2014 = No More Comparing

Wow - it's been awhile since I have thought about writing a post on here. Welcome 2014, albeit 13 days late!

What a break I had. No blogging at all. Writing in my journal, but none online. Refreshing.

Why the break? Well I believe that it is not beneficial to just write something for the sake of it. I would rather truly believe what I am writing, or be passionate about it before I click Publish. And I would like it to be worthy reading. So here is my first foray for the year.

I sat down in the first few days of a fresh new year and set out my goals and things I wanted to achieve in 2014, in all aspects of my life. Health, wellness, blogging, coaching, work, motherhood, relationships. Everything. Of course they aren't all big goals, some might just be little things but they are things that I want out of this year. That I want to make happen. And I'm pumped about it.

And I thought of a post that I really wanted to get out. I needed to write this and I have needed to for a little while now.

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One of the big things I have had some trouble with in terms of writing on this blog is being authentically me. Good parts, and bad parts.  Of course this is me you are seeing, reading and hanging out with.

I mean in terms of portraying all of who I am. I am a work in progress, and although I do have green smoothies, I also eat chocolate. And not always the fantastic Pana stuff, sometimes I just grab some Dairy Milk. Hazelnut or Marvellous Creations are my two favourites, but honestly I'm not that fussy.  I LOVE trashy television, and can sometimes spend an hour or two on the couch rather than being outside getting some sunshine. I drink coffee, eat bread, normal milk - but I do love almond milk and chia seeds and cooking with coconut oil. I used to grow kale, loved it in my smoothies. Well actually, no one truly loves kale, (it's bloody bitter!) we all pretend but you get my point.

I love to feel healthy, inside and out, but I am no way perfect every day.  I would hate for you to think that, and my point is that we are all human. We can always work on things, and even though I promote living a health life, by having a healthy mind, body and soul, there are times when I feel crap about myself and start thinking negatively.  

I feel insecure and find myself comparing myself to others when I know I shouldn't be. An example of this is being a mum. My daughter has an innate ability to wonderfully throw all your plans to the wind and make you play by her rules. Some days we can not leave the house, she might not sleep at all and I might not even have a shower! I used to think that made me a crap mother, I would see photos of other mums looking amazing and out for coffee with their children looking and behaving so well. I thought I was shit, and didn't have it together. The truth is though no one is perfect, and what is working for those mums on that day - might not work the next. But you won't see that on social media because it's too real. It's actually relatable though and makes us other mums feel ok about having vomit or mushed food on our clothes and not realising when we leave the house.

We all compare ourselves and what I would love you to know, gorgeous, is that you are you and no one else does it better.  So stop comparing, get off social media and live your life your way.

Don't get me wrong, I love Instagram, Facebook and Twitter but it can lead to an obsession with comparing ourselves.  So if you find yourself doing that, switch off - and go outside. Or put the TV on and lose yourself for a bit.  Or eat some kale chips, or even Cadbury Chocolate. Whatever YOU want to do.

We need to stop comparing ourselves and just let ourselves be who we are meant to be. Of course there are always things that we can improve on, but lets not beat ourselves up about it if we slip up, or feel crap about ourselves.  Let's try super dooper hard to be positive and take the good with the bad - OK?

And from now on I promise that I will be sharing all the good stuff (the green smoothies, the raw recipes, the tea obsession etc) along with the not as good (the Criminal Minds marathon, my atrocious downward dog, and the books on my bedside table that aren't self help).

Much love
xx

My name is Nicole, and I am Multi Passionate.

My downward dog looks more like a flimsy ferret.

I meditate......sometimes.

I try to avoid sugar, but I love fruit and chocolate.

I feel like I should be a vegetarian but I love lamb so much.

I love getting outside in nature, but also love watching trashy TV.

My writings are currently just one page of ramblings.....book is traveling along quite well.

My point?

I am a walking contradiction! And I am not really good at labelling myself. I don't really like many of them.  I’m not a yogi, or an author, meditator or a vegetarian. I don’t really stick to anything, and I am forgetful. If I say I am not going to eat meat, I forget until I am chomping on a lamb cutlet bone while my dog sits watching and drooling. I say I am going to meditate each morning and do it once and that’s it. I forget and I am cool with that. I wasn’t for ages, but that’s me. I think it’s one of my great qualities. My crappy memory.

I am what they call a multi-passionate person. I like something from column A and column B.

And I’ll also see something I like in Column C, oooh Column D has some ripper stuff, and Column E has something that I want too!  Actually, screw the rest, Column F is the greatest by far. 

I see others that seem to know exactly what they want and go get it. They are happy with one thing and content. 

Me? I need a bit of everything. 

I thrive on learning new things. I absorb information like a sponge, and then lose interest after a bit, or if I find something new. 

Hence why in my garage is a surfboard, a skateboard, a scooter, a guitar, some fishing rods, gardening stuff and bikes. I love it all. Truth be told I don’t always utilise them, but I will! Come summer I will surf and ride with the baby on my bike. I do garden when I can, and we love to fish as a family. I haven’t picked up the guitar in a bit, but I have someone on hand to teach me. And the scooter? Well I had ambitions of scooting down the street to get a coffee (it would be faster than walking), but I didn’t think it through properly. How would I scoot back while trying to balance a coffee, or two. Hmm. The scooter can probably go I think. Maybe to my 7 year old cousin. Kids like scooters.

I digress. 

I am multi passionate. It’s a label I am ok with. I think it makes me interesting. Here are a few labels I like:

• Mother
• Wife
• Daughter
• Sister
• Friend
• Comedian
• Good looking (joke - see point above)

I could go on, but I won't.  The point of this post is to say it’s ok to not do something 100% of the time. Or even be super good at something. You are free to do a little of this, a little of that. It’s the beauty of life, and the world we live in. There is so much out there so if you feel like you haven’t found your one thing, it’s ok. You can have five. Or six. Or even twelve. It’s your life baby!

Are you a multi passionate person? Or have you got that one thing that you are kicking goals at?

Keep smiling 

xx

In My World - Time.

My life is busy.  I work full time, am undertaking an online course, have a three-month-old baby (with my partner who is a SAHM), and play netball at my local club, which involves Saturday games and training one night a week.

With any time leftover I try to fit in any of the following:

• Gym/fitness/walking the dog
• Housework (yeah right!)
•  Leisure activities (socialising, catching up with friends/family, reading a book, watching a movie, shopping!, taking photos, having a bath)
• Planning things around my business
• Writing this blog (which I have been TOTALLY slack on – sorry y’all)

Whoa.

Even as I write these things I realise how much I have going on. And I know it’s all my doing, and I am not whining at all. I also know that other amazing people do a lot more but to me this is a fair amount. The thing is though is that this amount of ‘stuff’ going on in life is manageable. BUT I tend to spend time not actually doing anything, such as flaking on the couch watching meaningless television, on social media just creeping and a ridiculous amount of time looking at photos on Instagram of food, flamingos and nail polish. Goodness me.

So what to do?

First – you will notice that posts on this blog will start taking on more of a ‘structure’. For example this post has the heading of What's Happening in My World? They will be posts on what's happening to me in my little world that I hope relate somehow to you. There will be other themes of things that I like to write about at certain times. Things that interest me and that I would love to share with you.
On a side note, the amount of support that I have had so far is overwhelming. I thank you, you gorgeous thing, for reading and being supportive, you’re awesome.  I love writing on here and I will continue to do so as long as people want to check it out and connect. It rocks. You rock. We all rock.

Second – realise that some things can wait. If I don’t get the vacuuming done today then it will still be there tomorrow, and that is perfectly fine. It’s all about prioritising, and being ok with putting things that aren’t super important off for a little bit. So if you are coming to visit my house any time soon, please DO NOT look at the carpet. Thank you.

Third – make sure that I ‘schedule’ blocks of time out to do things I want to do. I am not going to book every little detail in as such; it will more be an hour here or there to do something that I feel like doing at that time.  Me time. I can probably make a safe bet and assume that hours will go just watching my daughter and her facial expressions, but to me that’s an hour well spent!

Fourth – setting little tasks. If I have something massive I want done by a certain time, I am going to split it out into more manageable chunks so that it doesn’t overwhelm me, and I leave it to the last minute. Or don’t even get it done at all. (Yes, I am talking about the bookcase in the garage that I was going to strip down, paint and put in the nursery before the baby was born. Oops. It will get done. One day, hopefully by her eighteenth birthday.)

The business is a perfect example here. Just chipping away at little tasks is making the whole thing seem easy. It’s falling into place. And it makes me feel like I have accomplished so much so far.  Whoop!

Fifth – even though I feel like I have a crap-load to do, it’s really important that I am here in the present. Enjoying today and not stressing about how much I have to do in the next six months, two years or five years. Taking today as it comes and just doing what I can – and being ok with it. Breathing and being present.

Being here in the moment and taking whatever today brings me. I’m ready – bring it on!

Source

What about you?

Do you feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day?

Do you have a way that you manage everything that really works for you? I’d love to hear it!

Keep smiling

xx

Honest and Ashamed

This  post is not what I initially set out to write. Something happened today that has caused me to shift my views and take a long hard look at myself.

For quite awhile now I have wanted (italicised due to the importance of this word) a MacBook Pro. Since I started blogging and getting all creative I felt like it would make me a serious writer and hipster. All the cool kids have one. So I wanted one too. ( Just to go off track a teensy tiny bit here, that is usually how I roll with things that I want. I want something, so I get it. I'm quite impulsive like that. Buy now, think later. It's not a good trait at all, and since meeting my partner I have kerbed my impulsiveness, but it doesn't stop me wanting something.  And now I am not in control of the budget at all, a very very wise move.)

Back to the MacBook Pro. I have been nagging at my partner to get me one. I couldn't get it myself you see, because that would be terribly selfish of me. New baby, bills and debts to pay - there is no way I could go and spend $1500 on a computer for myself.  Especially when we already have a great laptop, as well as an iPad (which I wanted too), and don't get me wrong I use it all the time, but now I want something else. Both of those are perfectly fine for the blogging I do, and given that I have just started they will easily do the job until I start to get a little more serious.  But if it was bought for me as a gift, then I would feel no guilt - and still get what I want.

I even tried to convince my partner to get me one today, to surprise me when I got home. I then started getting excited, thinking that she might actually get it for me. I started imagining sitting at the table at home and playing around on it. Mine. All for me. Sheesh, what a flog.

So when I realised that I wasn't getting it, even as a surprise, I felt really disappointed. I have all the logic in my head - it's expensive, I can blog without it, we have other debts to pay. But I can't help how I feel. And I felt it so strongly. I don't need one, I want one.

Something snapped me out of this deluded fantasy over a computer. A freakin' computer. Yes it would be great to have, I know that, but life would continue without it. It's a thing. Just something tangible.

I was checking Facebook to distract myself from the bitter disappointment I felt (cringe) and I saw a picture that a friend had shared from the Boston bombings on my news feed. You might have seen it, it's all over the news. It's of a guy who was running for charity and lost both of his legs in the blast. The uncut picture is very graphic and I happened to see it.

It's a good thing I did. It snapped me back from being a douche bag  Here I was, wanting a computer, when this guy can possibly never walk again.

It put things into perspective and made me take a long hard look at myself. How pathetic I am. I know that life sometimes deals us curve balls and everyone goes through things, but it's time I start appreciating what I have instead of wishing for more. Be thankful and grateful that I can wake up everyday with a roof over my head, kiss the people I hold dear and breathe. So what if I don't get another computer. Is it really that important? The disappointment I was feeling was gone. My chest started hurting and I felt terribly upset. I was guilty. Not guilty for wanting it really, but guilty because I was so upset that I wasn't getting it.

Time to re-evaluate and focus on nothing but positive things. As embarrassed and ashamed as I am about my desire for something trivial and disappointment at not getting what I want, I needed to share this because sometimes we all need to take some perspective on things. We need to appreciate the little things more, and what we have. And be thankful.

I know I am. I'm thankful that I can walk everyday - and thankful that the man in the picture had people supporting him and getting him to safety. I feel so sad about the bombings, but my happiness for the people that have helped others when they didn't have to and therefore put themselves in danger way outweighs that. Focus on the good things. Of course it is perfectly fine to be upset, in fact you need to get it out to deal with things. Then you need to pick yourself up and focus on what's good in this world. Focus on the good things in your life. Some people are bad, but more people are good.  And it's the goodness in people that makes this world such a brilliant place.

Sorry for the rant and the seriousness, but part of this whole blogging process is to be honest and put myself out there. It's to make me become a better person and I feel that this is a big step forward. It's ok to want things, everyone does. But the learning curve was more about HOW upset I got when I didn't get what I want. That is what I am going to change. Starting now.

To everyone involved in the Boston bombings, my thoughts are with you.

Rebranding

I'm back!

I'm not too sure if a blog can be rebranded if there have only been 7 posts....but I decided to do it anyway.

After a brief hiatus I'm back and rearing to go! Bring on the posts.

I am now looking at writing more about the beauty of life in general, so I decided that A Spectacular Life as a title seemed a little more appropriate and welcoming.
So welcome!
I wish all of you A Spectacular Life, and I hope you enjoy my posts about my journey to achieve that myself. So often we take things for granted and dwell on the trivial rather than focusing on the things we should be thankful for.
Do something you love every day.
I will be back soon with more info on living a spectacular life.

Stay smiling.