Girl Wash Your Face Archives

Change… easier said than done!

Finding the courage to make the change may sound like a simple task, but most of the time we say things to show courage but never put them in to action. Last year when I began my journey to self care, yes, it’s totally a thing that I didn’t even know that was needed in my life. It started when I read the book “Girl, Wash Your Face” while on a family cruise. Actually, I even shared the lessons learned from Girl Wash your Face to help inspire you to read the book as well. The following months were filled with books from the “personal development” section of BAM, which I used to refer to as “self help.” Self help!? Ha, I would laugh at the word and question the people who thought they needed self help? Was it a fad or a real thing? Often I would hear words like meditate and mindfulness, which flowed in one ear and out the other. My actual thought was why would someone like me need this in my life? It’s not that I have been putting myself on the back burner for the past 15 years since I said ‘I do’ — boy, was I wrong!

I thought that I was doing pretty good on my own, but found myself with crippling headaches, neck and jaw pain and extreme fatigue.

As I did more research on Rachel Hollis and started reading her book recommendations, I had an “aha moment” and faced the harsh truth that maybe I needed to invest some time into my self-care. Don’t get me wrong, I got my hair cut every 6 months or so and had pedicures in the summer months, but apparently that wasn’t enough for my body to feel satisfied.

After reading multiple books, I thought that I had it all figured out and started sharing my experiences. Sharing my knowledge and trying to implement some of the tactics here and there into my life. I wasn’t really being consistent with my daily routine, but I was doing a great job sharing all of the resources in my online community. I even wrote Why you need to practice self care and would preach self-care as if it was the saving grace. However, I was talking the talk and wasn’t walking the walk.

The headaches and pains continued and one day on the phone with my sister she mentioned that maybe I should try some of the ideas that I am sharing. She totally called me out. In my mind, I thought I was trying them but batching self-care into a few hours a week just wasn’t making the cut. I was trying to sneak self care into my daily schedule and it was hit or miss and was definitely not part of my daily routine. I have read and listened over the past year to the word consistency and routine, but found myself living out the “Cliff Notes” version. Things had to change.

Rachel Hollis recently explained during a conference that It’s not about five seconds of courage. We all can find the willpower to find five minutes of courage, we need to show up every day and build consistency to get through. Consistency is the way you hold all of it together. It doesn’t matter how intense you are, what matters is that you show up and keep showing up even when it gets hard. Create habits and routines that you can create in any environment that ultimately serve you and your lifestyle. If that means waking up a little bit earlier to meditate or exercise than try it out. It is impossible to squeeze in self-care practice here and there to reap the benefits. It actually comes down to a few things like having courage to make the change and to be consistent with it.

Create leverage to stay consistent on the days when consistency is hard. In order to do that, it has to become a habit. Build such incredible habits so you don’t need to get motivated. Consistency is not how you motivate yourself, but rather create habits and rituals that are so close to your core that it’s easier to do them than not.

You must have the right mindset. And you know what, if you fall off the track and steer another direction, have the grace to tell yourself “I will try again tomorrow”.

In order to do all of this you need to make the first move. As John Maxwell stated during his presentation on courage. The old riddle that says five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?

The answer is 5 because they only “decided” and didn’t take action. That was how I lived the last year of my life. Now that I am taking action, it’s an entirely different mindset. I still have a long way to go in my personal development journey, but the baby steps that I am taking each and every day has been a blessing to my health. The secret is keeping the routine — that’s a one minute mediation (still not able to move to 5), some yoga stretches, and writing down gratitude to set intention for the day. That’s not the only thing that I had to change, but it was a good start. There were also my favorite products to help reduce stress that were part of my daily routine.

Remember, we are only in control of two things in life: our attitude and our effort. So, not matter what you are looking to change in your life, it starts with a small step. Stop just sitting on the log or talking the talk.

Find the courage to take one step forward in achieving your goals and start “walking the walk.” Come back and share your journey with us or connection with use on social media

I will be the first to admit that I hate reading. Seriously, I sometimes feel like a fraud cause encourage my kids to read all the time.I always hated reading unless there is a purpose for what I am reading. I just can’t sit down and read a Romance novel (bravo to those who can escape reality with a good book.) I am more of a reality show junkie and may find myself escaping reality with a good episode of The Real Housewives – and guess what? Both are alright! I try to tell my kids, that’s why God made us all different. If we all looked the same or all liked the same thing, life would be boring. I have read a few self help books over the past couple years, Gretchen Rubin was a mastermind and probably changed my perspective during one of the hardest times of my life when I was a stay at home mom. Her book, The Happiness Project, really opened my eyes to the old saying “The Days are long, but the years are short!” I was stuck in the “SAHM” status and wasn’t living in the moment, I was just going through the motions. I did go on to read a few more books from Gretchen Rubin, but it took me about 4 years.

For weeks, a friend kept telling me how inspired she was after reading Girl, Wash Your Face, but I found every excuse to give for why I don’t have time to read. While on vacation a few weeks ago, I took the time to read the book, which was hard to even put down. Here are 5 Lessons Learned from Girl, Wash Your Face. These life lessons have me pumped up to make more for myself!

Girl, Take care of yourself! This was a hard cup to swallow because like many of you – I wear many hats (and you know what, that’s ok) I really had to take a good look at myself and ask, why am I last on the list? Seriously, if you made a list of responsibilities, where would you place yourself? Last year I tackled the Keto Diet, which has turned into the Keto Lifestyle, which is basically giving up sugar (and part of your sanity, no I am kidding.) In return, I lost about 30lbs and have kept it off for a year now. But, I still don’t feel great because I don’t have time to exercise. One of the biggest takeaways from this chapter was that I need to MAKE time. And guess what? My family will still survive if I go for a 30 minute walk or an hour Zumba class.
Tomorrow is a new day! Ok, so I yelled at my kids all day and feel like a terrible mom. It happens, but guess what – we can’t hold on to it and feel guilty about it. We have to own it and move on. Tomorrow is a new day for everything. If you are following a diet and eat the entire cake at the end of a birthday party or eat 3 slices of pizza, it’s ok and it doesn’t mean that tomorrow you have permission to eat 4 slices. Just get back on track and approach each day with a clean slate. Recently, we were on vacation and I screamed at my 9 year old daughter about a dress that she refused to wear. I was fighting with her to wear a dress that she didn’t feel comfortable in just because it would coordinate with the rest of our outfits. I screamed at my pre-puberty daughter who felt self conscious about the way she looked in the dress. We were running late, so I just let her where whatever she wanted. Who flippin’ cared! Just me. That night, I beat myself over the argument and apologized, I owned it and you know what, it sparked a great conversation. I could had let it ruin my vacation and continue to fight with her, but I just let things go. The next day, I didn’t even mention the fight or talk – and we moved past it.
It’s not too late! If you have a dream, go for it! It’s never too late to chase a dream. If there is something that you desperately want to do- get a plan together to make it happen. Stop putting things off until tomorrow. I have done this many times. Some might say that I just jump into things, but that’s how I get things done. There are so many things that I want to get out of life and rather than waiting for them to happen to me, I am going for them and hope that you do the same!
Give yourself a star! This is a hard one because self reflection is something that we just don’t do enough. Rachel encouraged readers to make a list of your accomplishments and to be thankful for each one of them. These can be small task that you have accomplished or something big. My goodness, I gave birth to my last son naturally, that deserves a medal of some sort. Seriously, when I made this list- I was in awe. I wanted to scream to the world- look at all I have accomplished. It’s a great list to revisit when feeling down on yourself. Something that I always tell my kids- Don’t Can’t Let The Highs Get too High and The Lows Get Too Low! This is something I need to own. There are days that I am just not feeling down, so it’s a good idea to reflect back on this list and give myself a pat on the back.
Empathy and Judgment! This was probably the most inspiring lessons I learned from Rachel Hollis that I know preach to my children, “Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.” How powerful are those words? Seriously, if we focus on judgment, it’s just a road block to achieving our goals. Our youth really needs to hear this with the impact on social media and the amount of worth put into “likes” on an image. Another lesson that goes hand in hand with this was to stop judging others. I am so guilty of this and probably hate that the most about myself. Having more empathy for others- I tell my kids all the time that they have no idea what is going on at home, but I am not following my own advice. Recently when we were away, there was a mother screaming at her teenage daughter during the fire drill on the ship. She ripped into her daughter for fooling around and my jaw just dropped. How could she scream like a crazy woman with all these people around? But you know what? I had no idea what her home life was like. Was she having issues with her daughter at home? Was she fighting with her husband? Was she dealing with depression? All, none of my business. Teach my kids to grow up with an open mind

Rachel Hollis also has a documentary Made for More on Amazon.

And today, her new book was released, Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals. I can’t wait to grab a copy of this book and start learning more! Let me know your thoughts on her books? I would love to know what lessons you learned!