If you don't stop to take stock of what you are doing in your life from time to time, life can begin to run you, instead of you running your life in a way that works well for you.
I made quite a few changes to how I operate in the last year, finding more time for what matters most in my life. Here are the top ten things I began doing differently that made the most impact.
]]>I have a confession to make. Last year I began to realize that the systems and routines I had created to grow my business had become overwhelming–so much so that I started to describe my social media as a ravenous monster that couldn't ever be fed enough. I had to begin finding time for what truly mattered by making some changes.
Ultimately I realized that while I was enjoying everything I was doing and while I know I was providing value in the process, I had to step back and take a really hard look at what mattered most and eliminate the rest.
If you don't stop to take stock of what you are doing in your life from time to time, life can begin to run you, instead of you running your life in a way that works well for you.
Months later, I'm so glad I made some changes. I thought I'd share a few of the changes I made to make it easy for you to reflect on how you too can create more time for what matters most in your life.
1. Take a good hard "CEO of your life" look at what you can stop doing. Often we get so used to doing things, we keep doing them even when they don't bring value anymore.
2. Set realistic goals. I've been working on my over optimistic tendencies, and it is paying off more than I would have anticipated. I used to try to cram way too much into each day, and when I couldn't get it all done, it always cut into time for wellness or quality time with loved ones.
Instead of just thinking about what I'd like to accomplish in a day, I now assess how much time each thing I want to do is going to realistically take. This has helped tremendously and has allowed me to live a much more balanced life with significantly less stress.
3. More fully and consistently using my project management system has really helped to keep me focused on those top priorities I decide upon and helped me schedule the rest. I use Active Collab for both business and personal tasks. It costs just under $10/month, but there are free versions of digital project management systems out there such as Asana (which I also use - specifically for social media organization) that work quite well too.
4. Practice curbing the people pleasing side of you, by delaying an answer. Instead of making a decision right away, give yourself time to think it over. This gives you a chance to contemplate if this is something you really want to do, if you have time to do it well and how to politely decline if the answer is no.
5. Simplify EVERYTHING. This theme is showing up in my JMB Living Journal in several places–just inside the cover as part of my core values, on the line for My Intentions on my February calendar and often as a part of my weekly affirmations. Find ways to simplify your habits and routines, your meals, your wardrobe, your possessions and anything and everything you can think of.
6. Do a Time Audit. While this is a time consuming process, you likely will be amazed at the insights it brings and it can truly help you see where and how you need to do things differently or what you need to spend less time doing. To do this, simply jot down or use a spreadsheet to track how much time you spend on everything you do in a day. Try to track this for at least a week to get some good insights.
7. Batch tasks. It can be difficult to do this if you are accomplishing what is needed each and every day and don't have time to get ahead. This requires making the tough decision to forego doing one or more things so that you can get ahead enough to do similar tasks all in the same time frame for the week ahead. It truly does save time.
8. Set clear boundaries for your time. Make sure others are aware of them by telling them and gently reminding them when needed. And set boundaries for yourself as well.
9. Delegate more. Yes it is true that someone else may not do what you need exactly how you would do it and even to the quality that you would do it, but really push yourself to ask the question, "Is it good enough?" The other thing you will find is that if you let others do some of the tasks that you were reticent to let go of, you will find that with a little coaching they will do better. You may even be surprised to find that they end up actually doing it better than you.
10. Schedule time for daily reflection. Hands down, the best way to figure out how to do things more quickly, more efficiently and just better all around is to reflect on your time. Reflect daily, weekly, monthly and annually at a minimum.
I hope you find one or more of these helpful in finding time in your life for what matters most to you. I would recommend not trying to incorporate all of them into your way of managing your time at once. Rather, pick one to three of the suggestions and get good at doing them first. You will be much more likely to remember to incorporate the idea into your way of living if you do this. Best wishes and enjoy the extra time you create for yourself!
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What should I feel most proud of this year?
What were the most significant challenges I faced, and how did I overcome them? Try to think about what strengths you utilized as well and how you employed these strengths. Are you aware of challenges you will face in the coming months that you could rely on these strengths in a similar fashion?
What lessons did I learn this year when things didn’t unfold as I had intended or hoped they would? What will I do differently in the future?
How did I manage my time and priorities, and what adjustments can I make for better balance?
What experiences brought me the most joy and fulfillment this year? Do I wish to repeat or recreate any of these experiences? If so, what will need to happen?
Am I satisfied with the level of self-care and self-compassion I showed myself over the past year? What can I continue or do differently to ensure I care for myself well in the coming year?
In what ways did I step out of my comfort zone or move forward despite my fears? How did I do this and what did I discover as a result?
Were there shifts in my beliefs or perspectives over the course of the year?
What are three words I would use to describe this past year, and why?
What were the most significant relationships in my life? What did I learn from them and how can I deepen the connection in the coming year?
Are there any areas of my life where I either need to forgive myself or others?
What were the moments that made me feel most alive or passionate this year?
How did I invest in my personal development and growth and did I get what I anticipated from the investment? How should I invest in myself in the coming year?
What habits or activities brought me peace and calmness this year?
Did I take advantage of opportunities to express my creativity or pursue my interests throughout the year? What are my intentions to ensure that I do so in the coming year?
What were the most significant decisions I made, and how did they impact my life?
What unresolved issues or goals do I need to carry forward into the new year?
Do I feel like I improved my communication skills and connections with others this past year? What steps can I take in this area of personal growth in the coming year?
Did I celebrate my accomplishments, big or small, throughout the year? How? What ways can I celebrate my wins in the coming year?
What habits and routines helped me stay focused and make progress toward my goals, dreams and intentions throughout the course of the year? Would it benefit me to strengthen any of these habits or routines?
What advice would I give to my future self based on my experiences this year?
What habits or behaviors should I change or let go of, as they are no longer serving me?
How well did I prioritize my mental health and well-being throughout the year? How well did I balance stress with activities that relax and restore my well-being?
What progress did I make towards achieving my long-term dreams, goals and aspirations?
What are my intentions and areas of focus for the upcoming year based on my reflections?
Photo by Kristina Litvjak on Unsplash
As I was working on creating Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal, I started to realize how much we can suffer from the choices we make in relationships if we haven't developed self-love, self-respect and inner healing.
One of the weekly themes in Worthy is "Relationships" and it's all about the correlation between self-love and relationships that will help you develop more, and relationships that will always intentionally stunt your growth—where the last thing that relationship will want you to develop is self-love.
But, I also realized how subconscious or deeply hidden those behaviors and dynamics are. When patterns are being recreated, it's easy to chalk it up to, "Oh, I just have bad taste," or, "It's so hard to find someone who's ____, but I don't have time to wait for the perfect person." Meanwhile, you could actually be subconsciously seeking to recreate patterns or dynamics that you've experienced in your own life.
Even if you're not impacted by generational cycles and creating patterns, not everyone is aware that you can control what relationships you participate in, no matter what kind of relationship it is: familial, romantic, platonic, professional. You're not obligated to anyone, and defining your own personal boundaries for each of those types of relationships will serve you well on your growth journey and will define how much you get to enjoy the people in your life.
So, consider this a relationship pop-quiz! Consider the following elements of self-awareness, your relationships, your goals and your boundaries to find out if you are creating and accepting the love you deserve, or if you've got some work to do. The good news is, no matter where you're at now, there is always room to grow and exciting experiences and people on the horizon you haven't even met yet!
The truth is, by taking a step to enter a specific relationship, you automatically have control over how much you choose to cultivate that relationship. That's why it's important to be aware of your boundaries, your repetitive behaviors, trauma that may influence your decision-making or preferences you haven't grown out of yet before you start seeking and engaging in serious relationships that you open yourself up to.
Here are some things to consider with introspection to evaluate your relationship behaviors and standards:
Be picky about your relationships! You are allowed to choose not to have a relationship with people. You're not going to be compatible with everyone, and it doesn't mean it has to hurt the other person's feelings either. But, people would always rather have someone who is genuine and is willingly engaging in a relationship, rather than continuing the relationship because they feel obligated while not being invested or enjoying it.
Create boundaries with people who need you, but would not be a supportive friend for you to have. Have open conversations about what you need from other people, and decide if you are capable of growing together and supporting each other.
Try to find the root. Typically, it's because of a prior relationship, or even a dynamic you grew up seeing. It's easy to subconsciously recreate patterns/dynamics when it was all that was modeled for you at an impressionable age or time in your life. Sometimes, we engage in those dynamics over and over again because it's what we know, or we're trying to recreate the feeling/time in our life where we first saw that dynamic for a variety of reasons. It could be a trauma response, form of self-harm or coping mechanism to keep you from healing. You are the expert when it comes to reflecting on this, however, an expert's opinion, such as a therapist, could always be beneficial as a sounding board or for insight from an external perspective.
Sometimes, evaluating your relationship with relationships can be a difficult conversation to have with yourself. It can reveal hard truths about your past, uproot old feelings and make you feel regret. What's important to remember is that by trying to do better, and taking the first steps to change, you're already moving forward and growing.
The "Relationships" week in Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal is one of my favorites because it goes in-depth in guiding you to evaluate your relationships, define your boundaries, explore your values and how it correlates to others and serves as an insightful week where you get to learn things about yourself you may not have ever realized.
When all of the relationships in your life are joyful, voluntary and include people you truly care about and want to be around, life feels so much easier and fulfilling. Don't shortchange yourself because of your past or a lack of self-love, you deserve to live a life with the best people for you in it.
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When you think about journaling, do you think of it as essentially keeping a diary that stores your daily reflection where you document your day-to-day life? Do you use one because you want to unpack each day, or to record your growth and goal progress? Or, have you avoided or never considered journaling because you don’t have time for it and you don’t feel a need for it?
Journal journeys are just as unique as each person who uses one. Even if you have a guided journal, you could use it completely differently from someone you know, and the exact same as someone you don’t. Don’t worry about feeling like you need to have an expectation for yourself to journal every day or that you may be ‘doing it wrong.’ There’s no such thing!
If you want to grow, have a deeper connection with yourself, be able to decompress from the rest of your life or achieve goals that you set for yourself, journaling is a great place to start. But, it can be hard to know how to get started, which journaling approach is right for you, and even which journal to start with!
Guided journaling is a good place to start for both beginners and people who have specific intentions on what they want from their journal journey. Keep reading to find out which journal is most supportive of your personal journey and how to use your journal to fit your lifestyle and meet your goals.
So what does self-love have to do with normal journaling, and how could just a journal help you get more self-love? Well, that’s where guided journaling comes in. In Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal, you’re not opening a blank page every day and writing about how you felt about your body and logging your self-care.
Every JMB Living Journal is your guide for your journey, and that’s the method that actually creates change. Each feature and prompt in Worthy is all part of your journal journey: every week begins with an introduction to the theme for that week, and each theme is one of the main pillars of self-love.
Then, you’ll be guided to reflect on your current relationship with the theme, brainstorm ways to overcome your resistance and set your intentions for the week.
As you fill out your daily pages with a prompt for gratitude, something you love about yourself or your life, you’ll also have blank lines for whatever you choose to use your journal for: writing about what happened that day, thoughts on how that theme is coming through in your life and how you’re doing with it or, even just a checklist of things you need to do throughout the day!
That is the magic of the journey: whatever best serves you and your lifestyle, while you’re still being guided to overcome obstacles to self-love and make progress.
On top of how challenging and introspective the weekly themes are, Worthy is also loaded with exercises and activities pertaining to some of our themes to really help you dive deep and create lasting insight onto your past experiences, current mindset and more that you can use to shift your inner monologue, heal from old wounds and begin to rediscover your authentic self.
If you choose to use your daily lines to journal, but don't know what to write about, we've got that covered for you too, with a collection of journal prompts that you can refer back whenever you need a little inspiration.
Regardless of how you choose to use the daily lines in Worthy, you’ll always have support and a guide that keeps you on track to overcoming the things holding you back, while creating progress toward what you are working for: lasting, radical self-love that changes how you feel about yourself and how you navigate life.
This journal was created with so much intention, but it is also so healing of everything society has imparted on us about beauty standards, gender roles, limiting beliefs and our own past experiences that have discouraged us from being who we are and creating and accepting the love we deserve.
If you feel like you’re at a season of your life where self-love isn’t your main focus and the previous bulleted list doesn’t really resonate with you, a seasonal guided journal may be for you.
A seasonal guided journal does just that: guides you through each season in nature, while helping you fully embrace this season of your life.
The weekly Mindful Moment Challenges in our seasonal guided journals introduce you to a theme that challenges you to be more present through a new perspective each week. These are usually related to the staple characteristics of that season, or inspire you to engage with an emotion or other specific concepts in life such as transformation, blossoming, darkness, anger, etc.
Through these challenges and our features from wellness professionals, mindfulness practitioners and just a general collection of inspiring and wise people we find through the JMB Living Community, you’ll be connected to motivation and new perspectives that prompt you to embrace and find balance within these aspects of life.
The daily prompts in these journals use psychology-backed methods and are structured to gently create a mindset shift that integrates daily, weekly and future intentions that guide you to the life you desire, while also using affirmations and a gratitude mindset to boost your progress and help you embrace daily life in the meantime.
To truly create progress and change with a seasonal guided journal, it’s best to be intentional in filling out your daily wellness tracker, be thoughtful and consistent when creating and looking at your vision board and really immerse yourself in the dreams pages. All of this will help you develop an action plan, while encouraging you to come back to your journal each day to record your progress, nail down those good habits and master the routine that is supportive of the life you are moving towards.
It’s important that you go into journaling with a mindset that it is an act of self-care that you need to make time for, instead of an extra hobby or self-improvement tactic you are trying out. This will help you be more consistent with journaling, as well as enhance how you feel as you journal. When you acknowledge that journaling is good for your mental health and is a private space for you to come home to yourself every day, it becomes a good feeling that you seek out and mandate in your routine to stay in touch with yourself, while also prioritizing your hopes and goals.
So, if you decide to begin your JMB Living Journal Journey, or are already on one, how do you choose between self-love and seasonal alignment? Well, first ask yourself these questions:
But, what if creating the habit to journal every day is really hard for you and it doesn’t seem like something worth trying? Well, think back to the last habit you mastered. Was it easy? Was it worth it? Have you ever tried to start a habit that you’ve given up on that you still regret to this day?
The best you can do is your best, and the easiest thing in the world is just to start. If you miss a day, give yourself grace. If you don’t want to give yourself a chance to miss a day, read this blog and try things like setting an alarm after you decide what time of day you want your journaling routine to be or setting one of your wellness trackers to record how frequently you journal. It might not be easy at first, but it definitely doesn’t have to be hard, and you'll have the guided support and a community with you along the way.
]]>The last three years have been a whirlwind of social, economic, environmental and political change. It's been a lot. When the world as we know it gets disrupted, while environmental disasters impact lives on a large-scale, and when political tensions and conflicts are ongoing, it impacts your lifestyle, the way you view the world and you as a person.
You may not even notice how your thoughts and feelings have shifted unless you sit back and reflect on where you were a few years ago and where you are now. If you've been following me for awhile now, you know that I'm big on reflection. We can gather so many useful insights in the process that help us better understand ourselves, and as a result, have better knowledge to more successfully craft our future.
Without claiming to live in a fully post-COVID world, the public health emergency that was implemented at the onset of the pandemic in America officially ended May 11, 2023. While cases of COVID-19 are still active, and the news cycle doesn't exclusively include news of political unrest and natural disasters there is no denying that the world has started to get back to “business as usual”... except, is it?
Perhaps you've already started slipping back into routines resembling the way things used to be. Yet in doing so, have you taken a few moments to assess your mental health and recognize all of the ways that you've changed in the last three years?
Settling back into whatever is left of your “before” without seeking to find or acknowledge new thought patterns, lifestyle habits, societal expectations and procedures, etc. can stymie your personal evolution. When has someone ever successfully moved on after experiencing something traumatic without working through how it impacted them?
Whether you’re aware of it or not, and whether you felt like it or not, living through the pandemic was traumatic. But, it hasn’t been widely spoken about, and its impact has been diminished by only placing value on statistics—but you should not let that invalidate your own personal experience!
If you think about it, there are a multitude of ways you may have been impacted by the pandemic and other worldwide events over the last several years. Many of these impacts may have contributed to prolonged feelings of stress, overwhelm and helplessness. We may have adjusted to all of the things that happened, but when you step back and look at everything, it's no wonder feeling anxious has become more prevalent and is felt more often by many.
There are even more things that could contribute to this list, but these are of the general experience that people went through during this period. When you look at this list, it’s easy to realize how difficult it may have been to re-enter life mentally and emotionally unscathed.
Have you thought about how this period in history impacted you? You may want to sit down, reflect and making your own list of ways your life, mental wellbeing, thoughts, people you know, etc. were impacted in an effort to sort through and truly reconcile how you were affected during that time.
It will be beneficial with an exercise later in this blog to be able to compare and reference—even without another exercise, it will be a good documentation of everything you went through and a valuable resource for understanding contributing factors to ways you have changed.
With insight on what may have impacted you, you can begin to reflect on shifts in behaviors, thought patterns, perspectives and more. You can decide if these shifts and changes are ones you want to keep and what you want to change further.
Everyone’s experience is so different, people process things differently and are affected by things in different ways. With that in mind, below are some points to help you get started in your reflection process. As you consider each, also consider if you are happy with how you currently feel or are responding to the change (if applicable). Consider what steps you might take to make future changes in attitudes, actions or ways of being to help steer you closer to the direction of your ideal life and the new you that you continue to evolve into.
Where some people might have lost some of their preference for socializing, some people have a newfound extrovert in themselves! Or, you might at least prefer getting out, spending time with your friends or making new ones more than you did previously.
All of that time alone, when you’re already fairly introverted, could cross your personal threshold of how good you feel alone, so it totally makes sense that you may want to try out something new and prioritize your relationships more.
We spent time isolated, consuming news out of necessity, and the news was about untameable wildfires, ecological disasters, constant warning signs of a recession, supply shortages, an ever-increasing death toll, political unrest. All this and more was the focus on the airwaves in a time where misinformation is easier to produce and spreads more rapidly than ever before.
It’s almost hard not to subconsciously adopt some aspects of nihilism when the world is seemingly falling apart around you and you’re suddenly gaining awareness of disasters that you have no control over.
So, how do you go from a constant state of fear and anxiousness—whether conscious or subconscious—to returning to a 9-5 job like nothing happened?
Sending emails and attending meetings (that could have been emails) might have been dull for you before, but if you experienced a prolonged period of helplessness and corporate inactivity, while also gaining awareness of the scale of important things that exist beyond your job, it’s not surprising if you struggled to fit back into your role.
Before the pandemic, for people privileged enough to have one, a job is an inevitability: it is the source of your livelihood, it is what you plan your days around, it is the skills you have that you constantly try to cultivate and improve, it is the path that guides the direction of your life.
During the pandemic, so much no longer felt inevitable; jobs were unstable, health was unpredictable and the state of the world was constantly in flux.
So, if you've been struggling to be productive, give yourself grace! Try other ways to elevate your productivity to a standard that you’re comfortable with, but you don’t have to hold yourself to the same standard that you did before going through such an altering experience.
During the pandemic, some level of our availability and opportunity to change our lives and pursue our dreams was stripped away. Everyone's experience was different, yet for many, life shifted from working towards you goals to surviving and navigating a new world.
Where you were before it began: what were you working towards? What dreams did you have? Were you living in alignment with the future you wanted to create? If you put your dreams on hold, it’s time to shake off the coping mechanism that caused you to do so, while you mentally adjusted to the conditions of quarantine and the new lifestyle you created.
So, what do you do with all of this information? Through so much negativity, mental and emotional struggles and a prolonged period of uncertainty, you don’t necessarily have to come out worse. It’s time to reconcile what happened to you at face value, learn how it changed you and participate in your life with this insight to continue moving towards your ideal life. In fact, you may have even gained some positive traits and experiences from this time!
Before we attempt to re-enter life at full speed, it’s time to recognize that these last few years impacted all of us in myriad ways, and that lasting impact is going to affect our ability to successfully move forward in alignment with our purpose and desires. You cannot heal without moving through grief to acceptance.
The good news is, you now have the opportunity to experience fresh self-discovery and fall in love with this version of you! You may consider it a fresh start, a new beginning or an evolution. Regardless of your intention with this reflection, this is the last step you need to take before stepping into life with awareness, plans and potential.
How has your future changed? Do you value new things?
Try to remember what you were working towards in 2019. Knowing what you know now, does it make sense to continue working towards that, or would you benefit from taking time to reflect and adjust/change your goals and main focuses?
Do you dream for new things? What do you yearn for in your life? There’s no sense in working hard to achieve dreams that were only ideal for a past version of yourself. Dream again! Dream more! When you’re creating something that the current you desires, you’ll be more fulfilled and motivated, and progress comes more easily!
What insights can you make about your relationships and the people in your life? Do you need to re-evaluate these and prioritize healthy relationships that are supportive of everyone involved, or do you have new relationships that you are still cultivating that only know the current you? Don’t forget that while we might be different, we are the experiences we’ve lived, so it can be beneficial to your newer relationships to share parts of your past so that they can get to know all of you!
What habits have you lost that you want to pick up again? What habits are supportive of your new lifestyle (or one you’re trying to create) that you want to make? Can you give yourself a pat on the back for any bad habits you’ve broken over the last three years—even if you weren’t aware of it? Maybe you’ve developed some bad habits you’re trying to break. You can find ways to easily break habits for good here.
]]>Are you aware of the aspects of your life that keep you from being happy on a daily basis? At the end of a day, do you feel satisfied and content, or worn down and empty? “What does self-love have to do with general unhappiness when it’s an internal issue?” Well, kind of everything. How can you expect to like your life if you don’t even like yourself?
]]>Are you aware of the aspects of your life that keep you from being happy on a daily basis? At the end of a day, do you feel satisfied and content, or worn down and empty?
What many people don’t realize is that these “aspects” are all connected to a crack in your foundation. Sometimes, that crack is unhealed trauma or grief; but for a lot of people, that crack is a lack of self-love.
“What does self-love have to do with general unhappiness when it’s an internal issue?” Well, kind of everything. How can you expect to like your life if you don’t even like yourself?
If you wake up every day, unhappy with the skin you’re in, unsatisfied with the way you nourish yourself and resenting yourself with the choices you’ve made that have led you to your job and lifestyle, it makes sense that a lack of self-love is what’s keeping your days from being enjoyable!
If this resonates with you, it helps to have an actionable way to cultivate self-love each day—a plan that grows into a full-blown, life-long romance with yourself! That's why we are created Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal—to go on a journey that guides you through overcoming common obstacles to self-love, while also implementing ways and mindset shifts that are supportive of lasting, radical self-love.
Know however, that not every cause of unhappiness in life has to require a big fix or a deep explanation related to your past or worldview—although that doesn’t invalidate the ones that do!
You’d be surprised by how drastically life can improve with a little self-love!
Just like other mindfulness tools, intentionally practiced self-love is a tool that allows you to be more present in your life and really enjoy unique life experiences.
When you intentionally cultivate self-love, you are creating a foundation that magnifies the benefits of practices such as gratitude, meditation, affirmations and so much more.
If you are living in a mindset where you love yourself wholly, it makes it easier to love your life, recognize what you’re grateful for and believe in yourself and your ability to create your ideal life.
Prioritizing self-love automatically creates a deeper connection with yourself—you’re more in-tune with your physical, emotional and mental needs, as well as more capable of knowing and exploring what makes you happy. This elevates your daily life and life as a whole when you can more intentionally spend time nourishing yourself in a multitude of ways.
You are also living fully where you are each day, not letting life simply pass you by while you go through the motions.
The better your relationship is with yourself, the more you have to give to others! And, that compassion and kindness won’t be a thoughtless obligation, but an extension of the love you have for yourself that can support other people on their own self-love journey. When we have a surplus of self-love, giving doesn’t take away, it just creates more love!
And, a self-love journey is not always linear! You shouldn’t feel like a failure the first time you have a dip in confidence or a critical thought about yourself. True self-love means you are equipped with the mindset and tools to accept the hard times and know how to respond and rebuild your self-love after a hard day.
So what steps are you going to take to create your self-love journey? For a look at everyday acts of self-love that have changed my life, read this blog post. Or you could check out a listing of self-love acts you likely haven't tried yet. And to stay tuned for when we launch our new self-love guided journal sign up here.
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More than one in five children and adolescents struggle with disordered eating.
A variety of statistics from the Mental Health Foundation revealed that teenagers that struggle with body image are consumed by thoughts regarding their appearance and experience negative impacts on their mental health because of it.
After countless women risked their lives for the Brazilian Butt Lift procedure, which has the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic procedure, many high-profile figures have dissolved or removed their implants and surgical body modifications in an effort to look more thin.
One of the most popular trends in the 90s has been coined as “heroin chic” because it was fashionable to be underweight and unhealthy looking—and some are saying it's coming back in style.
Now, there are apps to count calories—a great resource if you’re doing it for your health, but teens and beyond are downloading it in order to restrict themselves with a calorie deficit that is unsustainable.
A diabetes treatment drug is in a shortage because celebrities, and now more people in everyday life, are using it exclusively for weight loss.
And this is the generation that’s growing up among a movement for body positivity! So, what about the previous generations? There are so many ways that negative body image and unrealistic societal standards affected Generation X and beyond.
Think about all the times you’ve heard someone complain about being on Weight Watchers, or that the norm for self-talk was to point out physical flaws instead of being uplifting.
So many products are marketed exclusively as “anti-aging” because age anxiety plagues so many individuals in all generations!
Covering up gray hairs, anti-wrinkle products, dressing for your age or trying to dress younger than your age—there is even an industry for anti-aging procedures!
Even if you don’t conform to these standards and already value yourself as you are, that external noise of criticism provides a constant pressure and reminder that’s hard to tune out completely.
Self-love sounds like a flowery concept that is a luxury, or something that’s easy to obtain once you put any effort into it.
But, self-love (or a lack thereof) is actually at the root of so many wounds we have when it comes to our thoughts and how we navigate and interact with the world.
What do you think of when you think about self-love? Do you think about a bubble bath and a face mask and call it a day? Do you think of positive affirmations and making sure you nourish your body?
Whatever you think of, self-love can actually be so much more. When you intentionally cultivate self-love, you are fighting against deeply ingrained insecurities, your inner critic, limiting self-beliefs, unhappiness with the way you look, and so much more.
When you approach self-love at the root, you are healing your inner child, moving differently with confidence, empowering other people in addition to yourself and accessing a new way of life that isn’t damaged by harmful internal and external thoughts that shouldn’t actually belong to you.
You don’t speak up when you have something to say
You grew up with an adult that didn’t uplift you or encouraged you to change
You grew up around people who weren’t happy with themselves
You look in the mirror with only critical thoughts
You hate getting dressed for certain events
You compare yourself to other people often
You feel bitter or jealous at other people’s potential or accomplishments instead of being happy for them
You resent how you have spent part of your life
You struggle to make deep and impactful friendships
You find it hard to think kind things about all aspects of yourself
Creating and elevating your self-love is now accessible and easier than ever!
Instead of a self-care journal that has a tracker for how much water you should drink in a day, or a self-love journal that is just lined pages with a couple extra journal prompts, Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal was curated with deep intention to guide you through a journey with an individual approach to overcome obstacles that prevent you from achieving self-love—with some uplifting tips and fun exercises along the way!
Featuring wellness experts and self-love coaches, as well as psychology-backed methods for improved mental health, this journal is so much more than just a journal. It is an intimate archive of your personal progress as you take on the most important pillars of self-love, one week at a time.
We took some of the most popular elements from the JMB Living Journal that thousands of people have loved and grown with, and combined it with some updated prompts and many completely new elements to ensure that this journal is going to create actual, lasting change in the relationship you have with yourself.
This journal was created so that by the time you finish writing on the last page, your self-love journey is well on its way to support you through the rest of your life.
In addition to daily and weekly journal prompts to help you evaluate your progress and really work through each pillar of self-love, there are also a variety of differing journal prompts, tips, articles, mindfulness exercises and activities to provide a range of ways to engage with your journey.
]]>When self-care is performed without love, it doesn’t cut it.
Self-care has become much more popular as a mental health method in the past couple of years, and so many people in the wellness sphere—like myself—love to see it, but there’s some things these articles and Instagram posts are leaving out.
Not everyone’s self-care looks the same. Your go-to self-care activity might not work every time. Self-care does not have to be in response to a bad day; as a matter of fact, it takes continuous self-care to actually take care of you. Otherwise, self-care isn’t self-care…it’s just a little treat after a bad day with fleeting effects.
Little treats are great! But, when it comes to self-care that cultivates self-love and contributes to mental wellness, we need to be more intentional in the ways that we are celebrating ourselves and our bodies for everything we do!
If you’re looking to be more intentional about your self-love, start off with the golden rule… with an amendment: treat yourself how you would want to be treated by someone else! Here are some ideas to radicalize your self-love and add some variety to your self-care:
1. Take a solo trip to a new place: Exploring new destinations can be a great way to recharge and gain a new perspective on life. Take some time off to visit a new city or country by yourself and enjoy the freedom of doing things on your own terms. This can even be a day trip, or just a trip to a place in your area you’ve always wanted to explore or see more of!
2. Try a new form of exercise: Exercise is a great way to release endorphins and boost your mood. From a yoga pose you’ve never tried, taking dance lessons or just dancing around your room, there are so many joyful ways we can move our bodies. This is an opportunity that will challenge you both physically and mentally, and leave you feeling accomplished. It’s also just a great act of self-love to cultivate your health and care for yourself!
3. Go to a sauna or wellness center. Saunas sound like they are only a luxury at a high-end spa or hotel, but local wellness centers that offer salt rooms, saunas and float baths are opening in more places! See if there is one near you, and don’t make it seem like too big of a deal or too luxurious for you. It’s only 40 minutes, and a location near me offers saunas for $35! If it’s something that relaxes you that you don’t do enough, just make time for it knowing that you deserve it.
4. Write yourself a love letter and read it out loud: Take some time to reflect on your positive qualities and write yourself a love letter. Read it out loud to yourself and allow yourself to feel the love and appreciation you deserve.
5. Cook yourself a fancy, nutritious meal: Cooking a fancy meal can be a great way to indulge in your favorite foods and experiment with new recipes. Maybe pick a comfort meal or something that takes a long time to cook, so you don’t make it as much. Have fun while you cook, singing along to your favorite music and dancing as you stir. While you eat, focus on the food and your experience instead of being on your phone or watching tv. Savor the meal you made, eat it knowing you did a great job making it and digest it knowing it was made with love and is nutritious for your body.
6. Go on a technology detox for a day or weekend: We often spend too much time on our phones and computers, which can lead to burnout and stress. Take a break from technology for a day or weekend and focus on connecting with yourself and others.
7. Journal your gratitude daily: Cultivating gratitude can help us appreciate the good things in our lives and improve our overall well-being. It just takes being grateful for one thing a day to adopt a gratitude mindset that serves our mental health and opens up the opportunities life has to offer.
8. Try a new hobby or activity: Take up something you’ve always wanted to try! Hobbies and activities can be a great way to unwind and express your creativity. Try something new and challenging, like painting or pottery, and see where your talents take you.
9. Get dressed up and take yourself out on a date: Treating yourself to a nice dinner or event can be a great way to boost your confidence and feel good about yourself. Dress up and take yourself out to somewhere you enjoy—your favorite coffee shop, a bookstore, your favorite thrift store or maybe even a sweets shop. Indulge!
10. Make a list of your accomplishments, big and small, and celebrate them: It’s important to recognize and celebrate our accomplishments, no matter how big or small. Make a list of your accomplishments and take some time to reflect on how far you’ve come.
11. Go outside and take a break: Try being barefoot and just standing in the grass, letting the wind blow through your hair and soak your skin in the sun. Closing your eyes will help you savor the moment and find more peace. Don’t bring your phone, don’t let your mind wander into concerns or tasks you have to finish—just be present.
12. Take yourself on a picnic! Plan a day, pack a meal or some charcuterie and go to your favorite outdoor spot. Maybe you’ll bring some sparkling juice, a book you’re reading or a speaker. Lay out your picnic blanket and let your mind wander—to your surroundings, people watching or just about life in general. Enjoy the peace and your own company.
13. Make time for a long phone call with someone who loves you: Sometimes talking on the phone to a loved one can seem tedious, but try going into it with an open mind. It’ll likely be a pleasant surprise for them to receive a call from you, and let the conversation flow naturally. Be an active listener and an eager contributor. You might even unload something that’s been burdening you or just end up having a pleasant conversation with someone you needed to catch up with.
14. Take a night to yourself: Not a date night, but a night in. Curate your space to be cozy and a reflection of you. Maybe you’ll add some of your favorite blankets, take a bubble bath followed by slipping into your softest pajamas, lighting your favorite candles and listening to music that fits your vibe or rewatching your favorite movie. This is a night that’s all about you, where you get to choose what distractions you do or don’t allow.
15. Re-evaluate your role models: Have you felt disappointed by who you look up to? Maybe now is a good time to be intentional about who inspires you. When the people we look up to aren’t healthy inspiration or aligned with our values, it ends up making us feel worse because it’s an expectation we’ll never meet. As we get older, our aspirations shift into alignment with who we have become, so it’s important to also adjust our expectations and sources of inspiration.
16. Do one thing your inner child loved: This one is plain and simple. If you loved blowing bubbles as a child, doing funny jumps into a pool or laying like a starfish in grass—go do it! Nostalgia can be so healing and this is also a good opportunity to lighten up and have some fun in its purest form!
17. Apologize to yourself: What have you not forgiven yourself for? Does this manifest as negative self-talk or an insecurity? Maybe you just treat yourself too harshly. Recognize that you deserve to be nicer to yourself and think of ways you can do so.
18. Choose some affirmations you need to hear: If you need some ideas on where to get started, here are 50 Love Affirmations for free with downloadable and printable affirmation cards in our Art of Intentional Living Community Resource Center. A good way to choose an affirmation is to think about an area of life where you are struggling—could you use some support in being more productive, being more accepting of your body, adapting a more positive mindset? This can help guide your daily or weekly affirmation to be accurate and impactful.
19. Pick one way you can express yourself: Try that hairstyle you’ve been eyeing, or wear that outfit that you love but keep in your closet! Paint your nails your favorite color instead of what you think is practical, or make a radical change to your space. Just do something that is authentically you!
20. Keep it consistent! Remember, effective self-care is not an after-thought and self-love needs to be cultivated consistently and intentionally. Maybe it takes scheduling it or writing down when you’ll do it in your journal, but take action to make acts of self-love a regular part of your lifestyle and routines.
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I asked the JMB Living community what their biggest challenge was, and one of the highest responses was procrastinating.
There is no better time to focus on working against our urges to procrastinate than now. With spring at our doorstep, the energy of the season can help give you the extra boost of energy you need be more productive. There is a reason you feel inspired to do spring cleaning as the weather warms. Not only is this a symbolic time to come out of hibernation, but we see nature springing into action all around us, which encourages us, too! As our bodies get more sun and create more melatonin, our energy also increases.
Procrastinating can haunt many aspects of our lives: work tasks, home projects, getting exercise or even just doing laundry. These ten tips will help set you up with ways to support you in growing as you work to improve your follow-through on things you want to accomplish.
Did you know how much direct sunlight can increase your energy level and ability to focus? Having sufficient energy and clear focus are critical to overcoming executive dysfunction and beginning a task. Getting started on something that you're dreading or a task that seems challenging is already hard enough, but when you don't have enough capacity to focus on it or begin, it can feel impossible. With a higher amount of energy, you are more likely to feel capable of starting and completing the task.
The same is true with focus. If your mind is foggy and wandering, you are more likely to convince yourself that you should wait until your mind is clear to get started. You are also more likely to get distracted and start doing one hundred things other than the one you set out to accomplish.
But how can just sunlight change any of this?
Optimize your hormones by beginning your day with sunlight. According to Dr. Huberman from the Huberman Lab Podcast, even just five minutes of direct sunlight in the morning can make a big impact on the level of energy and focus you will have throughout the day. If it is highly overcast, try to get outside for at least a 30-minute walk early in the morning.
I changed my morning routines a while ago to take advantage of this hack, and it has made such a noticeable difference in my energy and focus levels that I am sharing this with everyone who will listen. I now prioritize my walk to be soon after sunrise or if I have morning meetings, I sit outside to write in my journal, eat breakfast or have my first cup of tea—even if I need to bundle up in a coat or blanket to do so.
Not only has this dramatically impacted my energy and focus each day, but it has also positively impacted my sleep, as well. As someone that has struggled to get quality sleep, this has been a true blessing for me. These few minutes of early morning sun help reset your circadian rhythm and give you a morning boost of cortisol when it can be utilized best.
There are multiple ways to create forward momentum before you even begin. If you establish what is important, you are more likely to follow through. According to Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University in California, if you write your goals and commitments down instead of just thinking about it, you are 43% more likely to accomplish what you set out to do. There are multiple ways to create a routine that supports this approach to productivity.
Having a clear sense of your core values and vision for your life in both the near and long-term future can help guide your daily choices and activities. If you have your core values written down somewhere you can see them each day, you will be reminded of why it is important to accomplish the tasks and big challenges that you may otherwise want to put off. I like to write my core values on the inside cover of my JMB Living Journal, so that it is one of the first things I see every morning.
Work backwards from your goal or dream to create a plan to get you to success. What is the last thing that has to happen before your goal is achieved? What steps must be completed before this is accomplished? Keep working backwards, setting milestones for yourself until you get to where you are today. This should also be written down in a place you are going to see it daily.
Break your big plan down into tasks that can be accomplished in a short period of time, such as a day or week. As you reference your plan and write down these more manageable steps, you have already set into motion what you are going to do. Use the Eisenhower Box to help you prioritize what makes it onto your list. Former president Dwight Eisenhower, was known for an incredible ability to achieve and sustain productivity. One famous strategy he used was to break tasks into four categories:
a. Urgent and important (to be done immediately)
b. Important, but not urgent (to be scheduled)
c. Urgent, but not important (to be delegated)
d. Neither urgent nor important (to be eliminated)
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”-Dwight Eisenhower
At the end of each day, write down your top three priorities for tomorrow. With your plan already in front of you the next morning, you are far less likely to procrastinate about what is on the list for that day.
Be creative in setting up a workspace that feels good to you. It doesn’t matter whether you are at your desk, your in-home gym, in your garden, etc. If you make the atmosphere more inviting, you are more likely to follow through and do what you intend to do. When we had all kinds of furniture and other things stored in the room I do yoga, I just couldn’t seem to do it, even though there was enough room. How your space feels matters.
Having organization that works for you specifically is equally important. If your desk is clean and well-organized, it will be easier to organize your thoughts and stay focused as well.
Don’t let distractions be the reason you put off finishing what you want to accomplish. Use the technology available on your phone to silence except for what you need to hear. You’ll be so much more efficient if you don’t have a ding from your phone or computer each time a new message comes through.
Harness the power of your mind to overcome the urge to procrastinate when it arises. Your mind is capable of helping you make things happen in a big way or thwarting your efforts. The key is to take control of your mind!
One of the best ways to utilize the power of your mind is by being your own best cheerleader. Think of “The Little Engine that Could”, but instead of saying, “I think I can,” switch to, “I know I can.” Or, replay an inspiring song in your mind over and over again.
You can also say an affirmation to get you over the hurdle of getting started. If the task feels overwhelming, an affirmation such as, “I accomplish things easily!” might be a good one. Or, if you are dreading getting started because the task is one you don’t like to do, make an affirmation that focuses on the bright side. For instance, now that I no longer work in the accounting field, I found that I was really hating the time I had to spend on my business accounting. Finally, I created the affirmation, “The numbers are a like a puzzle painting a picture of the status of my business and it’s fun to watch what they reveal.”
Your brain thrives on a reward system. Every time you win the reward, you get a dose of happy juice–dopamine. Take advantage of this. Don’t let yourself have or do something you want to do until you accomplish the task.
If you employ all these tactics and are still procrastinating, you may need to investigate the underlying reason why you don’t want to do something.
Is there something you are afraid of, or do you lack belief in your ability to do the task correctly or well? If so, how can you further practice the steps leading up to this or get further education to give you confidence?
Are you bored? If so, how can you make the task more fun and interesting?
Does the task frustrate you? Dig into the details of why, to see if you can find a way to lessen this feeling.
Are you not sure exactly how to go about it? If so, can you bite off a small part of the task and do it first?
Perhaps you really don’t feel like you are the one that should be doing this task in the first place, but you haven’t delegated it.
Taking some time to journal about the real reason why you are procrastinating, it could give you some helpful insight on how to get past it.
]]>But, how can you create these benefits in your own life, no matter what your lifestyle is like? It all depends on how you want to implement it!
]]>Would you believe me if I told you that before I was a life coach, certified yoga teacher, leading wellness retreats and founder of JMB Living, there was a time when I was a single mom working in the tax department of a corporation? As I worked my way up the corporate ladder to lead the our tax group, I was also taking classes to become a yoga instructor and eventually coaching and leading retreats at the same time.
When I first started incorporating more of what I loved and felt called to learn and grow into, I didn’t know was that I was closer to creating the life I desired than I ever thought possible. With each new choice I made to listen to what my heart was telling me I wanted to try and learn and do, I began to live intentionally.
Intentional living often gets mixed up with slow living and minimalism—and it’s definitely possible to do all three—but, it can also stand alone as fundamentals that can be adapted on their own without sacrificing your lifestyle or material possessions. There’s nothing wrong with a life dedicated to slow living or minimalism, but it’s just not realistic or accessible for all lifestyles… but intentional living is.
Intentional living begins with the intangible—your thoughts, your routines, habits and perspective.
There are many different definitions and applications of intentional living, but at its core, intentional living is exactly as simple as it sounds: going through life with intention instilled into how you navigate the world.
My favorite thing about intentional living—and why it’s become the foundation of JMB Living—is that you get from it what you put into it. You can dictate exactly what your intentional living journey looks like: from adding a little intention to your routine to make sure you do it every day, to journaling for five minutes a day, to waking up at sunrise to do a meditation… or any combination of these things! Intentional living exists on a spectrum, and wherever you fall on that spectrum is just as valid and impactful as any other spot!
So, I actually can’t tell you “exactly” what intentional living is, because it looks different for everyone. I can tell you its fundamentals that you can adapt into your own lifestyle, but there is no exact or “correct” way to live intentionally. The possibilities of what it looks like and how it changes your life are endless and completely up to you.
But, how can you create these benefits in your own life, no matter what your lifestyle is like? It all depends on how you want to implement it!
Just like the JMB Living Journal, intentional living is a “choose your own adventure.” But, to help you get started, here are some suggestions of ways to add intention to your life to create change:
What does a routine with intention look like? It can be many different things, but here’s two different ways to add intention to your routine: the first is to use intention to structure your routines. Think carefully about what is going to work for you and how, as opposed to just saying you are going to incorporate a new habit into your day and then trying to begin doing that without much forethought. Be realistic about when you will perform which routine; this could mean deciding that you will have a nighttime routine that is supportive of good sleep in which you turn overhead lights off at a certain time, perform your hygiene, read or journal for a specific amount of time and then make your room dark and go to sleep. Or, maybe you’re an early bird so you wake up, make your bed, brush your teeth, say an affirmation, drink coffee, get dressed and leave the house.
It’s not about what you do, it’s about knowing yourself enough to decide for yourself when you will get things done so that they can add ease and self-care to each day. It's about reflecting and using that knowledge to better your life.
The second way to have an intentional routine is to add intention to each of the things you do such as brushing your teeth with an intention of good hygiene, self-care and preparing your beautiful smile to spread to others throughout the coming day. Maybe you apply lotion after a shower with a loving hand and intentional movement that is caring and gentle as an act of self-love for your body. Drinking coffee with intention can be about slowing down and getting in touch with yourself before you face the day with more presence and fortitude. It’s up to you what you instill with which intention, but the best advice I can give is do what is most supportive and uplifting for the life you want to create and the person you want to be.
Do you talk with yourself enough? Not muttering to yourselves while you try to do math, but instead cultivating an exchange of reflection to gather insights about where you are in life, and where you want to go.
Continuous, intentional reflection is crucial to personal growth and moving towards your ideal life. Add an opportunity for reflection into one of your routines or habits—like journaling at the beginning or end of the day, reviewing your day while you’re in the shower or decompressing after work.
Frequent reflection can provide valuable insights about areas in your life to be grateful for, room for improvement and how you’re dream progress is going.
When was the last time you felt yourself fly off the handle? Or, maybe you let something slip when you didn’t mean to. Have you said something you didn’t mean, or did you say something you did mean and then pretended like you didn’t? Being an intentional communicator just means thinking a little more before you speak and being considerate of the impact words have.
This is a challenging area, but I am trying hard to be more intentional about what I say (and when). I find that when I am able to do this, I am a better listener, conversational partner and when I do speak up, it is more meaningful and contributing than an automatic response. I'm practicing interrupting less and in the process I know I'm less likely to say things I don’t mean.
A lot of the time, it can feel like we are conditioned to keep a conversation going no matter what, even if it loses its value. When you communicate with intention, you might also want to get comfortable with silence. Silence can bring about some of the most insightful and genuine conversation you can have.
Explore how you can add intention to your forms of communication—social media, work dynamics, casual conversation and the way you talk to yourself. Be intentional about your thoughts and works—especially to yourself—because they always have a long lasting impact on how you lose self-esteem or grow into the best version of yourself.
Did you know all of the prompts and features in the JMB Living Journal were curated with intention to create life-changing impacts? Not just to help you more easily instill intention in your own life, but in various ways throughout the journal to help you create a positive mindset shift that leads you to be more present each day by slowing down and cultivating a gratitude mindset?
Gratitude might sound like an easy thing to master that’s not very impactful on your life, but noticing one thing to celebrate, or one way you saw beauty or one thing that brings you joy every day, alongside identifying things you’re grateful for, is immensely beneficial for improving mental health. When things are hard, it helps guide you to find something that adds ease or soothes your hardship. And, when things are good, you can’t help but feel them more deeply while the good things in your life multiply.
No matter how you choose to apply intentional journaling into your days, all it takes is at least five minutes a day to reflect, find your joy and write your gratitude. You can also make your journaling much more robust by adding a daily or weekly affirmation, a monthly intention, seasonal indulgences—the opportunities are endless. If you want some inspiration on things to elevate your intentional journaling or to make it easy and use the JMB Living Journal, you can see more about it here.
There are so many different ways to add more intention with physicality. There have been so many exercises in the JMB Living Journal where I encourage our community to increase their awareness of the five senses during certain situations like eating, walking outside, taking a hot bath, putting on clothes and so many more!
Taking a moment to slow down, soak in your surroundings and catalog how they impact your senses is a great use of intention to add presence and become an active participant in your own life instead of a bystander.
Also, just having an intention to be more aware of your surrounding while on a walk, during your morning commute or experiencing something new has allowed me to see so many things with a newfound sense of awe for nature, life and humanity.
How much time and energy do you truly dedicate to yourself? At the end of your life, will you have felt satisfied, cared for and nourished with the way you have treated yourself? Self-love is something that radically shifts the way we walk through life.
Shedding insecurity and focusing on cultivating our personal garden creates abundant freedom in relationships, expressing your identity, discovering your values and prioritizing authenticity. Self-love is the root from which branches of success, happiness and alignment grow. How can you be more intentional about showing yourself the love you actually deserve?
There are so many things I wish I could go back and tell that young, single mom working in a job that didn’t fulfill her or inspire her, living the same day over and over. Especially how much intentionally living would change her life and bring her everything she could have dreamed of and more. I hope some of these things resonate with you and inspire to begin creating your dreams today!
There will be obstacles, serious challenges, periods of hopelessness and great, skyrocketing success…but all of those things will be mixed up into any random order, multiple times throughout your journey. And that’s okay! It is an exercise in growth, using mindfulness tools and just a part of life. When I look back, there were so many times I was frustrated or impatient to get to where I am now (even though I didn't know what exactly that would look like at the time). Yet, all these life experiences are so helpful for what I love doing today.
I was driving a car given to me by my parents. I wasn’t wealthy or using expensive skincare. I wasn't doing yoga in Lululemon, but rather in sweats on my own yoga mat at home. I wasn't waking up every day with a meditation or floating around with a slick-backed ponytail with 3% body fat. I was—and still am—just Julie.
I know some people who are highly thoughtful, intentional and involved in the wellness community with tattoos, dyed hair, ripped jeans, khakis, birkenstocks, stilettos, red lipstick, pencil skirts, and all that works well for them or at least it looks good on screen. For me, I'm looking for what's comfortable and what’s best for what we’re doing that day. Don’t let influencer culture or media convince you that you don’t “look right” for intentional living or to take up space in the wellness sphere.
You can create your own balance of habits and routines to adopt that support your journey and intentions without compromising your sense of self. Unpredictable girls’ nights, shopping at Walmart instead of a farmers market, drinking more than one glass of wine, buying nice shoes or going out to eat at a five-star restaurant—none of these things have to clash with living intentionally. Intentional living is about creating whatever life you want and making the most of all this one life has to offer.
]]>Valentine’s Day is almost here, but how do we expand self-love beyond material things?
When we fully love ourselves, life looks totally different. Loving yourself doesn’t have to mean being arrogant or never feeling insecure again. It is the intention and feeling of loving yourself the way you are, but also enough to grow and become the best version of yourself that you have visualized. Loving yourself means showing up for yourself, taking care of yourself and trusting yourself to not let insecurity and societal standards dictate your life.
What do we gain by shifting from a mindset of practicing self-care to creating self-love?
Working on loving and accepting yourself doesn't mean stopping self-care altogether. But, living in a mindset of self-love just means that your self-care becomes an act of self-love; instead of doing a face mask to prevent a break out, the intention shifts to loving yourself enough to take care of your skin. A bubble bath to decompress and relax is still an easy act of self-care, but it is also a solution to your mind and body seeking relief. So, you take a bath because you want to relax your muscles and be well-rested and clean.
The intentions you attach to your self-care under a mindset of self-love make the acts of self-care more impactful, instead of reactive self-care that feels more like putting a bandage on on a broken leg.
If you struggle to prioritize yourself or want to take your self-care to the next level, Worthy: A Radical Self-Love Journal guides you on a journey through three months' worth of pillars of self-love to help you overcome insecurities, silence your inner critic, work through obstacles and radically embrace your authentic self. With psychology-backed methods, articles from self-love coaches and a variety of prompts, exercises and activities that separate JMB Living Journals from all other journals, Worthy is so much more than just a journal—it's a tool and a mirror for you to unlock your true beauty without any of the background noise in your head tempting you to believe otherwise.
Instead of a list of self-care ideas, I wanted to share the different acts of self-love I do that are sustainable and contribute to showing intentional love to your body and mind.
I'm allowing time for simply thinking, visualizing, reflecting and journaling.
What is the biggest obstacle you find yourself struggling with when you try to commit to using a journal or a planner? Do you start out color coding your to-do’s and events and tracking your moods and sleep only to give up after missing one day? Or, do you buy one only to pick it up when you find yourself feeling overwhelmed?
I started calling the use of the JMB Living Journal a “Journal Journey” because that’s what it is: an unpredictable path that you travel as you navigate each day. Everyone’s journey is different, and so is the way that everyone uses a journal.
No matter what your reason is for using a journal, it’s possible to find a happy medium between accomplishing what you want with a journal without feeling obligated to use it or easily giving up when your journal journey doesn’t look how you expected it to.
There are ways to create sustainable journaling habits with no pressure or high expectations. Now is the time to begin to create a routine that works for you where journaling becomes a habit, so you can set yourself up for success in the new year.
I recently listened to the Basecamp with Pat Dossett podcast where Dr. Andrew Huberman was a guest. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford School of Medicine and was such an insightful speaker as he discussed working with intentions.
In the podcast, Dr. Huberman sheds light on the common experience that when we work on bringing in new habits, routines, etc., we often don't pay near enough attention to what we need to let go of.
Before you create ways to develop your desired new habits and routines, it is essential to take a good, hard look at whether or not your current habits and routines are supportive of the new ones you want to add into your life.
If you have current behaviors that will slow you down or prevent you from establishing the new habit you want, these old habits will quickly sabotage your success if you don't let them go. In fact, letting these old behaviors go may very well be the key to your success.
Our brains are the core of our behaviors. Sure, there are external factors that contribute to our emotions and personality development, but when it comes to habits and behaviors, we can use the science of neuroanatomy to our advantage.
Once cemented and practiced often, habits become reflexive behaviors. Do you pick your phone up first thing in the morning when you wake up without even thinking about it? Do you have to think about it in advance when you turn on the light in the bathroom and reach into your cabinet to brush your teeth? When you get in your car, buckling and starting the engine is likely muscle memory.
It only makes sense that when habits come so easily because the brain has developed pathways to perform these behaviors consistently, it can be extra difficult to overcome and change your brain’s tendencies to dissolve old habits and create new ones.
Because these habits are so ingrained in our daily neurological processes, extra effort is required to override neurons from automatically sending signals to do these habits and routines.
When you take advantage of neuroanatomy to rewire your brain, this is called self-directed neuroplasticity.
Essentially, to truly get rid of the old behaviors that are holding you back from successfully creating a new habit or routine, we need to intentionally rewire our prefrontal cortex. Fortunately enough, you can strengthen your prefrontal cortex’s function by practicing mindfulness.
How do we do this?
To take advantage of our current knowledge about how the brain works, there are two key steps we need to take to create a new behavior:
For instance, if you decide that one of the things that could hold you back from journaling consistently is social media, you can't simply write down, "I'm not going to spend as much time on social media." Get more specific. If you know that you want to journal after making your morning cup of coffee, but get on your phone first and look up to find that you’ve spent 20 minutes on social media, you might say something like, "I will no longer pick up my phone after making my morning cup of coffee.” You may even write down where you are going to leave your phone.
If one attempted routine doesn't work, maybe it just takes a small tweak to make it successful. Keep noticing what is not working and making tiny shifts and changes until it does. And believe that you can do this. I believe in you.😘
]]>Summer and fall are such beloved seasons, so it’s only natural for some to dread winter each year. However, how much do you think that negative anticipation impacts one’s actual experience? When you’re so sure of something mentally and refuse to be open to the possibility that you can be proven wrong, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. And why would we want to be right about something being difficult or unenjoyable?
Even if you hate the cold or struggle with seasonal depression, winter brings about so many things to celebrate and savor—you just have to be willing to look.
When the clouds are low and gray and the atmosphere is heavy and gloomy, it can seem hard to find a reason to enjoy the day or embrace the season. However, try the daily prompt in the JMB Living Journal, “Things I am Grateful for.”
You may only be able to find one happy accident, or you might list an entire collection of things you’re grateful for. Start where you can and be sure to intentionally go throughout your day looking for at least one thing you can be grateful for.
Shifting to a gratitude mindset is a great first start to get the most results. Practicing gratitude is great for your mental health, emotional regulation and the ability to choose how we respond to stress.
Spending many days inside without the recommended amount of outdoor light and doing the same routine or having decreased activity is a catalyst for seasonal affective disorder (SAD—more popularly called seasonal depression), and feeling gratitude each day not only encourages you to recognize and celebrate the diversity of each day—even if it is small—but the experience of feeling grateful is also a mood booster.
If you do live in an area that experiences the seasonal shifts of nature that you don’t enjoy, try separating the idea of inconvenience from the thing itself: if you hate scraping snow off your car, shift your focus from frustration of that to wonder of how snow transforms your surroundings and how the cycles of nature all adapt to snow, cold, temporary death and upcoming revival in spring.
This is even a potential opportunity to awaken and indulge your inner child. What were things that always made you happy in winter when you were younger, or what did you always want to do? If you loved adding a candy cane to your hot chocolate with marshmallows while you watched a specific movie, recreate it! Light a candle or sit beside a lit fireplace with your favorite blanket to include your favorite luxuries as an adult while lingering in nostalgia.
If you sometimes pass a great hill on your way to work that you’ve wanted to sled down, go do it! If you’ve always wanted to try skiing (downhill or cross country) or tubing, take a trip by yourself or go with friends/family. That’s the great thing about indulging our inner child as an adult: most of the time, we can be the ones that make it happen!
These are bigger methods for mindfulness and finding joy during winter, but it’s likely not realistic to have a positive attitude every day for the entirety of the season. That’s why it’s also important to embrace stillness.
JMB Living advocates for living in alignment with nature, and what is nature doing during winter? Resting. The hallmarks of winter foster rest and slow living. The key to enjoying winter is, instead of feeling trapped inside or like winter is just another obstacle to living in your favorite season, you need to take notes from what nature is doing and take advantage of how much slower and more simple the world is at this time.
It can feel counterintuitive to go into the new year with an intention to savor stillness when everyone else is making resolutions. But, when you live in alignment with nature, spring follows nature like a wake-up call with a burst of energy and intentions to blossom and be revived. This is why at JMB Living, we encourage women to indulge in the slowness and quiet of winter and reflect in this time: sit in quiet, contemplate, introspect and use the time to slow down and dream.
You have plenty of time in winter to identify your dreams and create action steps that you can take throughout the year to achieve them. Then, when the time is right and you feel prepared, you’ll be supported by the renewing energy of spring to follow through.
What dreams have not fully come into my life yet? What can I do this year to continue my progress? Keep in mind dreams can have timing that doesn’t align with your expectations.
The new year is a time when everyone is working to achieve their resolutions, beginning their year with pressure and jumping back into the hustle of everyday life. However, I say, throw your resolutions out the window.
It's true! Resolutions create a ton of pressure and the fear of failure is not a healthy motivator. When you shift your mindset away from goals and resolutions to creating your ideal life and achieving your dreams, you become more aligned with the natural way that our lives progress and how we welcome our desires into our lives.
When it comes to setting a timeline for achieving your dreams, often there are aspects of the timing that we can't really control. It's best to be open when it comes to how our dreams are created.
Where goals are inspired by a change we want to make, dreams are more holistic and can take any shape so long as it fulfills the intention and/or purpose of a dream.
Are your goals too influenced by society or what you think you should be striving for? Dreams will fulfill you or bring you closer to being your best self. Living your ideal life and making this mindset shift will result in more ease and progress for you on your journey.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way—wealthy, successful people have used mindfulness tools to achieve their dreams, and the beginning of the year is a great time to educate yourself and try a new strategy as you shift away from grind culture and resolutions. This blog post shares each of these methods as well as many resources to help you learn more and master these tools on your own dream journey.
Would you trust advice from someone who spent five years studying the habits and methods of rich people? Tom Corley is an author of many books, including Change Your Habits, Change Your Life and Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. During his study of 233 wealthy individuals, Corley found that nearly 80% use future scripting to identify and create their dreams. Future scripting is the practice of putting your ideal life on paper with words.
Future scripting is not only a good manifestation method and visualization technique, but it is a great exercise in general to gain insight on what you desire and how you would like it to come into your life. You can then take this detailed description to create action steps.
For more information on what future scripting is and how to use it to create your dreams, you can download our free guide here.
Break your one-year plan into actionable activities you can focus on each season.
After you've create your future script, do your best to identify the individual dreams and an estimated timeline for how long it might take for them to come true. This isn't to create an expectation or a deadline, but more so to help you prioritize and decide your action steps.
Now, you can create your one-year plan into steps you can take throughout each period of three months. The business model of quarters is successful because three months is a more realistic and achievable time period for achieving goals, and many mindfulness professionals have adapted this as well.
Be sure to factor in the natural energy and events going on throughout each season. If your action items could be impacted by how busy work or life is, use that information to plan accordingly.
As you identify each dream from your future script, break each of those dreams down and assign them their own creation steps. This is insight you can use to compose your one-year (and longer) plan.
How can you use visualization to support your dream journey? Vision boards.
1 in 5 successful entrepreneurs used vision boards to help them reach success (source).
I advocate for vision boards to anyone and everyone seeking to improve their life, grow or achieve their dreams. Not only are vision boards a powerful visualization tool, but they're also just a great motivator as you look at it daily and are reminded of what you are working for, how far you've come and what is coming into your life.
If you're looking for inspiration or information on how to create a great vision board, I share content often on Pinterest (one of my favorite vision boarding tools) or check out How to Make a Vision Board that Makes Your Dreams a Reality.
I also host Free Online Vision Board Workshops—the first one for 2023 will be held on Tuesday, January 10th. You can RSVP or sign up to be notified about the next one here.
Affirmations have many proven psychological benefits, including a better understanding and use of identity as well as increased positivity. They are also a great tool for creating your dreams as you subconsciously are being reminded of what you're working for and your thoughts can influence your actions to move you closer to creating your dreams.
Corley's study also shows wealthy individuals are positive. Affirmations also help train your brain to make positivity your default. The power of the spoken word and believing your thoughts is truly underestimated, so using affirmations is a great way to enhance your success while dissolving limiting beliefs.
Affirmations are so popular throughout social media and the wellness sphere these days, but there's so much more to them than just saying one at the beginning of the day or when you see one on social media.
Inspiration and finding affirmations that resonate are great, and I'm glad so many people share them now, but getting them to be impactful requires techniques and information that isn't usually shared alongside the affirmation itself. That's why I created The Secret to Creating Affirmations that Work, a digital course that walks you through how to apply the science behind affirmations to your daily use, with method and technique suggestions for you to choose from that best fit your style.
When you are intentional about your routines and habits and making sure that they are aligned with your dreams and desired growth, you create so much more ease on your dream journey. Make and break habits and routines to set yourself up for success in reaching your dreams.
Habits can so easily be tied to a resolution, but it actually takes at least 30 days to make or break a habit, so be sure that you are supporting these changes with realistic action. There are so many tools and methods to be successful in making and breaking habits, and you can find them in How to Actually Make and Break Habits.
But what's the difference between habits and routines, and why does it matter to know? Routines are composed of habits and can be more specific to time-of-day or overall purpose. Read How Routines Create Consistency in an Inconsistent Life if you would like to fully understand the value of routine and how to create them in a way that sticks and supports your dream journey.
These pillars were all factors in the creation of the JMB Living Journal. With an intention to help you create your ideal life as you navigate day-to-day challenges and work to shift your mindset to one of positivity and joy, the journal includes features that support your dream journey with these tools that such successful people have also used.
If this year is the year you are ready to truly make progress to make your dreams your reality, you can learn more about the journal here or sign up to receive more resources and tips like the ones included in this blog here.
]]>Have your holidays lost their meaning to the pressure of balancing finances with buying the right gifts, getting your work done before the end of the year and attending/planning events? The end of the year can often be the busiest time of year, so how can we really savor what should be a meaningful time with those we love without failing to fulfill our obligations?
Regardless of which holidays you celebrate, you can choose what you celebrate and why with intentions. While observing and staying true to what your spirituality calls for, the holiday season is a time for personal fulfillment and joy with the connection. But, how can you do it all and still find time to take care of yourself and get to do what you want? The answer is simple: you don’t have to do it all.
The holidays are about what and who you value, so it’s okay to set boundaries to ensure you are celebrating things aligned with your core values that fill your cup. It’s important to rest and recharge so that you can come into the new year with confidence, happiness and enough energy to take action on your dreams and intentions.
One aspect you can evaluate when going through the holidays with intention is choosing your traditions. Is there a tradition you carry on as an obligation or without second thought that doesn’t give you any joy? Continuing a tradition that has sentiment attached can be nourishing for the soul if it connects you to the past or family, but if winding lights and garland around your stair rail does nothing but drain you, you don’t have to do it!
You can also adjust or replace traditions with one you’d like to start and carry on for years to come. Maybe you want to start a Christmas movie night, go ice skating or watch carolers perform—whatever you find that fits your family or brings you joy can be your new tradition.
However, deciding which traditions to keep, change or start can be difficult because we sometimes perform a tradition simply because it’s just that: a tradition. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you evaluate your traditions:
The holiday season can be filled with so many events, responsibilities and social situations. It’s important now more than ever to prioritize self-care and set boundaries so that you can fully enjoy all that the holidays have to offer, instead of being drained and resenting everything that comes with it.
If you struggle to find time to practice self-care, make time for it in your schedule. If you’re already out shopping for a day, schedule a salt float or sauna visit while you’re out. If you know you have a big day of decorating coming up, take a bath or clean the house and do laundry the day before—everyone’s self-care looks different.
But, no amount of self-care can nourish you if you over-commit and don’t set boundaries. Even though it can be especially hard to say no to things and people during the holidays, it’s so important to protect your peace so that you can slow down and truly enjoy the season and time with those you love. If you struggle with saying no and determining when is an appropriate time to set boundaries for your own well-being, you can read more on that here.
What do you want to get out of the holiday season? Do you want to celebrate your religion, spend valuable time with loved ones or savor a break from everyday life? This is where intentions come in.
What are you lacking or in need of this holiday season? Set intentions that support that. If you set an intention to make long-lasting memories with loved ones, take steps to make that happen such as decorating together, making a special meal, having a gathering, going ice skating or doing a seasonal experience, etc.
If you feel like time passes by too quickly during this time or that you don’t get to spend as much time with loved ones as you would like, set an intention to slow down and be more present. You can support this by limiting your commitments and being intentional about how you spend your time. Sometimes, we have to take up a role that we haven’t before as a planner or communicator to ensure that this time comes together, but that’s also a great opportunity to try something new while bringing people together.
It may seem easier said than done, but to get what you want out of a holiday season, set aside some time to find out what you want first, then set your intentions and find ways to implement them into your plans during this time.
For some of us, the holidays can be especially difficult and emotionally taxing as they can emphasize loss. Whether it be the passing of a loved one or estrangement from a difficult relationship, it can be hard to go through a season of joy and connection with a reminder of what we don’t have anymore. While it can be a time to celebrate what we had before the loss, it’s also a time to seek healing from those wounds.
Healing is a continuous process, but here are some journal prompts to foster healing while processing all of the emotions that come with it so that it's still possible to enjoy the holiday season:
I dare you to spend one day counting how many times you have a negative thought about yourself.
Think it might be a lot?
Striving to be the best versions of ourselves is a great goal, but it can be easy to slip into negative self-talk as a result of limiting beliefs—or perhaps even modeled for us by adults while growing up.
When was the last time you truly felt like you could do anything? Were you a child, was it after a great day at work? What’s keeping you from believing that every day?
The journey to creating your ideal life is paved with a strong foundation in your values and belief system. When you consider how powerful thoughts and speech are in tools like visualization, affirmations, manifestation, future scripting and more, think about how harmful negative thoughts and words can be as they form obstacles on your dream journey and in daily life.
What kind of things do you think to yourself when you feel confident about something? Maybe, it sounds like "I am so excited to crush this," or, "I'm really good at this!" Do you feel those thoughts positively impacting your mood and how you approach things?
So, when you are hard on yourself—perhaps because of an insecurity, trauma, lack of self-confidence, limiting beliefs or other—your negative thoughts are harmful. They impact your chances of success, increase stress and depression and can be damaging to how you socialize (Elizabeth Scott, 2022).
When you focus on supposed "flaws" or mistakes more than celebrating your strengths and individuality, you are holding yourself back from enjoying life and having meaningful experiences.
Everyone has insecurities and nobody is perfect, but it's how you choose to see yourself, carry yourself and take care of yourself that helps you overcome artificial, negative beliefs.
However, especially as women, it can be hard to find a balance of confidence, humility and self-love while living in a society that imposes endless reasons not to love ourselves loudly.
We're raised to be conscious of wearing "flattering clothes" and doing diets to lose the last five pounds that we would never think of as too much if someone else hadn't said so.
So, in a world when your inner voice echoes societal expectations that can't be met, how do we break free from the behavior to allow ourselves to morph into what we've always been capable of?
It might seem difficult to know where to start to create a mindset shift away from negative perceptions of ourselves, but it is possible by taking steps. Responding to situations and thoughts with pessimism and negative self-talk is a habit that we develop—as a coping or defense mechanism, a learned behavior, etc.
The crazy thing is we typically develop this coping technique to prevent us from being disappointed if we lose or fail and it is this very action keeping us from easily succeeding in the first place. Regardless, it takes at least 30 days to break a habit, and here are some tips to help your mindset shift stick:
Do you know what events or influences led you to have a negative perception? A positive mindset shift will not be long-lasting if your core belief holds true to what originally made you critical of yourself.
Changing what might be life-long thought processes and refreshing your point of view is neither easy nor immediate. It's a life-long process that should be considered and re-evaluated from time to time. Don’t give up if you feel like you’re not making the progress you should (is that another negative thought you’re having?), just keep doing the work. I believe in you! You can do this!
]]>How often do you find yourself saying yes when instead you should have said no? Defining personal boundaries can be a trial and error process, but we can also be proactive about creating our boundaries. But, how do we uphold them once we know what they are?
]]>How often do you find yourself saying yes when instead you should have said no? There are many reasons that we can feel pressured to do something, even when it’s not what’s best for us: obligation to a relationship, fear of underperforming, trying to meet expectations, and just not feeling comfortable saying no.
Sometimes, we don’t know what our boundary for something is until after it’s already been crossed. Defining personal boundaries can be a trial and error process, but we can also be proactive about creating our boundaries. And how do we uphold them once we know what they are?
I often talk about our journey through life and understanding how to define your own personal boundaries feels like a journey as well. It requires a healthy dose of self awareness and periodic intentional reflection.
When I look back at my years in the corporate world, I know now that I did a lousy job setting and upholding boundaries on my time. I told myself that the ridiculous hours worked regularly were expected of me. Yet the truth is, if I had voiced that additional resources were needed and timelines were not realistic earlier in my career, it is likely that some changes may have been possible. This would have been a difficult discussion, but in hindsight it would have been a wise one, both for myself and my team.
In later years I got better at doing this and at first I was surprised that rather than these discussions being looked at from a negative perspective from my superiors, it actually was viewed from a higher level of respect. When you respect yourself and your time, others seem to more easily do so as well. I also began to realize that it was impossible to accomplish all the work and it was okay for many of the projects to still be there tomorrow. The same is usually true in your household as well.
Most of the time when someone asks something of us, there is a pre-existing relationship like being coworkers, family members, friends, partners, etc., which can make it seem easier to ignore your own boundaries to please them. However, this is not sustainable. When we overexert ourselves with commitments that are born only out of obligation, not only are we more likely to not fully commit to the obligation to the best of our ability, but it can also cause resentment in the relationship and be harmful to our own wellbeing.
It is okay to say no to something because you don’t want to do it, and it’s okay to say no to something because you shouldn’t. Sometimes, the two are the same—there are times when if you don’t want to do something, you shouldn’t! A friend of mine told her daughter growing up, “If you can’t do it with a happy heart, then don’t help.”
Obviously as adults there are times when we have to do things even when we really don’t want to, but if you have a true choice in whether or not to do something and you know that you can’t do it with a “happy heart”, it would likely be best if you don’t do it…for both you and other people involved. Think about a time when you were voluntarily using your time for something and someone clearly didn’t want to be there. Their energy can be off putting and even impact your own mood.
This is one reason why it is important to recognize and uphold your boundaries. Overtime, if we allow our boundaries to be lines that are easily crossed instead of strong walls, we can lose touch with doing things we value, committing good deeds out of the goodness of our hearts, and getting joy from relationships and activities.
You might be afraid to assert yourself and your boundaries in fear of it impacting your relationships with those asking, but when was the last time you got mad at one of your friends for saying no to getting together because they needed a night in? We often do not give ourselves the grace we afford to others, but people that truly care about you will respect your boundaries and be understanding, just as you are with them.
So how do we decide our boundaries in the first place and find out how much of ourselves we can give without depleting ourselves? There will always be times where we won’t know that something has crossed a boundary we didn’t know we had until it’s too late. It's not until afterwards that we realize we ended up emotionally exhausted and that the experience negatively impacted on our own wellbeing. However, you can be proactive and create your boundaries with guided reflection and introspection.
1. Think of instances when your boundaries were blatantly crossed—whether you already had the boundaries or not. Is there a common theme in these situations that can lend to a general value that you can uphold to prevent it from happening again?
2. When have you agreed to something when you should have said no? What stopped you from saying no, and does it justify ignoring your own boundary or is it valid?
3. Write the five most important things that you need to be emotionally and physically healthy in one week. What events or things would you prioritize over any of those things, if any? How can you balance commitments with still making sure you get those five things?
4. Is it hard for you to say no to other people? Who is it hard to say no to? Why? If you needed to say no to any of these people, how could you say it respectfully while still communicating a boundary?
5. Think of at least one situation where you think it would be almost impossible to say no to someone. What is the situation, and why is saying no so difficult? If this situation would impact your wellbeing and prevent you from being the best person for the situation, create a boundary. Write it down clearly, and come up with ways to communicate it should the need ever arise.
Examine why it is so hard to say no. Sometimes, our pasts can groom us to be people-pleasers rather than someone who genuinely enjoys serving others. If you feel nothing but stress and pressure when you are fulfilling the needs of others, you may be a compulsive people-pleaser. While the intention of making other people happy is good, it’s not worth it if it jeopardizes your own health. It’s okay to not be a people-pleaser!
Not everyone has the emotional bandwidth to extend to other situations without being overexerted. Life can be hard and certain hardships can drain us of how much emotion and attention we can invest into things outside of sustaining our own health and happiness. Maintaining your peace does not automatically make you selfish.
If you feel guilty about upholding your boundaries, think of areas where you donate your time and attention to other asks that aren’t YOUR boundaries. Realize that you’re not saying no to everything, and the things you agree to could be a boundary for someone else.
Perspective and communication are key aspects to remember when upholding your boundaries so that you don’t get overwhelmed with obligation and negative self-talk. Try looking at the situation from multiple perspectives and if you need to, try saying an affirmation about your own needs and worth before communication "no" to someone.
“I don’t have the time or emotional availability to be the best person for that. Is there someone else you can ask? I can recommend [solution]”
“I’m not comfortable doing that, but I can support you by _____”
“I am not available to do that.”
“I’m thankful you thought of me, but someone else would be better suited.”
“I am too busy right now to be able to do that.”
Even though you might feel inclined to attach an apology when saying no, it is not always necessary. Avoid apologizing if you don’t have a reason to and you don’t need to explain your reasoning if it is too personal.
Sometimes we have people we truly care about ask us to do something that we genuinely want to do, but can’t for many reasons and even just saying no can be upsetting for everyone involved. More complicated situations like this might require a deeper conversation to communicate your needs and your boundaries.
Just remember, if you agree to do something when you actually can’t or shouldn’t, it is not the best option for anyone involved and there are always alternative solutions. Sometimes, all you can do is your best, and that’s okay.
This November, gratitude truly flows in abundance for me as I celebrate the two-year anniversary of the JMB Living Journal launch. Abandoning my corporate (and secure) career to run a small business—that ended up having to endure the pandemic—was certainly a risk, but it was so much more than that: it was a dream.
I’m also so excited to announce this issue’s cover woman, Sarah Ahmed (@the.poc.therapist on Instagram), CEO and cofounder of Wellnest Therapy™: a collective of BIPOC therapists offering intersectional psychotherapy wellness services. In addition to advocating for intersectional wellness, Sarah is highly accomplished and shares incredible life insights and mental health tips. I'm so honored to have her share in this issue of the journal and delighted to connect you with her if you hadn't found her already.
Fortunately I had a good mentor at the time who suggested that I focus all of my attention on just one small aspect of the problem first. Then when I solved as much as I could on that aspect, to move on to another aspect, all while keeping the information categorized so that it could easily be referred back to later in a bigger picture way. It worked! And I can't tell you how many times I've used that advise over the years for all kinds of challenges—both in the office and in my personal life.
Sometimes, we might want to procrastinate truly because we'd rather watch one more episode of something or don't want to get off the couch, etc. Who hasn't felt this way from time to time? But the desire to procrastinate and the inability to complete a task can have many underlying causes and uncovering the root issue can help you get moving on whatever it is you want to accomplish.
If you often struggle with keeping track of tasks or want to work from the root to solve procrastination habits, the JMB Living Journal doubles as a planner and a journal with daily prompts and wellness features like a monthly habit tracker to help foster a mindset shift to positivity while making it as easy as possible to become your best self one day at a time.
And I recently added one new practice daily when looking at my vision board. After listening to a interview with neuroscientist Andrew Huberman on MadeFor's Basecamp Podcast, I added the step of thinking about what I am afraid of or what would prevent me from making these dreams a reality. This helps shift your brain into a mode of figuring out how to avoid these challenges or how to take steps to work through them. I've found it is helping me to focus on the hard things that I need to do and the actions steps I need to take, and since I'm feeling inspired and motivated by looking at my board and feeling success first, it is helping me get more motivated to follow through on these action steps that I may tend to procrastinate on.
Linger there - Think of feeling gratitude like the feeling you get when sinking into a warm bath at the end of an exhausting day. Savor the feeling, noticing how your body and mind react and make an intention to simply enjoy feeling this way for a few moments.
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Find tools or create processes that support your habits and lifestyle shifts as you create your ideal life. This is why I included a habit tracker, dream steps and weekly intention and affirmation prompts in the JMB Living Journal to serve as daily reminders of the steps you need to take on the journey to creating your dreams.
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When I got back to the house, my temper had cooled, but I still felt unsettled and unhappy. It wasn't until a bit later when I picked up my journal and started letting my feelings flow there that I began to get a better understanding of the underlying issues and take a deeper look at the situation and feelings surrounding it from his viewpoint. This ultimately led to feelings of compassion for both of us and the ability to begin to figure out how to resolve the impasse.
Even if you are simply walking in your own neighborhood there is plenty to find to engage your senses and be curious about. Watch how the trees and plants change each season. Notice how the squirrels jump and skitter away. Appreciate the changes in hues of the sky or the difference in shades of green in the grass as the spring fades into summer and summer into fall.
Without the limitations of time and money, what would you like to learn about, or learn how to do? Why do you think this appeals so to you?
Without the limitations of time and money, what places would you like to visit and why? How would you prefer to travel there? What would see? What would your wardrobe consist of? What foods would you like to try?
Consider the relationships you care most about. What aspects of the connection do you most value and why? How could you increase the depth of the relationship? Are there facets of the relationship that annoy you or trouble you in some way? Why do you think these feelings arise?
Reflect back on the most beautiful or interesting thing you encountered today. How and why did it capture your attention?
Consider your relationship with money. Is it similar to that of your parents? How did your relationship with money begin to take shape as a child? How do these experiences still seem to impact the way you save or spend today?
Asking questions like these and stirring up your curiosity can yield a treasure trove of insights. Are there other areas of your life you might like to explore as well? Dive in. Get curious.
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1. Meditate- If you don't already, try meditating at the beginning or end of your day. A meditation can be as long or short as you need, just take some time to center and reflect. You can find a guided meditation on YouTube or do a sunrise/sunset meditation to add some beauty and alignment!
2. Journaling- Come home to yourself every day in summer by setting aside some time each day and journaling. If you have a JMB Living Journal, you can use the prompts and affirmations to support your intention and find inspiration through the features and mindful moment challenges each week! Summer is the perfect time to use the JMB Living Journal because its seasonally curated content keeps you aligned and encourages reflection while also sharing tips for staying present! If you don't use a JMB Living Journal, your summer journaling might be more freeform or specific reflection about what you did to be mindful that day and your experience. Journaling is a great way to take a little bit (or a lot) of time to foster your relationship with yourself while taking a beat to be present.
3. Try some grounding exercises.
4. Try not to take life too seriously- Ask yourself the question, "How much will this matter in five years?"
5. Spend time alone.
6. Make an abundance list- This one's easy! Just create a list of all the things abundant in your life. Employing an abundance mindset increases gratitude and joy while also increasing abundance!
7. Play like a child.
8. Notice nature.
9. Switch up your affirmations.
10. Explore with taste- Try something you've never had before OR take note of the texture, temperature, taste and flavors of a food as you eat.
11. Remember with smell- Take a moment when you're in a situation to pay attention to the smells surrounding you, especially in nature, and allow yourself to feel wonder.
12. Experience new things with touch- Instead of focusing on your destination, stop to touch a tree, flower or anything in your immediate surroundings on a walk or anytime you're outside to be more present and interact with nature. You can even do this at a store! Explore textures and things that feel soft and bring feelings of delight, rather than allowing yourself to become overwhelmed and frustrated by only focusing on your list.
13. Catalog what you hear.
14. Allow your eyes to wander.
15. Have a picnic.
16. Find a way to love yourself fully at least once a week.
17. Hang out with friends.
19. Reinforce your boundaries.
20. Schedule for spontaneity- Make sure you leave time open on your days off so that you can "go with the flow" when you are enjoying something or an opportunity arises to be playful.
21. Get enough sleep.
22. Cultivate a carefree, happy attitude- Begin your day with an affirmation that expresses this; either before you get out of bed in the morning, or say this to yourself the first time you look in the mirror.
23. Approach life with curiosity.
25. Cook a new meal for the first time.
26. Find a new hobby.
27. Try out a new look- Change your hair, donate old clothes and thrift some new ones; wear an outfit that you've always wanted to wear but never have before in public!
28. Eat for your dosha.
29. Drive a new way to/from work- Switch up the monotony of an obligation by noticing the difference in surroundings!
30. Change the way you complete a task- Try completing your shower routine or the order you clean a room in out of order and take note of how much more present you are and if your thoughts stray onto a different path than usual.
31. Make a new habit.
32. Take a day trip to somewhere new- This could be exploring something in your hometown, going on a day trip or taking a full vacation! Just go somewhere and experience new things!
33. Go on a hike.
34. Do something you've always wanted to do.
35. Play in water.
37. Do a social media cleanse- Decide on a specific amount of time to stay away from social media one day OR clean out your profiles and friends lists.
38. Finish the book you haven’t yet.
39. Read a new book.
40. Color in a coloring book.
41. Seize opportunities to commit a random act of kindness- Hold the door open for a stranger, pay for someone's coffee, help someone load their groceries into their car or return someone else's cart when you return yours. It's the small things!
42. Reflect with intent to forgive- Summer doesn't have to be all about play, and sometimes it can be hard to really enjoy yourself if you have unresolved feelings or conflict with others. Seek to forgive someone that has hurt you or forgive yourself to release those suppressed feelings and feel more freedom and contentment!
43. Dance!
44. Dance in the rain!
45. Declutter.
46. Create time to watch the sunrise/sunset.
47. Try slow eating.
48. Switch it up: do something you would normally do inside, outside!
49. Turn an everyday meal into an occasion- Invite the people you might share a meal with to wear formal attire, light candles, buy flowers and put a lot of effort into the meal. The energy and intent will make it more special than going to a restaurant and you'll be creating a memory with others!
50. Awaken your inner child by doing something they loved to do- Splash around with a garden hose, jump rope, play a sport you haven't in a while or pick flowers along your walk.
]]>Peace with a situation
Personal growth
A better understanding of our feelings
Control over our reactions
Stronger relationships
Healthy boundaries
When you are the one that has caused hurt or injury:
As a corporate professional, time management was important; but as an entrepreneur, time management is critical. It wasn’t until I didn’t have an enforced schedule that I realized how much my time management and productivity is controlled by me, rather than a manager or workplace.
Although sometimes I dread it because of the volume, or don’t want to put in the work because I'm just not feeling motivated, my daily life feels so much better when I am truly productive. Making an intention to be productive every day and following through with it actually provides much more ease and satisfaction each day, and not just in work.
Unfortunately, just making my intention in the morning to be focused and productive is not enough for me to achieve everything I need to in a day: we have to support intentions with actions.
One of the biggest considerations I have to focus on when making an intention is ensuring what I want to accomplish is realistic.
It’s so easy for me to be over-optimistic in my ability to get things done, but when we’re not realistic about what we have time for and end up not finishing everything we set out to, we’re often left discouraged with lingering feelings of failure or trying to push through to accomplish it to the detriment of our health.
Self-awareness is also key in planning and ensuring your productivity.
It is best to plan things for when you are most and least productive throughout the day, both mentally and physically. If you have a post-lunch slump or a morning energy burst, plan your most difficult tasks for when you know you’ll feel capable, and smaller, easier tasks for times of the day when your energy is low.
If you work for yourself, flexibility with your schedule can lead to inefficiencies. More than just energy-based task planning, you can also be proactive by planning your productivity according to when your mind works best accomplishing specific tasks. Know what times of day you are most creative if you are doing creative work, and when you’re most focused if you are doing focused work. Leave the mindless, repetitive tasks for when you know you are going to have the least amount of energy and attention span.
For me, I’m most focused in the morning. I set boundaries on my time by avoiding scheduling meetings in the morning. This allows me to get through my everyday habits and nonnegotiable task lists first. A great way to determine this is by finding out your chronotype, an energy and sleep profile analysis that can help you optimize your sleep and work schedules.
Did you know productivity can also be influenced by hormones fluctuations that occur naturally throughout a menstrual cycle?
Planning ahead to complete intense tasks before you are expecting a dip in hormones and energy is a great way to continue to be productive throughout a month without compromising yourself or your work. You can read more about aligning your menstrual cycle with productivity here, but in short, your energy is low during your menstruation phase, increased energy during your follicular phase (which directly follows your menstruation phase), sustained energy and focus during ovulation, with dwindling energy and less mental focus during your luteal phase.
Have you ever tried to combine work with mindfulness? I know it might seem odd to think about slowing down and doing something you enjoy that requires attention while at work, but there’s a lot of intermingling between the two! Using mindfulness in the workplace can help you be more focused while preventing feeling overwhelmed and listless.
While, scientifically, multitasking is not possible, there are ways to accomplish more than one thing at once to make the most of your time. While I don't choose to multitask nearly as much these days, sometimes, it does work. I’ve learned that I can combine my yoga or a walk with my affirmations, exercise while listening to a podcast or exercise during breaks throughout the day.
Instead of multitasking with two things that require my brain’s attention to absorb information, I do one thing for my brain to focus on while using muscle memory to walk or do simple yoga poses. This helps me make the most of my time while still getting to my personal needs everyday.
It is important to pick and choose when we are combining tasks and habits carefully however. For instance, I don’t do this type of multitasking with morning breath work or meditation, as one of my primary purposes of these exercises is to train my brain to focus. I have found a definite correlation between my time spent meditating and my ability to focus on work tasks subsequently during the day.
If you sense that you might struggle to focus on work one day or if a task is becoming increasingly difficult, consider doing a meditation for improved focus before you begin! This can easily be done at your desk in less than five minutes by closing your eyes, using deep breathing, clearing your mind and using focus-based affirmations.
Taking just a few moments to repeat an affirmation prior to starting a task that requires focus can be really helpful. You can also use them to instill confidence before tasks that seem overwhelming or where you are less certain of your capabilities. Here are a few examples of affirmations you could try for this purpose:
“My brain has amazing capabilities, including its ability to clearly focus on what I am working on.”
“I am capable of doing things correctly and efficiently.”
“I am ready to take on anything.”
“I am a hard-worker that produces great results.”
“I am valued and good at what I do.”
“I am not interrupted by distractions.”
Intentions are also a good avenue for merging realistic goals and productivity. I’ve found that it’s helpful to segment intentions based on time periods, due dates and what’s going on in my life to really help them stick. My preferred method is choosing three intentions of what I plan to accomplish at the start of a day, three intentions for what I intend to do in a week overall.
I've recently realized that narrowing down my intentions for the year in this way might be wise too (something I'm working on) and perhaps three top intentions for a lifetime may be something good to consider as well. Know that you can always change your intentions along the way if you choose to and it makes sense. Things come up unexpectedly, life shifts, interests change and so much fluctuates. It's just important to look inward and question, "Am I making this change because it truly makes sense for my life or is there another reason?"
Broad intentions are good for larger dreams, while daily and weekly focuses are beneficial for productivity and to ensure we’re on track for our larger intentions and dreams.
If you find that you struggle to be consistent with intentions or align them with your dreams, the dream steps and daily prompts in the JMB Living Journal are curated specifically to help you move through each day with smaller and larger intentions, while also helping you be more present through productivity.
Sometimes, it feels like we can’t balance being productive with being present in our lives and the busyness of working can override our dreams. This is such a common struggle.
I've found that sitting down (for any amount of time) each day to center yourself and journal about what's working in your life, what isn't and how you can alter your habits is truly life-changing. By doing this, I'm confident that you'll make huge strides toward creating a life that you love and works well for you.
]]>While many of us know about mindfulness practices and how to use them as tools in our daily lives, it’s easy to add it to our lifestyle without knowing how and why these tools make an impact in our mindsets and physicality. Repetition and the mind-body connection are at the core of many mindfulness practices, especially in meditation, journaling, habit-making, routines and affirmations. Science and mindfulness converge in neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to physically shift and adjust after learning new information.
But how do we actively use our mind’s neuroplasticity? Probably more than you would expect. Biologically, neuroplasticity in adulthood is the result of messages in our brain being sent repeatedly, strengthening connections to some areas of the brain while unused connections eventually disappear.
The more a message to the brain is used, the stronger that connection becomes and our brain stays healthy. Using neuroplasticity and forming new connections that we repeatedly signal helps the brain adapt better after new experiences.
When you can easily recognize beauty, joy and your successes each day (big or small), it becomes easier for your brain to see these things—many of which produce “happy hormones” like endorphins and dopamine.
Not only is that an instant mood booster, but having a perspective in which you easily notice positive things helps your mental health long-term as the bad times no longer seem so overwhelming in comparison to how much joy you feel each day.