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I was listening to one of my mentors, Ben Hardy in a program I’m in and he talked about how if we are the same person we were after a year – we’ve not really grown, become more intelligent or really pushing ourselves.
It smelled like warm apple pie as I was reading that, and at first… it made me pissed off. Not at the apple pie in the oven LOL. I mean, I was pissed because I really didn’t think I “changed” this year…. Or did I? I didn’t really think deep about it until I decided I was going to write this and share with you what happened over this year.
So, I’m sharing. I’m diving deep into reflecting over 2018 in my life and business and I’m going with the good, bad and ugly.
Biggest Self-Realizations I’ve Had In 2018
First – I’m NOWHERE near the person I was a year ago. Earlier this year as I caved One. More. time into doing something I DIDN’T want to do… but felt “obligated” to because I didn’t want to say no and I felt fucking helpless.
I realized, I was still in severe people pleasing mode and would drop what I was doing in a heartbeat to help. Now that is NOT a bad quality to have, but it is when it wasn’t people who were my inner circle or who truly needed it. It was people who were “takers” and NEVER givers and it didn’t feel good helping, it felt draining because it was time after time after time.
Second, I also said no SO MUCH MORE this year. I realized it was a complete sentence and it made me feel stronger and in my own power. So much of the time, I’ve kind of just lived on autopilot and with me consciously thinking about each question, event, vacation – it felt more intentional, more enjoyable. And in turn, that made me appreciate it more.
Third, I stopped making excuses for myself. I pushed myself too hard, had unrealistic expectations of myself and in turn, I got adrenal fatigue, walking pneumonia, bronchitis, insomnia and I’m not even talking about the stress and anxiety I put on myself.
I know that sounds weird – but all of those things came from me not taking care of myself, not having proper boundaries and a series of excuses for why I couldn’t take care of myself and the truth is… there was no excuse.
In order for me to be present and pleasant (LOL), my self-care needed to be a priority.
What does that mean, you ask?
It means:
- Full nights of sleep
- Regular visits with my holistic therapist
- Massages
- Infrared Sauna visits
- Meditation daily
- Gratitude (again, daily)
- Daily forgiveness
- Regular cry sessions
And whatever else I’m forgetting. You know what happened when I started taking care of me? My whole mindset shifted. Most people don’t take the time to think about the importance of real self care. No, I’m not just talking about the massages and mani/pedis. I’m talking about the meditation, therapy and actually dealing with our own shit.
It took me going through a lot of that this year in order to recognize the types of people I wanted in my life and especially in my kid’s lives.
Which brings me to:
Fourth, I have removed or extremely reduced my time spent with people who are energy drainers. Let’s be honest… you and I already have enough going on in our lives, we do not need THOSE people who are draining to us.
Now, I know… I have bad days where I want to b-slap someone but those days are few and far between. I know life isn’t perfect and things happen and we will have off days but it’s not about the off days or the sad days or the super freaken hard days where we can barely get out of bed. It is about us picking ourselves up, remembering that we get another day of life and being grateful for what we have and what we are working towards.
I noticed there were consistently 1 or 2 people in my life who were always negative… it was never their fault and instead of wanting to grow as a person, they were totally okay with being the same place, same mindset day in and day out and that doesn’t work for me.
With the goals and life I envision for me, I want to bring people in my life who are constantly evolving and looking for ways to better themselves too.
Experiences in 2018
The thoughts I had to myself were, what do I have to remember from 2018? And as I went through the list, I had so many amazing memories.
I was going to try to post pictures from them all but I’ll only post a couple pics so this doesn’t go a mile long.
I’m going to list some of the amazing things we did this year!
Experiences
- Disney in January with our dearest friends. This was by far one of my absolute most favorite memories of 2018. It will be an experience our family will always remember and cherish. Once the kids went to bed one night, we got crazy and I almost cut my finger off. I laughed SOOO much this trip 🙂
- Maryland in January for work. Before Disney, I went to Maryland for work and I got to meet so many amazing biz friends and mastermind with amazing women
- Wisconsin Dells for my bestie’s birthday in May/June. It was such a great time 🙂
- I went to Chicago in April with one of my other best friends. We had great Deep Dish Pizza and got to have so much fun together 🙂
- Again to Chicago for work. I got to stay in the loveliest brownstone type home and it was beautiful. We got to work on our businesses, set things up and really grow with that trip.
- We went to Three Bears Resort with our dear friends Jessie & Brent, their kids and our kids. It was the best time. The kids had a blast and we stayed up, played cards and sang old school songs together. One of my most favorite memories from 2018.
- A weekend trip to Green Bay for my son’s baseball tournament and then leaving to celebrate my friend Kristen getting married and then coming back up to finish off the baseball tourney… this was another great weekend.
- My hubby and I went to Vegas for a short week. It was probably the most fun we’ve had together in a while. And it was the hottest time, like literally the hottest week in Vegas when we went. He said he loved Vegas but I can never take him in July again haha.
- Right after Vegas, I flew to Laguna Beach and I got to fulfill my dream of staying at a Ritz-Carlton. It was amazing and I got to meet so many amazing people with my company I work with. I felt so fancy and yet grateful. I hope to manifest going to the Ritz-Carlton in New York next 🙂
- We went to Punta Cana as a couple with our friends Jimmy and Michele. This probably was the trip, out of all the trips I went on this year, that I laughed the most. It was the most relaxing and just the best time
- A trip to a Green Bay Packer game with another one of our best couple friends. I laughed so much this trip too!
You know what? This is ONLY what I remember while writing this post. I had other fun nights at home, events and other things I've done but these are the ones that stood out that were special. You bet I can guarantee at at least 75% of these, I was snorting laughing and truly enjoyed being with the friends, family and friends like family I was with. #laughingismymedicine
Honestly, as I wrote this all down, I got immense gratitude for my life. We’ve done more this year than I did my entire childhood and we got to share a lot of experiences with our kids.
And before I took the time to review, remember… I was pissed and butt-hurt that I didn’t feel like we did anything this year. I felt like I hadn’t grown but I have emotionally, physically, mentally and monetarily.
Business Realizations & Reflections
For my business, I did okay this year. I had a big goal, but in February I got offered a position with a company called Clients On Demand, as a Facebook Ads Coach. So you know what I did? I fired all of my clients except 2 because I wanted to start fresh.
I've realized the hustle of getting clients and managing ad accounts wasn’t my passion. I absolutely LOVE Facebook Ads, but writing and creating more feel so good to me! So I had to take a step back and think about what my true purpose is, what my goals are and how I want to leave people feeling.
It's important for me to inspire, educate and uplift people to make positive changes in their lives. I want you to know what is possible and that all it takes is one step, one small belief in yourself to move forward towards your dreams.
Am I going to be perfect? No… never. But I’ll finetune my writing as we go, I’ll get better with practice and I’ll make a bigger impact which has always been my goal. I think I was just too afraid to put myself out there and share my beliefs, but I’ve done a LOT of mindset work around it this year and it’s time.
As one of my favorite money coaches taught me to say, “It’s my time and I’m ready for the next steps.”
With that said, I’m sharing a pic of what I’ve made this year and how I didn’t meet my goals.
I was pumped! This is my 2nd best business year I’ve ever had and for that I’m grateful, so don't get me wrong. Also, I’m grateful that the last few months, I stopped working most weekends and put my computer away and was more present.
Another thing – this is 100% working from home – outside of traveling for work. I was called 3 or 4 times to come get the kids from school sick or having to run a kid to urgent care and I'm so grateful I have the flexibility to just get up and go. Especially when my husband works an hour away from where we live and our kids go to school.
Last year, while I took a lot of the summer off, I still worked more last year than I really want to admit.
I must admit, this has been the absolute best year for being more present with my family and no amount of money would make me feel better. It's been awesome because I got to take off weekends, be fully present at dance, baseball and other events. I feel absolutely blessed to have been able to do that with the kids.
While I didn’t hit my financial goals for this year, I honestly used this year as a reset, to recenter, reground and take the time to remember what truly matters to me.
I’ll be creating a separate post to share with you, but my new goal for 2019, is to bring more passive income. Now… I recognize passive income isn’t something that you can just put on autopilot and let it run blindly. Don’t let those who tell you it is make it seem that easy. Because sweet pea, you and I both know that just ain’t true.
There is some testing and tweaking that I needed to get done. And that is my goal… by the end of 2019, I’d like to have 5K in passive income. This includes ads on my website (and my future podcast), products in my eComm store I’m building, programs I want to create and maybe more… who knows 🙂
I know, I know – this was wayyy longer than I wanted it to be, but for those of you who don’t know me, I’m pretty wordy. And my ultimate goal is to stay in integrity with my mission, vision and with you.
What were some of your realizations in life and business in 2018?
You'll want to write down what you’ve accomplished in your business AND your life. You will be surprised at some of the amazing things you accomplished, created and maybe even said this year. I honestly did my best to go month by month and then add in what I remembered as I sat in my fuzzy socks writing this.
And after I did this exercise, I seriously sat in gratitude for what I did this year and how I got to have so many amazing experiences with my kids, my husband and our family and friends.
PS – I’ll be sharing my 2019 goals, vision, mission, word of the year, etc very soon too! So stay tuned for that 🙂
