New year new goals

Every January I always have big plans and a few months later my resolve begins to lessen. I mean lets face it, I didn’t even take the time to make this post happen in January (better late than never right?).

I have been really into goal setting and bettering myself for the last few years sometimes I spend so much time on the goals, I don’t put any thought into the action it takes to achieve them. I love the idea of setting a big hairy scary goal for the year and breaking it down into what I need to do each month. The more I think about it the more I KNOW I enjoy that process more than the actions later on.

1. Blog more often: It makes me happy, it takes time, but I feel so good when I am doing it. So make time.

2. Be present: focus on work at work, focus on my friends when I am with them and with my man friend when I am with him. I too often find myself multi tasking resulting in 1/2 ass work (which I am never proud of).

3. Hit the gym: well isn’t this one on everyones list. I have to say last year around this time when Bona Clara closed, I found myself with quite a bit of free time and I put that to good use. I started going to yoga 3x a week and made sure to do something to sweat each and every day. I felt SO good. I don’t think I was actually that thin, but I felt so much better. Since starting this job I have put fitness on a back burner… the WAYY back burner. Last week I joined a Barre Studio near my office and they have different classes like this surfset class I can’t wait to try.

4. Simplify: Purge. Cleanse. Minimize. I have a tendency to keep things, to save perfume for a special occasion, which really just leads to products spilling out of shelves, clothes that don’t fit, and me constantly searching for something I can’t find. I think if I eliminate some of the physical clutter I can eliminate the clutter in my brain. Last week I was en

5. Work on brand cheerleader for small clients: I want to do this, badly, I want to work with small businesses and take them to the next step, introduce them to practices they can implement to drive traffic to their stores or websites and increase profits. It takes work and focus and dedication and time blocking. All things I need to focus on 1st. I think if I can get those things in order I can then take steps in taking on a few small clients.

6. Learn Photoshop, Indesign and Video Editing: They say writing your goals and sharing them make you more likely to keep them. So here it is. Stay tuned for posts on the follow through.

-F

Planning for my Planner

You know you are at a certain place in your life when you just cant wait for your planner to come in the mail. Actually, I take that back, you know you are at that place when you ORDER a planner online. As I fall deeper and deeper in love with my job at Bona Clara – I know how important it is for me to practice what you preach. Staying organized is an essential part of having your own business + because I seem to have my paws in SO many things – this becomes a necessity.

I was inlove and so obsessed with the polka dot one from Kate Spade but of course it was sold out…

Stay tuned for the one I picked 🙂 I cant wait to get it!

How to find that date

I have been working with Shannon Darcy, a Bona Clara brand rep for a few months now. I have grown to truly love, respect and admire her outlook on life and her general mind set about so many things.

A new blogger herself, I always read what she has to say “How I found that “date” was one that caught my eye. She has many Eastern beliefs and one of them is Feng Shui, she used this to arrange her life and home to be more welcoming to the things she wanted to come to her.

Its gotten me thinking…

Maybe its time to start to clear out things in my life that add clutter. I think over the past few months I have been making an effort to do that but I have become more and more interested in the power of your mind + really manifesting what you want in life – you can do it – you just have to make room for it.

How do you make room for the things you want in life?

Frankie

I am surrounded by the BEST

Today seems surreal – I had a scheduled doctors appointment with Dr. N. I didn’t have to wait as long as usual. I walked in, took my seat, we went over all the results from the last blood work – talked about how I was feeling and then he said… “Your labs are remarkable, you are officially in remission.” It didn’t process right away … I feel like I have been told so many things so many times I don’t even want to feel anything anymore. Karen, the director of the infusion clinic and Dr. N right hand woman came in and Dr. N told her the news, he seemed so excited, they both did. I had some tests done and I walked out the door and I felt nothing still. I know this is huge, I know that since Nov 2011 I have been really sick – sometimes much worse than others, but all in all, I wasn’t looking to hot.

I called Val, told her the news, she paused, I could tell she was so happy, she was almost choking on her words (something that doesn’t happen to her too often) … I called Memre of course she had 1000 questions. I called my Dad, he was the most excited of them all. He was loud and happy and I know when he said “this is the best news we have had in a long time,” he meant it. I still didn’t feel much. I went back to the office, told the girls I work with they were so happy, I told my boss and she even hugged me. It all felt so good but inside of me – I still didn’t feel anything much.

Then social media kicks on I see Facebook status and tweets that look like this:

and then all of a sudden I felt something … I felt what it means to really love people and have people that love you. Reading this I know they feel genuine happiness and excitement. I know because its how I feel when they tell me things.

Last week when I attended Hoopla, the national conference for Stella Dot, one of the keynote speakers said he is the “luckiest man because of the woman in his life” … that sentence is resigning with me tonight. I know, I am the LUCKIEST girl, because of the people in my life, that I choose to surround myself with, that I love more than anything.

Today marks a new chapter – I am so excited to write the next one!

Working your ass off does pay off

I cant describe the feeling I have today. Its pure joy, I feel like I did win the lotery. I have been working at my company since September, I was hired as a field development analyst – pretty much my job was to help our brand reps in whatever they needed. Over time I have picked up several other responsibilities and my work load has easily quadrupled – I have never been happier! The only issue is that I cant live off of what I make each week (by live I mean pay loans, medical bills, rent + live the life I want) so I still bartend at least 2x a week… Its just exhausting… I don’t think ill leave the 21a… after all its been my home for 7 years, but I needed to justify all the hard work I was putting in.

Last week I finally did just that. I asked for exactly what I wanted – and made sure to explain why I already deserve it and think I will be able to do even more in the future…. I was called into a meeting almost a week later. My CEO and President announced a new position which came with the raise I asked for AND a bonus structure. I have never felt more amazing. Not lucky, not the right place at the right time… I felt just RIGHT… like I got what I deserved… and that my friends… is something I haven’t felt in a really really long time..

mOtIvAtIoNaL MoNdAy: The weight is over

Tonight I went to Yoga for the first time since I started Pilates, which was about 7 months ago. Getting to the mat is 1/2 the battle for me, I seem to always have something better to do (usually work) but I knew after the past few weeks I have had that I needed a good yoga class.

I have had vivid nightmares, about things I have tried to stop caring about, but despite my greatest efforts, my subconscious brings out the fears I keep trying to push aside.

As we sat on the matt tonight she tells us to hold the block, she asks what we think it weighs, people shout, 1/2 lb and other various guesses. She has us hold the block out to show that it doesn’t matter what the weight is, but instead how long you hold it.

Sarah tells us to close our eyes as she tells the story of a motivational speaker who held a glass with water in front of a group, she said “how much water do you think is in here?”, they all assumed she was going to ask the glass half full question… the guests shouted out answers as we did with the block. The speaker said, if i hold this water for a few moments it’s not really a big deal, if I hold it for a few hours it becomes heavy, if I hold it for days it becomes a burden and so on… The point is it doesn’t matter what the weight is, it matters how long you hold on to it, how much of a burden you allow the weight to become. Choose to let things go, to put down the block, for the longer you hold them the heavier the burden they become.

I literally felt like this class was meant for me. I have never felt so connected, my mind, my body, my emotions, not sad … almost relieved. In the smallest and largest sense. I hold on to things WAY to long + I am making a pact with myself right now, to let things go.

MoTiVaTiOnAl mOnDaY

I listened to the amazing Stella & Dot CEO Jessica Herrin today – Im in awe at her ability to motivate hundreds of woman – to make them feel like they can own their own businesses and they can be successful at anything they put their minds too. The topic of her discussion was time managment. She said “we need to be okay with the unfinished to do list, we need to think of ourselves as jugglers, and not that we have to juggle them all but that we have to figure out which ones are made of rubber and which ones are made of glass, which ones can wait until tomorrow and will bounce back up and which ones need to be juggled now before they fall and brake. Its all about prioritizing.

How do you determine what balls are rubber and what balls are made of glass?

-Frankie

Design Salon: You’re always selling

I attended the design salon at twelve chairs this week with my friend molly in an attempt to get molly the kick in the butt she needs to apply to designs school and selfishly to finally meet the gorg Erin Gates of Elements of Style (while also trying to invite people to the Bona Clara launch party).

Erin and her amazing hubby Andrew discussed the sales side of business. He touched on a few key points:

you don’t have to sell to everyone
let the customer lead the convo – everyone loves talking about themselves
be confident in your product (even if thats you)
read marketing books not sales ones

Over all be genuine and caring. Develop a relationship with your potential customer and figure out how you can help them. It was a great discussion but I cant help but mention their chemistry. They are just perfect! Balance each other out perfectly, Erin is a self proclaimed, insecure, pessimistic, worrywart and Andrew its an optimistic, confident, sales man.

I left Monday evening with an extra pep in my step. Knowing I really can do anything I want and I will blog till I get there (and after)… not that I even know what I want really… I cant wait for the next design salon!!

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Motivation Monday