We can do better
Just because you’ve always done it that way, it doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it that way.
How many of the things in life do you do because it’s how you’ve always done them?
Be honest.
How many things in your life do you do even though they don’t really serve you?
How many things in your life do you feel like you’re stuck doing because it’s a lot of work to find a different way?
Some of them may be small, like how when I cook, I tend to start things on high, then turn them down right before they start to burn. (I know this is super weird. But I learned to cook from my mom and this is how she did things - I learned years later that she actually had a broken burner and this is how she HAD to cook!)
Or my tendency to plant way more zucchini and yellow squash than my family can eat every year - especially because, come to find out, no one in my family especially like zucchini or yellow squash!
And then there are the bigger, more serious things - including relationship and career choices and money practices.
It’s so easy to get stuck in our patterns.
But it can be easy to open the door to change -
It just takes a bit of curiosity and creativity.
Take my garden situation - every year I plant boatloads of seeds: squashes, tomatoes, cucumbers, greens, beans, peas, all your garden standards. I love being able to go out and pick my dinner, but we usually end up with too much of something, or we get busy or sick of tending the garden, or something to make gardening unsatisfying.
(And, it turns out no one in my family actually likes squash. Or beans. Or peas.)
But I can’t not have a garden!
Last year I added a small cutting garden to my yard so I could keep myself in bouquets of fresh flowers all summer long. It brought me so much joy.
And this past week, when I stopped by the seed store to get tomato seeds, I ended up with flowers. Lots of packages of flower seeds. WAY more than would fit in my cutting garden.
I think I might have overdone it a bit!
So here’s my plan:
I’m going to use my vegetable garden plot for flowers. And I’ll add two raised beds so I can grow an amount of vegetables we’ll actually eat. (And I’ll be clever and trellis my cukes and peas so they have somewhere to climb, requiring less garden space.)
I’m so excited about this new plan and can’t wait for growing season!
There are so many areas of my life that could use this treatment. What if I applied a little curiosity and creativity to other areas to find simpler, better, more effective ways to do them?
How much time could I save?
How much joy could I bring myself?
How much more sleep could I get each night?
How much more would I have to give to others?
I’m excited to dive in and see what I can change.
What in your life needs an overhaul?
Check out the journal prompts below if you need help identifying where you can grow and change.
Use these prompts as written or as inspiration to uncover what you need in your life this week. And know that I’m always here to support you and answer questions you have along the way!
How satisfied are you with the quality of your life?
What is going really well for you?
What is going fine, but could use some adjusting?
What is going poorly that you definitely want to change?
What do you want instead?
What is possible for you?
What resources or strengths can you leverage to move forward?
What help can you ask for to make these changes?
One Journaling Idea I Love:
List of Awesome
What makes you awesome? Write it all down. Come up with a list of at least 50 reasons why you’re awesome.
(If you need help, think about why your best friend or mom or boss or dog thinks you’re awesome!)
Put this list somewhere you can easily find and refer to it on days when you need a pick me up or a little reminder of how special you are. Because you are.
If You Like This Newsletter…
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My clients work with me 1:1 and in my group program to use journaling to help them find success on their own terms and to live a life they don’t want a vacation from.
Here’s what some clients say:
Working with Amanda helped me take the “supposed to” out of journaling and let it be messy and surprising. It helped me connect with myself and find room to converse with and wrestle with ideas and concepts. I realized I could start with a prompt like “How am I feeling today?” or “What feels important today?” and those were enough to get the ball rolling. I feel like my journal is a place I can sit down to have a conversation with myself and check in. And the writing makes it much more intentional than just letting my mind wander and get distracted by this, that and the other.
- Amanda D.
Amanda helped me to really maximize the potential in my journaling, turning it from a random exercise that I knew made me feel good but was sporadic and not very intentional to a practice that benefits my health, my family life and relationships, my business and my hobbies and me-time.
- Pippa H.
Amanda has brought so much skill as a facilitator and insight regarding the emotional barriers people have to journaling. Self reflection is so vital to developing emotional intelligence, resilience and wellbeing…and Amanda has provided the expertise and compassion to help build EQ. Amanda understands emotional resistance, negative self-talk, and all the excuses people make when they can't find the courage to deeply self examine. She gently guides them past all the noise and helps them settle in.
- Jeannine A.
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Happy Journaling!
I love how you've reframed your vegetable growing ideals to cater for more flowers in your life, Amanda - that's really beautiful.
I'm an all-or-nothing girl: I ALWAYS cook everything on a high heat until it all starts to stick, and then get cross trying to unstick it. I absolutely love that you inherited your way of cooking thanks to an unknown-to-you issue with your mum's stove - that too is beautiful!
my uncle would always say "well. I've always done it that way" that would always drive me crazy