I want it all - Turning my dreams into achievable goals

Where do you see yourself in five years? It is my most hated interview question. I usually answer something about working for whatever company I am applying to and moving my way up in knowledge and positions within. While this is not a lie, it is not my true five year plan. Of course, my five year plan is turning out to be ten or more years in the making, but that is a whole other thing.

My honest, outside the interview answer is : A successful author, living in England. 

Moving to England is a slightly more recent dream. I have always loved accents, British, Irish, Scottish are my top three (with a special mention to the Newfounlander accent - which is a more recent addition to my list), but I digress. I loved the pomp and circumstance of England - or what I imagined it to be. England was this romantic notion to me. And I dreamed of visiting. 

About twelve years ago I made some awesome online friends in England and we are still friends today! Chatting with them, skyping with them, it made my dream of visiting more - it made it a goal. Now I had two friends offering me a place to stay when I visited. All I needed was to pay my plane ticket! 

It would be eight years until my daughter and I got on that plane and spent three weeks in England for the Christmas holidays. I don't want to sound dramatic, but I really feel it's true. The moment I stepped off the plane in England - it felt like home. And it was on the way home from that trip - as my daughter and I talked about our experiences - that we decided together that moving to England was something we wanted to do. She will finish high school here in Montreal and then the plan is to move to England. 🇬🇧 I start the process for the paperwork to get my citizenship this coming year - with the help and experience from my amazing brother who wants his big sis around! 

Being a successful, *cough* famous author has been my biggest dream since I wrote my first story in middle school. I'd been making up and telling stories long before I ever put them to paper - my Barbie dolls had quite the adventurous and tumultuous lives! 

It's still my biggest most audacious dream. But while England has made its way to goal status, the famous author dream is still seems a little more out of reach. Something like this is not as easy to start to map out as eventually moving across the ocean, but I am working towards this dream.

My best friend and I have been writing a a series of novels. It is an amazingly fun labour of love. We are coauthoring these novels in different countries, on Facebook messenger. It is wild that we have over ten first drafts of novels for our series all written this way! But even with all those novels, chapters and words, we kept going. We kept saying we wanted to keep the momentum. Which is true. But sometimes I think we are afraid of starting the editing process because it means we are one step closer to putting out work out there to be scrutinized. 

This month we have begun that next step. We have gone back to the first novel in the series and have begun the process of editing, adding and rewriting. A tricky thing to do when we  are still working on Facebook messenger to do it, but I am excited to say that we have found our groove in this process as we did in the initial writing. 

This week we took another step toward making getting published a goal rather than a dream. We began posting our first book on wattpad. I heard Anna Todd talk about how she had written the whole After series there and was approached by wattpad to publish her work. While I don't necessarily believe that will also happen for us, I think it is an important first step for us to put our work out there where strangers as well as friends can read. (For those who are interested here is the https://my.w.tt/q1nyUs7Jk0)

These two steps have begun to make my dream of being a "famous" author a little more tangible. It is nerve wracking and exhilarating all at once.

What are your dreams and what are you doing to make them more tangible - to make them goals? Remember, most any dream can become a goal if you have a plan! 🥰

Put Your Pride Aside: Learning to accept and ask for help

There is a saying about raising a child taking a village. Basically saying, no one can do it all alone. This is not just true of raising a child. There are many instances in life when we are in over our heads. That is when we are meant to accept help when those around us see us stuggling - or better yet, asking for help when we are a little too good at hiding our struggles.

I am the queen of - putting up a strong front - suffering in silence - and sucking it up, sweetheart. I don't show my struggles because a) I don't want certain people to worry about me, and b) I don't want certain other people to know I am struggling. The problem is when these times of struggling hit I have a tendancy to pull inward and go quiet. I  am pretty good at throwing on a smile and faking it for a little while. But people who know me well enough, the ones I don't want to worry, can usually see through that smile pretty quick if not immediately. 

So, why try to do it all alone? Is it pride or is it something else?

I don't know exactly when I decided I should be able to do everything on my own. Maybe I'm just a control freak who believes that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. Or maybe I have been let down in the past and just feel it's better not to ask for help than to be disappointed someone lets me down again. The whole food me once - fool me twice thing....

The ironic thing is a spent the better part of last school year, when she had to redo her third year of high school in a special class, trying to convince my daughter that there was nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it. Actually, I might have been trying to convince her since she started high school and things weren't clicking as easily for her. She fought me tooth an nail, convinced that she should be able to figure things out on her own and that she didn't want or need anyone's help. I didn't realize it then, but I think she may have picked that up from me....

Here's the thing about both of us: We are both people who are always there to help others. So, why would it be such a bad thing to need help too sometimes?

This year has not been all rainbows and unicorns for me. I spent the first five months of this year struggling. Struggling to keep up with my workload that almost doubled after a coworker left. Struggling with the changes in my relationship with my daughter (all very natural as she approached her 16th birthday). Struggling with my mom being away and having to juggle responsibilities I was used to sharing on my own. I coped by eating my emotions - stressed, sad, lonely, overwhelmed - food was there to fill the void and y sleeping a lot. The only thing that wasn't suffering during this time was my work. I was successfully juggling the tasks at work, but everywhere else I felt like a failure. Almost every conversation I had with my daughter ended in an argument or shouting match. I was gaining weight again. Still, when my mom asked me how things were going I put on a smile and tried to make like everything was fine. No use her worrying that my daughter and I might kill each other from all the way across the ocean. 

Finally, I reached out. I spoke to friends with older kids and they assured me that this was something eveery parent went through with their children. I wasn't failing and I wasn't alone. I reached out to my WW community Connect and was honest about my struggles as well. Not only did many of them understand what I was going through and my struggle with using food as a coping mechanism, but something crazy happened -  some people were thanking me for sharing my struggles because it let them know they weren't alone! I reconnected with some friends - breaking the silly self-imposed rule of going quiet when I didn't have anything "good" to share. I told them about how I had been struggling and how I didn't want to burden them with my struggles. And you know what? They told me that it helped them to know they weren't alone in feeling that way either!

I slowly began to understand that we all do this. We all hold back. Our Facebook, Instagram and other social media is this currated version of our lives. We don't want to burden or bring anyone down with our troubles. But the problem is by doing that other people think our lives and great. They don't see out struggled and so they think they shouldn't be struggling either....

I have been working since May to be more transparent. First, with those around me - family and friends are there to help and listen to me, just like I am for them. Then on social media. I started with Connect - it's still the place where I feel the safest sharing things. I think because on there everyone is striving for a similar goal - healthy weight loss and a healthy relationship with food. Then I began to also share a little more on Instagram - there are less people following me there so it is still a safe little bubble. After my birthday in July I started this blog, I was determined to put this journey of rediscovering who I am out there for anyone to read. That meant posting this on a public forum and sharing the link on all my social media. Again, the response has been astounding to me. To have so many people calling me brave and inspiring - to have them tell me they identify with what I am saying and feeling - it is nothing short of amazing. 

So, I challenge you all to share your struggles - maybe not on social media, but at least with those closest to you. Seek support, guidance and help. Delegate some things to others and know that you don't have to know it all or do it all alone to be successful! You just might help someone else realize they aren't alone after all. 

💕💕💕💕

Mindset shift - Does thin = healthy?

Healthy and strong, that is my goal now. Do I have a number in mind for the scale? Sure. But the number is artbitrary. I chose it for the purpose of my WW account. I have been that number. Actually - and ironically - when I was last that number I thought I was fat. 

I have been thinking a lot about how thin and healthy aren't always the same thing. People do insanely unhealthy things in the name of being thin. When I was thin (back in my teenaged years) I was anaemic, I had dizzy spells, and was easily tired and far from physically strong. To be clear, I was not starving myself or any of that. I ate 3 meals a day, every day. I just don't think I was eating the right things.

Funny enough, when I was at my heaviest post-pregnancy weight a few years ago (2016). I was easily tired, had dizzy spells and headaches, and the only thing that made me at all physically strong was carrying around that extra weight. I was eating 3 meals a day and "snacks" and I was definitely not eating the right things. I mean I would add veggies to mac 'n cheese and such in an effort to make things more "healthy" but who was I kidding?

These similarities got me thinking about my desire to be "thin again". I really wasn't much better off back then. I actually feel better now, 40-50lbs heavier than I was then. 

I have a new attitude toward my body now. Sure I would like to be slim or trim or thin, but that is no longer my priority. Becoming healthy and strong means I I am becoming more slim and trim, buy it doesn't mean I will be thin or skinny again. And I am becoming more and more okay with that. It's a process, like anything else. A journey towards the realization that being thin never made me happier, even though being heavier may have made me miserable. And as I get older I I have no doubt that strong and healthy will serve me much better than thin. I don't want to be the frail old lady afraid to fall and break something. I want to be the kickass granny running around showing up all the young folk!

❤

Mindset shift - Food is fuel (redefining my relationship of food)

Food is fuel. It sounds simple enough. Logical. Yet our relationship with food can often be so much more complicated. Food can mean love, comfort, and celebration. We often use it to fill an emptiness or void we feel, or as a reward. 

Growing up with Italian grandparents on my mother's side of the family, I can see the truth of this statement. Preparing food for my grandmother (and even for my mother) is an expression of love. But it is important to understand that it is the fact that someone took the time to prepare a meal for you that is the expression of love - not the food itself. It was also a great expression of love to my grandmother when nieces and nephews requested her pasta when they came to visit, but it was always clear that the pasta wasn't the reason of their visit.

Celebrations and holidays were often centered around food, because it was an expression of love between our family. But these meals meant getting together and enjoying each other's company - while preparing as much as eating the meal - much more than it was about the food. No one didn't come because a certain dish wasn't going to be prepared that time.

But sometimes the feelings of love and comfort get so intertwined with the food in our minds that when we are sad or lonely we sometimes seek out to replicate those feelings through food. The problem being - food never truly measures up when it is not accompanied by the interaction. Food cannot offer you comfort or love - but it can give a sense of filling the emptiness we feel when sad or lonely. But it is shortlived and soon we need more to fill the emptiness. 

I have been stuck in a loop like this. It is not easy to get out of. We know it isn't working- the emptiness is still there as the overly full feeling of the food dissipates. But we eat some more, pushing down the feelings we don't want to deal with. But with every turn on this loop the emptiness seems to get worse as we add shame and guilt to the mix because our eating has caused us to gain weight. We isolate ourselves and so we feel more lonely and we eat more not to deal with these feelings either.

Make no mistake - food is a drug.

Breaking the cycle: 

It's never easy to break a cycle like this. For me it started with separating my emotions from food. It meant stopping myself before I ate and asking myself "am I actually hungry or is this feeding something else?" It was hit or miss at first. My ability to recognize true hunger had become hazy. I rejoined WW knowing it would give me the tools to be more mindful about my eating. Tracking helps me stop myself and consider if I am really hungry and to evaluate my choices. The first week was terrible. I went over my alotted points, but I was tracking truthfully and was able to see how much I was truly consuming.** I needed this again. I needed the structure of tracking to help me reign in my mindless and emotional eating and to remind me of proper portion sizes.

My next step was truly considering what I was eating. The saying "You are what you eat" really rings true to me. When I choose to eat healthy and vibrant foods, I feel healthy and vibrant. I am not preaching vegan or raw vegan eating (but if that is your thing morepower to ya). I have done the types of diets that are restrictive and they are just not sustainable for me. 

So, I play by the 80/20 rule over any given week. That means healthy vibrant a minimum of 80% of the time and the other 20% is for indulging when I want to. Sometimes I am 100% healthy and vibrant and it is my choice to be, but I do give myself permission to have whatever I want 20% of the time. For example when I visit my friend in Upstate New York. We ALWAYS have - amazing pizza and wings the first night. So, when I go I plan for that. The rest of the weekend there are some other indulgences, but I stick to water and coffee instead of soda. I also don't indulge at every meal while I am away. Then on my way there and back I eat as healthy as possible, often bringing my own snacks for the road. It's all about balance.

That is not to say I don't have "cravings" more often and even in my 100% weeks. But now I take the time to think - I also do not give in immediately. Sometimes these things are a kind of passing nostalgia, and within a few hours or even minutes the desire has passed. I also tend to indulge on the weekend - part of the structure of my 80/20. This means I often have a few days to really decide if I truly want whatever I am craving.

Informed is better.

Before I choose to indulge in something I will look at the label if there is one and consider the amount of sugar, fat and/or salt or I will look it up in my WW app and see how many points it is. This is allows me to make an informed decision. "Is this something I truly want?" "How did this food or type of food make me feel last time?" "Is it worth the points?" "Is there a smaller serving size?" Can I cut down the serving size?" or "Can I share with someone?" Many times I will decide things are just not worth it. Or I will share a dessert with someone instead of each getting one. And often I just cut down the serving size. Like when I wanted to try a new flavor of Lays potato chips (cheesy garlic bread) I checked the points on the WW app (11pts for the small bag in case anyone was wondering) then figured out how many grams of chips would be 1pt (9g again if anyone is wondering) and I weighed them out (pleasantly surprised to find it was about 5 chips) I then gave the rest of the bag to my daughter and her friend to share. And you know what? I ate those 5 chips and found them salty and nothing to rave about. I didn't want more and I had satisfied my curiosity.

Let me finish up with this thought. Life is short, be healthy but don't forget to stop and enjoy the good things, too. My personal rules about food are: 

🍍Make the best choices I can in any given situation.

🥠If someone offers me a bite of something - if it's something I like - I am going to take it.

🍰If I really want carrot cake for lunch on a Saturday - I'm having carrot cake. (Besides, it has all the food groups so it is obviously healthy! 😜)

Remember, moderation is key! 

**To be clear, Weight Watchers is far from restrictive nowadays. You can eat whatever you want. You are encouraged to eat a lot of fruits, vegetables and specified lean proteins that are "free" and are alotted daily points for foods outside these (carbs, other proteins, fats, oils and dairy). You are also given an allotment of weekly points to pad out your days and week as you see fit. It is a framework to help with healthier eating.

Mindset shift - How do you measure success?

The definition of success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. But how do we gauge our success?

In school I learnt the SMART criteria for goal setting. A goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time sensitive. So, you create a goal and with this criteria you have a way to measure it's success. 

But how do you measure succes for more complex or ambiguous goals? How do you measure the success of a marriage - in years together - by how many fights you've had or didn't have? What about being a successful parent? By your child's behaviour - their grades - their career choices? Things are not so cut and dry.

What if we choose the wrong measurement of success? What if the measurement is fine but our goal is unrealistic? 

Take weight loss. We have a specific goal - a weight, a time frame to achieve it, it is measurable by weighing ourselves at regular intervals, and it is achievable with the right effort to change the way we eat and adding more exercise. The problem is often that our goals are not realistic. The weight we want to achieve is not realistic, or it is not realistic within our self-imposed time frame, or with the planning and effort we are willing to put in. 

What if we change the criteria? What if instead of focusing on the number on the scale as my measure of success, I chose to base my success on the effort I am putting into all aspects of my health instead of just my weight? What if my success was measured in how many times I got back up after I failed - or the good habits I am creating - or the effort I put into my health? It's much harder to fail when you are basing your success on the effort you are putting in rather than the results. What if we based our success on how many times we make the healthy choice - or get in a workout or a walk or some form of self care? The results on the scale will follow if we put our effort and focus on the steps to get us there.

It is the same with any goal. So, wish it, dream it, then make a plan to crush it! 👊👍

It is always scariest before you start....

I am a writer. There I said it.

And now you may be thinking "well, yeah you write this blog don't you?" You would be right. But the huge part of that little 4 word sentence for me is the removal of the word 'aspiring'. I always seem to downplay it. It's just something we do when we are starting something out, right? (Okay, so maybe I am not just starting to write... maybe I have been writing for about 2/3rds of my life so far. But I am starting to put my writing out there and letting anyone read it. That's new.)

The heatwave this week (the 3rd since the beginning of July if I'm not mistaken), has taken its toll on me. Overheated, tired and cranky are not the most conducive to writing or anything else for that matter (it has been a week since I have done anything more than walking). So, I had a spot of writer's block for this week's post... which is why you are getting this on Thursday instead of Wednesday. Thankfully, the heatwave seems to have broken. I got am amazing night's sleep and am feeling myself again!

So, last night amidst my struggle to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as it were), I did a little Googling about writer's block. I found an interesting correlation between the causes of writer's block and what keeps us from moving forward with a million other things in our lives - health, fitness, or starting any endeavor really. The most common reasons are: Timing, fear and perfectionism.

While timing can be a huge and very valid factor in why we are not finding forward motion whether it be in writing or in fitness and health, it is important not to let it become an excuse. For me, timing was a major reason for my writer's block this week. The heatwave, my last week at work before vacation and being currently short staffed because my colleague is on vacation and having a newbie asking questions every 5 minutes, meaning my workload is prolific. These are all valid reasons why my blod post is late this week. But they are not valid reasons to skip writing a post this week. Now that the heat has let up, I am sneaking in the time to write. Understanding that sometimes the timing is off is important, but it is equally important not to get caught up waiting for inspiration or motivation. Learning to recognize when you are using something like timing as an excuse is key to forward motion and achieving goals whatever they may be.

Fear often keeps us from starting. We fear that we aren't good enough or that people will judge us. This applies tot writing, of course, putting your thoughts and feelings out there for people to read and critique is terrifying. The same can be said of taking a class in something new and foreign, joining a gym when we are not at our fittest or even making a move in our carreer or lives. Fear can paralyze you if you let it. But as the King of Horror says above, the scariest moment is before you start. So, get out there and take the leap! I did with this blog and I can tell you, that barring any mind melting heatwave it has become easier with each post! Once you take the plunge things get easier because you know you can do it. And even if you suck at first the more you do the better you become. Practice makes perfect! 

Which brings us to perfectionism. Nothing is ever perfect. Life is about improvement and progress. Perfectionism is one of my biggest obstacles especially in my fiction writing, but even for this blog. I often restart my posts 2 or 3 times (4 for this one) before I feel ready to post them. Still, in the end I accept that they won't be perfect or I will never post them. With my fiction it is more complicated. I get to a point in every story I write where I start to 2nd guess certain things, things that mean going back and restarting - not from scratch, but with a major overhaul. I am striving to learn to just get that 1st draft done. To make a note of whatever new idea I have come up with and continue with it from there so that I can make changes in the edit... I am still working on that.

We wait for the perfect time to start that never comes. Or we want every word to be the perfect one before we show anyone one (maybe that's just me 😉). We want to be the right weight, the right size, the right whatever before we start something. "I want to be a size 10 before I wear a bikini", "I want to weigh a certain weight before I join the gym or run or dance or go to a Zumba class". The thing is while we are waiting for this designated "perfect" moment to come we are at a stand still we are not living our best life. 

Life is short we need to make the most of every minute and fill it with things that bring us joy as much as we possibly can. So remember, life is about growth - about progress not perfection. So, get up and dance, join the gym, go for a run or anything else you've been putting off! Life is happening right now. So, try something you've been putting off, stumble, fall and get back up! Hell, even suck at something and laugh at how bad you are at it! But take pride in the fact that you let go of a desire for perfection that doesn't exist and that you took a leap! What have you been putting off?

Pressing publish now!!! 👊

When grattitude is the attitude

Gratitude.

The word brings up thoughts of Thanksgiving, sitting around the table with family and going around one-by-one saying what we are thankful for. But gratitude is about more than being thankful. It's about appreciating what we have even if it isn't exactly what we want and appreciating those around us who help us in often imperceptible or overlooked ways every day.

An exercise in gratitude.

Last month, I joined a challenge set forth on the Weight Watchers social platform, Connect, by another member. A 4 week journaling challenge with 3 daily questions: 

1) What are you grateful for? 

2) What are you proud of? 

3) What are you looking forward to? 

Seems straight forward, right? Let me tell you, when you are in a negative mindset or a mindset of want and nothing is enough, it is not so easy. At least not at first. The first few nights took a lot of thought and I started by being grateful for a person (or group of people) in my life. Those go-tos: mom, friends, family, daughter, Connect, but once those were done I had to think harder. What did I have in my life that made things better - things that others might no be so lucky to have? As the weather grew hotter I was grateful for air conditioning. I like to take long walking adventures on weekends and after work and often end up eating out in the summer - grateful for restaurants with healthy options to keep me on track with my fitness and weight loss goals.

Once you get started, it is a total shift in your focus. Instead of focusing on what you don't have, you begin to look for the things you are grateful to have and appreciate them a little more. There are so many things to be grateful for in our lives - things we often take for granted. Though we might not have the home of our dreams, we have a roof over our heads - a shelter from the rain, the cold of winter and the sometimes intense heat of summer. There is food in our fridge and pantry - we don't go to sleep hungry unless it is our choice to. Our bodies might not look like the images we see in magazines and on television - we may have a few pounds to shed, but our bodies carry and support us through our day. I am healthy - not everyone is so lucky. I have a job - whether I love it or hate it, many people don't even have one to hate. Every day I am blessed. I wake up with my health, in a bed, in an apartment and I have food in the fridge to pack a lunch and clothes to wear. There are people in other parts of the world - and some right here in my city that cannot say the same. 

Sheryl Crow had it right, peeps! I dare you to take the challenge above and answer those 3 questions even just for a week. Answer those questions every night and see how your mindset changes as your focus shifts from what you don't have to appreciating what you do. It's liberating! 🤗💗