Chapter 1 – The Idea

On 31 December 2020, I wondered ‘if I was to make one change this year, that would have the biggest impact on my life, what would it be?’

I sat and breathed into it, getting into my body, not my head, and chocolate came to me.

Hmmm interesting.

I sat with that idea. Chocolate and I were besties, and I didn’t want to give up chocolate.

We’d been through so much together – celebrations, sadness, grief, just because. I could always count on chocolate to make me feel good no matter what.

That creamy texture, the crunch and smoothness of the chocolate, and the crack of the nuts – dairy milk almond, my fav.

I had been playing around with breaking up with chocolate or just having a long distance relationship, for some time.

I’d moved to organic chocolate, and darker chocolate brands with the intent that a little bit is fine, but before long I could eat the whole block…surely I could win an Olympic medal for it – what about you?

I didn’t want to give up chocolate but I agreed and did it quietly.

I didn’t tell anyone, not even Chris.

I finished all the chocolate that was in the house that night, went to bed and woke up on 1 January 2021.

Just to clarify, I’m not a fan of New Years resolutions. I’d made too many of them over the years and not kept them, so I was nervous.

That said, I was also inspired by a family friend who was giving up alcohol for her 50th year. You know ‘the year of Champagne’ as Mel Oxman said on My Soul Life Podcast Ep. 112 – Project 2022.

She’d been listening to my podcast and heard how other people had changed their lives – every day people just like her, and she thought let’s give it a crack. As I write this she’s hit her 1 year alcohol free anniversary – what an achievement!! Celebrating you xo

The Reflection

In September 2021, I was 9 months down – chocolate free, no bars or blocks – basically anything you see in the confectionary isle at the supermarket, or the check outs and petrol stations – and any other store that sold them.

And I started to wonder, what could 2022 look like? 

I thought about mirrors. We were away on holidays at the time and I thought ‘if my outside world is a reflection of my inside world, what would I like to shift?’

12 months earlier, we’d left Canberra which had been my home for most of my life. We’d moved into our new home in Burrum Heads, and had been working on the property i.e. replacing curtains, finishing cabinetry, putting in a swimming pool, building our gardens etc.

Whilst we’d unpacked all the boxes, there were some that had been re-packed with things to be donated and I hadn’t finished dressing the house.

Reflecting on, if my home needed to be decluttered and dressed – what did I need to declutter and dress within myself?

The Ponder

I pulled out the Circle of Life, a tool I use with my coaching clients. I wrote down the main area I could see I needed to focus on in the Circle of Life and reflected on the changes I wanted to make in each area – to declutter and authentically dress my life.

I mention authenticity here because it’s one of my core values, the others are love, kindness, curiosity and bravery. If I was going on this new journey, even just thinking about it, I wanted to do it from my values – not my hopes, dreams or wants.

Values create more energy in our lives and they help us move forward. They anchor us into our beliefs and they speak volumes about who we are – and I wanted to speak volumes about who I am.

 

This is what came to mind at the time:

Health

• Lungs issues
• Increase strength
• Increase agility
• Better management or eradication of urinary tract infections
• Low energy
• Low iron
• My periods
  • Heavy on day 2/3
  • Brain fog day 2/3
  • Low iron
  • Low energy
• Better management or eradication of cold sores
• Reduce or reverse hair loss
• Fix low blood oxygen level around the 1 minute mark when exercising
• Assess if I’m peri-menopausal and if so, manage it appropriately

Home Cooking

• Continue meal planning
• Increase home cooking
• Better management of grocery shopping

Home Environment

• Declutter
• Dress
• Finish property improvements

Joy

• Create this as an intention each day – joy being, how I intend to show up

Spirituality

• Meditate daily
  • Maybe 30 minutes morning and night?

Relationships

• Cultivate more growth and depth in my existing relationships
• Be open to new relationships coming in

Sex life

• Get interested in actually having one – start instigating it
• Play more

Finances

• Do them – stop hiding
• Create our budget
• Start with a 1.0 plan (where we are)
• Create a 2.0 plan (next version)
• Dream about plan 3.0 (where we’re going to)

Career

• Create Soul Hour
• Create Nourish Your Soul
• Create the 2022 Membership Program
• Build oils through sharing
• Create Human Design beginners course
• Write my story
• Write my 2022 journey – if everything’s a mirror, what can I see?

Education

• Pass the National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches exam in May 2022
• Astrology Course
• Human Design Course
• Money Bootcamp Course
• Feng Shui Course
• Herbs Course
• Handstands Course – yes I’d love to be able to do them!
• B-School Course
• IIN Advanced Courses

 

Now to achieve all of that in 12 months isn’t impossible, especially when we have life around us – like we all do. I knew I wasn’t going to tick all of it off and if I did, I didn’t feel like it would be an authentic version of myself – plus I’d need a holiday at the end.

An old version of me would have jumped in, scheduled it all up and then started work on the first thing, getting distracted by a million other things and at the end of the year I might have looked back on the list (if I’d remembered I’d done it) and perhaps ticked off 6 things.

So why not do that upfront and maybe by focusing on one main areas, that would have a flow on effect to the other areas of my life – either making that thing smaller to do or non-existent? 

Sounds like a plan to me!

The Plan

Which area do I start on first?

Hmmmm, I thought perhaps I could group the common areas of the Circle of Life together. What would happen if I did that?

Health, included:

• Physical activity
• Home cooking
• Home environment
  • Decluttering
  • Dressing
  • Finish property improvements
• Joy
• Spirituality

Relationships, included:

• Social Life
• Sex Life

Finances 

Career, included:

• Education
• Creativity

 

This meant I had 4 main areas:

• Health
• Relationships
• Finances
• Career

 

I then asked myself, if I was to focus on one main area and by doing so, the others got easier or disappeared all together, what would that area be?

I sat with this, looked over the 4 areas and breathed into my body. Allowing the answer to come to me intuitively.

 

Health

 

Ok, health it is.

 

The details

My Thoughts

Now, I know, I can’t just make a decision and that be it, I have to anchor into it, feel into it. This is manifestation at it’s finest – the combination of heart and head, not just scheduling the crap out of it, booking in appointments, joining a gym and getting on with things – I had to bring the feelings in and the thoughts I was going to think on purpose.

I sat and thought about what I wanted to think on purpose and the thoughts or affirmations that came to me were:

 

I am healthy, fit and well.

I am vibrant and live every day to the fullest.

 

These thoughts created the following feelings:

• Energy
• Happy
• Joyful (goal above ticked of without having to focus on it specifically), and
• Presence

Whilst simple, these affirmations aka thoughts, and feelings were in alignment with me – and that’s all they ever needed to be.

 

My Support

In achieving any goal it’s important that we look at the support mechanisms we have around us, whether they’re currently in place or we can call them in. Here are my support mechanisms that I could see:

• Chris
• Teddy
• Naturopath*
• Blood tests*
• Meditation /Yogananda
• Gym*
• Routines
  • Nightime*
  • Soul Hour 

*indicates new resources or routines for me

 

My Obstacles

Whilst I didn’t explore my obstacles at the time, I’ll do that now as I write this. Exploring obstacles is also critical to the success of achieving our goals. Willpower isn’t enough to keep us moving forward – we’ve all been there right, starting a new routine but after 2 weeks we stop because we’ve run out of the will power that keeps us going – we’re just not motivated.

 

So let’s think about a few examples together:

• What are we going to think about ourselves if we don’t eat our planned meal on a particular day?
• What are we going to think about ourselves if we don’t ring our Mum every day as we promised ourselves?
• What are we going to think about ourselves if we don’t go for that 20 minute walk and sit on the couch instead?

 

You might say:

• I won’t beat up on myself
• I won’t care if I occasionally take the day off
• It’s human to not be perfect

 

And that’s exactly how we want to think, but what happens on the day is generally very different. To help us, how about we look back at a ‘cheat’ meal, gym session we missed or a friend we didn’t turn up for and when was the last time you rang your mum – not your mum ringing you? Now, thinking about those things – are you beating up on yourself for being selfish, not committed, useless?

So let’s hit this straight on.

 

My obstacles are:

• My own mindset, saying things like ‘she’ll be right’ or ‘one won’t hurt’ or ‘it’s ok not to meal plan this week, we’ll figure it out as we go’
• Getting scared and not picking up the phone to book in that Naturopath appointment – yes I hate initiating things, it’s hard for me.
• Handing my power over to the experts and not managing this project – waiting for them to tell me what to do, because I tell myself ‘they know best’
• Family activities that I want to be part of, even if I haven’t done whatever it is I was going to do for myself that day
• Chris pushing back around what I’m doing. Whilst he supports me 100%, some of the changes I’ll be making aren’t for him and that’s ok, so finding a way to make it work for our family is important
• Preferring to sit on the couch rather than get out and walk

 

In essence my obstacles are:

• My mindset
• Resistance – which can lead to me second guessing myself and not believing in myself, aka my mindset

 

We’re all on that gravy train hey!

 

A great approach to obstacles is to turn them into strategies like:

• I’m choosing to live my life according to my plan, no one else’s and certainly not to my mindset stories.
• It’s safe for me to engage professionals on my journey, and I don’t have to be in a relationship with them for forever
• I know what I’m working towards now, and it’s safe for that to evolve over the year.
• I have everything within me to manage this project for my highest good
• Family comes first, and I can manage that around my goals, because flexibility is one of my keys for success
• Chris supports me 100% and always wants the best for me.

 

Keeping Myself Accountable

The next step was to ask myself ‘well, how are you going to keep yourself accountable Susan?’

This is a tricky one for me, not because I naturally turn up for things and I can make them happen but maintenance can be an issue, and I can lose sight of why I’m doing any of this.

What I’m doing is all about lifestyle and tidying up my own stories – throwing them out and starting over in a lot of instances.

So for me accountability comes in the form of documenting my process and sharing quietly.

 

In the past I’ve been super gung-ho, sharing every step of the way as if you were right with me – and then I had to turn up for the next step, because if I didn’t I’d fail you – when in actual fact I’d failed me. And what was worse, I’d look to you for approval about what I was or wasn’t doing…and then beat up on myself when that approval didn’t come. That’s a lot of pressure on you when you didn’t even know I was doing it right? Nor was it your responsibility.

What’s working for me now is quietly sharing, and if you find this and you want to come along for the ride great. The best part about it, your journey’s going to look different to mine and that excites the pants off me – not literally, but I’ll dance and celebrate you. Then I’ll keep going with my journey, and stay in my own lane.

I’m learning so much right now, that documenting it for me, I feel, will help me in the future and I’d love to make a book out of all this material so you can have a cheat manual – if you want to explore what’s true for you.

Documenting it will also help me reflect deeper, and go deeper into myself and that will help me learn more about the person I am, and become more of the person I wish to become.

You never know, I might inspire you too!

 

The Next Step

My next step is to understand my base level of health. You’ve got to know where you’re starting from.

You can check out everything about my Project 22 over here and Chapter 2: My Health Baseline.

 

Share with me

Are you going on your own journey in 2022? Then tag me and use #project22 so we can connect xo

 

Disclaimer

Everything shared in this post and across my website is my story and recollection of conversation and events. They are in no way medical or mental health advice, prescription or diagnosis. Should you be interested in what I’m sharing and what this could mean in your life, then I’d encourage you to engage with the relevant health professionals or if you need support please seek out the health professionals that can support you.

In relation to my podcast, the information shared is mine or my guests. Again it is not medical or mental health advice, prescription or diagnosis. If you need support, please seek out relevant medical professionals.