Category: Love Yourself

What is your Why?

My boss asked me a great question the other day. We were discussing a promotion and she asked me why I wanted the promotion. She wanted to know  more than the usual I want a pay increase. We had a great discussion about my why and it got me to thinking about my why in so many areas of my life.

Why do I parent? Why am I a spouse? Why do I work? Why do I coach? Why do serve in my church? Have you ever thought about your why? I know sometimes it can be overwhelming because it seems like it takes all you have to get through the day. If you know your why, however, it makes getting through the day a whole lot easier.

I spent some time figuring out my why and here are some tips and questions to ask yourself:

  1. Every why isn’t going to be profound. Sometimes your why is because you like having a place to live and food to eat. That is ok. If that is your why that is great; move on to another area in your life you feel more passionate about.
  2. Every area of your life does not need a why. I would encourage you to find one thing in your life that you really love and does inspire a why that fuels you and think about how you can get more of that why in your life.
  3. For the area(s) of you life you want to really focus on spend some quiet time thinking about why. Why do you want this in your life? Why does it matter to you? What would your life be like without it? How can you get more of this why in your life?

As you figure out your why it makes life decisions even easier. If one of your whys is to learn how to play the piano then you know that you are going to need to say no to go out every night after work because you need time to practice. Knowing your why will also help you to remove or change some things in your life.

What is one area of your life you would like to write a why about? I would love to hear about it in the comments and the why you come up with!

Change is Change

Change is change and change is hard. Even when you choose a change it can still be hard to handle all of the emotions that come along with the change. I decided last month that it was time for me to change. So I am leaving a job I have had for almost 19 years, starting a business, and looking for a new job. All of these are choices that I have made and changes that I want but I have noticed that in some ways I have not been handling the changes very well.

I decided that I didn’t want to keep going down this road of stressing about what was coming and instead to take back control of my life and emotions.

One of my favorite ways to take back control is to make lists. I love lists because I can see everything that I need to do. I had a friend tell me yesterday that she calls her agenda her stress agenda. She calls it this because it has everything in it she is stressed about so then she doesn’t need to think about it anymore. I have started calling my list my own stress agenda. Writing things down gets it out of my head and it doesn’t keep circling and making me worry more.

Another tool you can use is to talk to someone you trust. My son and I were talking the other day about what was bothering him. He knew what he needed to tell himself to deal with the stress but he just needed a sounding board to get the feelings out. Sometimes just getting the words out gets the stress out of your mind. You are then able to move forward with whatever you need to do.

Taking care of yourself physically is also important when you are under stress. Sugar and caffeine can make your body bounce between high and low energy throughout the day. This can make it more difficult to deal with stress because your emotions are all over the place. As much as I would rather eat chocolate I know that when I am struggling it is the time to nourish my body with good food. I am not 100% at this but I am getting better. I can definitely feel a difference when I am eating good food because my body feels better.

Remember that stress is just a feeling. You can let it come and go quickly through your body. Today I caught myself saying I am so stressed. I stopped and told myself, I am feeling stress and it will pass. I was able to let the stress pass through me instead of holding on to it. Just because you are feeling something doesn’t mean you have to keep holding on to it. Hold on to the positive feelings and let the negative ones pass through your body.

Finally, get enough sleep. Take a nap when you can. Let your body rest when you are feeling overwhelmed. Even a 5 minute rest listening to peaceful music will help to reset your brain to deal with the stress.

Change is change. Change good and bad can cause stress in your body. Knowing how to take care of yourself can help to deal with the negative effects of stress. How do you take care of yourself when you are feeling stressed?

Spread Love and Confidence

Last week during my Thursday Facebook live I talked about having the confidence to do just one step toward your goal. When I was talking it about it I think that I made it sound like you find this confidence just laying around. But we don’t find confidence. We have to drag it up out of the belief in ourselves and the knowledge that God has put us here for a purpose.

It is scary to take a step out of what is comfortable into something new. Change is always hard and scary, especially when it is something that is important to you. But it doesn’t change anything if you hold onto the fear instead of confidence. Let the fear go through you then take the strength left and step forward.

You may have to gather your confidence every step of the way. You may feel that your little steps aren’t moving you forward but they are. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you, any step forward is a win. You may feel like you don’t have enough to offer but you do. Everyone of us has something to offer this world.

I may never be known by more than 50 people but if I have made those 50 people feel important and loved I have fulfilled my purpose here in life. It doesn’t matter how big or small my life purpose is. Fulfilling it with love is all that matters. As I do that more people feel confident in their journey. And they are able to reach out and help others.

So your little piece of confidence leads someone else to using their little piece of confidence. As we gather all of the little pieces together we can change the world.

Let’s spread love and confidence.

Hi my name is Janna…

And I am a people pleaser.

I have spent YEARS trying to make everyone happy. Twisting myself into what I thought other people wanted is what caused the majority of the anxiety. I constantly try to figure out what other people will expect and then figure out how I can meet that while I do all of the other things that people want.

I just want people to like me.

It hasn’t mattered if I like me. It hasn’t mattered if I am doing something I enjoy as long as I know the people around me like me.

I am changing.

I know that making people like me is my Achilles heel. So I pay attention to how I am reacting to people. I am reaching out more to make friends. I pulled away from everyone for a long time because it was too hard to continue to be everything to everyone. Now I am working to figure out how to be friends with people without making them like me.

I think I am doing better. I am happy to have friends over. I am learning how to do small talk. (Which is not easy for this introvert!) I follow my husband’s example with how to talk with people. I am even reaching out to people more.

The one thing I still hate to do is tell someone no.

I still try to do everything that I am asked to do. Espically when the person asking never asks for help. I want to do everything to be able to serve them. But sometimes I just have to say no. I am learning that saying no doesn’t mean the other person is going to hate me. They may be disappointed and it may cause them to have to do more work. But if it does cause them to hate me then they weren’t a real friend to begin with.

Letting someone be disappointed in me is tough. But I am learning that I am tougher. I have learned that when I do need to say no I feel the disappoint that I can’t help them. It is so important to feel my feelings. If I just push them away then they come back stronger in a panic attack. I remind myself that I am still a good person even if I couldn’t help them. I remind myself that they are not angry with me although they may be disappointed. But I am not responsible for how they feel, I can’t control their feelings. If the feelings are very strong I will journal them to get them out. Then I go and do something else to get my mind off the disappointment.

If you are a people pleaser I challenge you to step back just a little bit. (I was going to challenge you to go say no to someone but that may be too big of a challenge to start with.) Let your kids do something for themselves, don’t answer that text as soon as it comes in, take 5 minutes just to breathe and collect yourself before heading in to work. Taking tiny steps back from people pleasing will help you to take better care of yourself.

I would love to hear what you did today to take a step back from people pleasing!

Word of the year

Do you make a word or intention for the year? I have seen this idea grow more popular over the last few years. This year is the first time that I have decided to choose just one word to focus on for the year. Before this year it kind of seemed silly. Why choose one word to focus on?

I know that just 3 weeks into the new year my year has helped to focus my mind, not get overwhelmed and gotten me excited about prospects over the year. My word for the year is create. Have the word create as my focus this year has helped me to realize that I don’t have control of the outcome but I can create a space for good things to happen.

Starting a business, raising a family and serving in my church I can often get overwhelmed with making things happen. But I can’t control other people. I can’t make my kids do what I want them to do. I can’t make people grow their belief in God. But I can create a home where it is easier for my kids to accomplish their goals. In church I can create a safe place for teenagers to explore their faith without judgement or worry. Focusing on creating space that people can explore what is important to them takes the pressure off me to make things perfect for them.

Having a word has helped me to focus my mind. I never ever wanted to start a business. It was too scary to think about, there are too many things I don’t know. But I do know that I can help people, I know that the things I have gone through will help others. Building a business takes time, having a word to remind me that I am creating a place for people to grow and change reminds me of why I started this business.

Finally, focusing on creation gets me excited for all that is possible. There are so many things I want to make, do and share. I love to remind myself that creation is a process and I don’t have to have it all figured out right now. Focusing on building instead of having it all figured out makes the process much more fun.

Is there an idea or feeling that has been calling to you? Is there something that has been on your mind to do or finish? I would love to help you create a way to accomplish your idea. Comment or message me I would love to work with you.

What does healthy mean?

The topic this time of year is all about goals and since this year is 2020 everyone is using 20/20 vision as their metaphor for goals. Well I am going to steal it too, because if you don’t know where you are going with your goals it is impossible to get there. That is why 20/20 vision for your goals is so important.

Last week I was talking to my trainer about a healthy goal. I know your goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. to be more achievable. But when I try to think of healthy goals the only measurable thing I can think of is my weight. Weight shows how healthy you are right? (I know this isn’t true but in my mind I think if I’m losing weight I am doing all of the healthy things.)

The only problem with using weight as my marker is that I start to obsess about everything. I obsess about what I eat, how much I workout and how much water I drink. Then because I am obsessing about all of this I get mad and rebel because I really want my head to be filled with more than just what I “can” eat.

So I asked Teri what I can do to set a healthy goal. Her simple question was genius, “What does healthy do?” This is perfect because it is about more than weight. For me healthy means I get at least 8000 steps in each day. Healthy means I eat 4 servings of vegetables each day. Healthy means that I don’t worry so much about what I am eating that day. The first two are measurable I can count if I have done them. (The last one I am still figuring out how to make it measurable.)

The point is sometimes you need to look at your goal in another way to take some of the pressure off yourself. I am never going to look like Jillian Micheals but I can make healthy habits that allow me to live the type of life I want.

Are you stuck on a goal? How can you look at if differently to bring back some excitement? If you need some help comment below or message me, I would love to help you rethink your goal.

Deadlines don’t Matter

Have you set your New Year’s Resolutions? Do you set goals at the beginning of a new year? What do you think of goal setting?

I sometimes get overwhelmed with goals. It can feel too overwhelming trying to figure out all of the steps to achieve the goal. Also, what happens if I can’t reach the goal in the time I have given myself? Does that mean that I have failed again with a goal? Sometimes I don’t set goals just so I don’t have that feeling of failure.

I follow a woman on FaceBook named Heather Quisel. She was taking about goal setting and achieving your goals. She said that not reaching your goals doesn’t mean that you failed. You can’t know how long it will take to achieve a goal until you start.

She encourages people to have a deadline for a goal so that you give yourself a timeline to work on. However, until you start working you don’t know how long it will take to write your book. You have no idea how long it will take you to make excercise a constant in your life.

I love this idea because it takes all of the pressure off of setting goals. It changes the way I feel about reaching a goal. Instead of putting myself down for not achieving something I know that I can revamp my goal and keep working.

What are your trick and tips for achieving goals? I would love to hear your ideas.

How do you want to boss yourself?

I was listening to a podcast about building a business, unfortunately I don’t remember which podcast it was, but the guest was talking about being the boss. She was referencing how we often treat other people differently than we treat ourselves. She asked, “How do you want to boss yourself?”

I have been thinking about this question for weeks. I think this has applications to so much more than just business. How do you want to boss yourself when it comes to your goals? How do you want to boss yourself when it comes to family traditions? How do you want to boss yourself when it comes to your mental health?

I know that I give other people so much more grace than I give myself. If I am struggling with something I am hard on myself. I feel that I must figure things out right away and then do that thing perfectly. As Jeffery Holland has said, “Except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing, so while in morality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists call ‘toxic perfectionism.'”

Toxic perfectionism is when we get so wound up in being perfect we forget why we are trying to make the change in the first place. It is easy to think that we want perfection or nothing. However, when we have this mindset any roadblock becomes more than we can handle. Instead of an experience to learn from it becomes a failure that we are stuck to.

As we come to the beginning of a new year it is a common time to set goals. Then if we start to falter from those goals we beat ourselves up for not doing better. When this negative self talk begins ask yourself, “Would I talk like this to my best friend?” If not it is time to stop talking like that to yourself. You can be honest without tearing yourself apart. You can evaluate your performance honestly while giving yourself grace. I encourage you to ask yourself, “How do I want to boss myself.” Then make needed changes if you aren’t bossing yourself like you would someone else.

I hope that as you go into this new year you will give yourself grace. I hope that you will let yourself fail and learn from it. I hope that you will love yourself enough to not need to be perfect.

Happy New Year! Here is to 2020!

Mindset – Scarcity or Abundance?

When my husband and I were first married we lived 9 miles away from the closest grocery store. And it was a small grocery store. We were 26 miles away from the closest Walmart. It took at least 20 minutes to drive round trip, to the little grocery store, if I forgot anything. To make sure I always had all of the groceries I might need I made a weekly list, I checked the staples to see if we were running low. I checked and rechecked to make sure that we had everything we may need for the week. My sister laughed at me whenever she came to visit because our fridge was always packed.

Fast forward almost 20 years. We now live within 3 miles of 2 different Walmart’s. I still make the weekly grocery list and I still worry trying to decide if we need more milk or if it will run out before the next grocery trip. Will I have enough eggs or should I get more?

What does this have to do with mindset? Just like I get stressed about making sure I have enough groceries I don’t always recognize the talents and abilities I have. Instead of focusing on all of the great things I can do I hyper focus on the things I don’t know how to do. I worry that there isn’t enough for me.

I having been learning about the abundance mindset. This is where you believe that there is enough for everyone. There is enough wealth, happiness and respect for everyone. Just like I don’t have to worry and stress about having enough groceries, believing that there is enough for everyone makes a huge difference.

So how do you change your mindset to focus on what is available instead of what you are lacking? One thing is to practice gratitude. Having just come through the Thanksgiving season I have tried to remain focused on all of the wonderful blessings I have been given. Focusing on the things, people and places we are grateful for helps shift our mindset to abundance and opportunity instead of focusing on all the things we lack.

Another way to change your mindset is to focus on growth. Instead of staying where you are find ways to grow your mind, talents or experiences. You can start a hobby just to learn something new. Listen to a podcast or read a book that stretches your mind to the possibilities of life. I personally love David Goggins and the things he teaches. He challenges me mind and my way of thinking.

Being open to trying new things is another way to help yourself grow. This one is probably the hardest for me. I love my world and I love things to be predictable. But there isn’t growth in staying the same. There isn’t a chance to learn if I never try something new. The stimulation that you get from the fear of trying something new helps to propel you forward.

Always being focused on what you are missing only amplifies all of the things you don’t have. To truly grow and change focus on all the possibilities and opportunities you have in your life. And try something scary.

Yes is the worst answer

My son tried out for a school musical a few weeks ago. He has not been in choir and had never been in a play before. I knew he was a little nervous so I asked him how he was feeling. He said, “Well, the worst that they can tell me is yes.” It took me a minute to realize what it was he had said.

Usually, people think the worst that they can be told is no. But he had but a twist on it. He wasn’t invested in the outcome because it was something fun that he was trying out so no wasn’t horrible.

I have been thinking about this for weeks. So many times I get so stressed because I don’t want to be told no. I just know that no will mean that I failed. If I am told no then I am not good enough. But when we take the emotion out of the no there is so much less to be worried about.

Instead of looking at no as a failure we can look at it as the next step. We can see that this may not be the best answer for us and move on to the next step. We can use the no to power us on to the next step. Maybe yes really is the worst thing we can hear.