A FabYOUlous life doesn’t just happen. You can hope for it and dream about it as much as you want, but eventually, you will have to put in some work and apply some self-discipline if you truly want to experience life to its fullest.
When I was at the lowest point in my life (struggling in a destructive marriage and battling a vicious eating disorder) it took more energy than I could muster just to get out of bed and get dressed for the day. I felt completely hopeless and it seemed as though I had a dark cloud of misery that followed me around 24/7.
Fortunately, at this time, I also had (as part of the treatment protocol for my eating disorder) a wonderful therapist that I met with on a regular basis. Without pulling any punches, this therapist lovingly pointed out to me that I was miserable because I was allowing myself to be miserable and that the only way that I would ever find joy again was if I were to start taking the steps necessary to stop swimming in my own sh!t. He compared me to a sad little goldfish swimming around in a cloudy bowl filled with filthy water that was contaminated with his own poo. Under those circumstances there was no chance that I was ever going to thrive. The only chance that I had at living a FabYOUlous life was to begin taking steps to start cleaning up my sh!t.
Now, at first, my poor wounded psyche didn’t much care for this assessment of my situation. I mean c’mon–rotten things had happened to me and I felt completely entitled to my misery. However; the more I started to think about what my therapist had said, the more those words began to empower me. If I truly was swimming in my own sh!t, that meant that I had some level of control over my situation. It meant that the choice to remain in my sh!tty little bowl or to start cleaning up my life was completely up to me.
It wasn’t easy and it certainly didn’t happen all at once, but little by little, I began to clean up my life. I didn’t yet have the emotional stamina to undertake any big changes, but I was able to begin implementing small, gradual changes that when compiled together, resulted in a drastic change in my circumstances.
As I look back on that difficult time in my life, it is hard for me to even recognize the person that I once was. Things are SO different now and my fish bowl is now an environment where I am truly able to grow and thrive…all because I began (one feeble step at a time) to take the necessary actions to clean up my sh!t.
To this day, I have a list of 10 daily disciplines that I stick to in order to keep my life on a FabYOUlous trajectory and to ensure that my bowl remains free of sh!t. I’ll add additional practices from time to time as they are needed, but these 10 behaviors are ones that I began incorporating into my life after that pivotal therapy session so long ago. They have become an automatic and ingrained part of my life and I know that they are, in large part, the reason that I’ve been able to successfully shift every aspect of my life from drab to FAB. You may find that some of these practices aren’t necessary for you or that you have other practices that work better for your situation. That’s fine. The behaviors themselves aren’t necessarily what’s important (though I do highly recommend each of these 10 practices), it’s the commitment to make the gradual and consistent steps to clean up your sh!t that’s important.
Your fishbowl might not clear up overnight, but with enough consistent effort, you will soon begin to find your way out of the sh!t and into a world of clarity that allows your FabYOUlousness to thrive. Try these 10 Daily Disciplines for a FabYOUlous Life as a way to jump-start your transformation.
10 Daily Disciplines for a Fab-YOU-lous Life
1.) Limit negative intake. I rarely read the newspaper (other than the sports section to check on my Yankees or read the highlights from my son’s high school football game) nor do I watch the evening news. Despite this, I have never felt like I was out of the loop when something truly newsworthy happened in the world. If there is something that I genuinely need to know–the information always has a way of finding its way to me through social media, conversations with friends, email blasts etc. Instead, I’ve discovered that limiting my exposure to the “news” is really just limiting my exposure to overly sensationalized reports of murder, mayhem and tragedy and I am FINE with that. In his book, The Better Angels of our Nature (Viking Publishing, 2011), the author, Steven Pinker, makes an undeniable case that (despite what the news outlets would have you believe), violence has steadily declined worldwide since the beginning of civilization. Unfortunately, good news doesn’t sell, so good news isn’t what gets reported. I’ve made it a point to focus more fully on the FabYOUlous things happening around me and that means disciplining myself to filter out the negative.
2.) Engage in some kind of physical activity. We all know that a physical lifestyle is good for our bodies but it is also good for our emotional state. I am certainly not a workout nut, but I do try to engage in some sort of physical activity on a daily basis. Sometimes I run or ride my bike, other times I lift weights. At the very least, I try to do my plank/wall sit routine every night (read more about my routine here). Not only does exerting myself physically on a regular basis help to keep my body toned, it also provides me with a boost of feel-good serotonin and a sense of accomplishment when I do five more push-ups than I did the week before.
3.) Review your long and short term goals. We all have goals that we hope to achieve. Some might take us a few days to accomplish while others might take a decade to reach. One thing is certain though–those goals will never become reality without the proper attention. I make it a point every day to do a quick mental review (no more than 2-3 minutes) of my personal and professional goals. Sometimes this quick review is enough to spark an idea that will help to propel me ever closer to one of my goals or give me an action step that I can take later that day. Even if that doesn’t happen; just taking the time to review my goals helps to keep those goals at the top of my awareness so that I am ever conscious of their value and always on the look out for ways to move closer to their achievement.
4.) Review your mission statement. If reading this has you scratching your head and saying “what mission statement?”, you need to read this. Be it personal or professional (or both!) we all need a mission statement to help keep us on track in life and to help guide us as we make daily choices that will either bring us closer to fulfilling our mission or move us farther away from it. Knowing your mission will make it easy for you to say no to things that don’t support you and will open your mind to possibilities that are supportive. I actually have the FabYOUlous Life mission statement posted at various locations around my home and office as well as on a post-it note in my wallet. This means that my mission is never far away and is always serving as a reminder of the things that are important to me. The mission of FabYOUlous Life is…
“to create meaningful programs, products, content and events that inspire, educate and empower women to live their most FabYOUlous lives”
5.) Feed your brain–nourish your mind. Just as it is important to keep bad stuff out of your brain, it is also important to put good stuff into your brain. My favorite way of nourishing my mind is through reading. I LOVE TO READ. I read for pleasure (my current guilty pleasure is The Black Dagger Brotherhood Series by J.R. Ward–love those sexy vampires) but I also read for personal development. Books like The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (Random House, 2012), Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy (MJF, 2003) or Life is Good–the Book by Bert & John Jacobs (National Geographic Society, 2015) provide me with inspiring insight on how to be more productive, positive and purposeful in my both my personal and professional lives. When I’m not able to sit down and read, I utilize other methods to absorb this material. I use my Kindle’s “read to me” function (I do this every morning as I am getting ready for work), I listen to books on CD in my car or I use my iPhone to listen to relevant podcasts (three of my favorites include This is Your Life by Michael Hyatt, Breaking Free by Michelle Evans and The Charged Life by Brendan Burchard.) It doesn’t matter what method you use to acquire your daily dose of mental nourishment–it just matters that you are consistent in your efforts.
6.) Express Gratitude. Studies have shown that a grateful attitude provides numerous physical and emotional health benefits, and yet despite these findings, so many people still spend their days in an angry and depressed state. To ensure that I don’t become one of these sad individuals, I have made it a daily practice to list the many things for which I am grateful in my gratitude journal. This simple practice doesn’t take long, but it is one of my most favorite of my daily disciplines. I have found that when I express gratitude for all of my blessings, the universe responds by giving me even more things to be grateful for. For more information on the benefits of a daily gratitude practice and suggestions on how to incorporate more gratitude into your life, click here.
7.) Get some rest. I have thought to myself many times, I’d get so much more accomplished in life if I just didn’t need to sleep. Well, unfortunately–that’s just not how things work. We are not robots; we need rest in order to function at our highest level. Ideally, we need 7-8 hours of sleep each night and regular breaks throughout our days/weeks/months in order to refresh and reinvigorate. Don’t sell yourself short. If you need to turn in earlier at night in order to get your optimal number of hours of sleep, DO IT. If your job allows you two weeks of vacation annually, TAKE IT. If a Sunday afternoon nap in the backyard hammock is calling to you, HEED THE CALL. Of all of my daily disciplines, this one is the most difficult for me because I tend to be a night-owl by nature; still…I try every day to get adequate rest so that I can ensure that I am functioning to my highest potential.
8.) Spread kindness and cheer. Nothing brightens my day more than brightening the day of someone else. The world can be a hard and hurtful place sometimes but that doesn’t mean that you have to allow yourself to become hardened. Instead, strive to be a ray of light in an otherwise dark place. Make kindness a regular part of your daily routine. Smile and wave at your neighbor as you drive by, hold the door for a stranger, send a handwritten note to a friend that you haven’t seen in a while. These daily acts of kindness don’t need to be anything extravagant–they simply need to be sincere. Once you incorporate kindness as a daily discipline in your life, you’ll discover that being kind doesn’t just benefit the recipients of your kind gestures–YOU will reap enormous rewards as well.
9.) Plan ahead. As I mentioned in discipline #7, I am a night owl by nature. This means that I am NOT an early bird. I wish that I was one of those people who could joyfully spring out of bed at the crack of dawn, go for a five mile run, sip some tea and write five pages in my book, all before 7:00 AM but that’s just not me. Thankfully, I’ve made peace with my night owl tendencies and have learned how to make my mornings less harried by taking a few simple steps to prepare for them the night before. I lay out my outfit for the day, check my appointment book so that I’ll know what the day has in store and prepare my lunch. All of this often takes place at 11:00 PM or later, but by doing it before I finally hit the sack, I am ensuring that my morning will go much more smoothly and will therefore set a much better tone for the day.
10.) Connect with those who are most dear to you. One of my daily disciplines that I do every day during the week is to connect with my mom. I usually call her but sometimes I’ll text or Facebook message her. I love my mom and even though she lives in another state, I want to feel close to her and my dad. These daily phone calls help me to do that. I also want to feel closely connected to my husband and sons. These relationships are a bit easier to nurture simply because we all live in the same house, but proximity doesn’t always equal quality when it comes to personal interactions. I try to have meaningful conversations with both of my boys (which isn’t always easy to pull off, considering the fact that they are teenagers and boys) every day so that I can stay in the loop with what is important in their lives. Additionally, I try to have some dedicated time every day with my husband. My marriage is the most important relationship in my life and I want my husband to know just how much I treasure him and our time together. Sometimes we’ll go for a bike ride together, other times we’ll just snuggle up and veg out to Netflix. Staying connected to loved ones is easier than ever before thanks to the proliferation of social media, text messaging, Skype etc. This daily discipline ensures that I never get too “busy” to take care of that which is most important in my life–my relationships with the people that I love.
As I mentioned earlier, these disciplines may or may not be applicable to your situation. The value lies not so much in these particular practices, but in the ability to consciously think about and apply daily disciplines that move you forward personally and professionally. By adapting a set of daily disciplines into your life, you’ll soon discover that your fishbowl is clear and you are able to thrive in an environment that is free of self-made sh!t. You’ll discover that self discipline is the true key to a life.
Just the analogy really is so true. This was a great read. Thank you!
Oh thank you Anne! I’m so glad that you enjoyed the post 🙂
Oh wow this is so good! I’ve been struggling with anxiety and this helps me gain a new perspective on things. Thank you!
Oh Jessica–I am so happy that you found this post to be beneficial. Keep on keeping on friend! <3
Yes yes yes!! I love all of these! I try every day to eliminate unnecessary negativity in my life. Actually I honestly try and do all of these everyday. Does this mean I am living a Fabulous life?! Haha, but really these are great things to live by.
YES Margaret!! You ARE living a FabYOUlous Life!! I’m so happy that you enjoyed the post!! 🙂
Thanks for sharing! Such wonderful things to do to keep our lives fabulous here! Some seem so obvious, but yet we often don’t take the time to do them and you hone in on that so well.
Thank you Sara–I’m so happy that you enjoyed the post. Yes, just because something is obvious doesn’t necessarily mean that we do it 🙂