Month: September 2021

The magic of accountability

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I recently committed to #tweet100 initiative by Jay Clause which entails posting daily on Twitter for 100 days. This challenge is the external accountability I needed to re-commit to show up and write daily here on my blog, afterward I share my posts in tweets. 10 Days in and proud.

I have not been reading parenting books like I used to, so my friends and I created a mini book club and chose one to read this month, which we plan to discuss in 2 Zoom sessions. This made reading parenting books more exciting for me.

I have been spending more money than I should on Kindle books, therefore I created a rule where I had to send my friend before any purchase, providing her with the name of the book and its price. This is a friction point that made the spending habit more difficult for me.


That’s what you need to do too to move your goals forward, join a tribe that has the same purpose as yours, or even better, lead the way and create one.

The magic of accountability

What does an intentional day look like?

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A powerful, productive day filled with intentional action starts the night before. When you sleep with the intention of waking up early to take care of your physical, mental and spiritual life before starting your day’s work.

First thing in the day, you put your priorities on your schedule by dividing your time into blocks of focus, administrative work, communication and breaks and try your best to commit to them. When you get interrupted by an unplanned meeting or new urgent task, you check your schedule and see what you can shift to accommodate this new task. Such a day doesn’t have room for questions like “what should I do next?” Next is already planned. It does not allow for going into a rabbit hole of open tabs and app notifications.

While working, your phone is silent and only important calls can get through. You listen to great focus-inducing music, without lyrics, obviously, to avoid triggering distracting thoughts and emotions.

If you feel you are avoiding a boring but must-do task that does not need your brain power but just some time to finish, you make it more fun by playing upbeat music or great podcasts to accompany you.

You take breaks. You stretch your legs. You have lunch with your colleagues and talk about nonwork stuff, you go for a short walk and come back refreshed. You end the work day by following a ritual that makes sure you close all open loops, marking what’s next for each project you worked on exactly to get you started the next day easily.

I believe you can reset your day whenever you choose to. I always feel that a quick call with a friend and a short walk could work like a restart button for my day, especially when I get stuck in a fire-fighting mode or in unproductive thoughts.

Keeping your planned schedule in front of you can also help guard your time and get it back on track. You can begin your day anew by saying no to interruptions or new requests when possible, or by delaying your response until you are done with your most important work.

As someone smart said, other people’s lack of planning does not have to be your emergency.

What does an intentional day look like?

The Perfect Habits Question

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Peter Shepherd reminded me of a question I learned in Atomic Habits:

“Is what you are doing today getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow?”

The answer is an astounding YES when I think about some habits I have:

-Exercising today: Health & Vibrancy tomorrow.
-Meditation today: Mindfulness tomorrow.
-Journaling today: Clarity tomorrow.
-Creating (videos, podcast, blog posts) today- Legacy tomorrow.
-Story time with kids today: Memories and love of reading for the kids tomorrow.
-Skincare today: glowing skin tomorrow.
-Checking on family today: Closer bonds tomorrow.

On the other hand, there are habits I have that will affect me negatively on the long term and will not get me closer to where I want to be tomorrow, so I need to work on them. For example:

-Not saving money today: no peace of mind tomorrow

Such a good question.

The Perfect Habits Question

A Self-Compassion Example

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It was a Saturday, I woke up feeling already overwhelmed by the back to back errands that all needed to get done that day. I felt I did not want to wake up. I felt that I wanted to hide under the bedsheets. I felt resistance, and even regret, due to committing to all this in one day because of a deadline the next day.

Then, I started to talk to myself gently. I put my hand on my heart and patted softly saying “It’s alright sweetheart, you can do this, it’s okay.” It really felt good. Just like we calm our children when they are having a hard time coping, we still have this inner child that stomps her feet whenever she feels too tired or not in the mood to go on. I observed my resistance and nurtured myself back to adulthood that morning.

I did not realize I even practiced self-compassion just like I learned in the book Radical Compassion until later in the day, this book got to me and I put it into action when the need arose. It is such a good book, and self-compassion never felt more clear to me than when I read this book. Give it a try.

A Self-Compassion Example

How do you lead the way?

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We lead the way by embodying and sharing a better way to work where we can get what matters done over what’s latest or loudest. This can happen when we recognize our human tendencies of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, where pain is the discomfort we feel when we share our work like publishing this post or doing that presentation or being afraid to start or finish, or even feeling all our feelings, and pleasure is that Dopamine hit we get scrolling our social media feed away from the work we need to do.

We lead the way by living purposeful days, where we make tiny, consistent and meaningful progress in our wellbeing. We eat well and move and meditate and pray and get in touch with the most important people in our life and save money and make more money and keep learning.

We lead the way when we have an idea of how we want to be remembered and what impact we want to leave the world better for living in it.

We lead the way when we bring joy and lightheartedness wherever we go. And when we fall short, which we will do as humans, we stand up again.

We lead the way by believing in the power of starting over and making amends. We lead by giving second chances and setting boundaries to protect our mental health and energy. We lead by taking care of ourselves to be able to help others who need us to lean on. We lead by quitting the belief in sacrifice as a badge of honor and martyrdom in our role as mothers.

We also lead the way by being in service to others and shining a spotlight on their wins.

(Thank you Forwardlink for this prompt)

How do you lead the way?

Compared to last year

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During my weekly preview call with my accountability partner last week, I got a huge insight that I kept reflecting on since then, and wanted to share with you here.

Keen as always, she noticed that I had a pattern lately in the way I talked, so she was kind enough to hold up the mirror for me to see it. It was the comparison trap again, this time with my 2020 self.

The year 2020 was indeed a big year for me. I had the luxury of time, especially during quarantine, which helped me get goals moving forward like launching my podcast and The Power of Now video series, in addition to decluttering my home among other achievements. In our recent calls, I kept repeating the sentence: “Compared to last year, I felt happier, things were more exciting, I did more…etc.”

She gently asked me to notice this and to remind myself that every year comes with its own elements. It is not fair to myself to overlook the consistent and hard efforts I’ve been putting forth this year. Moreover, the exposure I am lucky to have this year is way bigger than last year’s.

Yes, we do compare ourselves to others and most times it doesn’t feel great, but we can be really hard on ourselves when we compare our current selves to our past selves who lived different seasons which we may or may not live again.  

Another note we discussed was that perhaps starting things is more exciting than keeping at them, and that’s where discipline and remembering our why comes in. I also need to ask myself “How can I bring joy to this moment?” more often and act on the answer, and definitely pat myself on the back kindly saying: “Well done, Bardees, you have come a long way”.

Say it to yourself please: “Well done, (your name) you have come a long way.”

Happy Back-to-School Season by the way.

Compared to last year

September is the Other January

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As I was writing today’s date on my journal I thought about this amazing quote by Gretchen Rubin “September is the other January”. I read it in her book “Happier at Home” a few years ago and loved it ever since.

Gretchen Says:
“September marks the start of a new year, with the empty calendar and clean slate of the next school cycle. Even if you are no longer in school yourself, September nevertheless remains charged with possibility and renewal.”

Continue reading “September is the Other January” →
September is the Other January