New Year's Resolutions in January, giving up things for Lent in February and March... it seems like we keep making promises to do things and most of us end up losing sight of the reasons. This year, I set a year of habits for myself instead of making resolutions. I've done a generally good job keeping them at the top of my mind (aside from hurting my foot and not being able to run the last few weeks) but Lent rolled around and my habits came to the forefront again.

With the topic of habits weighing heavily on my mind, I led Church in Bethesda's Ladies Bible Study on Monday by starting with 'What bad habits do you want to leave behind and what good habits can you replace them with?' Instead of just giving up something for Lent, I wanted a replacement to also remind us of why we're doing Lent.

My admitted bad habit was drinking to shut off my brain. I had found myself making a drink when I got home so I wouldn't spend all night working or enjoying a few cocktails at the bar while networking. It didn't work with my healthy lifestyle of running and hitting the gym when I was drinking daily. My solution was to go to the gym or do 10 pushups every time I thought it would be a good idea to drink. Replacing a bad habit with a good one worked really well in this situation.

While replacing drinking with working out was a great solution and my only other idea being to sit in the dark movie theatre watching a movie, I still needed to find time to just be quiet with a quiet mind and listen for God. I'm a talker (even in my head) and just listening for Him is really tough for me.

My solution: a required 15min of soaking per day throughout Lent. Last night was my first soak & I did it to two 8+min versions of How He Loves (Kim Walker Live & David Crowder) to hit my 15min without having to check every 2. Sadly, laying in the dark on my bed still doesn't help me relax. I tried to focus on the words, focus on breathing, focus on listening. I completed the 15min but wasn't really relaxed. Trying again tonight.

The study I led on Monday really made me realize the importance of community with breaking habits. By admitting a bad habit, it allowed another woman to admit she was hiding her smoking and needed help quitting. Because she did this, one younger woman told her that she had struggled with smoking & gave her ideas on taking it one day at a time. Another admitted to not having Christian friends & influences. Yet another talked about her anger with drivers texting and talking on phones and her hope of their getting into an accident. With my admittance, it gave others a safe place to talk & I believe it allowed us to pull together a support community. I've even received encouragement from one of these ladies on twitter after my notice that it's been 6 days at the gym and 5 days without drinking.

Although I'd love to know what you're doing (feel free to comment below), my biggest question for my Lenten Promise: Does anyone have ideas on good soaking songs?

Hebrews 12:7 - Endure hardship as discipline...

Standing at my counter while I make dinner, sweat drips off the back of my hair and onto my neck. It's Monday night and I just finished a really hard BodyCombat class. On Thursday, I ran the Turkey Chase 10K in 56min with my friend, David (@dcborn61). On Saturday, Joshua & I ran a 4+mile hill run and on Sunday, we hiked Stony Brook Park (and by hiked, I mean, climbed a LOT of precarious stairs up to the top of a mountain so we could see the falls pictured here). My muscles ache, I really need a shower and I'm starving, but man, I feel incredible.

I'm inspired to do something.

Evernote reminded me that I had notes from last Sunday (thank you for the sync from my phone!) and after reading through them, I realized that this is something that is obviously on my heart. Pastor Todd (@swirlyfoot) gave a sermon at Church in Bethesda about the saints. He talked about the tough things they went through to become saints but they were never all talk. They had action behind their talk & endured hardship. The sermon was pointed at getting off our butts & doing something instead of just talking about it. Todd told us that each of us could be a saint in our own right if we stopped just formulating ideas and went out to put them into action.

My initial thoughts for this post were about formulating a plan for the next month to get off my butt and show myself what I'm made of physically. The verse above, Hebrews 12:7, is the beginning of a few verses (seriously, go read them) that talk about how God is our Father disciplines us for our own good and and how even when our earthly fathers have done the same, we've respected them. Being able to discipline ourselves to action allows us to correct our own paths.

MIND:
Based on what the Bible is saying here, I know I must discipline my thoughts, my words and my actions to make sure I am wholly good and holy for Him. If I can do that, I'll be wholly good to everyone around me. Being a Christian is so much more than just going to church on Sunday and praying over dinner. And although some of you may not agree with me, being a Christian isn't about just telling everyone that God will save them. Being a Christian is about being an upstanding member of your community in everything you do. It's about who you are when nobody is watching AND when everyone is watching. Finding myself standing here knowing that I'm a leader in my small community, I know it's time to correct my path.

I've always struggled with prayer and downtime. I've always had a hard time just quieting my mind. Running helps  me quiet my mind (we'll get to that next) but otherwise, I'm a million miles per hour in thought. Being able to refocus my thoughts will allow me to be a better Christian AND a generally better human to my community. Ever been around yogis? They're incredibly peaceful to everyone around them. Hmm... we'll see how this goes.
 
BODY:
This goes back to me sweating and feeling amazing yet painful after a few straight days of working out. I'm disciplining my body to do what I want it to and it's respecting me for it. For the last few years, I've been pushing myself to do more but then I fall into a comfortable pattern and end up working out only 3x a week.. maybe. This year, running has become something of an addiction for me but sometimes what I put in my body (fried food, alcohol, etc) doesn't allow me to have the drive to get up and run the next morning. While in this space, I always wonder (even though I know) why I can't break the barrier that shows me what I'm really capable of. In order for me to see results from this discipline of my body, I need to get off my butt and make it a reality.

If you repeat a behavior over and over, it becomes a habit.

My plan is to make these two behaviors good habits. Thanksgiving is now over and Christmas is on its way. These aren't insane plans for having a killer body or being a Christian saint, but they are simple actions that I want to become a part of my lifestyle, not just a phase.

4-WEEK NEW HABITS CHALLENGE:
MIND:
- commit to praying every morning & every evening
- commit to 15-min of quiet time for just reflection every day
- commit to being in bed by 11pm & waking up by 6am every day
- commit to tracking thoughts on paper daily

BODY:
- commit to 30-60min of exercise every day
- commit to eating & drinking only healthy
- commit to stretching every morning
- commit to tracking exercise on DailyMile.com daily

Now that I've written it down and said I'd do it, it's on. I'm ready... are you?
 

Written for CityGirlsWorld.com

While enjoying a weekend away in Western NY, I glanced at the paper to see that, not far away in Seneca Falls, there was a celebration of Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement. The next day, my mother and I just happened to drive by the movie theatre and made a last minute decision to see The Help. Both of these struck a deep chord with me.

Growing up as the oldest of four children whose parents were only 20 years older than myself, I was raised in a time where girls were expected to go to college after high school. Being from the country, I found that most girls my age weren’t finishing more than a year or two before becoming wives and mothers and spending their days at home. Although my mother was one of those high school graduates turned wife and mother, she was the voice that told me it wasn’t necessary to find a man and have children. A career should be my focus, not someone else.

Looking back to the early 1900’s when women’s suffrage was at its height, we see women who turned against the grain and fought for our rights, careers, choices, and futures. These women were different from those of their time because they were single (gasp!) and didn’t do what was expected of them. Moving forward to the 1960’s era of housewives depicted in The Help, we see women who went to college to get their “Mrs.” degree. They chose men who could take care of them & hired maids to take care of their children, cooking and cleaning while they played Bridge and setup charity events. Their education became useless.

Now we see women taking on corporate executive positions and leading non-profits instead of being someone’s Gal Friday. Women are taking bigger entrepreneurial risks and leading the way for the younger generations to prove that we can do more with less. We’re getting seats at the table now, but asLeslie Bradshaw asks “is that really enough?” Studies are showing that many women leave work before they leave work. Most of the time it’s due to getting married and planning for children. They don’t ask for raises or promotions because they plan to leave the workforce to stay at home with their future little ones. And then women complain that we’re not getting paid or treated equally.

Finding myself looking at my 30’s with great excitement for what’s to come, I see a woman not unlike the main character, Skeeter, in The Help. A young woman wanting to change the world, wanting to find her space by helping others. This gumption-filled character who went outside the confines of ‘normal’ and proved herself by taking a stand for others. She is someone to look up to, to become more like, to be humbled by. She’s the woman I want my nieces and nephews to look up to and my parents to be proud of.

About 10 years ago my mom had a conversation with a friend of hers who was single, 35 and waiting. She hadn’t even bought towels because she thought you had to be married to get towels as a wedding gift. My mom told her she needed to go do things because she wanted to. So, she went to Honduras on a missions trip, bought a house, finally bought towels and became happy with her life. She’d always been waiting for someone to be happy with and realized her life was waiting for her instead.

As a woman who seems to have it all together, I wonder why this notion of ‘what’s next’ keeps me searching for a ’someone’. Why is the next step always marriage and/children? Why can’t a big career and amazing friends/family be enough? Why is there always the comment “Oh, you’re pretty. You’ll find someone.”?

 It may not be 1890 or 1960 but we still have the requirement of marriage surrounding us as women. We’re taught to be independent and to find ourselves but when will we stop being looked at like there’s something wrong with us if we choose to be alone. Our lives aren’t based on our careers, but the end game always seems to be settling down. I look at the lives of most married women and see them looking at my life with wonderment. I think I’ll just keep on keeping on and see where life takes me next instead of trying to fit a mold the women of the 20’s & 60’s tried to break for me.

Written for SimplyLeap.com's Hug Tour

Huggers are everywhere but DC is full of people who are from all over the world. Some need personal space and others hug just about anyone for any reason.

I love hugging my friends (see Amy Throndsen & I here) and will take any chance to do that.

Hugging strangers isn't weird to me so rockin' the Ambassador role for the Hug Tour sounded fantastic.

Donning a hug tour t-shirt makes you think that anyone will want to hug you. It tells others you're an ambassador, it tells people to hug like they mean it and it's such a positive reinforcement.

A hug tour doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen.

Having a few places to travel to on one of the hottest days of the summer, I put on my dark blue Hug Tour shirt with a white skirt & headed off to Dupont for some meetings.

I got some random looks regarding my t-shirt and although trying to catch eyes, Metro people seemed to be really awkward and uninviting so I didn't pursue it. Had high hopes for some hugging but with the ridiculous temperatures, personal space seemed to be in high regard.

I headed into a Starbucks right off Dupont Circle and was standing in line when the manager tried reading my shirt. She was so outgoing and obviously caffeinated.

Saying that it was such a great message, I asked if she wanted a hug. She was hesitant but was obviously up for it.

I turned around and showed her that I was a hug ambassador. Her joy at the prospect of a hug just filled me with happiness.

Running over to me from her post behind the counter, she squeezed me tight and couldn't contain herself. She told me (and everyone else) that she had been there for 10 hours already and was just having a rough day.

The hug was the highlight of her day and she told me that she'd be telling all of her morning customers about the hug tour.

I didn't get another hug from someone I didn't know that day but it was the perfect start to my own personal hug tour. I felt like everyone I saw needed a hug and that everyone would be happy to get one... but I had to start slow. This was only my first day. 

Maybe I can make it a Starbucks Hug Tour and hug all of their managers.

 Ready, set... hug! 

"Why don't I have ____?"      

                                                                  "Why can't I get ____?"
            "I'd be so much happier if ____?"

Ever catch yourself asking these questions of yourself? I finally quit... and guess who is happier than ever before? Me.

So many people think that if they had more, they would be better off. The grass is always greener. If you are single, you wonder what it's like to be married. If you're married, you wonder why you made that decision. If you don't have kids, you yearn for them. If you do have kids, you're happy to give them up for a night off. If you're in an unhappy job, you know you'd be happier working for yourself. If you work for yourself, you wish for the days of a steady paycheck. Greener... but is it?

At the beginning of this year, I set a goal of intentionality. I didn't do a New Year's resolution. No "I'll eat less and run more". No "I'll walk the dogs more." No "I'll take more time off." Just a goal of being intentional with everything I do because no one else was going to live my life better than me. 7.5 months later, I see the fruits of my intentional intentionality... and every day it's clearer.

No more worrying. When I set this goal, it was to put full faith that God had given me the tools and the strength to be a success. I finally started leaning on Him and with that I had to stop worrying about everything. Money, relationships, work, family, everyday details... Once I stopped, I was able to focus on what He really wanted for me - my best life. A life that was in place to help others accomplish and live their own.

I love my life. My friends, my family, my job, my coworkers, my clients, my dogs, my home, my office, my body, my goals, my everything. Nothing is perfect but man, I really love where I am a month from 31. I am happy, I am healthy, I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm a successful entrepreneur, I travel, I am full of faith... it's all coming together.

Being intentional about who is in my life, what I do with my days, and how I find peaceful rest each night knowing I'm living my best life is how I am able to just be happy.

Are you happy? How are you intentional about your life?