Feelings Fitness: Enough Time (August-December)

We need to stop telling ourselves that there "aren't enough hours in the day" and start "acting as if" there are! All too quickly we begin to stress ourselves out by the little negative voice in our head leading us to believe that we will never get everything accomplished.  We rest our head upon our pillow at night feeling deflated and defeated. It's time to put that negative little voice to rest & create a new voice of confidence that shouts out, "No matter what gets left undone at the end of the day, I have done enough!"

All this being said, we still need to be realistic & being realistic, to me, means having a solid plan. So, here's how I've attempted to tackle time in a fashion that allows me to go to bed at night feeling like I have not only completed  enough, but I, myself, am enough!

I ordered myself an Erin Condren planner, www.erincondren.com, & began the process of designing a life I love! This little planner got me super excited about writing down important dates old-school style.  It also got me excited about mapping out long range plans. There is so much space to keep track of the daily tasking as well as planning out the future. Stickers, mini-post it notes, dry-erase pages for lists like grocery lists, inspirational quotes, this planner has got it all! Space to doodle & dream, stickers to make it creative & fancy, I'm in heaven. 

My new planner allowed me the space to deal with the day to day as well as space to map out the big picture. For many years as a stay-at-home mom, I would ask myself this question, "what in the world am I going to do once my kids are in school?" I would ponder this question in a fashion that created quite a bit of anxiety. I knew I wouldn't go back into the classroom, my voice-over/acting career didn't exactly take off, so where did that leave me... Well, as the quote says, "there are years that ask questions, and years that answer"-Zora Neale Hurston. This year answered the question I had been asking myself over and over again. The answer became teaching yoga & blogging. I have found a space where I can be creative & continually learn & share something that I am passionate about.            

I not only found myself teaching in a yoga studio, I found myself teaching in nature as well. Wow! What an overall amazing experience. 

Even though my children feel like little time sucks(a labor of love) & home ownership can be such a non-stop energy drain, it is important to be working towards cultivating happiness amidst it all.  I created an equation to help myself keep everything in perspective. It goes a little something like this...Cultivating Happiness = Carving out time for the needs in life(laundry, grocery shopping, meal prepping, etc.) + Creating time for the wants in life(time with friends, date night with the husband, family vacations, etc.). With this equation in mind we can be fully present during the wants as well as during the needs because it alleviates the mind set of "not enough time" & replaces it with "enough time." Put it all down in the planner, every task has it's own time & place & you can rest assured if it is a priority, it will get done!