Welcome to my personal journey to become more wholehearted. As a lifelong perfectionist, I’ve struggled with my sense of inherent worthiness. For most of my life, I believed that my value as a person was a reflection of my grades, appearance, generosity, job title, income, weight, and net worth. Then one day I realized the […]
How to improve your financial health even if you’re broke
There are few topics as personal and emotional as finances. I’ve witnessed some of the most intelligent people become sweaty and flustered at the mere mention of it. I’ve watched the calmest people I know fly off the handle while discussing the topic. Financial health seems to be one of those topics that people either […]
How to Balance Gratitude and Contentment with the Drive to Improve
Have you ever felt like your feelings of contentment weren’t enough? Worried that you aren’t showing enough gratitude for all that you have? But still feel you should be striving for something more? What if it wasn’t an either-or? I feel like so much of our culture is viewed as an either-or. Either you’re a Wall […]
How would your life be different if you adopted this phrase?
Life! One day everything is magical and going better than you could ever imagine. Then in a moment, everything seems to go wrong. You wonder what is going on. Is this some sort of karmic backlash? We all have days like this. For some of us, it’s years. Life can be really hard sometimes. I’m […]
The Life-Changing Power of Gratitude
You know those people who seem to be happy all the time? If I’m being honest, they used to really annoy me. From the outside, it seems that nothing ever goes wrong for them. How do they get so lucky? As I’ve grown and matured I’ve discovered that luck is not much of a factor […]
How Discipline and Sacrifice Create Unexpected Joy
Throughout our lives, we’ve all made sacrifices. We’ve given up one thing to obtain another. Some of us have given up sweets to lose weight or cut spending to get out of debt. When we sacrifice, there’s an obvious goal we’re aiming for. In the beginning, it’s difficult to see how these sacrifices could transform our […]
Make Every Day a Great Day – 7 Ways to Take Back Your Morning
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ― Annie Dillard I’m going to break this down further and say that how we spend our mornings is how we spend our days. How are you spending those precious first moments? If you were to ask me this question seven years […]
10 Small Habits That Will Bring More Happiness and Freedom to Your Life
Frustrated! That’s exactly how I felt seven years ago. I was unhealthy, financially disorganized, disconnected from my spouse, and unfulfilled. I knew that things could get better but it seemed like such a big leap. Looking back, I now know that all it took was a series of small habits. Today I can say that […]
3 Simple Tricks to Defunkify
You’ve probably heard the saying, don’t let a bad day turn into a bad life. I like to take a step further and say, don’t let a bad moment turn into a bad day. I’m generally a positive person. But we all have our moment. And my moments can be pretty dramatic. Over the […]
How to Cope When Good Things Come to an End
We’ve all been there. At some point in our lives, we’ve lost something good. Whether it was a relationship, a job, or an experience, letting go is never easy. I recently realized something that changed my perspective. I hope this idea resonates with you. My husband, Jer, and I recently wrapped up a two-week camping […]