pro­mo­tion? My thought on this is to veer away from Pain into more of a Plea­sure con­tin­uum. The idea of start­ing a busi­ness was Painful, scary, fright­ful. The idea of the Plea­sure that we could ben­e­fit from the busi­ness, increased flex­i­bil­ity, cre­at­ing my des­tiny, pos­si­bil­ity of increased wages out­weighed the Pain of start­ing a busi­ness. This is my par­a­digm. Every­one has a dif­fer­ent Pain/Pleasure con­tin­uum. Those who “suf­fered” through a 4 year or 6 year degree under­stand this well. For those who want to read more on the Pain/Pleasure par­a­digm, here is one of my newest read­ers: “Awaken the Giant” Anthony Robbins.