#personaldevelopment – Page 4

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. I went on a vacation and took time away from blogging last week, so here are some of the things I’ve learned in the past two weeks:

The Productive Woman – 9 Reasons to Declutter

Declutter is not just the stuff on your floor. It’s anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living. Simplify your life by simplifying your space and your schedule.

By decluttering, you will save time for what matters most to you. The less stuff you own, the less time you have to spend caring for it, cleaning it, and moving it to clean around and under it. The less things you are doing that don’t add value to your life, the more time you have for what really matters to you. Decluttering is a time saver across the board.
Decluttering can foster peace of mind, even in a very busy life. The visual distraction of clutter increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory. Clutter can make us feel stressed, anxious, and depressed. Reducing the amount of clothing we have will reduce decision fatigue. The less stuff we have, the less time we have to spend making decisions about what to use, what to do with it, and where to store it.

Decluttering will help us have greater enjoyment of the things we keep. A cluttered home negatively impacts how we feel about our homes and our lives. We enjoy life more when we are less surrounded by clutter.
Decluttering will contribute to having a safer space. Cluttered homes can be unsafe.
A decluttered space will contribute to more efficient and productive work. Less distraction=improved focus. Ex: a spa is minimalist and that contributes to the peaceful, calm feeling. People with cluttered homes and offices tend to procrastinate more.
Decluttering reduces stress. When we are surrounded by clutter, our stress hormones are elevated. Clutter leads to anxiety, embarrassment, family stresses, and more.

Decluttering is better for the environment. Less stuff being purchased, kept, and stored is better for conserving planetary resources. By donating the items you purge, you can make them available to others who will use them.
Decluttering can contribute to better relationships. It can also result in fewer arguments.
Decluttering can save you money. If you aren’t accumulating more stuff, you aren’t spending as much money. If you are able to sell items you are purging, that is more money in your pocket. Also, if you don’t have as much stuff, you can live in a smaller space and also avoid paying for storage units. People are paying to store stuff in storage units that they aren’t using because they aren’t at home. Many people are also unable to park in their garages because their garages are filled with stuff!

Sad to Savage – In My Running Era & Habits For The Last Half of 2023

Sad to Savage is a great podcast about daily habits, and I started my daily habits journey in 2022 before I discovered this podcast. We have some of the same daily habits and I am regularly evaluating my habits and considering adding new habits. Here are some ideas presented in this podcast:

Start building the habit of waking up earlier to go on a daily walk.
Work on a morning and nighttime routine.
Start listening to podcasts and habit stack.
Get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
Get in bed by a set time each day.
Clean your house weekly.
Spend 30 minutes outside each day.
Read every day.
Listen to a podcast every day.
Schedule a weekly date night.
Call a friend every day.
Drink tea every night.
Write affirmations every day.
Have at least one healthy meal each day.
Cook at home a certain number of nights each week.
Learn how to read food labels.
Choose when you are allowed to drink alcohol (ex: only on weekends).
Meal plan and prep.
Make your coffee at home.
Limit your coffee intake each day.
Eat breakfast each morning.
Take your medications or vitamins every day.
Move your body 30 minutes each day.
Use the stairs instead of the elevator.
Try a new workout class once each month.
Stretch daily.
Journal every day.
Write one thing you’re grateful for every day.
Meditate.
Clean one space each day.
Have a productive break each day to clean or organize an area of your house.
Do dishes before bed each day.
Plan out your day. Write a to-do list for the next day each evening.
Make your bed daily.
Save/invest money each month.
Limit your screentime each day.
Lay out your clothes for the next day.

I use my Silk & Sonder journal to track my habits and you can get a free digital habit tracker here. It looks like the photo below.

https://www.silkandsonder.com/blogs/news/free-silk-and-sonder-printable

Here are my daily habits for August (many of which I have been doing for several months):

Take my temperature at 5 a.m. every day (for future fertility tracking).
Drink one bottle of water in the morning before work. This is because I generally don’t drink as much water at work and want to start my day hydrated!
Listen to a podcast each day.
Play brain cognition games on Lumosity & Elevate apps each day.
Read 30+ minutes each day.
Do a 10-minute ab workout each day (rest days allowed).
30+ minutes of walking/running/lifting weights each day (rest days allowed).
Write an affirmation, complete a journal prompt, and write in my One Line A Day journal each day.
Do dishes before bed each day.
Catch up with/message 5 people each day. Work on networking. This is a result of the free Jordan Harbinger networking course I am taking!

Life Kit – Let’s have some cheap fun

Public parks and beaches – picnic, swim, fly a kite, hike, music in the park
Penny date – explore things without an objective. Take a penny and pick a direction for heads and tails. Flip the coin, see the direction it takes you, and go.
Attend a parade
Get a coloring book and crayons/pencils or a paint by number set
Open mic nights
Museums (sometimes can get free passes with a library card)
Recreate a family recipe
Taste test chocolates, ice cream, chips, etc.
Themed hangouts- pick a theme and invite people over. Ex: romcom movie marathon, French movies and French onion soup, etc.
Go to an open house, even if you aren’t looking for a home.
Go to the mall or a vintage store with a friend and try on silly outfits.
Write your future self a letter and give it to a friend for safekeeping.
Host a book club

We recently returned from a trip to Colorado. Here are some of the FREE things we did:

Drove through Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge
Viewed the Boettger Mansion
hiked the hilly Lookout Mountain Trail
viewed and hiked at the Mother Cabrini Shrine
viewed and hiked at the Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater
Walked the 16th Street Mall in Denver
Toured the Denver Mint
Attended mass at the beautiful Cathedral Basilica
Walked around City Park in Denver

There are so many FREE options that you may not think about! You don’t always need to spend money to have fun.

The Jordan Harbinger Show – Fast Fashion- Skeptical Sunday

The fashion industry is a $2.4 trillion industry! The features that drive this industry are cheap manufacturing prices, making clothes that follow current trends in the quickest ways possible, and using low-grade disposable materials meant for just a few wears so consumers keep coming back to the stores for more. People are literally buying clothes intended to be thrown away. The fibers, yarns, and fabrics are inferior quality. Clothes are designed for the trends for the season, but fashion seasons are moving faster and faster every year.

As the number of choices offered to the consumer increase, the number of times a piece of clothing is worn before it is subject to the trash decreases. This is shocking because I regularly wear clothes I bought almost a decade ago. I haven’t purchased items that get thrown away unless they are really stained.
The fashion industry has trained consumers to want to be hip, stylish, and up to the latest trends, so they come to their stores more. Consumers come running whenever they ring the bell. Fashion collections used to come out 4 times per year, but now some companies pump out 12-24 collections per year. Zara reportedly comes out with 24 fashion collections each year! A person trying to stay fashionable is buying and getting rid of incredible amounts of clothes.

In the 1970s, the average household invested 10% of its income (about $4k) on 25 pieces of clothing each year. Today, the average household spends 3.5% of its income (about $1,700) on 70 pieces of clothing each year! Clothing has gotten much cheaper but is not as durable.

85% of clothes being pumped out of the factories and into the stores ends up in a landfill! We discard 92 million tons of clothes-related waste each year!
Transparency is lacking in the production and disposal of our clothes. Clothes that go to poor countries are hurting. Most donated clothes go to Africa. Africans are stuck with the waste and are deterred from ever starting a textile industry of their own. Plus, a seamstress or tailor cannot make a living because no one can compete with the cost of the West’s hand-me-downs.
Most of the donations that make it to poor communities eventually end up in a landfill. Each piece of clothing in a dump is money in a corporation’s pocket.
Consider donation places that only serve your community or sell unwanted donations to textile or recycling plants (not Goodwill or Red Cross- these get shipped around the world). The fashion industry emits more carbon than the shipping and international aviation industries combined!

Returns of items bought online exceed the amount of all purchased goods. The system is set up to run on waste.
There are a few classic looks that last through decades: jeans and a t-shirt, a good suit, a nice black dress. The irony is that trendy clothes are the ones we look back on and frankly can’t believe we ever wore in public.
The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide. It takes 700 gallons of water to produce 1 cotton shirt and 2,000 gallons of water to produce one pair of jeans. That’s enough water for someone to drink 8 cups a day for 10 years! Jeans are made from cotton, which is a very water-intensive plant.
A lot of water is used to dye the clothes. The dying process uses enough water to fill 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools each year. The dye water travels and ends up contaminating the oceans and lakes.
60% of garments are made from polyester, a plastic that does not break down. When materials don’t break down, they turn into microplastics. 35% of all microplastics in the oceans came from the laundering (washing) of synthetic textiles.

Female garment workers in Asia face poor work conditions with low wages and forced overtime. 80% of fashion factory employees are women. The industry exploits and takes advantage of women working in these factories. 1 in 6 people on Earth work for the textile industry, and only 2% of them earn a living wage!
The cheapest materials are stretch materials (t-shirts, jeans, yoga pants). Stretch materials are made with low-skill labor. The industry loves stretch materials because they can be made cheap and imperfectly. A tailored suit has to be made precisely and fit right. Stretch materials mask imperfections and don’t have to fit right at all. They just have to stretch to fit us.

Fast fashion benefits: affordable prices and instant gratification for consumers.
The entire industry now is driven by influencers. They seem to get a pass, but it’s problematic. They portray themselves as so progressive on social, economic, and ecological issues, while they sell us the very problems that they claim to hate.
The supply chain is invisible. The “made in” label on clothing is unique to the U.S. and the country that sewed the main seam is the country listed on the label. There are proposals to get rid of the made in labels. Our clothes touch a lot of borders, and that’s how the supply chain works. Ultimately, we are failing to create an industry that looks after its employees and their surroundings. Fast fashion is all about the ways to make bigger profits all the time.
Tips: Websites like mygreencloset.com offer options for zero-waste fashion collections. Stop playing the fast-fashion game. Buy quality, well-made clothes that will last for years. Alternatives: clothing rental markets. Upcycling- making clothes out of used materials and textiles. Wear the same signature look every day. If you don’t have to think about what you want to wear every day, wear the same thing every day. This will prevent you from purchasing fast fashion.

Sad to Savage – Your New Daily Affirmations

Here are some ideas for daily affirmations! I am smart. I am kind. I am confident. I am loved and I am loving. I am grateful. I am growing. I am capable. I am a positive role model. I am inspiring. I am beautiful. I am driven. I am choosing a positive perspective. I am strong mentally and physically. I am creative. I am making healthy choices for my physical and my mental health. I am really proud of myself. I love my body. I am kind to my body. I speak kind words to my body. I am becoming the best version of myself. I love and approve of myself. I love the positive perspective that I am actively creating. I can do really hard things. I am not my past. I am creating my own future. I am safe and secure. I am creating a really beautiful life that I am really proud of. I am worthy of love and attention. I consciously release the past by choosing to live in the present. I am worthy of my own love and I am worthy of the kind words that I say about others. I am choosing to respect and to take care of myself. I am patient with myself and I am patient with others. I am the most important person in my life. I choose to let go of the things that I cannot control. I believe in myself. I am growing every single day and I am proud of the big and the little moments of my growth. I am my favorite person. I love you and I am so proud of you.

I read seven books in July. The most recent books were easy reads that did not require much brainpower. “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A visual guide” was written and illustrated by Josh Katz, a graphics editor for the New York Times whose work has focused on finding patterns in data and turning them into stories. This book was a fascinating look at the dialect variation in the United States and included insightful maps of the data.

Examples include tag sales vs. rummage sales vs. garage sales vs. yard sales vs. stoop sales, scratch paper vs. scrap paper, soda vs. pop vs. coke, take-out vs. carry-out, and how people pronounce aunt, syrup, caramel, crayons, quarter, coupon, grocery store, and many other words.

Dialect variation in American English is a reminder of our personal history, our family, and who we are and where we come from. No matter how much media we consume, we inevitably acquire the speech patterns of the people we surround ourselves with.

“Other-wordly: words both strange and lovely from around the world” was written by Yee-Lum Muk and based on the discovery that “every language has names for the odd and wonderful, for the unexpected things that have meaning, for the parts of our lives that are other-wordly.” Here are some of my favorites.

kummerspeck (noun, German): excessive weight gained through eating as a means of relieving stress or strong emotion

fernweh (noun, German): an ache for distant places; the craving for travel

fuubutsushi (noun, Japanese): the things – feelings, scents, images – that evoke memories or anticipation of a particular season

tartle (verb, Scottish): to hesitate while introducing or meeting someone because you gave forgotten their name

deipnosophist (noun, English): someone skilled in small talk or in conversing around the dining table

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday – July 20, 2023

July 20, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Optimal Living Daily – Important Questions to Ask When Planning Your Week

What do I want/need to accomplish this week?
What’s the weather going to be like this week?
Is everything on my list in alignment with my unique priorities and values?
Is my to-do list for the week reasonable and realistic given my other commitments?
Do I have sufficient self-care scheduled in each day?
If something comes up last minute, do I have the flexibility to handle it with grace and ease?

NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast – Social Media Shopping Tips, and Smart Spare Cash Investing

Everything on social media seems so urgent. Influencers say that there is a limited time to make this purchase with their discount code, so people are likely to make impulse purchases. Realize that you can probably find a different discount code later if you really want to.
Take the time to compare prices and check out reviews online before purchasing items on social media. You can use the Honey browser extension to pull in discount codes.
I have been tempted to impulsively purchase items on social media, but after looking at reviews online, I have decided against it many times. Keep in mind that many influencers are being paid to promote products and do not have your best interests in mind. Sometimes these products are not highly-rated.
Consider using a credit card for extra fraud protection.

Know how to save for emergencies and work to save 3-6 months of essential costs. Weigh your investment options.
Invest in stocks if you don’t need the funds for at least five years. This is because dips in the stock market can take time to recover.
Index funds are a popular investment option because they are hands-off. They can generate a reliable return over long periods of time. Index funds average returns of up to 10% each year.
If you want to be more active than index funds, you can buy mutual funds or exchange traded funds (ETFs) that target particular segments of the market (ex: technology, healthcare, etc.) You could also buy individual stocks. Researching individual stocks can take a lot of work and they are likely to fluctuate a lot.
Short-term options: high-yield savings account, money market savings account, CDs, and short-term bonds

Frugal Friends Podcast – How to Hack Your Next Vacation with Chris Hutchins

Use Google Flights to search for multiple dates, airports, and airlines
International travel: book flights to a major city near the non-major city you want to travel to and then look into local options to get to non-major city (saves $$$)
Negotiate your Airbnb, especially if last-minute or a lot of availability is showing on their calendar. Reverse-image search to see if this listing is posted elsewhere at a lower cost. Then try to negotiate. I have never tried this, but I have read many success stories!
Large families- ask hotels if they have a discount for booking a second room.
Book hotels directly on the hotel’s website. Ask for upgrades.
Use Autoslash.com for car rentals.
Airalo – directory of esims you can buy all over the world for international travel for your phone.

There is no amount of interest charged on a credit card that makes it worth getting points. If you can’t pay it in full each month, it’s not worth it.
If you’re using points and miles to go on a vacation, you could have used cash back to buy other things, so it’s not truly a “free vacation.”
In general, when you earn points and miles, you have two options: you can either use them as an equivalent cash rate (through Chase portal, Amex portal, etc.) or transfer the points to airlines and hotel rooms. Any trip you take using points is good. The best value you can get is to transfer the points to an airline and book directly.

Ways to earn: sign-up bonus with new card (spending $3-4k within first 3 months usually) or spending optimally. Some cards are great for airline tickets. Others are best for gas and groceries. Look at where you spend your money and choose a card that earns the most points on those categories. Some people use a card for a specific category and a different card for everything else.
Some cards are worth annual fees if the credits and perks they give you are utilized and worth more than the annual fee. Some cards come with travel credits, delivery credits, etc.

Travel hacking mistake: optimizing a trip by getting the best deal rather than going where you want to go and doing what you want to do.
Use points portals from your credit cards to get cash/points back with purchases you plan on making anyway, buy gift cards to meet minimum spends to get sign-up bonuses (Amazon, Home Depot, Menards, etc.) If your card awards you for grocery purchases, you could buy gift cards at a grocery store to maximize points. Retailer gift cards don’t have fees to buy them, but paying activation fees for things like Visa or Amex gift cards is usually not worth getting points for unless it is a last resort to achieve a minimum spend sign-on bonus.
Get different auto insurance quotes every 6 months-1 year.

The Accidental Creative with Todd Henry – Excellent Advice for Living (with Kevin Kelly)

You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to. You can’t reason someone out of a position that they didn’t reason themselves into. Most views are not going to be changed within an argument with logic. The best way to change someone’s mind is to try to listen to them and understand why they believe what they believe. You will have much more power to nudge them by using compassion and listening.
You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person. It’s a burden.

Stuff You Should Know – James Beard: Food Legend

James Beard is a very highly regarded chef who was self-taught with no formal training. He started the farm-to-table concept and new American cuisine. He made a name for himself by making food for cocktail parties.
In 1937, he moved to New York and taught himself how to cook. He published his first cookbook in 1940.
He published 20 cookbooks from 1940-1983. In 1972, he published James Beard’s American Cookery, a 877-page compendium with 1,500 recipes, in which he tried to do for American cooking what his friend Julia Child had achieved for French cooking with Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
James Beard took French food and Americanized it and made American cuisine in the process.
He founded, with restaurant critic, Gael Greene, City Meals on Wheels. It is similar to meals on wheels but covers New York City.

Julia Child and James Beard were very good friends and were some of the most well-known chefs in America.
Many of Beard’s cookbooks are still in print, and he is acknowledged as one the most influential exponents of good cooking in the twentieth century. The James Beard Foundation in New York preserves his residence and makes annual awards that carry on his legacy.
The James Beard Foundation gave awards for great American chefs with a certificate and chef’s knife. The James Beard Foundation Award, the most coveted individual honor in the American food industry, is known as the “Culinary Oscar.” The Michelin Star is also highly coveted and is awarded to restaurants, not individual chefs.
James Beard Chef and restaurant awards started in the early 1990s. Wolfgang Puck was the very first winner. Bobby Flay once won rising star chef.
Restaurants that have been nominated for a James Beard award typically double their reservations and increase sales by 20-25%.

Controversies: some award winners have reputations of berating chefs and treating employees poorly. There is also criticism that most winners have been white male chefs.
The James Beard awards were canceled for 2020 and 2021. They said it was due to the pandemic, but insiders report that it’s because every award winner is white and they were already being criticized for lack of diversity.
There is now an ethics committee that evaluates nominees on a personal level. Private investigators now investigate the nominees. This has also brought significant criticism.

This post is directly from Seth’s Blog, one of my favorite blogs and the top business blog:

Goals and expectations

Goals and expectations

[a note to a frustrated friend, just starting out on a long career]

There are three reasons that our goals might not be achieved. In order of palatability, they are:

Perhaps the goals are too lofty, too based on chance, unlikely for anyone to achieve, surrounded by barriers that are rooted in class or caste, or simply unrealistic.

If that’s the case, change expectations and/or pick different goals.

Or, perhaps the goals are useful, but we need more persistence, more time and some hard-earned lucky breaks along the way.

If so, be persistently patient.

Alas, if it’s not these two, the most likely reason is that we need to walk away from our expectations and our insistence that we’re already doing the work perfectly. It could be that we need to expend more effort than we hoped, develop new skills, find and embrace new strategies and develop a taste for the emotional labor that’s required to get from here to there.

Empathy, a cycle of skills improvement, developing new attitudes and showing up in service often accompanies the careers of people who get from here to there.

Ambition is insufficient.

Courses

I love the Jordan Harbinger Show podcast and this free networking course was recommended to me. I started this week and am looking forward to completing it soon! In this incredibly helpful course, Jordan outlines (through video and text) how to build your network, reconnect with past contacts, and dig the well before you get thirsty. In other words, he provides guidance on how to maintain your network instead of just reaching out to people when you need something (ex: a job). I highly recommend this course for anyone looking to improve their networking skills. This practice will soon be added to my daily habits!

I heard this quote on TikTok this week and it has stuck with me: “Expectations are premeditated resentments.”

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday – June 29, 2023

June 29, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Science Vs – Who Killed Affordable Housing?

Who killed affordable housing? Accusations are flying around all over the place of the culprit: greedy landlords, developers, the short-term rental industry, and too many baby boomers active in the housing market causing millennials to not have a chance.

Developers: often described as “rip-off artists, greedy, bulldozers, opportunists” out to make a profit off of housing.
- Many people think developers are responsible for raising the price of neighborhoods.
- Brand new apartments are going to be more expensive than older ones in the same way that new cars are more expensive than older cars. So the new market-rate building on your block is not going to be affordable unless you’re making good money.
- It’s generally not true that the building itself raises the prices of other buildings/rents in the neighborhood. Sometimes your rent will go up, but it isn’t because of the new development; it’s because you’re living in a desirable neighborhood that is seeing prices rise. That’s why the developers chose to put a new building there.
- Developers aren’t the heroes, but they aren’t the villains.

Airbnb: draws a lot of criticism and blame – most Airbnbs are entire homes, not a spare room or couch in someone’s home as the company was originally created to provide. Today, the vast majority (79%) of Airbnb supply are entire homes and apartments, and this has been the fastest growing component over the past 3 years as Airbnb grows further from its sharing economy roots. Studies have shown that Airbnbs are responsible for 20% of the increase in rent of the time period studied.

Zoning: the rules that a city makes about what can be built and where it can be built.
- Many cities require a certain percentage of single-family detached homes. Some cities have laws that require 3 parking spots per studio apartment! This is a sneaky way to make it harder to build more housing/apartment buildings.
- Some zoning codes require minimum lot sizes – for example, in Connecticut, many homes require almost 2 acres of land per house even if not in a rural area! So many houses have doubled in size since the 1950s.
- Los Angeles is 74% single-family zoned. Seattle is 80% single-family zoned. The bottom line is that research shows that places with more red tape from zoning are more expensive.

Supply and demand: Demand for housing has gone up. Back in the 1980s, rules changed about how financial institutions could lend money for mortgages. After that happened, more people had access to loans for mortgages, so people who previously weren’t eligible were now eligible, so now we are in a bidding war. When prices go up, housing becomes more valuable, and that attracts investors.

Frugal Friends Podcast – The Best Money Saving Tips for 2023

Housing, transportation, groceries, taxes, and healthcare expenses make up about 72% of consumer spending.
The biggest tip to saving money is to figure out what you value. You can spend money on the things you value and focus on saving money on what you don’t value. Example: one of my values is finding and trying gluten-free dairy-free items at a discount grocery store. I allow myself to splurge on these discounted items when I occasionally shop.
Work on always aligning your spending with what you value or always trying to increase or decrease your income to be enough for what you value. Can you look at your bank statement and be happy with it?
Don’t feel pressured to spend money on things others value. Example: latest fashion, expensive happy hours/restaurants, latest technology. Say no as often as you say yes so that you can empower yourself to know more about yourself and what you value.
Simplify to streamline. Simplify your physical space to save money on other important physical products. Simplify your schedule for less takeout and services. Simplify your digital life for fewer online purchases and subscriptions.

Life Kit – How to start running in the body you have

Many people struggle with their inner critic: “I’m not a runner.” Name that inner critic and tell it to chill out.
Gear: pick up a new pair of running shoes. Go to a running specialty store and get a gait analysis/shoe fit. Get shorts and t-shirts. Avoid chafing by not wearing cotton socks and by wearing body lube.
Blisters on your feet when you run can signal that you have the wrong shoes or wrong socks. Cotton socks can stick to your feet from the sweat and can create friction that causes blisters. Synthetic fibers (polyester or bamboo fiber are best).

Signs you’re wearing the wrong running shoes:

If you’re going on your first run, start by walking for five minutes to get yourself warmed up and mentally together. You can start by running for 15 seconds and then walking for 1 minutes and slowly build up to longer run times and shorter walk times. Every two weeks, try to increase the intensity.
Your natural form is special to you. Form tips: don’t clench your fists, loosely close your hands, don’t look down, look at the horizon 6-8 feet in front of you, and do belly breathing.

On the days when you are not running, cross-train. Exercise your body in other forms that aren’t specific to running, such as cycling, yoga, or lifting weights. Many of us sit on our butts all day, so we need to strengthen our glutes. Make sure you are doing exercises for your glutes: glute bridges, banded clam shells, squats, leg raises, etc.
If you are having issues with time, start with 2 days of running and 1 day of cross-training each week. Then, build up to 3 days of running and 2 days of cross-training. Get creative with your time. Can you work out while watching tv?
After a while, you will start to notice that running is either not as hard as it used to be when you started, or you will realize that you hate it just as much as you did when you started. If you still hate running after a while, take up something else – cycling, paddle boarding, walking, swimming, etc. Regular exercise is vital.
Running affirmations: No struggle, no progress. I’ll run if I have to run by myself. Your race, your pace. This is hard, but I can do hard things. Slow is steady, and steady is fast.

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast – 50 Biggest Takeaways from 500 Episodes of Health & Fitness Podcasts

I won’t cover all 50, but here are those that most resonated with me:

By changing nothing, nothing changes.
Read more and learn more. Reading non-fiction books will change your life. You don’t have to agree with everything in each book, but if you find one golden nugget that you can take with you to make you a little bit better, you will become your best self.

Choose your hard. Being overweight is hard, working out is hard, sleeping in is hard, waking up and getting everything else done is hard. Which hard are you going to choose? Choose the hard that will make you feel your best.

Be on a routine that involves progressive overload.
Don’t eat out of boredom. Decide if you’re truly hungry.
You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. You need to focus on both nutrition and fitness.
Work hard and don’t look for shortcuts. A lot of your problems can be solved with

Eat until you’re satisfied, not until you’re stuffed.

A clear space = a clear mind. Declutter.
Stop hitting snooze! Hop out of bed and make the first decision for your day.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Someone is always going to look better than you. Focus on your journey and your growth.
Your self-worth isn’t how you look. Instead of being focused on how you look, focus on longevity, strength, and many other traits.

You could be good today. Instead, you choose tomorrow. Get started right now. Not all of the conditions are going to be perfect during any given day.

Work hard and don’t look for shortcuts. A lot of your problems can be solved with hard work. Shortcuts are rarely the answer.
Discipline trumps motivation. Don’t rely on motivation. Show up every single day.
Purpose over pleasure. Think of long-term goals.
Dropping one vice can give you amazing results.
Small changes and habits + consistency each day = substantial results over time. The power of the compound effect

If you don’t fight for what you want, you deserve what you get. Choose your hard.

If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.

The Accidental Creative with Todd Henry – 10 Questions for Finding Your Voice

What angers you? Are there specific things that evoke a compassionate anger in you? We’re talking about the things that evoke a desire to intervene in a situation as an act of compassionate or to rectify a great wrong.
What makes you cry? What moves you with emotion? Think about the last several instances that caused you to cry.
What have you mastered? Are there tasks, skills, or opportunities that you have simply mastered and can do without thinking? Start with what you do well, and work your way toward your goal.
What gives you hope? What do you look forward to? What great vision do you have for your future and the future of others?
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? That can give us insight into the deeper seeds of fascination that may still reside within us.
If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do? We believe that a lack of resources is the obstacle to our happiness and fulfillment, but for many of us the limitation has nothing to do with a lack of money or time. The limitation is our fear of falling short of our own self-perception.
What would blow your mind? List out everything that would thrill you if it were to happen, including relational things, business things, travel, ambitions, hopes, etc. It’s a great way to identify patterns in your motivation.
What platform do you own? What platform do you already have for self-expression? What foundation can you build on to begin affecting the kinds of change you’d like to see?
What change would you like to see in the world? If you could identify a single thing you would like to see before you die, what would it be? You may not be the one to lead this change, but you may be able to play a significant role in it.
If you had one day left, how would you spend it? What questions would you ask? Who would you spend time with? What work would you do? This is a way to begin identifying patterns within your passions, skills, and experiences.

Conscious Fertility – Endometriosis: It’s More Than Period Pain with Shannon Cohn

If you have symptoms that interfere with your life, that cause your day to go differently (limitations to school/work/activities you enjoy doing), that is not normal. If the period pain is so bad that it interferes with your daily life, that should be investigated. GI symptoms are also common with endometriosis. People are generally told they have IBS. If you are experiencing nausea, fatigue, pain, migraines, and a lot of GI issues, talk to your OBGYN and advocate for yourself. Symptoms to look for: digestive issues- constipation, diarrhea, pain with bowel movements, severe bloating, body pain, menstrual pain, pain with intercourse, infertility
The only definitive way to diagnose endometriosis is a surgery (laparoscopy). An excision surgery is the most important treatment option. Exercise, diet, and birth control alone cannot heal endometriosis.
Resource: https://endowhat.com/

https://www.pbs.org/video/below-the-belt-the-last-health-taboo-wmzdvy/

This is a link to a PBS special covering endometriosis.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

The Story of You – Enneagram Types and Rewriting Your Story

June 25, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

“The Story of You” is a book written by Ian Morgan Cron, an author, psychotherapist, Episcopal priest, songwriter, and founder of the Typology podcast. Using the nine Enneagram types, Ian revealed the broken stories that each type adopts and inhabits in childhood to make sense of the world and explored how to rewrite the self-sabotaging stories you tell yourself about who you are. I had SO many take-aways from this book, and it was among my top 20 favorite books I read in 2022.

All nine Enneagram types were explored in this book in detail, and it was evident that I am mostly a type ONE on the Enneagram. Ones are well-behaved, mature, inherently principled natural leaders who want to know the standards and principles of morality, decency, and integrity and adhere to them. Ones are perfectionists always working to improve themselves and to be good, often expecting others to be the same way. Ones tell themselves that it’s their job to make the world a better place, so they work harder, do more, and put in extra hours to accomplish that.

Statements ONES relate to (aka the story of my life):

What I should do is more important than what I want to do.
I’ll finally be happy when I’m perfect.
I need to be good so people will like me.
I have to maintain control.
If I relax, all hell will break loose.
The risk of being criticized or judged is not worth the shame and self-judgment it could cause.
People will not accept me as a flawed human being.
Others won’t do as good a job as me.

For ONES, perfectionism is the source of unhappiness. The story Ones tell themselves includes self-improvement as the starting point for improving the world, so they are eager to pursue new systems, innovative practices, or fresh ideas that help them do more in able to be better. They often experience simmering resentment just below the surface waiting to boil over, self-condemnation for their imperfections, and exhaustion from always striving to improve and do more.

ONES breaking out of their own story:

make rest and relaxation a priority
schedule vacations/days off/downtime in order to recharge
stop worrying about what everyone else is thinking
accept themselves as they are, knowing that imperfection is essential
forgive themselves when they fall short
learn to endure disorder and chaos without running around and correcting others and modeling the right way to do things
let go of the need for certainty and extend grace to others for trying
realize that God’s love is not predicated on their accomplishments in perfecting themselves, others, and the world
Their new story starts when they begin to experience the virtue of serenity that comes when they accept that the world is imperfectly perfect and so are they.

You have control over the choices you make every day. You are the narrator of your own story. Assume control of your new story; don’t let your old story control you.

“Who would I be and what could I achieve if I pushed back against the false story about who I think I am and the nature of the world? What decisions can I make today to inhabit the new story that will help me become the highest and truest expression of myself?”
Ian Morgan Cron

I highly recommend reading this book if you want to rewrite your story!

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday – June 22, 2023

June 22, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast – The Price of Parenthood: What It Costs to Be a Parent

115,000 children were adopted in the United States in 2019. The number of adoptions dropped in 2020 to just over 95,000.

391,000 children are currently in foster care in the United States waiting for homes.

Paths to parenthood include:

traditional parenthood
surrogacy
foster care to permanent placement/adoption
private adoption through an agency or independent adoption

This podcast primarily focused on adoption. Here are some take-aways:

Adoption through an agency generally costs $40,000 or so, and it is paid in installments (a certain amount to get started, more after the home study is completed, and more after a placement). In addition to the agency costs, you will need to pay legal fees. Attorney fees vary widely from about $4,000-$15,000.
It takes an average of 2-3 years to complete the adoption process.
When waiting for a placement, you should be ready with baby stuff, but you should keep it out of sight. Don’t create a baby room. It will remind you of the waiting.
Be aware and be emotionally prepared for how long the process can take. Many people wait years.

Insurance companies generally do NOT cover adoption expenses. Many people spend over $40,000 to adopt – the price of a new car! Check your employer’s adoption assistance programs and benefits. The government also offers a federal adoptive tax credit. In 2023, the credit was $15,950. This is a tax refund, not a deduction.
When considering finances, also have an understanding of your future expenses, such as added costs of groceries, transportation, childcare, and saving for higher education.
Do your research and make sure you can cover the adoption expenses or have a plan for it. Be sure to include legal fees on top of the agency fees. You will need a lawyer to get the adoption formalized through the state. Evaluate your finances and research additional resources, such as grants, personal loans, and fundraising.

Questions to consider:

Domestic or international adoption? Adopting a newborn is only possible domestically. You will receive a more comprehensive medical history with domestic adoptions. Many adoptive parents who don’t want contact with the birth parents choose to adopt internationally.
Foster system – This is the most affordable path to adoption, but does not always guarantee a permanent placement.
How much do you want to know about the child prior to adoption? Open adoptions grant adoptive parents access to more background information about the child’s family and provide an opportunity to ask questions.
Private agency vs. independent adoption – you can go through an agency and have someone do most of the work for you, or you can try to find your own “match”

This chart is 10 years old, but gives a better picture of the breakdown of costs.

TED Health – The bias behind your undiagnosed chronic pain

Studies have shown that, regardless of insurance and income status, racial and ethnic minorities received worse care. When it comes to pain, research shows that bias extends beyond minorities to include women and even children.

Pain is often dismissed. Many women are told the pain is “all in their heads.” Pain is in everyone’s heads because pain can’t take place without our brain.
Not all pain is related to tissue damage. You can have real pain with no physical injury or source. Pain can’t be measured by a lab test.
Pain is subjective and doctors must begin by identifying its source. When there is no source, it becomes open to interpretation, which becomes open to implicit bias.

Women are more likely than men to be prescribed anti-anxiety medicines than painkillers when complaining of the same pain as men do. Clinicians often suggest psychosocial causes or stress for women when they order lab tests for men with the exact same symptoms.

What can be done? We can begin by identifying our stereotypes and rewrite the stories of the people we meet. Are you treating men and women differently? Are you treating different cultures or races differently?

Physicians, make sure you aren’t writing a story that the patient hasn’t told you yet. It is your duty to replace the undiagnosed bias with empathy.

Finding the right doctor may feel a bit like dating. You may need to swipe through a few to find the right one for you.

The VeryWell Mind Podcast – Friday Fix: The Best Tool for When You Feel Overwhelmed

There are always going to be multiple things vying for your attention, especially in the age of social media and phone notifications. You will always also have your own personal to-do list.

Stop underestimating how long a task is going to take. We consistently underestimate and then get frustrated when we don’t get everything done that we want to get done.

Prioritize what should get done first. Our attention is often drawn to time-sensitive tasks that are less urgent. When you’re busy and overwhelmed, you’re likely to prioritize other tasks that come along with other tight deadlines because you’re already feeling busy. When you feel frenzied, you’d do frenzied things. Introduce rational thinking into the mix with the Eisenhower Matrix. Sort tasks by urgency and importance.

People tend to do the fastest tasks first. People might do urgent things first even though they don’t need to get done. It’s easy to get distracted by the new tasks that come in even though they don’t need to get done.

Life Kit – Ultra-processed foods are everywhere. Here’s how to avoid them

Pick up a packaged food at the supermarket and you’ll start to notice the same things: high levels of salt and fat, added sugars, added colorings, added flavors, hydrolyzed protein isolates, high fructose corn syrup, bulking agents like maltodextrin, etc.
Read the ingredient list! Ignore the health claims and read the ingredient list instead. If it includes ingredients you don’t recognize and wouldn’t have in your kitchen, it’s usually an ultra-processed food.
Overconsumption of ultra-processed foods results in increased risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, dying from cardiovascular disease, dying prematurely from all causes. These foods tend to have a lot of added salt, sugar, and fat.
Ultra-processed foods can result in not eating enough fiber. Many ultra-processed foods have added sugars that aren’t needed.

If you like salty, crunchy snacks, think about nuts (good source of fats, proteins, and fiber). If you love breakfast cereals, look for something with protein and fiber and fewer ingredients. If you like yogurt, look for something with low or no added sugar and add some berries to sweeten it or look for something with added protein.
Cooking more from scratch is a better option to avoid ultra-processed foods. Focus on things you know you should be eating more of, such as fruits and vegetables. For canned vegetables, you can rinse them and let them drain to reduce sodium.
Truefood.tech – this is a neat website where you can look up food brands and see how processed your food is. It will also suggest less processed alternatives.
Aim to fill your diet with fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, and some dairy (unless you have allergies). 80/20 Rule- 80% of the time, aim to eat clean.

Frugal Friends Podcast – What We’ve Learned From 75+ Real People Budgets

Stay out of the grocery store. Order your groceries online to prevent impulse purchases. If you shop in store, commit to only going once each week. If you forget an ingredient, go without. This will prevent impulse purchases.
Check your calendar before you make a budget.
Track all of your expenses!
Limit time on social media. People use it to highlight what they don’t have and are more likely to make impulse purchases. You’re only seeing the best of the best, not people’s physical, emotional, mental, or relationship stress when it comes to finances.
Remember that different people may have different priorities than you do. Their financial situation might look better, but it may not be better for you. Ex: working long hours, having a family, debt, etc.

The Accidental Creative with Todd Henry – Managing Expectations (For Yourself and Your Team)

Team members may resent one another and be unable to articulate why. In reality, it’s because there are unmet expectations that may have never been spoken. This doesn’t have to be related to work; it can happen in your personal life, too.
Think about a moment in your life when you’ve experienced conflict. How much of the conflict was sourced in expectations that you had of the other person? Were those expectations ever communicated to the other person? The majority of conflict in the workplace is the result of missed expectations. Someone expects something from a team member, customer, or stakeholder, but the expectation was never clearly communicated and agreed to by the other party.
We often hold grudges of which the other party is completely oblivious. These corrode our ability to collaborate.
Have you communicated your expectations in a clear and empathetic way? Don’t carry the pointless burden of the unmet expectations of others. There’s enough on your plate!
On a personal level, you probably have expectations of yourself that you aren’t even aware of. Learn to make agreements with yourself that you can actually keep. Many of us make agreements not based on what we think we should do, but what others think we should do. Identify agreements that you have made with yourself that you may be unaware of.

Many creatives live with perpetual guilt because they feel they aren’t doing enough, they’re failing by some arbitrary metric, or feel like they’re falling behind because they’re letting other people establish what getting ahead looks like. They believe they aren’t disciplined because they’re living by someone else’s metric. Who set that metric? Who decided what success or failure looks like for you?
What do you truly expect yourself to deliver on today? Do you have an accurate assessment of expectations for yourself? Are you living according to someone else’s metrics? Don’t allow others to “ought” and “should” you into feeling guilty about your level of discipline.
Assess, commit, and achieve. Discipline is making a commitment with yourself and keeping it.

Leadership is about risk mitigation. Great leaders understand that the goal is to accomplish what they can while mitigating the potential downside – keeping the team in the game.
Because of the risk involved, many leaders become less than clear about their expectations for the work or for the team. They may speak in vague terms or give opaque direction because they themselves are not certain of the right decision. They want to project themselves into a situation and protect themselves from a mistake, so they lack precision when they communicate. A few team dynamics emerge. Team members wait until you tell them what to do before actually starting their work. Dissonance emerges as each team member interprets what you want, sometimes leading to misalignment and disjointedness among those responsible for executing the work. Dissonance is a gap between the “why” and the “what.” Team members need leaders to be precise about expectations. You need to be clear even when you are uncertain.
Aim to use precise language and precise expectations – be clear about what you want, when you want it, who will do it, why it matters, and what the outcome will be if you are successful. All effective expectations include assignment of responsibility, articulation of a timeline, and accountability for results. If your expectations don’t include all three, you aren’t being precise enough.
Aim for precise objectives. Where are you leading the team? How will you know you’ve arrived? Why will any of it matter in the long run? Team members need to know that you have clear objectives in mind, you are aware of the obstacles you are going to encounter, and you have a plan to overcome them. You must be clear about where you are leading the team in spite of your personal insecurities.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

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Thoughtful Thursday – June 15, 2023

June 15, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Self Improvement Daily- Breaking Down Productivity

The word productivity is a combination of two words: productive activity. It’s to be active in productive ways. ‘Productive’ is simply having the high ability to produce. To produce what? Society and culture have taught us that we must always be thinking about producing results, revenue, and efficiencies. Can’t we also choose to produce joy, presence, mindfulness, and connection?

You get to decide for yourself what you want to produce. It’s your life, your time, and your attention. Productivity is actually just “doing the things you want to be doing.”

Productivity = Productive activity = Doing things that produce the results you want = Doing the things you want to be doing.

The next time you feel down on yourself for not checking things off of your never-ending to-do list over the weekend, reframe your mind and consider that productivity is doing the things you want to be doing. Resting and hanging out with friends could still be productive; you are taking care of yourself and growing strong relationships with people you care about. If that is what you want to be doing, you were productive!

Small Change – 10 Signs You Might Be Financially Immature

You act aggressively when someone asks you about your money.
You are dismissive of others’ success.
You spend when you are depressed.
You tend to look at the individual spending of your partner rather than simply being concerned with how much is being spent. If the “what” is more important than the amount, you may be financially immature.
You are unable to get excited by saving for a big goal. “We can’t do that. That’s crazy.”
You have avoided looking at a bank statement for months.
You fear tax time.
You gloat at parties about your investments that you haven’t actually made or lie about the investments you have.
You are too conscious about the brands you are wearing.
You use spending as a cure for boredom.

Savvy Psychologist- 6 skills of mindfulness you may be missing

Observe. Pay attention to your environment and your internal experiences without judgment. This entails wordless watching and being fully present in the moment, observing your thoughts and feelings as they come and go, and noticing the world around you without trying to change it. Use your five senses.
Describe. Put your observations into words. Describe your experiences objectively without adding your own interpretations or judgments. Describe your observations from your five senses.
Participate. Be fully present and engaged in the present moment. Let go of distractions and focus on the task at hand, whether that be work, hobbies, or relationships.
Non-judgmental stance. Accept yourself and others without judgment. Let go of the inner monologue and distorted interpretations. Instead, practice self-compassion and understanding. Cultivate an attitude of acceptance and openness. Let go of the evaluative judgments we often make.
One-mindfully. Focus on one moment, task, or thought at a time. Let go of distractions and multi-tasking and focus your attention on the present moment.
Effectiveness. Focus on what works in a given situation rather than what is “right or wrong.” Let go of rigid thinking and embrace a more flexible and adaptive mindset. Focus on the outcomes you want to achieve and explore different ways of achieving them. Do what works, not necessarily what you prefer.

FIRE the Family Podcast – 22 Actionable Ways to Invest in Yourself

Go to college. Don’t go into extreme debt to go to college. Be wise and research what your expected income will be before taking out several loans.
Join the military.
Go to a trade school.
Get a job. There’s no better way than to find out what you like and don’t like doing.
Learn how to cook. It increases your independence and reduces your expenses of eating out.
Learn how to exercise properly. You will feel better about yourself and your health, live longer, and improve your mental health.
Open a brokerage account. VTSAX is a great investment.
Join a local young-professional networking group.
Implement an every-dollar budget.
Ask your parents and grandparents for advice. Pick their brains and learn everything you can.
Find the person you want to spend your life with.
Get out there and fail. You learn from failing.
Run a half marathon. It requires a lot of discipline, preparation, and time.
Identify your mentors.
Develop an inner circle.
Cut out negativity. Set proper boundaries for yourself and your family.
Develop SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound).
Explore materialism and minimalism.
Continue to find ways to compete.
Practice not judging others. Then you will learn to stop judging yourself.
Start reading. Reading teaches your brain to exercise.
Start an online business.

Life Kit- Planning a trip? Here’s how to pack like a pro

You never need as much stuff as you think. Eliminate extra baggage before you leave.
Pack and then remove 1/3 of the things you pack.
Reduce the weight with lightweight versions of what you need and with items that serve multiple purposes.
Use packing cubes (lightweight, expandable, zip-up pouches that save space).
Lighten your load of liquid toiletries. There are solid versions of items that don’t weigh as much. Use powders, not pastes. Use dry shampoo instead of the real stuff. Leave liquids at home if you can. Most of the time, you can pick up the things you need while on the road, except the things you can’t find everywhere: sunscreen, bug spray, bug bite relief, hair conditioner, and tampons.
Do a simple scope out of your destination with reliable sources, not sponsored content.
Match your activity plans to the weather forecast. Check a destination’s average monthly weather patterns in advance.
Always have a rain jacket, umbrella, or something to cover your backpack.
When traveling for leisure, one main event each day is enough. Don’t overbook activities. Build complementary activities around it or leave room for discovery and the unexpected.

Self Care IRL- Listen to this if you are an overthinker

Recognize when you are actually overthinking. Identify the thoughts or situations that are triggering it. Shift your mind back to the present.

Journal. Writing down things can help you identify patterns in your thinking. Sometimes you can look back and see that you were overly concerned about something that didn’t end up mattering or turning out the way you worried it would.

Give yourself time to calm down and relax before addressing any situation. Try to immediately do things that help you to relax or bring you joy.

Talk to someone about the situation. Getting another perspective can help you see things more clearly. Talking about your overthinking can help reduce its frequency and intensity.

Learn to focus on the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or the future. This can help you be more aware of your thoughts and feelings.

Practice forgiveness for your past self. When we find ourselves trapped in a cycle of overthinking the past, we are stuck there and that prevents us from moving forward in a healthy way. Remember that you are a human first and you will make mistakes. Perfection does not exist. You deserve forgiveness.

Think positively for your future self. Think about all of the ways that things could go right. Expand on the beautiful possibilities and let those things lift you up. Reframe your mind when you are worried about what could go wrong, and think about what could go right.
Remember that overthinking has never helped us. It hasn’t been serving us the way we think it has.

I am currently reading “Keep Sharp” by Sanjay Gupta, a book about the brain and slowing cognitive decline. Here are some tidbits I have learned so far:

You probably know the five senses: sight (ophthalmoception), smell (olfacoception), taste (gustaoception), touch (tactioception), and hearing (audioception). There are six other senses processed in the brain that give us more data about the outside world:

proprioception: a sense of where your body parts are and what they’re doing
equilibrioception: a sense of balance/your internal GPS. This tells you if you’re sitting, standing, or lying down. It’s located in the inner ear.
nociception: a sense of pain.
themo(re)ception: a sense of temperature
chronoception: a sense of the passage of time
interoception: a sense of your internal needs, like hunger, thirst, and needing to use the bathroom

The 5 pillars of brain health:

Move – exercise; aerobic and nonaerobic
Discover – pick up a new hobby, do something new, or learn something new
Relax – unwind, engage in stress-reducing activities
Nourish – consuming certain foods like cold-water fish, whole grains, extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, fibrous whole fruits and vegetables, while limiting foods high in sugar, saturated fat, and trans-fatty acids can help avoid memory and brain decline, protect the brain against disease, and maximize its performance
Connect – having a diverse social network can improve our brain’s plasticity and help preserve our cognitive abilities

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

June 6, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a very interesting and educational book written by Stephen R. Covey. I highly recommend this book and am certain everyone can get something out of this book.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as “If only,” “I can’t,” or “I have to?”

Use your R & I! Use your resourcefulness and initiative when problems arise!

Problems = direct control vs. indirect control vs. no control

Direct control problems are solved by working on our habits.
Indirect control problems are solved by changing our methods of influence.
No control problems involve taking the responsibility to change the line on the bottom of our face — to smile, to genuinely and peacefully acccept these problems and learn to live with them.

Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
Viktor Frankl

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.

Picture your funeral. What would your family, friends, coworkers, and church members or community say about you? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions or achievements would you want them to remember? What difference would you like to have made in their lives?

Habit 3: Put first things first.

The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals. Many expectations are implicit. They haven’t been explicitly stated or announced. It is important to state expectations.

Many people refuse to delegate to other people because they feel it takes too much time and effort and they could do the job better themselves. Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities. Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations.

You can’t think efficiency with people. You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.
Stephen R. Covey

Habit 4: Think win-win.

Win/win = a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all interactions. Seek to understand, identify the key issues and concerns, determine what results would constitute a fully acceptable solution, and identify possible new options and achieve those results.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Most people listen with the intent to reply.

Continuous deposits are needed. 6 major deposits: understanding the individual, attending to the little things, keeping commitments, clarifying expectations, showing personal integrity, apologizing sincerely when you make a withdrawal.

Habit 6: Synergize.

As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you and evaluate the options. Looking at the needs that may be involved and the possible implications of various alternative decisions, you’ll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration.

The person who doesn’t read is no better off than the person who can’t read.
Stephen R. Covey

Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.
Stephen R. Covey

Habit 7: Sharpen the saw.

Life life in crescendo. The most important work you will ever do is always ahead of you. Regardless of what you have or haven’t accomplished, you have important contributions to make.

What one thing could you do that, if you did it on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life? What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

4 dimensions of renewal

Daily Private Victory- Spend a minimum of one hour a day in renewal of the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions. This is the key to developing the 7 habits.

I highly recommend this book!

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday- May 18, 2023

May 18, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Optimal Health Daily- 5 Small Habits For Big Changes in Fat Loss by Lea Genders

Prioritize protein/veggies at each meal. Protein helps you maintain muscle and protein and fiber from veggies help you feel full. Focus on what you can add to your meals to make them healthier rather than what you have to take away.

Eat slow and mindfully. When you gobble down your food quickly, you don’t give your stomach enough time to send the signal to your brain that it’s full. Pay attention to fullness signals and stop eating when you’re full.

Walk fast. Walk with purpose, bring a dog, or start a power walking routine.

Prioritize sleep. Create a sleep routine and aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night.

Replace all drinks with water. If you replace all soda, juice, energy drinks, and sugar-filled drinks with water, you’ll cut hundreds of empty calories each day. You can use some sugar-free flavoring packets to encourage you to drink more water. I love True Lemon packets, available in a variety of flavors at 0-10 calories each and 0-1 gram of sugar each. This might seem like a lot, but it’s a much better alternative to sugar-laden drinks.

Self Improvement Daily- HALT Before You Communicate

Often times we say things we don’t mean, that we’ll later regret, and wonder why we even said them in the first place. We wonder what caused us to not have the self-control needed in those situations. It’s usually a matter of feeling emotional. Our emotions often take precedence over logical reasoning.

Before you communicate, especially when you’re feeling impulsive, HALT. Pause. Take a moment to think about how you’re feeling. In particular, reflect on these four things:

Hungry?
Angry?
Lonely?
Tired?

When you’re feeling any of these things, you’re more likely to say things you don’t mean because your mind is fixated on these specific needs. By calling out these emotions, you give your logical mind the information it needs to make the right decision.

TED Talks Daily- TikTok’s CEO on its future — and what makes its algorithm different – Shou Chew

I discovered TikTok in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I have learned many things and spent countless hours on the app. One unique thing I realized right away about TikTok is that it gives people a platform to reach a larger audience than other social media apps.
The mission of TikTok is to inspire creativity and bring joy. The vision is to provide a window to discover, give them a canvas to create, and provide bridges for people to connect.
Per Shou Chew, the CEO: “What makes TikTok unique is the whole discovery engine behind it. We are showing people what they like. We have given the everyday person a platform to be discovered.”

The biggest creator, Khaby Lame, in TikTok didn’t even speak in any of his videos in the beginning. Lame is famous for his comic expressions and deadpan reactions to overstylized TikToks. Today he has 158 million followers on the platform. As long as you have talent, you have the chance to succeed.
TikTok has given many people a voice that they would otherwise not have. Other platforms basically made the chances of getting discovered very low. You almost had to be famous to get followers.
With TikTok, if you post something that’s not interesting to a lot of people, you aren’t going to get the virality you want. You need to have a message that resonates with people, and you will generate virality.

Recommendation algorithm- shows you what others are interested in who liked the same videos as you. Vision= window to discover. People find communities because of the content that they are posting.
Other apps are built for a different original purpose.
In order to fulfill its mission of discovery, showing users a diversity of content is essential.
TikTok has created a platform for people who never thought they would be a content creator. Has given them an audience. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) content has over 160 billion views.

User guidelines: no pornography, child sexual abuse material, no violence. Users under 18 years old experience a more restricted app and can’t use the livestream experience. Users under 16 can’t instant message or go viral. A big part of the age guideline is based on the age the user reports when signing up.
TikTok’s goal is NOT to optimize and maximize time spent on the platform. Minors= 60 minute recommendation. TikTok has given parents tools to limit childrens’ time spent on TikTok.
Over 10,000 employees are currently looking at content moderation, and this group is based in Ireland. Most of the moderation has to be done by machines, but they aren’t always on point, so they complement with actual people.
Guideline categories: mature, not suitable for teenagers. If content contains these guidelines, TikTok proactively removes it from users’ TikTok experience. If you search certain terms, you are redirected to a resource safety page.

Data access by employees is not the same as data access by the government. TikTok has implementing storing localized American data on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel. This is beyond what any company in this industry has ever done- localizing in a way no company has ever done. All new U.S. Data is already stored in the Oracle cloud infrastructure.
TikTok’s desire is to keep Tiktok a place of freedom and expression (you can search for anything you want subject to community guidelines).
TikTok has popularized a variety of content: dancing, singing, science content, booktok, learning how to cook, sports, encouraging people to read. Booktok has 120 billion views globally.
TikTok is connecting people and communities together. 5 million businesses in the U.S. benefit from TikTok today.

Life Kit-A better way to talk to your doctor

Find someone who you can built a partnership with, someone who listens, and someone who will take your symptoms seriously and foster that bond. Your health is your most important asset. You need to find someone who will be on your team and be a good partner.
Prepare as if you’re going to your accountant and getting ready for taxes. Write down what has been happening/symptoms and your family history, and answer when your symptoms started, what you were doing when symptoms started, what makes symptoms worse, how long symptoms have persisted, whether symptoms ever get better, and your previous history.
Anything you can describe (duration, time it started, details) can lead to higher chances of coming up with a diagnosis. Sometimes your doctor may not ever have a clear answer for you.
Your doctor might not know what’s going on right away. Instead, you may receive a differential diagnosis, or a list of possibilities. Schedule follow-ups.
Fill out docs on the patient portal before you get there to help maximize the time together.

When you get a diagnosis, ask for more information. What do we know? What do I have to do? What is the treatment plan?
If you feel dismissed, this is a sign this isn’t the doctor for you. It needs to be a partnership. You don’t need to stick with the doctor for the rest of your life if you aren’t comfortable.
Advocate for yourself. When you get a diagnosis, ask: What’s actually happening in my body right now? What’s the treatment? How does the treatment work? How often will I take that medication? Will this condition ever go away? How will this condition affect my life? When should we follow up?
Think of your relationship with your medical provider as a partnership. You should be working together to come up with a diagnosis or a plan. Keep a medical logbook with important details. When you get a diagnosis, consider a second opinion. It’s okay to change medical providers and it might be a good idea if they’re not listening to you, they confuse you, or if you don’t feel like you can talk to them.

NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast- Top Consumer Complaints and Car Shopping in 2023

The top consumer complaints of 2022 include negative information on credit reports that was not accurate, accounts that didn’t belong to consumers but were still on the report, credit inquiries that people didn’t recognize, and being pursued for a debt that the person didn’t owe.
Average price for a used car is still around $26k!!
Supplies still unable to meet demand- prices remain high
Tips: allow yourself time to shop around for both the car and the car loan. Get several auto loan offers before going to the auto dealer. Don’t tell the dealer upfront that you intend to pay cash. They may try to make up for lost revenue in the price of the car.
Auto rates are the highest they’ve been since 2009. Average used car loan is 11.03% interest. Some people can get 5% interest.
Tips: Shop around. Know your financing options. Think about the trade-offs. Buying a car with cash can keep you out of debt, but you might be able to get a better return on that investment.

One book I’ve read this past week is “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” written by Arnold Bennett and originally published in 1908. These points stood out to me:

We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
Arnold Bennett

Everyone receives the same 24 hours in a day. Many view their hours at work as a day and the rest as a margin. You say your day is already full to overflowing, yet you spend 8+ hours working and 7-8 hours sleeping. What are you doing during the other 8 hours?!

Arrange a day within a day. Think of your day outside of work as another day within your day. Have a reflective mood. Devote time each day to reading, learning, or bettering yourself. I have been committed to doing this as part of my daily habits.

You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it, you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Which of us lives on twenty-four hours a day? And when I say “lives,” I do not mean “exists” or “muddles through.”
Arnold Bennett

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Thoughtful Thursday posts, Uncategorized

Thoughtful Thursday- May 4, 2023

May 4, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

Self Improvement Daily- Getting Started Setting Goals

Setting goals is an effective way to structure your efforts and get a desired result. However, many people set goals too big without a plan. Ex: go from not working out at all to working out 6 days per week. Others set goals without much of a plan. Ex: drink more water. Eat healthier.

You don’t need to wait to have a perfectly defined and thought through goal before getting started. As you begin pursuing your goals, you collect more reference points and information to aid in defining your goal and the structure of achieving your goal. As you get closer to your goals, they get clearer. You should always be intentional about pursuing more clarity.

A goal I had for quite some time was to drink more water. There were times I drank up to a gallon per day (too much for me), but other times, I got so consumed in my work that I didn’t finish my first 16 ounces until after lunch! “Drink more water” was not a clearly structured goal for me. When I noticed that I regularly wasn’t finishing my first 16 ounces until well into the afternoon, I revised my goal to include “drink 1 bottle of water before the workday starts.” That goal is structured, measurable, and helps me to drink more water throughout the day. I also use True Lemon packets (available in a variety of flavors) to increase my water intake.

Another goal could start off as “eat healthier.” This could be structured by committing to planning staple breakfast foods and meal prepping healthy lunches for the week so that you don’t have the urge to order takeout during the work week.

Psych2Go Mental Health Podcast- 10 Toxic Things Parents Say To Their Kids

You look terrible.
You’re a freak.
You’re so immature.
I’m going to send you to boarding school.
Once you’re 18, I’m going to kick you out.
This is your fault.
Show me some respect (when it isn’t due/when it’s toxic).
Do what I say or else.
You are terrible at ___.
You’re the worst student.

I am grateful that I didn’t hear any of these phrases directed at me growing up, but I know of people who have. It is important to show love to your children and allow them to make mistakes, express their own individuality, and overcome obstacles that can turn into learning experiences.

Life Kit- Put your savings to work

When we put money into a traditional savings account when inflation is high, its value is eroding.

Savings account interest rates may be as low as 0.01%, and the average interest rate is currently 0.24%. Some banks have increased interest rates due to inflation, and smaller banks are offering better rates than bigger banks.

Online banks offer better rates due to not having to maintain brick and mortar locations. Be sure to research minimum deposits and hidden fees and read the fine print! I recently created an account for CIT bank online, which offers interest rates between 4.50%-4.75%!

Aside from savings accounts, CDs are another option. The longer the term, the better the rate is. Be sure you can commit to the term, as you can’t withdraw $ during that term without paying a penalty.

Ibonds are inflation bonds where you are lending the government $ and the government agrees to pay you back at a later date with interest. Ibonds increased in popularity in 2022, as the interest rate was over 9%! The government sets Ibond rates every 6 months, and the term is for 5 years, although you can access your money before the 5-year term is up by forfeiting the last 3 months’ interest. The interest rate was just adjusted down to 4.30% in May 2023.

Taxes: the interest earned from savings accounts and CDs is taxable. Ibonds are exempt from state and local taxes, but you will have to pay federal income tax when you cash in on the bonds.

Consider switching savings accounts to one with a better interest rate. You may also want to consider government bonds for medium-term or long-term savings or CDs for short-term savings.

Self Care IRL- 14 Ways to Strengthen Your Friendships

Make your friendships a priority.
Start by staying in touch.
Try to think about what your friend needs right now. How can you be helpful or of value?
Stop judging. You are never going to be 100% approving of anyone or the decisions of anyone, including yourself!
Give an occasional compliment.
Spend time together.
Find common interests that you share, and do those things together!
Take on a new challenge together. Humans become closer with those they suffer with and overcome obstacles with.
Take a road trip.
Try new things together, such as restaurants, events, or activities.
Play fair. Don’t one up your friends.
Express your gratitude. Let them know you value them.
Admit and apologize.
Be authentic and be honest.

How to Be a Better Human- How to keep house while drowning

Reframe chores. Chores feel like an obligation. Some chores should be considered care tasks because they are tasks that you do to care for yourself, such as dishes, laundry, cleaning, exercising, cooking, organizing, and changing your sheets.

Ask yourself: What can I do right now in order to ensure that I’m being kind to my tomorrow self?

With other household stuff, acknowledge that good enough is perfect, and everything worth doing is worth doing partially. I struggle with this. I want to put my 100% into everything, so when I can’t dedicate the time and energy, sometimes I just don’t do it at all.

With chores, ask yourself these questions: What is the part you hate? What about it do you hate? Is there a way to skip that step or delegate? How can I add pleasure or joy to it? Ex: use a timer and dedicate a specific amount of time to a task, then stop when the timer goes off. Play your favorite playlist while doing a task you don’t enjoy doing.

Focus on Marriage Podcast- Common Problems and Letting Go of Selfishness

Many newly married couples have unrealistic expectations of marriage, such as “We are always going to agree on spending money. We will draw closer to our family and in-laws once we are married. We will divide up household responsibilities equally. We will have amazing sex often. I will never feel lonely in my marriage.” These unmet expectations are common sources of frustration in marriage.

Despite these common struggles, remember to ask yourself: What do you like about your partner? Why did you marry your partner? Why do you believe you’re married today?

One interesting point made in this podcast is that husbands are often looking for validation, and women feel resentment because they feel they are doing more than their husbands and it goes unnoticed.

Also, husbands often hear more about what they don’t do than about what they do do, leading them to feel unloved and unappreciated. They are seeking affirmations. Provide affirmations, appreciation, and validation, and also put effort into equalizing responsibilities.

Optimal Living Daily- How to Create Time for Self-Care Without Feeling Guilty by Ellen Burgan

When you take care of yourself, you have more energy, patience, and compassion for others AND yourself.

Common obstacles to self-care and what you can do about them:

“I don’t have enough time” ⇛ This is a sign that you’re prioritizing others above yourself. This is a matter of how we choose to use our time. Remember that taking care of yourself will ultimately make you more productive and efficient in the long run.

“I can’t afford it” ⇛ Self-care doesn’t have to be expensive. There are several free or low-cost options, such as going for a walk, doing yoga at home, journaling, reading a book, coloring, or listening to music or a podcast.

“I don’t know how to do it” ⇛ It doesn’t have to be complicated. Find something you enjoy doing, and go do it. Find what works for you and make it a regular part of your routine. For me, self-care includes reading, exercising, listening to podcasts, and journaling + the very occasional massage.

“I’m too tired” ⇛ This is an even better indication to take time for yourself! Self-care can help boost energy levels, relieve stress and burnout, and improve sleep.

“I don’t have anyone to do it with” ⇛ You can still take care of yourself while flying solo.

Tips:

Shift the way you think about self-care. Instead of feeling guilty, shift your thoughts to that of well-deserved time to focus on and care for yourself. If you take care of yourself, you will be a more fun person for others to be around.
Prioritize self-care. Schedule self-care and include it in your regular routine.
Set boundaries. Practice saying no to things that don’t align with your priorities or that are draining you. Every time you say no to another obligation, you are saying yes to yourself.
Use small chunks of time. If you can’t find a long burst of time for self-care, use the short bursts of time you have. Maybe spend 10 minutes a couple times a day for yourself, and as you get better at finding dedicated time to yourself, you can increase it to a daily routine.
Ask for help and be willing to accept help. Delegate tasks if you are able to so that you can have some time for yourself.

Crina and Kirsten Get to Work- Workplace Mental Health Takes Center Stage: A New Priority for the Surgeon General

The Office of the Surgeon General created a framework for workplace mental health and well-being. All reflection questions are taken from: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/reflection-questions-workplace-mental-health-well-being.pdf

Protection from harm: safety and security.
- Prioritize workplace physical and psychological health.
- Enable adequate rest.
- Normalize and support mental health by validating challenges, communicating mental health and well-being as priorities, and offering both support and prevention services.

Connection and community: social support and belonging.
- Create cultures of inclusion and belonging.
- Cultivate trusted relationships.
- Foster collaboration and teamwork.

Work-life harmony: autonomy and flexibility.
- Provide more autonomy over how work is done.
- Make schedules as flexible and predictable as possible.
- Increase access to paid leave.
- Respect boundaries between work and non-work time.

Mattering at work: dignity and meaning.
- Provide a living wage.
- Engage workers in workplace decisions.
- Build a culture of gratitude and recognition.
- Connect individual work with organizational mission (shared purpose).

Opportunity for growth: learning and accomplishment.
- Offer quality training, education, and mentoring.
- Foster clear and equitable pathways for career advancement.
- Ensure relevant and reciprocal feedback.

How is your employer doing with all of these?

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

How Will You Measure Your Life?

May 2, 2023August 15, 2023 amybenoit

“How Will You Measure Your Life?” was written by Clayton M. Chesterton, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon, all of whom were once associated with Harvard Business School or the Harvard Business Review. This book covered how to be successful and happy in your career, how to make your relationships an enduring source of happiness, and how to live a life of integrity. Several examples and insights were provided.

There are hygiene factors and motivators at work. Hygiene factors include status, compensation, job security, work conditions, company policies, and supervisory practices. If you have these, you won’t suddenly love your job; you just won’t hate it. Compensation is a hygiene factor. Motivators include challenging work, recognition, responsibility, personal growth, and meaningful work. These things make you enjoy a job and want to stay.

Many people choose jobs for the $ and then think they’ll later return to their passion but never do, causing resentment of their work. It is hard to dwindle back your lifestyle and transition to a field where you make less $.

Make sure your values and priorities align with how you spend your time, energy, talent, and money. With every decision you make about how you spend your time, energy, talent, and money, you are making a statement about what really matters to you.

High-achievers tend to focus a great deal on becoming the person they want to be at work and far too little on the person they want to be at home.

*If you defer investing your time and energy until you see that you need to, chances are that it will already be too late.

The path to happiness in marriage is about finding someone who you want to make happy – someone whose happiness is worth devoting yourself to.❤️

Thinking about your relationships from the perspective of the job to be done is the best way to understand what’s important to the people who mean the most to you. “What job does my spouse most need me to do?”

Don’t flood your children with your resources and do everything for them. They need to be challenged and solve hard problems and develop themselves.

Outsourcing can lead to losing valuable opportunities to help nurture and develop them. Teach them how to deal with pressure and build resilience and solve problems. Find the right experiences to help them build the skills they’ll need to succeed. Some of the greatest gifts are what your parents didn’t do for you.

When our children are ready to learn, we need to be there. We also need to be found displaying the priorities and values we want our children to learn – through our actions.

You have to build the culture you want in your family. If you do not consciously build it and reinforce it from the earliest stages of your family life, a culture will still form – but it will form in ways you may not like.

Decide what you stand for and stand for it all the time – no “just this once” exceptions.

This book really resonated with me. For several years, I prioritized working multiple jobs and paying off student loan debt/saving money, so I did not have a social life or really any personal hobbies I regularly devoted myself to. Work was essentially my identity. In the past year, I have prioritized daily habits, working less, socializing, and personal hobbies and am much more satisfied. I have been discerning whether to become an attorney, but from the insights I have gathered, the work-life balance is not enticing. Being an attorney has been my goal or plan since college, and now my mindset has shifted to consider work-life balance. Would this career path allow me a work-life balance to have personal hobbies, a social life, and quality time with my husband and future children? That is how I will measure my life.

The type of person you want to become – what the purpose of your life is – is too important to leave to chance. It needs to be deliberately conceived, chosen, and managed.

How will you measure your life?

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Tag: #personaldevelopment

Thoughtful Thursday – August 3, 2023

Thoughtful Thursday – July 20, 2023

Goals and expectations

Thoughtful Thursday – June 29, 2023

The Story of You – Enneagram Types and Rewriting Your Story

Thoughtful Thursday – June 22, 2023

Thoughtful Thursday – June 15, 2023

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Thoughtful Thursday- May 18, 2023

Thoughtful Thursday- May 4, 2023

How Will You Measure Your Life?

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