Living your Best Life – Nobody has it altogether!
Do you think its possible to ever get to a place where you actually have it altogether?
I got a laugh out of this You tube video a friend of mine posted to facebook. It depicts a family walking through the doors of their church – Everyone turns to admire this family, because….’they have it all together’. Little do their church family know how their morning went. I encourage you to watch.
http://youtu.be/WdtEYNW2t0Q
It’s so easy to think that others have their lives sorted. Its easy to believe that ‘others’ have it altogether, and its easy to feel as though we are the only ones who understand what it is like to live on ‘Struggle Street’, or ‘lack of Motivation Road’, or ‘lets live on Greener Pastures Avenue’. We need to remember that our words and our thoughts have power and what we focus on actually comes to pass, so if you think your going to have a good day – then you are. Its all about attitude.
After I had Amy, I found that I was really struggling in myself. I was exhausted, a tiredness that I had never experienced before, and I had issues with feeding her, but I felt incredibly guilty at the thought of putting her on formula. I loved this gorgeous little baby, but I just couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. I was told at the time that I had a case of postnatal depression, but it was more a case I was just really tired, and I felt really disappointed I was not able to feed my child. My expectations were squashed, and I felt as though I had failed Amy.
I had to make a decision. I decided that I would put Amy on formula, and I would be happy she was getting the nutrients that she needed, and I would also start each day by telling Amy that no matter what – we would have a great day. Most days we had a wonderful day – but it was an attitude shift – I had to put it in place.
How often have we heard this phrase ‘Live your best life!’? I know it’s a very Oprah thing to ask (I do like many things that Oprah says), but I have to admit that as I get older, I have really started asking myself whether in fact I am, ‘living our best life’? and where can we improve?
One thing I know for sure is that we will never reach a place where life in every area of our lives is perfect, and I know that some of you are going to ask what the point of growing and improving is if your never going to reach the place where everything works simultaneously. I will simply answer this by saying that we don’t live in a world where I believe that this is possible 100% of the time. After all life happens while we are making plans.
Recently, I was forced to overhear somebody’s phone conversation while I was waiting at the post office . I’m not exactly sure who this woman was talking to, but she was talking loud enough for everyone in the post office to hear her side of the conversation. The conversation startled me, because whomever she was speaking too, she was asking ‘Is this it? Is this all my life is ever going to be?”
This got me thinking about my life. I want to live my best life, and while I am happy being a wife and a mother, I also have a dream to fulfill outside of my family. Don’t get me wrong – my family are the biggest part of my dream – but there is a part of who I am that needs to also succeed at the part of the dream that belongs to only me. Over time I will tell you all about it, but because I don’t want to be a ‘gunna be’ or a ‘gunna do’ kind of person, I will hold details such as this under my hat for a little while longer. I just want to get a few things in place first.
I am a mum who works at home. My hubby goes out to work, my girls go to school, and I have my little boy at home with me (except for kindy days). I want the time I have with my little man to be special. I have a little over two years before Jaden goes off to school, and I want Jaden’s days at home with me to be fun….trips to the beach and park, little adventures, and I want the time to do such things with the girls. When I got married, my dream was that one day when we had children, I would be able to stay at home and give my children the opportunity to have a mum who had the time to help them with homework and assignments, and a mum who could just be there. While that dream has not changed, I have changed along the way, and I have realised that it is also important for me to have opportunities where I can work on myself. I have been on quite a journey. I set this year out to be ‘Sarah’s year 2013’, and as I look toward the end of the year, I realise I have not reached my goal for the year (but i am still a work in progress). While I am disappointed that I am not closer than I am to my goal, I have learned so much along the way. I have also morphed into this being who now desires to know more and more about health, and what it means to be healthy and how important it is to know exactly what your eating and doing. Health is one of the most important building blocks in life that we have. If we are healthy we can do so much more than what we do when we aren’t feeling well.
While I can’t say that I love exercise, I can say that I am prepared to endure it. All four kids have scooters, and while it’s not easy to walk at a pace worthy to call exercise when Jaden is on his scooter, it is fun to just be outside in the outdoors close to the beach. Its about getting the kids outside and into the fresh air, away from the television and the computer.
Doing things in life that I don’t particularly like means that I need to create incentives. There are just some things in life where one must apply an incentive. For example, the idea of getting up at 5 am to go in the dark for a walk must be met with an incentive. Not chocolate, but the opportunity to see the sunrise, or knowing that you have a date with hubby that evening. Lets face it – rewards help with our motivation, and help us to stay on track. Yes fitting into my desired clothes is an incentive, but sometimes you need smaller incentives along the way.
My plan for the moment is to incorporate more fun into our family life – We live at the beach (There’s no excuse). A short 3 minute drive gets us to Dicky Beach, 20 minutes on a good day with little traffic gets us to Mooloolaba, 35 minutes to Coolum, and we are 50 minutes away from Noosa. There is no reason as to why we can’t have fun more often.
All I know is that we are all on a journey. We all have things we want to achieve and succeed in for our lives, but it is important for us all to realise that every journey starts with the first step, and sometimes we need to be inspired by how others live their lives to help motivate us to follow our hearts, and follow our dreams and not allow circumstances to stop us where we are at.
I am going to end this blog post with a video of a guy that we all should take a few lessons from. My kids love him and often talk about what Nick does and is all about. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to live without arms and legs, but Nick does, and if it interests you I dare you to be inspired to follow your heart to live your best life by being inspired by this guy.
5 Comments
Author Bek Mugridge
LOVED this whole post so much.
(And the funny family vid too)
So much mirrors my own experiences with my first baby and journey into motherhood Xx
mischievious Mum
oh thank you so much Bek. I wish I had of known before I had Amy – what I now know…..I suppose this is why people say hindsight is a wonderful thing! 🙂 What I have discovered is there is no such thing as perfect! 🙂
Barbara Boser
What a wonderful post! I loved everything about motivating yourself and wanting to live the best life 🙂
admin
Hi Barbara…thanks for your comment….I hope you are having ‘your best life’.
xo
Rebecca Zacher
Great post! That video at the start was so funny. Describes our weekly outings perfectly. I can’t get my head around how really large families do it. Two kiddies is full in enough right now 🙂 thanks for stopping by BloggersBazaar today. Bec