Hōm Bod

Failures happen. And regardless of whose “fault” it is, that failure is ours to own. Do we hide it like a bad tattoo? Or do we learn from it, find out who can help us, and turn that tattoo into a work of art? In this episode Heather and Ashley discuss failures of the summer of 2020 and how we can turn ourselves into our own masterpiece!

Has the summer of aroma bummed you out? We’re half way through and well on our way to starting school again... what successes can you brag about?! Take the time to celebrate!

“I’m doing something amazing!” Have you ever started something amazing only to have those you expect to be your biggest supporters feel like it’s an attack on them? As though your positive change is diminishing your relationship with them? Change is hard enough, we really need the support of those around us! Heather and Ashley talk about how to ask for support and encouragement from your family and friends so your positive changes come with encouragement and a stronger relationship!!

Have you ever taken a personality test?? That can reveal things you didn’t know about yourself, both strengths and weaknesses. And they can teach you how to turn a weakness into a strength! Heather and Ashley digna little into the Enneagram test today and how knowing your results can help you go even farther in life! PLUS: a special announcement from Heather you’re not going to want to miss!!!

We’ve al heard the saying before: work smarter, not harder. But what does that actually look like for our busy lives and what success can we see from it?! Heather and Ashley discuss the possibilities for our home and health... get ready for great action this week!

Too many times we do something simply because it makes us look good to our family, friends, or Pinterest followers. But deep down we know that’s not the real us. And… Deep down we know that’s not necessarily functional! Let’s dig into the difference between looking good and performing well when it comes to our home and health!

The Pareto principle, a.k.a. the 80/20 rule, is everywhere! Which means, we need to talk about it when it comes to our health and our home organization! Where are we going to get the best bang for our buck? Where should we be focusing most of our time, energy, and money?

It’s the last week of the first half of 2020 and boy we’ve had a ride. But life is not over! There have been good things mixed in with the new craziness! So let’s grab life by the horns, squeeze some lemons and make lemon aid!

Are you investing in yourself? What does that even mean? Are you treating yourself as your best asset? This week Heather and Ashley discuss how to invest in a happy home, head and health by either spending money or saving money, depending on what you want from life right now. NOW is the best time to invest in yourself!

There is no reason we can’t be healthy, happy, organized and fit WITH our kids! Kids are not our excuse for not getting things done, our kids can be and should be brought along to find the satisfaction in doing what we need to do. Now let’s figure out how to do what Mary Poppins said to do... find that “spoonful of sugar” to make the mundane more fun!

Are you a hare?... Have you ever gotten the impression that in order to have a successful workout you need to be so hardcore you have throbbing veins and almost throw up? Do you think that in order to be organized you have to overhaul the entire house all at once? Or are you a tortoise?... slow and steady wins the race every time? Consistency is key when it comes to any success, in any lifestyle! Let’s jump into it...

What does it LOOK like to be fit? What does it LOOK like to be organized? If you think either of those images requires thousands of dollars worth of STUFF to make it happen then it’s time to have a conversation to shift our understanding of what it takes to be successful. You are more capable than you think!!!

What do you see in your minds eye when I say “she’s fit?” What about if I say “she’s so organized?” Is it a negative initial reaction? Is it a feeling of inadequacy or extremes? In this episode Heather and Ashley talk about how nothing has meaning until we give it meaning and how to overcome negative perceptions to create an image of ‘fit’ and ‘organized’ that’s perfect for YOU!

Heather, what the biggest myth that people have when they hire a professional, coach and trainer and nutrition expert like yourself?
“They're always scared, especially if we're doing nutrition coaching, that they're going to have to give up all their treats and they can never have what they want.”

So what's the truth? If I were to hire you afraid that you're going to take away my doughnuts? Talk me through that process and what it would actually look like.

I actually just had this conversation with two clients this week. I said you may have whatever you like, you may order an entire pizza and eat the entire thing. Because you, my friend, are in charge. But if you want to get to where you told me you want to get, then you need to make choices that will get you there. Can you have a cookie? Absolutely. But if you have a cookie every single day, is it going to get you where you want to go? No, probably not. So you have to choose wisely. And you have to make sure that you're choosing things that will help you get to where you want to go.

But how awesome is that? That you are not only going to help them eat better, but you're going to help them understand why it's their choice. I'm not telling you what you can and cannot have. You're telling me your goal is to wear a swimsuit without shorts in July. If you continue to eat cookies whenever you feel like it, you're not going to want to wear a swimsuit without shorts in July. So the choice is yours. The goal is yours. The opportunity is yours. I am merely giving you the guidebook and the instructions to get to where you want to go. It's whether or not you choose to go there.

One of my favorite quotes and you actually touched this on last week's episode, is from Brian Tracy. “I am responsible, I am responsible, I am responsible.” I added my own little thing to the end and I said, “I am responsible because responsibility gives me power.”

Ashley, what is the biggest myth you find when people are afraid to hire a professional organizer?
“They think that I am going to come in and get rid of all their stuff. That I am going to make them throw it all away.” I don't expect anybody to be a minimalist. I don't expect anybody to get rid of anything that they don't want to. And in fact, I cannot remove anything from your house, that you have not given me permission to remove.

If your goal is to declutter your house and to get organized, I can only do so much to show you how to get there without getting rid of the clutter. There are things we can certainly do to just kind of organize the space and put it all back together. If you want to get there, if you want that goal, you're going to have to get rid of something.

We really do want to help, and we want to help you be successful and give you the power.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Remember, you are the one that's in control and you are the one that knows what you want, not what you have to do, not what you need to do. You're the one that knows what you want. So make sure that you express your wants. Anytime that you go to work with a coach, trainer, whatever it is that you're looking for professional organizer, nutrition, whatever it is that you're looking for, make sure that you know what you want out of it. So that you are working with a person that can get you there.

Hopefully sooner than later gyms will reopen. Walking into the gym can be an intimidating thing. I walk into a gym and I feel that energy. I feel the excitement. Other people walk in and they feel intimidated. But what you need to keep in mind is that the gym, or any space for that matter, is just a building. It does not make you feel any certain way. You, my friend, are in charge of how you feel about that place.

What do you want to feel? Do you want to feel excited and energized by the people there, or do you want to feel intimidated and self-conscious? You get to choose that but you also can make some changes before that day comes, in order to ensure that that feeling happens the way you want it to.

What are your priorities when you go to the gym? How can you make sure that you set yourself up for success when you go? You need a plan. If you have a specific goal in mind, you need to make a plan to get yourself there.

There are a lot of gyms that have a women's area, or a women's only gym. Those are all designed to make you more comfortable. But truly, at the end of the day, what makes you more comfortable is just getting in there. It may make you more comfortable right now. But what happens if one day the pink gym isn't available, or you're out of town, and there are no pink gyms. What are you going to do? Are you going to let that derail you? Are you going to let that be your barrier?

I learned a while ago, one of the most powerful things:

When you think something is making you feel a certain way, you are actually giving your power over your own feelings to that person, place or thing. You are giving up all control over your emotions and allowing something or someone else to control you.

Begin to lay the groundwork, begin to decide how you want to feel!

All right, now that you are stuck at home, how many appliances are you discovering that you don't actually use? Have you been using them? We have all been at home a whole lot lately and if you haven't used it, it's time to have a little discussion with yourself.

Well, the good news is you're about to save thousands of dollars and thousands of calories because you can't go out to dinner. So dust off those pots and pans and open up that cupboard. We're dealing with a new sense of normal now. What are you using and what are you not using in your kitchen? What is it time to get rid of?

I'm telling you; a lot of people are like freaking out over this. A lot of people have these misconceptions about eating healthily. They believe, “I have to eat the same thing every day. I have to meal prep 15 plastic containers all at once and spend three hours on Sunday doing it.” or they think, “If I'm going to stick to my meal plan, then my family has to have a separate meal.” Or “I'm going to be bored. Because I'm eating the same thing every day”.

I enjoy cooking. I also have very strict macronutrient guidelines and an eating plan that I try to follow. But here is the thing I cook every day, I don't meal prep, I stay within my macro guidelines 90% of the time, I'm not perfect, and my family eats it with very few complaints. We don't get bored.

It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be fun. It can be easy or hard ,and you can involve your family in it.

This is going to be one of those things that you can hear from us over and over again, follow a routine. Find something in a kitchen that works, set yourself up for success and find the appliances that are going to help you stick to that routine.

Of all of the places in your house that you are going to spend money on organizing bins, this is where you want to spend money on containers, dividers and bins. Because this is what's going to put limits on you and your family within a space. A kitchen is a very high traffic area you are constantly rotating things in and out. Now I am not saying that everything has to have a container.

So you can take the money that you save by actually cooking meals, and go spend it on some bins or appliances.

Try a Bosch that has all the attachments. You have the mixer, the blender, the shredder and everything else all in one. Get something that is going to multitask for you in a kitchen. It's going to take up a whole lot of a whole lot less space in your cupboards.

This week's homework is to change something in your kitchen. It may be something as simple as dusting off your stove and using it to cook, or it could be finding some bins and reorganizing all your tools and figuring out what exactly you have and what you don't need.

Why are you afraid of your closet? Are you holding onto your skinny jeans “just in case” you’ll fit into them someday? Are you Saving your “fat pants” because... what if? These emotional, fear-based attachments are sabotaging our successes in our closets! Here is a fabulous new way of thinking about how our closets can help us have a happy home and health!

Feeling motivated? Has it helped you change? Let’s explore where motivation comes from and how you can actually find success and lasting change!

Let’s discuss what you can STILL DO while you’re at home and what the positives are! This is what Ashley and Heather are still doing to help you and work with you. Plus our major takeaways from all of this!

Our emotional state, and what we have our thoughts of where we are and who we are, creates a literal ball and chain that we are dragging around. If you can just cut that ball and let it go. Let that thought go and stop thinking of yourself as, “I am this” or “I am that”. Then you can start to release physical baggage, along with the emotional stuff that you're holding on to

We don't necessarily know what comes first the chicken or the egg. Sometimes it's the emotion that causes physical strain. Sometimes it's the physical side that causes the emotional strain. When we look at a pile of crap on the floor that's been laying there for three months, somebody else coming into our home, sees a pile of stuff. They can just pick it up and put it away and it's like, “Wow, why did you do that?”. The reason I can't physically put this stuff away is because it's not just physical for me, it is an emotional connection.

Whatever the emotion is, it is causing a physical blockage, a physical consequence, simply based on our emotions, and one of the things that I suppose that we can do to help ourselves overcome that is to pay attention to the natural flow of energy in our house. What do you naturally do? Where do you naturally put things? Where do you naturally look for something? When you're looking for it? What do your kids naturally do when they come home? If you are putting your physical things in, in a specific order that does not complement this natural flow of energy, you're going to start butting heads between physical structure and emotional well-being.

We do that with our bodies too. If you want to start working out and you're not naturally a dance person, don't go to a dance fitness class. If you're more of an aggressive person, maybe a kickboxing class is more your deal. Go with the flow of what feels right for you in the moment. Clear that emotion and change that thought process to a more positive one.

Emotions are crazy. They are crazy. We've talked about before, on one of the very first episodes we ever did, about the power of emotions. 95% of all actions are emotion based.

How can you shift a negative thought to a positive? Once you shift it to a positive, you can deal with it, you can cope with it, and you can say, “I'm going to shift it and I'm going to move on and move forward”.

Be a hero or be a victim. Right? You can either be the victim, “things never go right for me”. Or you can shift it and say, “I am a bigger girl, and therefore I am strong, and I am powerful. And I don't need a diet. I'm just going to learn how to fuel my body”. I'm going to be the hero and I'm going to save myself from this.

Take back the power and be the power in your own situation.

Stop looking for answers on Pinterest, because that's not your house. That's not your situation. The flow of energy is different, find what works for you.

I saw the coolest thing the other day that totally explains what we want to talk about today. The first person was standing in his little frame and it said, “unsuccessful people in life”. He was carrying boxes of failure. He had stacked the failure up on his shoulder and it was straight up. He was trying to hold the weight of all his failures. You could tell that he was really struggling, and he was almost going to fall over. The next frame over there was a man that had all his failures on his back, but instead of keeping them there, he was building a stairway out of his failure. Instead of holding on to all of his failures, he actually took those failures and grew from them, and raised up where he was going, and it helped him with forward progress.

Not only am I afraid of failing, but sometimes I can be afraid of succeeding. Because then I have nobody else to blame anything on but myself.

We can talk about this and we can talk about whether we're afraid of failure or afraid of success, how that holds us back and how we can build that staircase with our failures to ultimately be successful. whole person.

“Don't be pushed by your problems be led by your dreams.”

You can believe that it is possible for you to lose 50 pounds. You believe it's possible. Does it mean that you believe it's going to happen tomorrow? No. But you believe at some point if you continue the path that you are on that you'll achieve it.

I totally and absolutely believe that your mindset must be there. But in order to truly succeed You must set yourself up for success. If you truly don't believe that you can do something, it doesn't matter how many 3x5 cards you put all over your house. If you don't change, if you don't take an action, nothing will happen.

One of the biggest reasons people fail in my industry, is because they have this concept and this notion that if I just get organized once, if I get everything in its place once one, I never have to do it again.

If you can focus on the reasons why you failed in the past and figure them out, then shift your focus to what your dream is, what your vision is, what your goal is, you can know you can step away from that cycle of failure.

Make yourself that staircase instead of lugging it around and feeling guilty about it. Find somebody who's two years ahead of where you are. Whose kids are two years older or somebody two years ahead in their business? Ask: What did you do to have success?

Talk to those mentors, talk to those people that already have that 2020 hindsight and say, what did you do? or What did you wish you had done? Give me some help. Give me some advice as you

Figure out the failures, because you cannot build yourself a staircase if you're still carrying them on your back and feeling guilty about it. Figure out how to turn them into strengths and how to shift them from guilt and something that's holding you back into something that you can build a bridge over and start seeing those successes and, and creating your life based on where you've been not digging yourself a hole even deeper.

How do you feel about accepting help from others? Are you a do it yourself kind of person? Or are you someone who's willing to admit when you're a little bit overwhelmed and you need some help?

I know I'm a DIY, leave me alone. I'll handle it until I'm falling backward.

Have you ever heard the story or the analogy of pulling a wagon through life? You have two kinds of people, the one that will grab the other side and help pull you pull it with you or the other ones that jump on and ride on top.

We're going to help you find and spot the difference between the hangers on and the people helping you pull. We're going to help you cut the weight. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be a little painful. It's going to be a little uncomfortable. But it's totally going to be worth it in the end because you're not going to be pulling all their dead weight.

Here’s a very literal way to categorize your friends and family.

Draw three circles like a bullseye, you have your middle circle, the next bigger circle, and then the biggest circle. The circle in the middle is your number one, then circle number two, and then number three moving outward.
Your circle number one is your ride-or-die, they would do anything, they would lay down in the middle of the road and let you walk over them to get you to the other side safely.
Your number twos are the people you spend the most time with. Write down your top five that you spend the most time with.
This was where I had my aha!
The next circle out is your acquaintances. I'm not talking about your Facebook friends. I'm talking about the people that you see on a semi regular basis.
Once you've done that, then you take a good hard look. Is circle number two full of people that are really truly helping pull your wagon?
When you have identified everyone, and you realize who doesn’t support you 100%, then you ask yourself, “Do they understand my WHY?”.

Give them the benefit of the doubt before you kick them off.

You can do it a couple ways:
You could just flat out stop answering their phone calls.
You can suddenly not be available as often as you once were.

Then your circle number three is the one you farm. Start talking to those people more, ask for help, and then allow the hangers on to fall off the wagon.

You can cut ties with, with friends, with coworkers, with whatever it is, but what about your immediate family? What if you don't want to cut ties with your spouse or kids? What do we do then?

There are a couple of things that we can do when that happens in our physical space in our home.
Just like we want to share our why and our story with them. We also want to try to validate them. We don't have to agree with them. The way I validate him is to say, this must mean so much to you. Tell me what that means to you.
Then you can have a conversation when they feel validated.

By having conversations with those around you, whether it's about your collection of rocks, or whether it's about me starting a new business, we allow people to speak their truth and give their opinion and, and then we can make an educated decision as to how we move forward.

Keeping the peace in your home:
You have to have a very clear conversation with your family, about the difference between your space, my space, and our space.

Allow them to take ownership of their own space. Let them own their space and set boundaries. I'm still the parent and I still have a say in the matter.

Now you have family space and our space. This is where the most communication has to happen. Because there are now multiple people using this space.

It's not my space, it's not your space, it's our space combined. And therefore, we have to have much stricter boundaries and rules to make sure everybody feels happy in a space. If you really clearly define the difference, then you get much more cooperation and respect.

Isn’t it interesting that we have these two sayings: “Birds of a feather flock together” and “opposites attract” but there never seems to be that happy medium.

We can compare ourselves to how we grew up, how our parents are, and look and see how similar or opposite we are. Again, we tend to either like it, or not… no happy medium. How do we change our story if we don’t like it?


How do you change the head games and generational behavior? Can you change the whole script if you don’t like it? Can you change failure and turn it into success? Let’s talk about how to do just that!

Heather has several examples of things she has done to change her story from things she didn’t like about herself, to things she succeeded in by changing her story. She notices a few key behaviors.
Found people who have done the things she was trying to do - teachers, coaches, etc
Found resources to help her learn, grow, and change - books, podcasts, articles
Look herself in the mirror and say “ok, why…? Will I blame this on someone else or did I own my weaknesses and failures? I am the only one who can change me.”
Practice and change!

Each of us have to go through the same process to change! Whether it’s trying to make your house function better or getting your kids to hang up their backpacks after school, there is knowledge out there to find, other moms you can talk to as a resource.

So when you are failing and you want to succeed, go through the same 4 steps:

Why are you failing?
Seek out other people who can guide you
Seek out resources
Do the work. It has to come from you!

One key part of being able to change your story is knowing where you came from. You have to know the history of where you’re coming from in order to see the deep seated behaviors you want to change. Recognition is a great way to answer the question “why am I failing?”

When we can identify what we don’t want to be, then we can start looking for who we want to be. It’s not enough to only identify what we don’t want because our focus will still be centered on the negatice. We need to be able to shift our focus to say “that’s what I want!” When our focus is in the right place we can make forward progress! Even if we slip and fall and fail, we are still on the right track to what we want.

When you identify where you want to be and start digging into resources and listening to mentors you may notice that you start hyper focusing on what you want to become and have a decreased desire to stop the behaviors you don’t like. Keep that train of thought in the front of your mind.

We’ve all heard the quote “you are the sum of the 5 people you hang out with the most.” Change who those people are. Find the mentors and human resources that can help you and support you.

The moral of the story is to know where you want to be, set the goals you need to get there, then find the tools and resources to help you succeed!


Action Steps:
Figure out where you want to go, who you want to be
Start collecting resources and information to help you
Find a role model to look up to
Take action! Even if you fail, it’s good action!

We don’t know your story, we don’t know where you’re coming from or even where you want to go… unless you tell us! We are here to support you and would love to be some of the mentors that will support you as you change your story!

Follow the podcast so you can stay caught up on all the latest episodes and share it with a friend so they can work along side you!

Ashley has decided that she’s a walking oxymoron….

“I am a dreamer. I dream big. I get halfway through and I'm fizzled. I love ready, fire! And then I'll aim later. But then I'm also a perfectionist, which means everything has to be right in order for me to get it done. I can't do it, right, I won't do it at all. I get stuck in analysis paralysis, and I don't actually fire. Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim and I never get to the fire point.”

(She’s kind of a mess.) LOL

Heather is a perfectionist. (She’s also kind of a mess)

“That is actually why it took me so long to finally do what I tell everybody else to do. Isn't it amazing how the doctors make the worst patients?”

Heather’s story:
A while back I decided that I needed to put myself on my own macro plan and actually follow it. I was terrified to do it because I am a perfectionist. I will not do something unless I know I will win. I will be the best. There's no chance of failure or I won't do it. I heard myself saying, I don't think I can do this. I'm going to be starving. I'm going to…. I can't, I can't. I don't want to have to measure everything. I started saying all the things that all my clients say and that I always talk them off the ledge about. Then here I am Little Miss Hypocrite refusing to put myself out there because why? Because I was afraid, I was going to fail.

It's scary to really find out who you are and to take that person and put that person in a new and uncomfortable environment. But that's where the change happens. That's where the magic happens?

Finding what you're good at is a really good starting place. Because that's where we're comfortable. That's where we feel successful. That's where we are happy. That's where we know we can already do what we want to do. Then take it one step further.

Are you a morning person? Are you night person? Are you a perfectionist? Are you a dreamer? What are your natural strengths and abilities?

In your house, you know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Ashley just met with client that she said I love where my kitchen is. I know where everything is. Everything has its home. Everything is set up where my family can put things away. I know that I don't need to buy anything else because I know what's in my kitchen. My mudroom and office on the other hand, are complete chaos and total disaster.

She knew what she liked. “I want my mudroom and my office to feel like my kitchen.” She started with something that she knew was good, then took it one step further and said, “I can work on this to get it to where I want it to be, but this is really uncomfortable.”

This is what I love.
This is what I'm good at.
This is my starting point.
This is where this is where I want everything else to meet.
Where she was weak, she got the help.

Pride gets in the way and you don't want to admit that you don't know.

But that's why coaches exist. Look at the NFL, the NFL still has coaches, they still have trainers, they still have the people that are there to make sure that the best of the best are going one step further and playing off of their strengths. Let's make sure that you are growing in the meantime, and that you're not stagnating. You don't you don't see how much farther you could go unless you have someone like a great coach behind you saying, “Nope, you can do that better. You can throw that ball farther; you can run that much faster. You can climb that mountain faster.”

We want you to identify your own strengths. What are you good at? What are you naturally inclined to do? Then we want you to go find somebody that can help you. Take it to the next step. Go find a coach. Stop talking and do!

If I were to ask you what is the most important thing to you right now? What would the answer be? Go ahead and think about it. I know what you think you should probably say, you think you should say, my kids, my husband, my job, you should say something. But what is your first thing? What's the most important thing right now?

Is it your health? Is it having a clean house?

I mentioned a few weeks ago on the podcast that if you get that cancer diagnosis, your health becomes your number one priority.

What does need to be number one is your happiness and how you feel. If you feel sluggish, if you feel fat, if you feel tired, if you feel ugly, if you feel any of these things and overwhelmed about it all, you're not going to be good at anything. It doesn't matter if your kids are a number one priority, or your husband is your number one priority, or your job is your number one priority. If you feel like crap, you're not going to do justice to that priority. So you need to reevaluate what you really, really want.

Here we go into a good conversation about what we're willing to do to meet those priorities. And what that means that we should stop doing. We talk with people who say, you know what, I'm doing all of the things on my list. I'm checking off all the boxes, and I'm still unfulfilled. I am still not happy

If you say I don't have 20 minutes to spend reading books with my kids, but if you check on your phone, and your phone says you have five hours of screen time today…..busted!

If you think my priority is family, my family is my number one thing. How are you choosing that every time when you when you wake up in the morning and you look at your daily schedule? Have you chosen family as a priority? Or do you just really wish you could prioritize it.
In order to be successful and in order to really prove that our priorities are our priorities, look at it as, What am I going to say yes to? And what am I willing to say no to?

You have to say no to something in order to say yes to something else. Life is just a bunch of little choices. People think you have to create this big lifestyle change, but really you just have to say no to one thing.

It's a bunch of little choices, a million little choices, a million little no’s that get you to where you need to be. You must be willing to make that choice and sometimes it's not easy. We have to be clear on what we really want.

Here's our homework for the week. Get yourself really, really, really clear on what your priorities are. List three to five of your priorities. Then list all of things that you are doing that are meeting those priorities. What are you doing that is absolutely fulfilling? If you say my priority is my personal meditation, what are you doing every day to make sure that that happens? Keep doing those things. But if you say my kids are my priority, and you get 10, good, solid minutes with your kids every day. Is that good enough for you? Are you okay with that? If you are, fantastic, stick to it. If you're not, what are you willing to give up in order to gain more time with your children?

Be absolutely clear on your priorities, and then say no to something this week. Either one thing a day or one thing forever. Get rid of something stopping you from acting on your priorities.

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Let us know how we can improve so that we are serving you!

How many flavors does Baskin Robbins have? 31. So if you go to Baskin Robbins and you pick up the mint chocolate chip. You say this is pretty good. But you know what? The chocolate chips get stuck in my teeth and it makes me feel like I'm eating toothpaste. It's not for me. Does that mean you're never going to eat ice cream again? No, it means that the next time you go back, you're going to try something else.

There is no one size fits all solution.

There is a multibillion-dollar industry built upon the fact that everybody has the diet for you. “This is the last day you'll ever do it.”
“It'll change your life.”
“It's the only one that's going to work.”

That's why there are so many diet fads. And that's why it's so important for you to learn your own body. No one is your as better expert than you at your body. No one can tell you how you feel. You know how you feel, and you know whether you feel good or whether you don't?

When you’re playing around with different diet plans, what do you do when Plan A doesn’t work? What's Plan B? Do you give up or do you course correct and try a different strategy?

When it comes to home organization, you've got all these different things that are really faddish right now. If you don't find what's right for you, it's not going to make a bit of a difference. You need to be able to shift with life.
I have a blueprint that I teach people that it's not a method, it's just a methodology:
1. You've got to rethink what you're doing. Where is it broken? And how am I going to fix it?
2. Reduce. You’re overwhelmed and overloaded, so what can you get rid of that will help clear out the space for more or for something new.
3. Restructure, how we put our systems together. Shift routines and habits to be more efficient.
4. Reassess. Look at the new method, how's it working? If it’s not working, start back from the beginning and rethink?

You might have to do that a few times right until you find exactly what works. You must be flexible; you have to be willing to reassess. If we think about jobs and school, they always have report cards, right? They have performance evaluations. Why do we do that? Because it's a good opportunity to assess what's happening, and maybe we need to change something. Now, if your kid went to school, the entire school year, and you never got a report card. You never had a parent teacher conference. You might get to the end of the school year and they may have been struggling in math the entire time. Had you found out one quarter in or two quarters in
You could have course corrected, pivoted, reassessed, reevaluated, put any term you want on it, but you could have found a different way.

I think one of the biggest reasons why we're so ready to throw in the towel instead of pivoting, is because of our emotions, we know that we are emotionally invested into this. When it fails, it's a big blow to our ego.

• Keep your heart set on the long term goal and love yourself every step of the way.
• Keep your daily thoughts on just the tasks and on the structure, on the system, on the logic of it all, on the goals that you've set.
• Then give yourself check points. If in a month you haven't reached that check point, then you know it's time to pivot. But you know that you haven't failed, because your heart is still set on the long term, right?

If you’re failing to reach your goals, maybe it's not the plan that's the problem. Maybe it's the execution.
Here is our homework for this week: 1: We want you to reassess where you are. Know what is working, and what isn't working, and be honest with yourself.. 2. Rethink this whole process. What are you doing? And why? Where is your heart set? And what's the structure that you set yourself up for success? Can you eliminate things that are going to help you be more successful? 3. Restructure the program. Do you need to do simply be better at what you’ve chosen to do, or do you need to find something new? Share with us here or on FB

“We overestimate what we do in a day but underestimate what we can do in a week.”

All of January we talked about goal setting and getting ourselves in the proper frame of mind to create success. One of the most important aspects of a good goal is that of having realistic expectations.

What are the ways we set ourselves up for failure is having expectations of ourselves that are way too high for the timeframe in which we are doing. What are the best ways we understand what we need to DO is actually by identifying what we need to STOP doing.

There are 3 things we need to stop doing when it comes to home organization:
Stop looking to Pinterest to solve all your problems. They’re beautiful pictures but they are solutions to other people’s problems in other people’s homes for other people’s families. That’s not realistic for you!
Stop going to Target thinking “if I just buy tu is bin it’s going to solve all my problems!” Buying bins is the last step in the process, not the first!
Stop pretending you have time to tackle the entire house all at once! That’s just simply unrealistic for so many different reasons!

Now that we know what not to do, let’s talk about 5 things you can START doing:
Start in one space at a time. Whether it’s one room or one drawer, just one space!
Find the catalyst space, the room that’s going to start the ball rolling and make every other project easier… your first domino.
Pay attention to the natural flow of action and energy and organize around that already established function.
Enlist outside sources to help you! (Now is when you look at Pinterest and Target to give you guidance to set up what you want to do!)
Take small and consistent action steps to get it done. Time expectations should be smaller than what you think so you don’t hit burn out.

The concepts are the same with your health! Here are the things we need to STOP:
Stop getting on Instagram and looking at the perfect bodies you want your body to look like. Those aren’t real pictures!
Stop listening to everyone’s advice. They may not even be doing what they say to do and what works for one doesn’t work for all!
Stop trying to do all the things all at once. We can’t change the way we eat, and shift our mindset, and spend 2 hours in the gym 5 days a week, and get more sleep starting all at once!

Now let’s green-light these next steps:
Tackle one part of your health journey at a time. You can’t do it all at once without it being too overwhelming.
Find the catalyst that’s going to help you in your health journey!
Pay attention to what comes naturally and build off those strengths. Go to the gym or work out at home? What feels the most natural?
Find outside resources to help you accomplish exactly what you want to do. Tune out the noise and zoom in on the facts!
Take small steps at a time.

There is no shame in being realistic! Rather, the feelings of guilt and failure come from setting the bar so high there’s no way to can get it accomplished. Start small.

It’s OK to course correct! Give yourself the grace to shift things around and celebrate the successes you are having rather than getting down on yourself for that isn’t working.

This is a conversation we are actually going to have a next weeks episode of the Hōm Bod podcast. All right, so I tried it and it didn’t work… No what?

Action Steps:
Relisten to what you need to STOP doing and write down the ones you need to work on.
STOP, actually stop doing these unrealistic, damaging behaviors!

We are so excited to see your journey! Comment here, message us, or find us on Facebook at Hōm Bod Podcast!

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone that needs it!

So many times we trap ourselves in poor behavior patterns that are of our own making simply because we think we want something. When we realize something is damaging us, how do we stop??

Let’s take a look into how to let go of both “stuff” and things on our calendar in order build a healthier, more productive lifestyle!

Ashley, like so many of you, deals with emotional eating and the consequent rollercoaster it brings. Here’s her story from just one day:

“Heather, I've got to admit that today was a really stressful day. I've been dealing with kids and on top of it just running like crazy because of different things that were going on in the classroom. And so I was back and forth from work and school. And you know what made me feel really good? Food!”

“I ate two pieces of white bread toast for breakfast slathered in butter. And for lunch, I had about 20 little pieces of chocolate and I felt great… then there's a big crash.”

Heather’s “Yeah, you had a serious trigger.”
Ashley ”I know, I've always known that I'm an emotional eater.”

We are in a reactionary state when we're grabbing that cookie, you're reacting to a whole day, maybe even a whole lifetime of triggers. There's no rational thought ever put into it.

As kids we have a blankie or a stuffie who brings us comfort. It’s not as socially acceptable for a 40 year old mom to carry a blankie, so food becomes your blankie.
So how do you get out of it?! You have to walk it back and figure out what triggered it for you. Then decide what is under your control. You have more control than you realize. How was your mindset in the moment?

What if you got out of bed and you said, I am going to have a calm, peaceful day. Life is going to happen and I am going to be prepared every step of the way. I am prepared I'm on top of things.
If you know what is coming and you know you have a plan, when the speed bump in the road comes, you're not thrown completely out of whack. However, if you’re barely hanging on and you hit a speed bump, man, you're getting bucked off that bronco.

Some skills that will help are:

Meditation
Deep breathing
Prayer
Silent moment of peace.
Learning how to plan and set yourself up the night before
The solution becomes swapping out a healthier option for the natural tendencies.

We love the concept of just trading. So many times we get so overwhelmed. I mean, here we are still in January, with resolutions we get so overwhelmed with all the things that we have to add to our plate.
If we can just substitute and change those negative things for the positive things then it isn't something else that we have to do. It's just replacing. The same thing can happen in our homes. Have you ever looked at your house and said, “I would love to change but I don't even know where to start?”

But why?
Ashley says in all of her years of doing professional organizing, nobody has ever given her an excuse that falls outside of the boundaries of only a few emotional ties that we have to our stuff.
1. Time - “I don't have time.” “I'm so busy.” We tackle that by giving ourselves deadlines and saying, “I'm going to make the time”.
The other fork to that in a problem is you need time to process. After you've gone through a big change, a loss, a move at whatever, you have to take the time to process which means you can't shove everything in a box. Be careful because, nostalgia can be fake. 2. So something that's truly nostalgic, is going to do two things. It's going to make you happy. And it has it has to connect you to something greater. 3. Guilt - We feel guilty, both hanging on to it or getting rid of it. What we're going to do to combat that is to be grateful and show gratitude.

4. Perceived value - we project value on something that doesn't necessarily hold the value we think it does. The solution is to find the true value and proactively attain the value from the object.
5. Fear - “I'm afraid that if I let go, something bad is going to happen.” “I might not have it when I need it.” Unfortunately with this thought, you're setting yourself up for failure or setbacks.

Homework:
You already have your list from last week... now start swapping! Take one item that has a negative emotion association and find a replacement! Something functional and healthy.

Studies have shown that 95% of our purchases are based on emotion, not logic. This speaks volumes about marketing, and what they're actually achieving, based on digging into your emotions. We want to talk about emotions versus logic today.

As always, we help get your home, your head and your health, happy!

So think back to The Little House on the Prairie days, if you were lucky enough to be close to town, you have the option of shopping at the general store. If you didn't, or for the majority of the time, anything that you needed. What did you do for it? You had trade with someone that came by? All the store had to do to say, back then was, “Hey, this is what we've got.”

Stores just put a sign in the window and customers would go in and buy or trade for whatever goods they needed. Fast forward another hundred years to pre world wars. We started to be able to mass produce, as well as preserve, goods. Suddenly you had multiple companies making and selling, soap, for example. Then we moved into the 1930s and 40s, we had radio and the beginning of TV advertising. Suddenly you have competition and variety.

Fast forward another 150 years. What do we do now for our marketing? It's all about the experience. Consider the evolution of sales and marketing. We've gone from just basic logic, “Hey, they have so they have sugar. I can go buy it.” to “Hey, there's a difference between theirs and mine.” to the emotion the product makes you feel. It's all about the experience.

Watch any Super Bowl ad, the successful ones either make you laugh, or they make you cry.
Now, what does that mean, with regard to the stuff in our house? It means that instead of looking at our stuff, and seeing a pile of stuff, we look at a pile and we get overwhelmed, because every single thing we have in our house has an emotional attachment.
Your thought process goes like this: I bought that but I didn't really want it. I didn't want to buy it, but I can't get rid of it because I spent money on it. It was supposed to be the be all, end all. It was supposed to fix all my problems. It was supposed to fix all of these problems. And it's not. It’s so frustrating!
In the health and wellness world, we need our emotions to motivate us, because logically, we all know what we should and shouldn't do. I've never met anybody who truly believes that smoking is good for you. I've met a lot of people who have said to me, I know I shouldn't. But I...

Think of something that you really want. For example, you really want to change how you feel when you get out of bed in the morning. You don't want to be tired. You want to wake up with energy. You want to feel good when you put your clothes on. That invokes a really positive really positive emotional response, “I want to feel that!”.

When you have that feeling as your goal, nothing's going to stop you. You're emotionally driven to feel the way you want to feel. So the only way to really achieve what you want to achieve, is to choose something that creates that feeling. You have to drill down and figure out how you want to feel. And ask yourself, “How do I want to feel? What is my reason? What is my WHY?”
You're just not. If you just think you should, or think you want to, and there's no emotion attached to it, you're not going to make that decision and you're not going to commit 100% of the way.

This week for your homework: figure out what emotionally drives you both in your home and in your health. Sit down with a piece of paper write down all of the emotions that you feel in both your home and your health. Then consider what drives the emotions? Where does the logic come into play? Is there even logic behind your choices? Then start removing the emotion from your home. Start shifting that emotion toward the places that you need it. Detach emotionally from your stuff, and attach positive emotions to the changes that you want to make in your health.

Where our journeys began and how we can help you along yours!

Join hosts Ashley Stuart, Professional Organizer, and Heather Dumas, personal trainer and health coach, in a new Podcast designed to make your home, head, and health happy!