Hōm Bod

All right, now that you are stuck at home, how many appliances are you discovering that you don't actually use? Have you been using them? We have all been at home a whole lot lately and if you haven't used it, it's time to have a little discussion with yourself.

Well, the good news is you're about to save thousands of dollars and thousands of calories because you can't go out to dinner. So dust off those pots and pans and open up that cupboard. We're dealing with a new sense of normal now. What are you using and what are you not using in your kitchen? What is it time to get rid of?

I'm telling you; a lot of people are like freaking out over this. A lot of people have these misconceptions about eating healthily. They believe, “I have to eat the same thing every day. I have to meal prep 15 plastic containers all at once and spend three hours on Sunday doing it.” or they think, “If I'm going to stick to my meal plan, then my family has to have a separate meal.” Or “I'm going to be bored. Because I'm eating the same thing every day”.

I enjoy cooking. I also have very strict macronutrient guidelines and an eating plan that I try to follow. But here is the thing I cook every day, I don't meal prep, I stay within my macro guidelines 90% of the time, I'm not perfect, and my family eats it with very few complaints. We don't get bored.

It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be fun. It can be easy or hard ,and you can involve your family in it.

This is going to be one of those things that you can hear from us over and over again, follow a routine. Find something in a kitchen that works, set yourself up for success and find the appliances that are going to help you stick to that routine.

Of all of the places in your house that you are going to spend money on organizing bins, this is where you want to spend money on containers, dividers and bins. Because this is what's going to put limits on you and your family within a space. A kitchen is a very high traffic area you are constantly rotating things in and out. Now I am not saying that everything has to have a container.

So you can take the money that you save by actually cooking meals, and go spend it on some bins or appliances.

Try a Bosch that has all the attachments. You have the mixer, the blender, the shredder and everything else all in one. Get something that is going to multitask for you in a kitchen. It's going to take up a whole lot of a whole lot less space in your cupboards.

This week's homework is to change something in your kitchen. It may be something as simple as dusting off your stove and using it to cook, or it could be finding some bins and reorganizing all your tools and figuring out what exactly you have and what you don't need.

Why are you afraid of your closet? Are you holding onto your skinny jeans “just in case” you’ll fit into them someday? Are you Saving your “fat pants” because... what if? These emotional, fear-based attachments are sabotaging our successes in our closets! Here is a fabulous new way of thinking about how our closets can help us have a happy home and health!

Feeling motivated? Has it helped you change? Let’s explore where motivation comes from and how you can actually find success and lasting change!

Let’s discuss what you can STILL DO while you’re at home and what the positives are! This is what Ashley and Heather are still doing to help you and work with you. Plus our major takeaways from all of this!

Our emotional state, and what we have our thoughts of where we are and who we are, creates a literal ball and chain that we are dragging around. If you can just cut that ball and let it go. Let that thought go and stop thinking of yourself as, “I am this” or “I am that”. Then you can start to release physical baggage, along with the emotional stuff that you're holding on to

We don't necessarily know what comes first the chicken or the egg. Sometimes it's the emotion that causes physical strain. Sometimes it's the physical side that causes the emotional strain. When we look at a pile of crap on the floor that's been laying there for three months, somebody else coming into our home, sees a pile of stuff. They can just pick it up and put it away and it's like, “Wow, why did you do that?”. The reason I can't physically put this stuff away is because it's not just physical for me, it is an emotional connection.

Whatever the emotion is, it is causing a physical blockage, a physical consequence, simply based on our emotions, and one of the things that I suppose that we can do to help ourselves overcome that is to pay attention to the natural flow of energy in our house. What do you naturally do? Where do you naturally put things? Where do you naturally look for something? When you're looking for it? What do your kids naturally do when they come home? If you are putting your physical things in, in a specific order that does not complement this natural flow of energy, you're going to start butting heads between physical structure and emotional well-being.

We do that with our bodies too. If you want to start working out and you're not naturally a dance person, don't go to a dance fitness class. If you're more of an aggressive person, maybe a kickboxing class is more your deal. Go with the flow of what feels right for you in the moment. Clear that emotion and change that thought process to a more positive one.

Emotions are crazy. They are crazy. We've talked about before, on one of the very first episodes we ever did, about the power of emotions. 95% of all actions are emotion based.

How can you shift a negative thought to a positive? Once you shift it to a positive, you can deal with it, you can cope with it, and you can say, “I'm going to shift it and I'm going to move on and move forward”.

Be a hero or be a victim. Right? You can either be the victim, “things never go right for me”. Or you can shift it and say, “I am a bigger girl, and therefore I am strong, and I am powerful. And I don't need a diet. I'm just going to learn how to fuel my body”. I'm going to be the hero and I'm going to save myself from this.

Take back the power and be the power in your own situation.

Stop looking for answers on Pinterest, because that's not your house. That's not your situation. The flow of energy is different, find what works for you.

I saw the coolest thing the other day that totally explains what we want to talk about today. The first person was standing in his little frame and it said, “unsuccessful people in life”. He was carrying boxes of failure. He had stacked the failure up on his shoulder and it was straight up. He was trying to hold the weight of all his failures. You could tell that he was really struggling, and he was almost going to fall over. The next frame over there was a man that had all his failures on his back, but instead of keeping them there, he was building a stairway out of his failure. Instead of holding on to all of his failures, he actually took those failures and grew from them, and raised up where he was going, and it helped him with forward progress.

Not only am I afraid of failing, but sometimes I can be afraid of succeeding. Because then I have nobody else to blame anything on but myself.

We can talk about this and we can talk about whether we're afraid of failure or afraid of success, how that holds us back and how we can build that staircase with our failures to ultimately be successful. whole person.

“Don't be pushed by your problems be led by your dreams.”

You can believe that it is possible for you to lose 50 pounds. You believe it's possible. Does it mean that you believe it's going to happen tomorrow? No. But you believe at some point if you continue the path that you are on that you'll achieve it.

I totally and absolutely believe that your mindset must be there. But in order to truly succeed You must set yourself up for success. If you truly don't believe that you can do something, it doesn't matter how many 3x5 cards you put all over your house. If you don't change, if you don't take an action, nothing will happen.

One of the biggest reasons people fail in my industry, is because they have this concept and this notion that if I just get organized once, if I get everything in its place once one, I never have to do it again.

If you can focus on the reasons why you failed in the past and figure them out, then shift your focus to what your dream is, what your vision is, what your goal is, you can know you can step away from that cycle of failure.

Make yourself that staircase instead of lugging it around and feeling guilty about it. Find somebody who's two years ahead of where you are. Whose kids are two years older or somebody two years ahead in their business? Ask: What did you do to have success?

Talk to those mentors, talk to those people that already have that 2020 hindsight and say, what did you do? or What did you wish you had done? Give me some help. Give me some advice as you

Figure out the failures, because you cannot build yourself a staircase if you're still carrying them on your back and feeling guilty about it. Figure out how to turn them into strengths and how to shift them from guilt and something that's holding you back into something that you can build a bridge over and start seeing those successes and, and creating your life based on where you've been not digging yourself a hole even deeper.

How do you feel about accepting help from others? Are you a do it yourself kind of person? Or are you someone who's willing to admit when you're a little bit overwhelmed and you need some help?

I know I'm a DIY, leave me alone. I'll handle it until I'm falling backward.

Have you ever heard the story or the analogy of pulling a wagon through life? You have two kinds of people, the one that will grab the other side and help pull you pull it with you or the other ones that jump on and ride on top.

We're going to help you find and spot the difference between the hangers on and the people helping you pull. We're going to help you cut the weight. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be a little painful. It's going to be a little uncomfortable. But it's totally going to be worth it in the end because you're not going to be pulling all their dead weight.

Here’s a very literal way to categorize your friends and family.

Draw three circles like a bullseye, you have your middle circle, the next bigger circle, and then the biggest circle. The circle in the middle is your number one, then circle number two, and then number three moving outward.

Your circle number one is your ride-or-die, they would do anything, they would lay down in the middle of the road and let you walk over them to get you to the other side safely.

Your number twos are the people you spend the most time with. Write down your top five that you spend the most time with.

This was where I had my aha!

The next circle out is your acquaintances. I'm not talking about your Facebook friends. I'm talking about the people that you see on a semi regular basis.

Once you've done that, then you take a good hard look. Is circle number two full of people that are really truly helping pull your wagon?

When you have identified everyone, and you realize who doesn’t support you 100%, then you ask yourself, “Do they understand my WHY?”.

Give them the benefit of the doubt before you kick them off.

You can do it a couple ways:

You could just flat out stop answering their phone calls.

You can suddenly not be available as often as you once were.

Then your circle number three is the one you farm. Start talking to those people more, ask for help, and then allow the hangers on to fall off the wagon.

You can cut ties with, with friends, with coworkers, with whatever it is, but what about your immediate family? What if you don't want to cut ties with your spouse or kids? What do we do then?

There are a couple of things that we can do when that happens in our physical space in our home.

Just like we want to share our why and our story with them. We also want to try to validate them. We don't have to agree with them. The way I validate him is to say, this must mean so much to you. Tell me what that means to you.

Then you can have a conversation when they feel validated.

By having conversations with those around you, whether it's about your collection of rocks, or whether it's about me starting a new business, we allow people to speak their truth and give their opinion and, and then we can make an educated decision as to how we move forward.

Keeping the peace in your home:

You have to have a very clear conversation with your family, about the difference between your space, my space, and our space.

Allow them to take ownership of their own space. Let them own their space and set boundaries. I'm still the parent and I still have a say in the matter.

Now you have family space and our space. This is where the most communication has to happen. Because there are now multiple people using this space.

It's not my space, it's not your space, it's our space combined. And therefore, we have to have much stricter boundaries and rules to make sure everybody feels happy in a space. If you really clearly define the difference, then you get much more cooperation and respect.

Isn’t it interesting that we have these two sayings: “Birds of a feather flock together” and “opposites attract” but there never seems to be that happy medium.

We can compare ourselves to how we grew up, how our parents are, and look and see how similar or opposite we are. Again, we tend to either like it, or not… no happy medium. How do we change our story if we don’t like it?

How do you change the head games and generational behavior? Can you change the whole script if you don’t like it? Can you change failure and turn it into success? Let’s talk about how to do just that!

Heather has several examples of things she has done to change her story from things she didn’t like about herself, to things she succeeded in by changing her story. She notices a few key behaviors.

Found people who have done the things she was trying to do - teachers, coaches, etc

Found resources to help her learn, grow, and change - books, podcasts, articles

Look herself in the mirror and say “ok, why…? Will I blame this on someone else or did I own my weaknesses and failures? I am the only one who can change me.”

Practice and change!

Each of us have to go through the same process to change! Whether it’s trying to make your house function better or getting your kids to hang up their backpacks after school, there is knowledge out there to find, other moms you can talk to as a resource.

So when you are failing and you want to succeed, go through the same 4 steps:

Why are you failing?

Seek out other people who can guide you

Seek out resources

Do the work. It has to come from you!

One key part of being able to change your story is knowing where you came from. You have to know the history of where you’re coming from in order to see the deep seated behaviors you want to change. Recognition is a great way to answer the question “why am I failing?”

When we can identify what we don’t want to be, then we can start looking for who we want to be. It’s not enough to only identify what we don’t want because our focus will still be centered on the negatice. We need to be able to shift our focus to say “that’s what I want!” When our focus is in the right place we can make forward progress! Even if we slip and fall and fail, we are still on the right track to what we want.

When you identify where you want to be and start digging into resources and listening to mentors you may notice that you start hyper focusing on what you want to become and have a decreased desire to stop the behaviors you don’t like. Keep that train of thought in the front of your mind.

We’ve all heard the quote “you are the sum of the 5 people you hang out with the most.” Change who those people are. Find the mentors and human resources that can help you and support you.

The moral of the story is to know where you want to be, set the goals you need to get there, then find the tools and resources to help you succeed!

Action Steps:

Figure out where you want to go, who you want to be

Start collecting resources and information to help you

Find a role model to look up to

Take action! Even if you fail, it’s good action!

We don’t know your story, we don’t know where you’re coming from or even where you want to go… unless you tell us! We are here to support you and would love to be some of the mentors that will support you as you change your story!

Follow the podcast so you can stay caught up on all the latest episodes and share it with a friend so they can work along side you!

Ashley has decided that she’s a walking oxymoron….

“I am a dreamer. I dream big. I get halfway through and I'm fizzled. I love ready, fire! And then I'll aim later. But then I'm also a perfectionist, which means everything has to be right in order for me to get it done. I can't do it, right, I won't do it at all. I get stuck in analysis paralysis, and I don't actually fire. Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim and I never get to the fire point.”

(She’s kind of a mess.) LOL

Heather is a perfectionist. (She’s also kind of a mess)

“That is actually why it took me so long to finally do what I tell everybody else to do. Isn't it amazing how the doctors make the worst patients?”

Heather’s story:

A while back I decided that I needed to put myself on my own macro plan and actually follow it. I was terrified to do it because I am a perfectionist. I will not do something unless I know I will win. I will be the best. There's no chance of failure or I won't do it. I heard myself saying, I don't think I can do this. I'm going to be starving. I'm going to…. I can't, I can't. I don't want to have to measure everything. I started saying all the things that all my clients say and that I always talk them off the ledge about. Then here I am Little Miss Hypocrite refusing to put myself out there because why? Because I was afraid, I was going to fail.

It's scary to really find out who you are and to take that person and put that person in a new and uncomfortable environment. But that's where the change happens. That's where the magic happens?

Finding what you're good at is a really good starting place. Because that's where we're comfortable. That's where we feel successful. That's where we are happy. That's where we know we can already do what we want to do. Then take it one step further.

Are you a morning person? Are you night person? Are you a perfectionist? Are you a dreamer? What are your natural strengths and abilities?

In your house, you know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Ashley just met with client that she said I love where my kitchen is. I know where everything is. Everything has its home. Everything is set up where my family can put things away. I know that I don't need to buy anything else because I know what's in my kitchen. My mudroom and office on the other hand, are complete chaos and total disaster.

She knew what she liked. “I want my mudroom and my office to feel like my kitchen.” She started with something that she knew was good, then took it one step further and said, “I can work on this to get it to where I want it to be, but this is really uncomfortable.”

This is what I love.

This is what I'm good at.

This is my starting point.

This is where this is where I want everything else to meet.

Where she was weak, she got the help.

Pride gets in the way and you don't want to admit that you don't know.

But that's why coaches exist. Look at the NFL, the NFL still has coaches, they still have trainers, they still have the people that are there to make sure that the best of the best are going one step further and playing off of their strengths. Let's make sure that you are growing in the meantime, and that you're not stagnating. You don't you don't see how much farther you could go unless you have someone like a great coach behind you saying, “Nope, you can do that better. You can throw that ball farther; you can run that much faster. You can climb that mountain faster.”

We want you to identify your own strengths. What are you good at? What are you naturally inclined to do? Then we want you to go find somebody that can help you. Take it to the next step. Go find a coach. Stop talking and do!

If I were to ask you what is the most important thing to you right now? What would the answer be? Go ahead and think about it. I know what you think you should probably say, you think you should say, my kids, my husband, my job, you should say something. But what is your first thing? What's the most important thing right now?

Is it your health? Is it having a clean house?

I mentioned a few weeks ago on the podcast that if you get that cancer diagnosis, your health becomes your number one priority.

What does need to be number one is your happiness and how you feel. If you feel sluggish, if you feel fat, if you feel tired, if you feel ugly, if you feel any of these things and overwhelmed about it all, you're not going to be good at anything. It doesn't matter if your kids are a number one priority, or your husband is your number one priority, or your job is your number one priority. If you feel like crap, you're not going to do justice to that priority. So you need to reevaluate what you really, really want.

Here we go into a good conversation about what we're willing to do to meet those priorities. And what that means that we should stop doing. We talk with people who say, you know what, I'm doing all of the things on my list. I'm checking off all the boxes, and I'm still unfulfilled. I am still not happy

If you say I don't have 20 minutes to spend reading books with my kids, but if you check on your phone, and your phone says you have five hours of screen time today…..busted!

If you think my priority is family, my family is my number one thing. How are you choosing that every time when you when you wake up in the morning and you look at your daily schedule? Have you chosen family as a priority? Or do you just really wish you could prioritize it.

In order to be successful and in order to really prove that our priorities are our priorities, look at it as, What am I going to say yes to? And what am I willing to say no to?

You have to say no to something in order to say yes to something else. Life is just a bunch of little choices. People think you have to create this big lifestyle change, but really you just have to say no to one thing.

It's a bunch of little choices, a million little choices, a million little no’s that get you to where you need to be. You must be willing to make that choice and sometimes it's not easy. We have to be clear on what we really want.

Here's our homework for the week. Get yourself really, really, really clear on what your priorities are. List three to five of your priorities. Then list all of things that you are doing that are meeting those priorities. What are you doing that is absolutely fulfilling? If you say my priority is my personal meditation, what are you doing every day to make sure that that happens? Keep doing those things. But if you say my kids are my priority, and you get 10, good, solid minutes with your kids every day. Is that good enough for you? Are you okay with that? If you are, fantastic, stick to it. If you're not, what are you willing to give up in order to gain more time with your children?

Be absolutely clear on your priorities, and then say no to something this week. Either one thing a day or one thing forever. Get rid of something stopping you from acting on your priorities.

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