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?

Have you ever seen The Holiday where Arthur Abbott tells Iris Simpkins that she has to be the leading lady of her own life, not the best friend? When he said that, he meant that we have to be confident in who we are because the best friend never gets the guy or the glory.

As girls, we've been programmed that sexy is really skinny bodies, long silky hair, flawless skin, and always looking our best. Many of us grew up believing that we would get a man by being sexy. My mom was the type to combat those things and although she never leaves the house without her hair and makeup done (and would never leave in her pajamas like so many of us do), she taught my sister and I that although we were beautiful, a smart, confident, sassy woman was the type to attract a man. For many reasons, my view changed and to me, being sexy was the only way to get a man.

I've always had a hard time with attracting a man who didn't need fixing. Either he was broke, or broken, or just didn't have his life together. I asked my mom what she thought I should do. I was shocked at her response. "Dress to the nines every day & you'll find one who has a better job and a better life in front of him." If you know me, you know that I don't 'dress to the nines' and never will. I look presentable but wearing heels and a skirt doesn't seem like an appropriate way for me to attract a man and it doesn't fit my personality at all.

Over the last 3 months I've changed my look twice. I had long blond hair halfway down my back for what seems like forever until... my aunt (a hairstylist from LA) cut it into a long pixie cut. Then I got a wild hair that I should cut it shorter and color it dark brown and did that right before the new year. There's a story here.

Previously, all of my boyfriends loved long blonde hair. They made sure to comment on it and said that I looked sexy with it. I've cut my hair a few times over the years and one of my exes saw me with short hair and wondered out loud if I had switched teams. I liked having long hair but the reasoning was wrong. Guys thought it was sexy. Which meant they thought I was sexy. I placed how I felt about myself in their hands. Their undeserving hands. The problem was... very few of my boyfriends gave me enough credit for being anything more than a pretty face with pretty hair. Not one of them believed I had the strength and confidence to run my own business. As I said before, a lot of events caused me to have so little confidence in myself and I came to realize that if I didn't have confidence in myself, why would anyone else?

As I grew my hair out, I got complacent. I stopped caring about how I wore it. I even started making jeans and a t-shirt more of a staple instead of bothering to put a little time into how I looked. Many people thought I was in my early to mid-20's when I really wanted them to believe I was a successful 'old enough' business owner. The last straw was when two different people at the same conference asked me if I was there doing a college paper. My aunt cut my hair off the following weekend.

Taking a big chance and finding that I loved it, I was told by a friend that I went from cute to hot in one haircut. She hadn't realized how much I had just looked cute and young until I cut it all off. I had put a lot of my sexiness in my hair and found out that it was my confidence that made me sexy, not my hair.

When I realized that short hair changed where I had my confidence, I decided to go a step further and cut it shorter and go dark. Although everyone said they liked it, I was really nervous. Getting rid of something that felt like a security blanket and going dark (which was the opposite of what every guy told me they liked), I had to pull my confidence out of somewhere else.

Shortly after both haircuts, a guy friend of mine let me know that as much as he loved both of my new hairstyles, he loved the fact that I had the confidence to take the leap. His words: Most women hold onto their hair because they don't like change or are worried it won't look good. You doing this shows that you have the guts to do anything.

After only 10 days of being a short-haired brunette, I feel like it's time for me to be a leader and that I've finally got the look to make that happen. My friend Lisa Helfert, a fantastic photographer, loved my vintage look and asked if she could do some photos of me with vintage lighting. The picture seen to the left is what she ended up with. A friend called it vintage glam. This one picture showed me that my personality can come through with serious confidence and an air of leadership without hiding behind my hair. It shows me that I'm a leader and that I have to walk into 2012 with that leadership quality. It's time.

I'm 31, a successful entrepreneur, and I'm taking the world by storm... with short, dark brown hair. Now I'm not sure if the world is ready for me.

Every morning I wake up with the question "What's the most important thing I have to complete today?"

My life is a running priority list. At any given point, I can give you a huge list of things I've accomplished and what I intend to accomplish. Yesterday, I woke up with my priority list already running through my head. I knew I had about a week's worth of things I needed to complete by the end of that day but I had to find a way to fit it all in. This is a pretty typical Saturday layout. I accomplished a TON but felt like I didn't.

MY SATURDAY:
6:30am - wake up & lay in bed
7:15am - get dressed for run
7:30am - clean up bedroom
7:40am - walk the dogs & talk to boyfriend
7:55am - put load of laundry in washer
8:00am - run
8:40am - put load of laundry in dryer & eat Larabar
8:50am - give dogs baths
9:15am - bathe self & get ready for day
9:45am - head to office
10:00am - make coffee
10:15am - do devotions with boyfriend
10:45am - walk to brunch with a girlfriend
11:00am - brunch with girlfriend
12:10pm - walk to Lululemon to buy my Christmas gift (for myself)
12:30pm - walk to office
12:45pm - walk dogs & talk to boyfriend
1:15pm - organize projects and setup Trello boards
2:30pm - write proposal & send to client (realize there are 8 more to do)
3:00pm - organize to-do list
3:30pm - help boyfriend with resume
4:00pm - re-string office lighting (moved office furniture around Friday)
4:45pm - sweep up mess made by re-stringing lights
5:00pm - walk dogs & talk to boyfriend
5:20pm - drive home
5:35pm - put load of laundry in washer & fold clean laundry
5:45pm - make food
6:00pm - clear out emails
6:50pm - figure out what to wear to housewarming party
7:15pm - walk dogs
7:30pm - drive to housewarming party
8:00pm - hang at housewarming party
9:05pm - head to bar for friend get-together
9:45pm - hang at bar with friends
11:15pm - head home & talk to boyfriend
12:00pm - sleep

Looking at that, I realize just how exhausted I make myself and start wondering what I would do with a weekend of quiet peace. I have 5 books sitting on my nightstand. I have fabric on my table waiting to be made into a quilt. I've also tried to make sure to spend time with my guy & puppies. With all of the things I end up accomplishing, how much of it is required of me. I know it needs to be done but I keep wondering what things can be cut out and how I can reorganize my life. Being an entrepreneur, my business eats up a significant amount of time. Being a connector, I have a large network of people I want to spend time with & build relationships with.

What would my Saturdays be like if I didn't have Sisarina? Would I sit on my couch and read a book? How can I fit that into my current schedule? I just found a little time to write this post... was that a priority though? It's been on my mind... what could I have had on my mind instead?

Are you good at prioritizing your life? How do you shut off the things that end up taking priority when a little selfishness is a good thing?

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?
 

I'm a social networker. My entire life is online and has been since I was 19 - what feels like since the beginning of time. Twitter & Facebook, my website, DailyMile, Gmail, GoogleTalk... everything. I am online all day every day. I enjoy a day off here and there to refocus but generally I am either on my phone or on my MacBook Pro getting work done or socializing. I've had my business since I was 20. I've watched it evolve and grow into a very social place. I love that social place.

First, I was on MySpace, then Friendster, then Facebook came out to more than just a few elite colleges & I jumped on. Facebook has helped me keep in touch with people who I lived near on both coasts, people who picked on me in high school, and people who I've wanted to cultivate close friendships with, along with all of my friends and colleagues that I wish happy birthday to once a year.

Today, I quit Facebook.

Everyone thinks about doing it from time to time but then they remember that their grandma keeps track of them that way and can't pull the trigger. I have thought about it many times but never could do it. I wanted to but felt compelled to keep in touch with the over 500 people I was 'friends' with. Until I went to TEDxMidAtlantic.

One of the speakers, Rebecca Renard, is a librarian in DC and gave a talk on teens and their need to give love. She started talking about how she would post an update on Facebook and instead of waiting until the next day to see if anyone liked it, she'd jump on 2 minutes later in hopes of positive feedback. While everyone laughed, I realized that I am the same way. I don't even realize it. After tweeting that, one of my fellow attendees tweeted that he quit Facebook 3 years ago and has never looked back. This stopped me in my tracks.

Backing up a little, Sisarina has implemented an almost weekly No Talking Tuesday policy. We shut down all forms of communication except email and get a LOT of work done. We all look forward to this day. I didn't realize how often I open my Safari to find my preloaded Facebook wall to see what people said about my post and then get sucked into everyone's pictures and updates until we started No Talking Tuesday. I know I have to be social during the work day but I realized that I spend a LOT of time getting sucked into it. I click that Safari window that holds Facebook and my personal Gmail about 100x a day. How? Because I have social ADD.

Being an entrepreneur, I don't have a lot of time to waste. Another TEDxMidAtlantic talk gave a lot of insight into how much time we have and how much we have to budget in that time. He explained how each of us has a suitcase that equals our budget. This can be money or time. If we have a small suitcase, we have to remove things from it so we can fit in other things. Since we already have only the things required, we have to make sure the sacrifice is a good one to replace it. If we have a large suitcase, we just throw stuff in it & leave some room for other things but we don't think about that.

Facebook is what I removed. I have a very small suitcase of time. I have a LOT of things crammed into a very small amount of time. Between running a very busy business and a very busy life, Facebook is not something that're required. I have incredible friends that I chat with on IM or text or even the ancient email everyone thinks is disappearing. My friends will always remain my friends, my colleagues will continue to be great colleagues. I'll see my friends as normal but I'll say "so, what's going on in life?" and really not know the answer.

I'm not saying here that everyone should jump the Facebook ship. I'm also not saying I want you to come to my website all the time and find out what's up in my life. All I'm saying is that I am too easily absorbed by Facebook and hope that you'll text me to say hi instead.

Happy Facebooking!

*photo credit: Teresa Thomas (thanks for documenting my last moment on Facebook)

Ever just sit back and wonder how much God loves us? Ever wish you could understand the love He has for us? I've been doing that the last two days. It almost feels like it's not even possible that anyone could ever love us that much.

Yesterday at church I sang a song called "How He Loves". I chose that song earlier in the week and felt like I absolutely had to do it. I have only heard it a few times and didn't know how to sing it very well but I led our congregation in this as a meditative song before Communion. I started realizing how terribly I was singing the verses and kept going back to the chorus... at first thinking that I should have practiced it more and wondering what people would think of how I was messing it up... 

Then I realized that I needed to focus on the chorus. It's so simple but it says:

"He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves us. Oh, how He loves." 

As soon as church was over I had the overwhelming feeling of not being able to draw in a full breath and not understanding why. I left as soon as the service was over and heard these words over and over in my head and started crying.

Today I got an email from a girlfriend who I had gone on a big trip with a few years ago. We were talking about how we'd been thinking about each other and she said she heard How He Loves Us at her church yesterday and was thinking of me since that was a song she introduced me to. I'm not sure that's just chance... God's in that. Right there in that. He knew I'd been thinking about this and made sure I knew someone else was thinking about me in this too.

I started thinking about the words of the first verse:

"He is jealous for me. Loves like a hurricane, I am the tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy."

He wants more for me than I could EVER possibly want for myself... have you ever thought about how much that is?! We humans want a lot in life but wonder if we'll ever attain it. God wants WAY MORE! Is that incredible?! More than we could possibly imagine. God wants more for me than even my mother... and that's saying a lot.

He loves us. Plain and simple. He loves us. 

Think about that... then start planning on what you can do to make your life live up to how amazing His love is for you.