habits

Fire-in-heart-setting Conversations

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Have you had a fire-in-heart-setting conversation lately?

This was my experience yesterday when I met 9 members of the Sunrise Winners group I’ve been leading for a while to wake up early and build morning routines that will serve them to win their day. We spent more than 2 hours talking about our morning habits and what’s working for us versus what’s not. We gave each other action points to work on to fine tune our routines or move a goal we were trying to achieve, and we will use the group for accountability. 

The best part about this meetup was having a genuine shared interest; to wake up early to take care of ourselves before taking care of our world, be it a family, school, a career or a side business.  I left the meeting feeling a charge like no other. I told my own accountability partner about it, and she promised me she will often remind me this is one of my favorite activities to elevate my state and that connection with like-minded people pushes me forward.   

This feeling reminded me of this post I wrote before.

I wish you such flames of high energy, dear reader.

Fire-in-heart-setting Conversations

We are getting better

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My bedtime reading is usually spiritual. I’m loving my recent selection so much, it’s a book called “Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers” by Anne Lamott.

I’m sharing with you a quote I read last night that perfectly aligns with the blog post I wrote in the morning.

“I pray not to be such a whiny, self-obsessed baby, and give thanks that I am not quite as bad as I used to be (talk about miracles). Then something comes up, and I overreact and blame and sulk, and it feels like I haven’t made any progress at all. But it turns out I’m less of a brat than before, and I hit the reset button much sooner, shake it off and get my sense of humor back. That we and those we love have lightened up over the years is one of the most astonishing sights we will ever witness.“

I feel the same. We are becoming more resilient, we are bouncing back faster after failure. This makes me hopeful and more committed to all my good daily habits.

Let’s keep waking up early, meditating, journaling and reading. Let’s keep praying and moving our bodies. Let’s keep reading our affirmations and visualizing our success.

We are getting better.

We are getting better

Seed Cycling

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I have shared the below recipe with more women than I can remember since I first read it in the eye-opening book Period Power by Maisie Hill which demystified the impact of hormones on my body and helped me honor it and respect its power. This is the seed cycling recipe to manage our hormones during the menstrual cycle. It helped me regulate my own cycle and minimize some physical and emotional symptoms I have before every period and also improve the health of my hair and the strength and length of my nails. Share this with all the women you know and start now.

“In the follicular phase of your cycle (days 1–14 of a 28-day cycle), or from new moon to full moon if you’re not currently menstruating, eat 2–4 tbsps of both ground flax seeds and pumpkin seeds per day to gently and naturally increase oestrogen levels. Pumpkin seeds are high in zinc which supports progesterone production and release in the second phase of your cycle.

In the luteal phase of your cycle (days 15–28), or from full moon to dark moon, eat 2–4 tbsps of both sesame seeds and sunflower seeds per day. The zinc in sesame seeds and the vitamin E in sunflower seeds both help stimulate the production of progesterone. The lignans in sesame seeds help to block excess oestrogen, and sunflower seeds provide selenium which assists the liver in its detoxification role and improve overall hormonal health.”

“Buy whole organic seeds and use a coffee or spice grinder to get a powder which you can add to porridge, soups, salads and smoothies. Or just eat them whole if you prefer. You can grind enough for the week ahead and store them in the freezer. Stay clear of pre-ground seeds as they oxidise rapidly and go rancid. You might experience a change in your cycle within the first month of seed cycling, but it usually takes 3–4 cycles to see a noticeable difference because that’s how long it takes for a follicle to mature and be released at ovulation.”

Source: Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working For You by Maisie Hill

Seed Cycling

Work Desk Must haves

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Yesterday I shared about my whiteboard, a key element in my office that inspires me.

Today, I will share what I also keep at my desk in front of me at all times:

On cardboard paper:

  • My Work Goals for the quarter (it’s very important to keep your goals visible)
  • My work affirmations (added just recently).
    • I am committed to being a leader, an initiator, an over-communicator and fast deliverer at my job.
    • I am committed to getting better and better at my job.
    • I am committed to communicating clearly and effectively.
    • I am committed to giving generously to others, the more I give, the more I receive and the happier I feel.
    • I am committed to expanding in abundance, success and love and inspiring others to do the same

On post-it notes:

  • My mantra of the Year: Practice Focused Attention. Maybe I need to rephrase into a question: Are you practicing focused attention? Much more powerful, no?
  • My workday startup ritual steps, including the check-in questions.
  • My workday shutdown ritual steps, including the check-out questions.

Since writing my ritual steps on post-its last month I’ve been committing to them more. In addition, I set an alarm 30 minutes before workday end to remind me to start my shutdown ritual and leave on time.

I hope you find this helpful to you.

Snapshot from my work desk showing some of the above

Work Desk Must haves

Power Hour for Nagging Tasks

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When I read Better than Before book by Gretchen Rubin, I learned so many helpful tips and tricks, one of them is Power Hour for nagging tasks and this is how she defines them:

With this hour, I’d tackle only tasks where I had no deadline, no accountability, no pressure—because these were the tasks that weren’t getting addressed. That’s another Secret of Adulthood: Something that can be done at any time is often done at no time.
-Gretchen Rubin

According to Getting Things Done book, if a task takes less than 2 minutes do it now. If it takes more, write it down to free up mental space and have the list accessible to you to use whenever you have some time free time or for your weekly power hour. Gretchen downsized this rule in her one-minute rule in her book The Happiness Project.

Sometimes I have no idea how long a nagging task would take, so I use a stopwatch to time it and find out and most probably laugh at myself afterwards for all the times I felt burdened by it.

A recent example is when I wanted to add a subscription option to my blog but didn’t know how, so I set the stopwatch. It only took me 10 minutes to make it happen and I felt lighter after.

Another tip is that you can set a timer and decide beforehand that if the time is up and the task is not complete yet it is perfectly ok to stop the task too, or, if you get some momentum going, keep at it until it is complete.

Celebrate the progress either way.

Power Hour for Nagging Tasks

Decluttering Help

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The books that really helped me change my relationship to stuff and homemaking are the ones by the author Dana K. White.

Dana’s approach is what resonated with me the most during my big decluttering project that took place in the 7-week lockdown this time last year.

Today, I started listening to her amazing podcast as I went about my spring-cleaning because I felt so much overwhelm as I looked at the clutter that accumulated over time at my kids’ rooms and remembered how much better I felt listening to her guidance.

Lucky for me, Dana happened to make a recent episode summarizing her unique decluttering approach. For example, she emphasizes the point of never creating piles of stuff when you declutter, because if you ever get distracted or interrupted for any reason you would have made the place look worse than when you started. We also first tackle trash to feel visible progress, like throwing away broken stuff, empty packages, old paperwork and so on, and that instantly reduces the amount of stuff we have in the room and improves how it looks.

Dana knows what she is talking about ; I highly recommend you read her 2 books: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind and Decluttering At The Speed of Life. They were dear companions to me last year and I will go back to them as I clear up more space in my house this season.

Decluttering Help

Food journaling

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I started food journaling 3 weeks ago to track the reason of digestive system problems I’ve had for a while. I never attempted logging what I ate before because I usually don’t have weight goals and thought this was the only reason people would go for food journaling.

After trying it, I realized it’s amazing how food journaling habit makes us more mindful of what we eat. We actually pause and think before we eat because whatever it is, it will go into the food journal.

I’d like to keep this habit because I already had a very quick win defining my stomach pain’s root cause. I would encourage you to try it and tie food types to uncomfortable physical symptoms like headaches and bloating, so you can experiment with your diet based on that. We owe this to our bodies.

(in case you wonder: my trigger is sunny-side-up eggs, I would never have considered it because I’ve been having them for years).

Food journaling

Saving Accountability

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Yesterday, I sent this text to my accountability partner:

“I bought a new Kindle book for the amount of 8.99$. I am letting you know as I plan not to buy to more books in the coming 90 days. If I do buy, however, I must tell you what I bought and how much I spent, even if it cost 0.99$ only. Please ask me about this in our weekly calls. Also note, I am not depriving myself since I still have my monthly audible credit to look forward to use.”

I once heard good advice from the author Ramit Sethi, that whenever you want a book just get it, because books are valuable and one idea in the book will be worth it. I love that advice, however, the accumulation of unread books in my Kindle library and also physical space is not making me feel that good. More is not better. This new accountability will make me think more before buying a new Kindle book and help me overcome my digital/knowledge hoarding habit.

I also need to save more money. I think the why of saving money is not super crystal to me yet, so I need to write my why to help me commit.

Continue reading “Saving Accountability” →
Saving Accountability

Digital Habits-April 2021

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We’re almost halfway through the month and I have not set my new digital rules yet! These rules are based on my performance and pitfalls of last month.

  1. Every night I will block Instagram via strict mode option on Appblock for Andorid to protect my morning routine. I can use it after, for 10 minutes to post stuff I already created/captured. Morning inspiration is part of what I like to do especially promoting waking up early.
  2. I will only check Instagram after kids go to bed. I still check it at 8:30pm most days but what happens is that kids are sometimes still not asleep by then, and I get so excited to reply and engage that their bedtime drags even more.
  3. I will recommit to Instagram’s 1-hour limit.
  4. If I have an important conversation going in DMs, I either apologize and say I’d respond later or take it to web version on my laptop.
  5. I will block Gmail web version completely on my phone.

I will report back here at the beginning of May and fine-tune where necessary.

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Digital Habits-April 2021

The 10-Minute Rule

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Still reflecting about the podcast episode I wrote about yesterday where the author Nir Eyal shared the 10-minute rule as a way to reduce distraction.

He said that as human beings we fear abstinence. Announcing “I will never do that thing again” might trigger the rebellious side we have and make it difficult to break our negative patterns.

What should we do instead?

Continue reading “The 10-Minute Rule” →
The 10-Minute Rule