These last 14 months have been a little intense and challenging for every single one of us and it is very likely we lost track of what it is that we want for our future, after all, everything feels uncertain.
Now let me ask you this, “Had you achieve any of the goals you set for quarantine?” I almost didn't! But I am very happy to say I took the bull by the horns and got my sh** back together. Truth is that for us to achieve the goals we don’t only need to know what we want but we need to have the right mindset and positive energy for us to achieve anything in life and if you feel a little lost, this blog will help you to finally start getting things done.
Today I want to share with you 6 things that must do this quarter to help you achieve your goals and live a happier life and get back on track. If you implement these things in your life, you will start this month strong and finish 2021 nailing it girl. Mindset is everything so let’s get started.
Declutter
The first thing you must do is start to declutter everything. When you declutter, you not only cleaned and made space around you, but you have cleaned the air and cleaning the energy that is going to be around you. During the year we accumulate a lot of stuff, trapping dust and negative energy.
Since you are already taking everything out, use this as your advantage to clean the space you are decluttering, you will be doing two things at once. Clean space is key to feel relaxed and joyful when coming back home after a long or bad day out.
Not sure if you need to keep it? You can ask yourself any of these two questions to see if you should keep it or take it out:
1. “Is this something I necessarily need for my daily or no more than my monthly life?” is the answer is no, then take it out.
2. “Did I used this in the last six months?” again, if the answer is no, then you now know that you can take that out too.
Things you should declutter:
The storage
The closets
The pantry
The draws
The car
The purse
The cell phone
Smart TVs, computers, tablets, etc.
Please if there are things that are in good condition, donate them, the are always people less fortunate than you that will need what you don’t need.
Get Organized
I forget everything! I don know about you but I used to be messy. This not only made sometimes my life hell, but I was missing out on a lot of things, I was stressing myself for it and I was feeling all over the place when noticing too much stuff all over the place.
My mind is so crazy that not even my kiddos count on me, I know, embarrassing. The way I accomplished getting to my appointments or picking my boys when they were out early from school was to set an alarm. This has saved me from a lot of stuff. I set alarms for everything, and when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING! I don’t care anymore if people made fun of me every time it goes on about water, lunch, snack, meditate, set intentions, you are amazing, etc.
I get so busy that I forget that I need to pick boys in ten minutes, but the alarm saved me, I forget to drink water, but alarm saved me, I forget that I am amazing but alarm saved me… you get the point, right? Every time the phone rings you look at it, so when setting alarms put the name of what you want to say to yourself like “You are amazing” so that way to get the message.
Also start by organizing clothing by seasons, put things on decorative baskets so space looks clean (too many accessories make space look unorganized, even if it is), organized papers by categories, and put them on files or binders.
Be Honest With Yourself
I know this is one of the hardest things to accomplish, being honest with yourself. It might seem silly but when you start thinking about it, you will find out that you actually do lie to yourself.
Start by thinking what are the things that you wanted to achieve this year, and what is that you haven’t achieved yet. Now, ask yourself, why you haven’t achieved them yet. Be honest! For example, I wanted to be doing videos for YouTube, and I only had one that I did“LAST YEAR!” The reason why I did not create videos this year that I was telling myself was that I did not have the right camera, the lighting, and I did not know how to edit. These things were true in some parts, but also the main reason was that I was scared.
The truth was I was worried and scared! When I started to really think through my why and being really honest, the truth was that I was wondering about my accent, about what people that knows me were going to think about me, if they were going to support me or not, if I was going to bring horrible content, etc. I realized that not creating a video and talking to you about topics that I have knowledge of was being selfish and that I was not serving my purpose in this world.
Sometimes we used daily life situations as an excuse and decide to not do those things that we want to do.
Some of the excuses people use are:
Life
Kids
Work or works
Husband
Physical injuries
Etc
Life happens and it teaches us lessons, don’t use them as a setback and to do nothing, also, kids or spouses are things that we choose, so learn to live with them and still make time for yourself and your happiness. Sometimes or better said almost all the time we are NOT going to feel like doing things, we are not going to feel like cooking, eating healthy, working out, etc, but what will make you successful and help you achieve your goals is to push through and still do it, if I workout every time I feel like it, I would still be overweight.
Now, why have you really not accomplished your goals yet? Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the life changer in this blog. When you live life through mindfulness you will learn to live in the moment and will be happy, believe me! We are so obsessed with the future and what we want, what we need to do, what can go wrong… that we are not seeing the beautiful things that are right in front of us, and the things we have in our hands right now, we don’t appreciate and love them. Also, we live in the past, why the hell we do this?! Seriously, why, we can’t change it, right? So, why we are focusing our present moment on that?
Let’s stop all that and enjoy this moment, stop reading, take a deep breath and exhale, do it and look around you, smell the air, take a minute to feel your body, the air, or even your clothes, and listen to what is going on all around you like dogs, birds, wind, machines, air, leaves moving, etc.
You can practice while you are working, driving, reading, showering, etc. You can do it at any moment you want where ever you are.
The pastis done, you can’t change it. The future is uncertain, you don’t know if you will still be here tonight. The present is the only thing you have for sure, enjoy it!
Re-framing
Start changing the way you think and feel about everything. If your current mindset is taking you nowhere then you need to change the way you think about it. Re-framing helps you to find new answers or solutions to things or events helping you to feel relax, leave anger to the side and enjoy the present.
Instead of being mad at yourself for eating a cookie, or two, or three… say it’s okay, you indulge a little, you are now aware of it and you will work on avoiding eating like that in the future. Next time you will understand that either one cookie is not the end of the world or that you should instead of eating the entire box you can go for one or two.
Another way to practice re-framing will be finding the possible why’s of what happened and be okay with it, by example, I was listening to a podcast and the guest talking talk about how she got an expensive candle, and boom, it fall down and broke, normally she would have been made, but she took a minute and say, okay, who knows this could be the universe saving my life, maybe I was going to forget to turn it off and the house was going to set on fire, but it only broke, I am good, I am safe.
See the difference? Why get mad, seriously, it won’t fix the candle, so why not re-frame the way you think about what happened.
Also, you can start by finding the lessons behind what happened. If you eat a whole box of cookies, then next time give yourself the gift of one when you want one so that way you won’t go crazy when you can’t hold eating cookies anymore, or learn that next time you won’t put the candle where it was or will handle it with more care. I moved to Virginia years ago and it was a disaster, but instead of being mad at what happen and hate the place, I still love it, I can’t wait to move back and I learned that I am a fearless strong woman that can achieve everything I want no matter who scary it is.
“Re-framing teaches you new ways to see things and teach you to appreciate and be grateful of what you have right now.”
Create a routine
Creating a routine is very important for having a successful healthy lifestyle. Whether is for your personal life, growth, relationships, business, carrier, family, etc, a routine is key for a balanced life. You can create a routine for workouts, diet, work, or kids. You can also create a routine in the mornings which I do and another at night, which I also do.
How to Create a Routine
1.Start by making a list of everything you do during the day, and when I mean everything I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, this is important for your next steps.
2. Get a marker and highlight the things that you MUST do in your day. Some examples are: work, cooking, kid’s time, shower, etc.
3. Now see what are the things that you are doing that are not necessary, do not serve a purpose, or is making you unhappy and trace a line on the middle of the word (mark it off). Some examples are bench watching on Netflix, not cleaning, doing something for someone else, etc.
4. Take a minute to reflect on this, on how you used your time on things that did nothing for you, and then think about all the things that you can do in the time you have free now.
5. Make another list of what you want to incorporate on your day to achieve your goals. Some examples: reading, journaling, meditating, working out, blogging, etc.
6. Now create a routine where you can implement all of these tasks successfully with no problem.
I noticed that the way I was managing my time was not fitting with the things I felt was not only necessary but with the things, I needed to implement in my life. To create this new healthy and happy lifestyle I created a morning routine and a night routine, it made my life so much easy and I feel so happy right now that I can’t believe it took me years to get it done.
My morning routine goes this way:
5:00 am = I wake up, drink water while I get my coffee ready. The reason why I decided to wake up this early is that it is the best time I can be by myself with a fresh clear mind. You see the first hour of your day is the most important hour, it will set your energy and mood for the rest of your day, so I wanted to be quiet, and read, journal, and meditate.
6:00 am= I do the most important task for my business. It can be finishing the magazine, doing a blog, editing a video, etc.
7:00 am = time to get the boys ready and prepare snacks so I can take them to school.
8:00am = Workout. Sometimes I do weight training, sometimes cardio, and sometimes both. Then, I shower when finished and get ready… or not lol this is the pro of working at home, stay in pj’s.
9:00 am = Breakfast and start working again on my business. By this time I had accomplished the most important tasks of the day and I will feel motivated and stay energized and focus for the rest of my day.
11:00 am = I go to my second job, the one that pays my bills.
You see, kids go to bed by 9:00 pm but at this time, my mind is fog, I am exhausted, I can’t think clearly and if I choose to be productive at this time, I will fail, been there, done that. So I decided to do something different at night then.
At 7:00 pm I stop everything! I will stop writing, recording, claiming, or whatever I am doing at that time. This is the time that I will seat down with my kids and have time with them, it can be watching Christmas movies or playing games, whatever makes us have quality time together. By 9:00 I am on my bed reading another chapter of a book so I can slow down and get on my sleepy mood and be sleeping by 10:00 pm.
So go ahead, take an hour for yourself and do this task. When you organize your day the things you want to do, you will be achieving your goals. So don’t forget that when you set a new goal, do these steps again, and see where you can implement your goal in your day or week so you can nail it.
