Every week I channel intuitive guidance and send it out to my email newsletter subscribers. For several weeks in a row the guidance was all about releasing the things that hold us back, whether physical, mental, emotional, etc.

And for several weeks in a row I’d been avoiding doing the work myself. Even professionals have their issues! I knew I didn’t have to clean out my closet or get rid of unhealthy relationships (already did that, thank you very much). I had to focus on getting rid of limiting beliefs and habits, and frankly, I just didn’t want to deal with it because I knew it was going to be a J-O-B.

But I also knew that if I didn’t do it I was going to continue to feel stuck and frustrated about not making progress towards my goals. So I finally took the time to start identifying and releasing the beliefs and habits that have been preventing me from being who I want to be and doing what I’m here to do.

I want to share my experience with you to help you understand how a professional intuitive uses her intuition, so that you can better understand how to use your own. It may be helpful to read last week’s practical step-by-step guide for using your intuition before you read the rest of this post. (But if you’re just here out of voyeurism then by all means, read on!)

First things first, I set aside time to do this work every morning for about 10 days. Working on the same thing every day this intensively is pretty unusual for me, but intuitively I knew I needed to focus to achieve the results I wanted. The timing was right energetically and more importantly, I finally felt ready to strip away everything that didn’t resonate with who I truly am or who I want to be.

So let’s get into the nitty gritty of what using my intuition to do this type of work looked like for me.

Every morning when I finished my meditation, I stated my intention to release the beliefs and habits that were holding me back and asked the universe and my guides to help me identify and release them.

After I set the intention and asked for help I sat quietly and allowed the guidance to come through. I had my journal open so I could write down everything I received. (You should do this, too, because you never know when you’ll get some seriously life-altering miraculous insight! Also, sometimes the guidance makes no sense or seems irrelevant but then you go back and read it a few days later and have a major lightbulb moment. So, write it all down!)

The first day I wrote a heading at the top of the page that read, “Beliefs & habits I’m ready to let go of.” (Be specific like this, it will help you get clearer guidance!) Under that heading I wrote down all the guidance I received.

After about 10 minutes of transcribing what was coming through I stopped and read through the list. Many of the beliefs and habits I’d written down were painful to acknowledge. Some of them I’d been aware of previously, but not necessarily as things that were holding me back. Some of them were things that–even though I’d experienced their effects–I’d been completely oblivious to. And underlying most of them was fear.

(Embarrassing example: one of the beliefs I wrote down was, “People think what I do is weird.” As soon as I wrote it down I realized it was true and ugh, how embarrassing to be a spiritual teacher and mentor who is afraid that people will think what I do is weird. Aren’t I supposed to be a shining example of living my truth no matter what? And how can I do that when I live with an undercurrent of fear? We’ll get to the answers to these questions, but just know that spiritual growth is often not easy!)

I wrote down things that I’ve struggled with that I had never taken responsibility for, things that I felt like needed to change but that I also felt like I couldn’t change. The way this information came through to me made it 100% clear that I am the creator of those things and that I have total control over whether or not they’re part of my life.

After I wrote everything down and read through it, I asked, “why do I feel this way? Where are these beliefs and habits coming from?” Then I wrote down the answers I received: a combination of some crazy-ass past life stuff AND me creating issues in my present life to distract me from having to really face my fears and live my purpose.

Then I took it one step further and asked how to release these things. The answer I got was that I first had to accept reality and acknowledge the truth of everything I’d written down, and then turn these problems over to the universe. Then I channeled a prayer to help me release the beliefs, habits, and fears.

Every morning I went back and read through the list I initially wrote, asked if there were additions (luckily there were only a couple!), and asked again why I was having those experiences and how I could let them go. Then I read through the prayer, tweaked it if I felt called to, and spent a few minutes holding it in my consciousness so that it could transform me.

Although this work was difficult and unsettling, especially at first, it was also freeing, encouraging, and revelatory. As I stuck with it and did the work every day, I felt lighter, more positive, more motivated, more loved and more compassionate.

A couple days in, I noticed that in the 99% of my life that doesn’t happen in my quiet little sacred space, things were shifting. Since starting this process, I’ve been able to share myself more authentically. I feel less overwhelmed. I’ve been less of an insane perfectionist without having to consciously try to override what I always identified as my perfectionist tendencies (note the ownership there–this has been a big shift for me, because now it’s just me considering various options or ways of doing things and not me trying to force myself to behave in a way that feels “out of character”). Those old habits are falling away.

Consistently doing the necessary inner work has meant big changes in my outer world. It’s all coming together.

You may think it’s easy for me because I’m a professional and I know that when I ask a question I’ll get an answer, and I’m able to trust and interpret the answers I get. Yes, this is true. But I got where I am by consciously deciding to develop my intuition and by practicing asking for and receiving guidance. You can do this, too.

And just so we’re clear, I’m still working on this stuff. In my experience it takes consistent effort over time to make real progress with deep issues like changing your beliefs or long-held habits. The willingness to question everything opens you up to the possibility for a lot of radical changes to happen in your life, but the process of questioning everything is ongoing.

I go through phases when I’m doing a lot of questioning, turning over all the things in my life to see if they fit with who I am, who I want to be, and my goals. And then I go through phases where I’m just living without thinking (or worrying) too much about examining everything because honestly all that deep consideration can be tiring. And in my experience, if you never give yourself a chance to integrate the changes you make you will just feel unsettled and unhappy.

So, make the time to listen to your intuition, be intentional, pay attention to what you receive, and act on it. And give yourself a break when you need it (if you’re listening to your intuition you’ll know when you need it!).

I want to leave you with the last couple sentences of the prayer that I channeled for myself because I think they’ll resonate with many of you as well:

“I am ready to shine my light. I trust that the universe will support me in releasing fear so that I may uplift and empower others. Let’s do the work.”

After my recent post about being raised by a mentally ill alcoholic mother who killed herself when I was in my 20’s, I received a lot of messages from people commending me for being brave enough to share something so personal and make myself so vulnerable in a public space.

The thing is, I didn’t feel vulnerable at all in sharing that story.

I felt empowered. I felt strong. I felt connected. I felt loved.

The definition of vulnerable is “capable of being physically or emotionally wounded.” Sharing a personal story about something unpleasant that occurred in my life didn’t make me feel any more open to injury than I was before I shared it. But the fact that so many people perceived what I did as something that made me vulnerable says a lot about how we view hardships, failures, and mistakes.

We all seem to have been raised with this unconscious programming that anything less than perfection is not tolerable, lessens our value as people, and makes us vulnerable. This is straight-up wrong, and I’ll tell you why:

None of us are “perfect” (well actually we are all perfect, but none of us measure up to society’s/our own insane standards for what constitutes perfection). We are all flawed in the sense that we’ve all made mistakes, suffered failures and hardships, behaved in ways we later regretted…the list goes on. We’ve ALL had these same experiences that could be classified as vulnerabilities because they’re things people might make fun of us or criticize us for.

These “vulnerabilities” make us real people, they are shared experiences that provide us with a platform for connecting with each other. Owning your own shit puts you in the powerful position of accepting responsibility for your life, both for the things you control and for your reactions to the things you can’t control. Every vulnerability is an opportunity to assess, to improve, to act with love instead of fear. In many cases vulnerabilities are gifts that empower us to connect with others in a meaningful way and to move into alignment with our true selves.

Make a mistake? Learn from it and don’t make that mistake again. Hurt someone’s feelings? Apologize and ask for forgiveness. Get dealt a lousy hand (see above re: alcoholic mentally ill mother)? Learn what you can from that situation and use it to improve your life. Tried to do something and failed at it? Now you know something you didn’t before, and you can use it to inform future decisions and behavior.

Do you see a common theme here? ALL of these things that we tend to think of as vulnerabilities have the potential to be incredibly empowering. It is possible to be strong and powerful in every single one of these situations.

Maybe it’s just a side effect of how I grew up but I think vulnerability is an illusion. I think it’s all about how we perceive things and react to them–that’s what makes something a vulnerability or a strength. I’m so tired of taboo topics, people being embarrassed or ashamed to be who they really are, and all the ridiculous facades we construct and hide behind because being real is scary. None of this helps anyone and it simply divides us from each other. Being real isn’t scary, it’s necessary.

What skeletons do you have hiding in your closet that are ready to come out? What mistakes have you made that you’re ready to accept so you can empower yourself to move forward? What vulnerabilities do you have that you can turn into strengths? Reply in the comments below or if you’re afraid to share publicly, email me directly at contact@jessicapeppler.com. I’m all about helping you reframe your perception to empower you, so that you can own your strength, connect with others, and feel the love.

Today I found myself thinking about my mom on Mother’s Day for the first time in a very long time. My mom has been dead for 10 years now and to say that our relationship was complicated is a huge understatement. My mother is one of the greatest sources of pity that has been heaped upon me in my life. People who know me well or knew me when I was young feel bad for me because my mother was a mentally ill alcoholic and because my relationship with her was so difficult. People who met me later in life feel bad for me because my mom killed herself when I was in my 20’s.

But I don’t feel bad for myself because I chose her to be my mother and she gave me some of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned about who I am, how to live, and how to love could not have been learned any other way than by having her as my mother.

Now that I’m a mother myself and realize how incredibly hard it is to be a parent I’m amazed that she could do it at all, with all the burdens she bore. I thought I had forgiven her for all the transgressions that occurred throughout my childhood but once I had my own children I went through the whole process of anger, acceptance, and forgiveness again–this time on a much deeper level than before. In fact I’ve gone through this process many times now, each time a little less intense than before, but there’s always more forgiving and more healing that can occur. Like everything, it’s a practice.

This Mother’s Day I’m thinking about all the baggage we carry around either because of how we were or weren’t mothered, or because of how we think we should or should not be mothering our own children. For a lot of us, there is so much drama surrounding the idea of “Mom.” To everyone who has mama drama that plagues them on the regular, or that has just bubbled up to the surface today because of the focus of this day, I invite you to think about things differently.

This Mother’s Day I’m thinking about and feeling grateful for all the people in my life who have loved me, taken care of me and mothered me, and those who’ve given me the chance to do those things for them. Family, friends, it’s all the same. We are all in this together and we’re all here to love, nurture, and take care of each other. Even more importantly, we’re here to do those things for ourselves. Especially if we missed out on receiving some of that stuff when we were kids–all the more reason to love and nurture ourselves now.

The most powerful way to heal ourselves and each other is through love. Can we forgive? Can we nurture? Can we be honest? Can we be grateful, even for the shitty stuff? Can we do these things for ourselves so that we may mother ourselves in the most ideal and perfect way possible? I think so, even though it’s hard. You know better than anyone else what it is you need.

So on this Mother’s Day, I invite you to love, forgive, and find gratitude for the people in your life who have cared for you, the people who were supposed to but didn’t, and most importantly for yourself. Take it a step further and practice doing this again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Let’s practice mothering ourselves and mothering each other, and see what miracles occur.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you!

xoxo
Jessica

I’ve gotten really into the practice of self-love over the last year. After many years spent in a sort of love-hate relationship with myself, it has been a little strange, somewhat refreshing, and VERY healing to openly and actively practice self-love on a daily basis. We are truly our own worst enemies, but we can also be our own best friends and biggest supporters. No one knows better than you do what you need, and no one is better positioned to give it to you than you are.

Loving, appreciating, and caring for yourself is not conceited or self-centered, it’s necessary. If your tank is empty you aren’t going to be able to shine your light and share all your wonderful gifts with the world. So fill yourself up! Love yourself fully and completely because you are perfect and wonderful and unique and special just the way you are. Love yourself so that you can be a beacon of love and positivity in a world that can be shallow, critical, stressful, and downright negative.

And if you’re reading this and thinking, WTF, I don’t even know how to go about loving myself, or what “loving myself” even means, then here’s a list of 33 simple ways to show yourself some love. Small, simple acts of self-love add up over time to have a big impact on how you feel!

1. Go for a walk outside.
2. Do a face mask.
3. Take a hot bath (light some candles and/or add essential oils for even more love!).
4. Volunteer your time or donate money to help someone less fortunate than you.
5. Meditate.
6. Write in a journal.
7. Listen to your favorite music. Just sit down and listen and enjoy–no multi-tasking!
8. Eat something green.
9. Or better yet, do a Whole30!
10. Go through your wardrobe and clear out all the clothes that don’t fit, don’t make you feel amazing, bring back bad memories, or don’t resonate with you. Give them away, so someone else can appreciate and use them.
11. Call a friend just to chat.
12. Buy yourself flowers or a houseplant.
13. Clean your house.
14. Organize a potluck, happy hour, or other social event so you can get together with your friends.
15. Read a book for fun.
16. Make a list of all the things in your life that you’re grateful for.
17. Make a list of three ways that you provided value to someone else today (remember that something as simple as smiling genuinely at someone provides value to that person!).
18. Ask your closest friends what their favorite thing is about you (YES, really. You will be surprised how readily and happily people will share this information, and how it will give you a whole new perspective on yourself. You can do this via email if the thought of doing it over the phone or in person really weirds you out.)
19. Send a heartfelt message to a friend or loved one detailing all of the things you love and appreciate about them, why you are grateful to have them in your life, etc. Freely sharing your love is an excellent way to cultivate self-love. Giving is receiving.
20. Spend 15 minutes walking around your home and collecting things you no longer use or love into a bag and then give them away.
21. Exercise.
22. Talk to your guides, even if you think they can’t hear you. Tell them all your deepest fears and worries and ask for help in releasing them. (You don’t have to do this out loud, they can hear you no matter what!)
23. Go to bed early.
24. Get up early and take some time for yourself before jumping into your day.
25. Cook for yourself.
26. Stop checking email/social media first thing in the morning. Or last thing at night!
27. Set some boundaries. Being a good friend, parent, or employee doesn’t mean shelving your own wants/needs/opinions.
28. Make a list of bad habits that you’d like to stop doing along with reasons why and what you’ll do instead. The act of just writing this down is very powerful for change-making.
29. Likewise, write down a list of things you’d like to manifest, and start the list with “I deserve the following things:”
30. Do a social media fast or technology fast – pick a day and don’t check social media or look at the internet (or both!) all day.
31. Sit outside and feel the sun on your face.
32. Save some of your income every time you get paid.
33. Lower your expectations for yourself. You are already enough exactly as you are.

True story: I wrote this post several weeks ago but didn’t publish it because I kept thinking I’d need to edit it. Well, it didn’t really need any editing, but every time I looked at it I’d add more things to the list. I had to force myself to just publish it because it could never be truly finished: there is an infinite number of ways to demonstrate your love for yourself. What are some of your favorites? Please feel free to share them in the comments so that we can all benefit from your love!

It can be really frustrating when things take longer to manifest than you think they will. I’ve run into this so many times and while there are countless reasons why things take time to manifest, and many of them may be outside your control, sometimes those reasons come back to you, your energy, and your habits. You could very well be blocking yourself from manifesting what you want without even realizing it.

Here are four of my favorite ways to remove self-created blocks that could be preventing you from manifesting your desires:

1. Be sure you’re 100% clear on what you want and write it down. I’ve said this a million times but it is the most important thing you can do when it comes to manifesting. The universe is like a restaurant, and it can’t bring you your meal unless you tell it what you want to eat! Get clear, be specific, and write it down.
2. Be honest with yourself about your habits–both your actions and your thoughts. Do they really align with what you are trying to manifest? Manifesting is a combination of intention and action. And yes, thoughts are actions too; they act on energy in a very powerful way! Be sure that when you set an intention your thoughts and actions support that intention. For example, if you say you want to improve your health but you eat a lot of fast food and don’t exercise, you are sending a very clear message to the universe that you don’t really want to improve your health. Likewise, if you say you want to meet a new romantic partner but your self-talk is critical, negative, fearful and full of reasons why you don’t deserve a great partner, that partner is not going to show up. To use the restaurant analogy again, when your thoughts and actions don’t align with your intentions, it’s like saying to yourself, “I really want a burger” but then ordering a salad. You can’t be disappointed when that salad shows up because it’s what you ordered! It may be painful to admit that your habits are foiling your manifestation mojo, but the first step in changing them is to become aware of them. Then you can decide if what you want is important enough for you to adjust your thoughts and behaviors to help you get it.
3. Make sure you’re not so focused on what’s next that you’re not really present in your “now” situation. While it’s important to hold on to what we’re trying to manifest, sometimes we do it in a way that causes us to resist the current situation and fail to be present in it, which I’ve found jams up energy and drastically slows progress or keeps us stuck. So what if the now isn’t what you want? The now already exists, so you may as well accept it and make the best of it, because that is the only way to keep your energy flowing toward what you want. You may be wondering how it’s possible to both stay focused on what you’re trying to manifest and accept your present circumstances for what they are. It’s simple (but not necessarily easy!): find a way to feel grateful for your current situation–as a stepping stone, learning experience, way to pay the bills, etc. Being present and grateful in your current circumstances frees up energy, which is essential for manifestation. Remember that you have the power in every moment to choose how you feel. Consistently practicing acceptance and cultivating gratitude will not only help you manifest more quickly and easily, but will also make you straight up happier, which is an even better benefit in my opinion.

4. De-clutter your home. For serious! I touched on this in my last blog post, and mentioned a book that helped me a lot with de-cluttering. I really thought I was a minimalist before I read it, but I learned so much about the energy of belongings and I ended up getting rid of so much stuff. I was truly amazed by how much stuck energy started moving almost instantly when I started clearing things out. This was a few months ago, but I just did another clean-out and am even happier and more energized; I’ve also noticed that things are falling into place for me in ways I never could have imagined. So if you are really stuck and the previous tips all seem too hard, start here. Just grab a trash bag and spend 15 minutes collecting things that you no longer use or love, or that just don’t resonate with who you are (or who you’re trying to become!). You will be astounded by the positive effect this has on your mindset and energy level. Do it every day for a week and you’ll really start to feel the energy flow!

Have you been waiting around for something to show up in your life, and it’s just taking its sweet time? Do any of these techniques resonate with you or do you have other tricks you use to help you manifest your desires more easily and quickly? Please share in the comments below!

The start of the new year is my favorite time of the year. I LOVE new beginnings. Even when I was a kid I loved the idea of fresh starts, a chance to reinvent myself, do better, be better. But I never looked back, at least not until recently. The past few years I’ve spent some time at the end of December reviewing and releasing the year that just passed and I’ve found it to be such a useful thing to do. I pat myself on the back for my accomplishments, ponder the many lessons I learned, and actively clear out my energy so I can truly get a fresh start on the year ahead.

The most powerful lessons I learned this year are all repeats (anyone else learn the same lessons again and again?!), but somehow I feel like I learned them better this time around. They’re more meaningful to me and I’m better able to use them to inform my behavior. Perhaps this is just a side effect of getting older but I think it’s also related to simply paying attention. So much of personal development and spiritual growth is about the basics, about developing a good foundation of habits from which to spring forth.

These lessons aren’t sexy but they’re working for me, and I’m willing to bet they’ll work for you, too! So here you go, the most powerful lessons I learned in 2014:

Sleep

I put this one first because I think it’s the most important. We all know the benefits of sleep, they’re all over the media all the time, but almost everyone I know, myself included, doesn’t get enough sleep. This has been the case for me for a long time, and I’ve learned the sleep lesson before, but it really hit home for me (again) in the second half of 2014. In July we purchased a 94-year-old home that needed extensive renovation before we could move in. I became the project manager for the renovation, did a bunch of the work myself, and continued trying to run my business, parent my kids, cook healthy food from scratch, etc. It was ridiculous and I sacrificed sleep in a major way. Everything (and arguably, everyone around me!) suffered because I was so exhausted. You simply cannot function at your highest level–physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually–if you’re tired. So I cut back on as much as I could, and things were still crazy, but boy what a difference a little extra sleep made. Prioritizing sleep is still a practice I’m working on, but the benefits are so undeniable that the more sleep I get the more motivated I am to prioritize it. The positive difference in my performance, focus, and productivity is huge. I’ve noticed that my mood is lighter and more joyful and it’s much easier to stay in a high vibration state when I’m well rested. And, vanity bonus: I look so much better when I get a good night’s sleep!

Less is more

This year I gained a much deeper understanding of how having too much drains my energy. Too much stuff in my physical space, too many things to do, and too many things I want to achieve–it’s all so overwhelming!

It started when, after my sixth move in six years (yes, really!), I decided to pare down my belongings. I read the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, and it really opened my eyes to the reality of my stuff (all my stuff–belongings, time commitments, things on my to do list–everything). I realized I was hanging on to a lot of “stuff” that wasn’t serving me. It was cluttering up my space, my time, and my mind, and totally draining my energy. I started clearing out my belongings and immediately noticed my energy shifting. I felt calmer and lighter and more peaceful, and was simultaneously more energized as well. The more clutter I cleared out of my home the better I felt, and I was then able to tackle my schedule, my to-do list, and my goals. I’m still working on clearing “stuff” out of my life, but the difference so far has been completely life-changing. REALLY. So, read the book or don’t (though I highly recommend that you do, it gave me so much motivation as well as practical advice), but either way take a good look at your life and see what you can release so that you can move forward with more ease, peace, and freedom.

Write it down

If there’s something you want to manifest in your life, be specific and write it down. Sure, it’s possible to manifest what you want without writing it down, but in my experience the things I want manifest faster and more easily when I’ve written them down. The act of writing down what you want helps focus energy toward your desires in a very powerful way. I used this technique to manifest the aforementioned house, which was definitely one of my biggest and most against-the-odds manifesting experiences ever.

Here are three simple tips to go along with the practice of writing down what you want:

1. Be as specific as possible, write down as many details about what you want as you possibly can.
2. Review what you’ve written down frequently. If you change your mind or further refine your vision of what you want, simply edit what you wrote.
3. Don’t worry about how it will come to you, just focus on what it is that you desire. Imagine what it will feel like when you have it, and wholeheartedly trust the universe to help you manifest it.

Be unapologetic about your desires

Is there something you want to have or to do? Does it seem outlandish, too big, too good for you or too good to be true? It only is if you think it is. If you want something, whether it is sparkling health, a new job, romance, money, anything–you have to feel really good about it in order to manifest it. As long as you’re not 100% committed to having it, the universe isn’t 100% committed to bringing it to you. Want what you want, know that you deserve it, and don’t apologize for it.

Attitude of gratitude

There are a lot of things you can’t change, but you CAN change your attitude toward or reaction to them. Every time something good happens, be grateful for it. Every time something bad happens, find a way to be grateful. As magical as this past year was for me, I also experienced many extremely trying times. When I asked for guidance to help me navigate these situations I was reminded that every difficulty and disappointment presents me with the opportunity to be graceful, to grow, to learn new things. I started looking for things to be grateful for, even (especially!) in the hard moments. And what a huge shift this created for me–I felt empowered, I felt connected, and I was reminded of the impermanence of everything. Nothing, good or bad, lasts forever, so we may as well be grateful for the moments we are given, learn what we can from them, and then let them go. Life only truly exists in this present moment, be grateful that we’re here to live it.

What did you learn in 2014? I’m so curious, please share in the comments!

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you felt like you had no clarity? When you were stressed or anxious about almost every aspect of your life, didn’t know which move to make next, or just didn’t feel sure of yourself? Maybe you identify with these feelings now.

In my experience, almost everyone ends up in this sort of funk at some point. The upside of getting down is that when you get really uncomfortable, you’re often motivated to make positive changes. But how do you do it, especially when everything feels overwhelming and difficult?

Here’s a step-by-step plan for connecting with yourself so you can start moving forward again:

Slow down. This means different things to different people but typically involves removing extra commitments from your schedule and creating some time and space for you to be by yourself. Reconsider what’s necessary and then take a break from the things you don’t have to do. If there’s something in your life that feels like a chore or is draining, even if it’s a positive thing (social gatherings, exercise), consider doing less of it for a little while.

Sleep more. Even if you think you get enough sleep, you probably don’t. More rest will rejuvenate you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Something will probably need to come out of your schedule to make more time for sleep. Maybe you can watch less TV, spend less time on the computer or phone, or let a few chores slide so that you can prioritize yourself and your health.

Make a list of everything that brings you joy. Make this a running list that you can add to as you think of things. Everything and anything that you truly enjoy doing or experiencing needs to be on this list, no matter how big or small or silly or strange. You may find in the course of making this list that very few of these things are actually part of your daily life. That’s okay! Awareness is the first step of change!

Add joy to your life. This sounds really lofty but if you look at the list you created in the previous step you’ll find that there are some things that would actually be pretty easy to incorporate into your life on a regular basis. Some of them may already be part of your daily life, but maybe you can do more of them.

For example, one of the things on my list is petting my dog. Of course I pet my dog everyday, but when life is busy with work and family it’s easy to just give him a few scruffs here and there. When I consciously decided to spend more time petting and snuggling him, and gave myself permission to do it without feeling guilty because I should be doing something else (i.e., something more “productive”), I received so much more joy from doing it and I know he felt the difference too.

Some things may be harder to incorporate, perhaps they’ll require time and/or money that you don’t feel like you have. But you can make a plan to make it happen. Don’t overcomplicate things, or set insane goals that you’d be hard-pressed to meet. The point is to get to your happy, joyful place more often, not to make yourself feel even worse.

You may look at this brief plan and think it’s hokey or too simple to work, but I’m telling you, it works. I’ve seen it work for myself, my friends, my family, and my clients repeatedly. It’s easy with our busy lives to get off track, but consciously deciding to slow down, nurture yourself, and reconnect with what brings you joy is basically a way to hit the reset button on your life.

Sure, you may have a lot of other changes you want or need to make to have a life that you love, but starting with the basics will shift your energy, mood, and attention away from being down and stuck and toward possibility and happiness.

You create your reality based on how you feel. How can you feel more joy today?

Have you ever been to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting? When I was in my early twenties I used to like to go to AA meetings with one of my good friends who was a recovering alcoholic because I always found the insights people shared in the meetings helpful for managing my relationship with my alcoholic mother. In general I feel like AA gives a lot of great advice that everyone, not just alcoholics, can use to improve their lives, because so much of it focuses on being responsible for your actions and your life.

One of my favorite AA slogans is, “Keep coming back, it works if you work it,” which reminds people that if they stick with the AA program they will benefit greatly from it in the future. It works if you work it. This is solid advice that can be applied to just about any positive behavior, right? If you eat right and stick with it, you’ll reap health benefits. If you speak up for yourself consistently, you’ll reap relationship benefits (yes, really). If you notice and act on intuitive guidance repeatedly, you’ll reap whole-life benefits. Notice a theme here? You gotta stick with it!

Positive changes typically start with a decision and progress into a mindset, but the real magic is in the work. Positive thinking will only get you so far. In order to see real results you have to do the work. A lot of clients come to me with problems whose solutions involve pretty significant changes in mindset and behavior. It’s so easy to get discouraged when facing a big behavioral change, like developing self-love, learning how to establish boundaries with others so you don’t get taken advantage of, or learning to express who you really are rather than who people expect you to be.

You can make the decision to change but in order to achieve success you have to show up every day and do the work. In the above example of developing self-love, one example of doing the work could be catching yourself thinking self-sabotaging thoughts and replacing them with encouraging thoughts. It may seem small or silly, but when done consistently over time this type of small chance yields big results. If you were working on establishing boundaries with others, an example of doing the work would be speaking up for what you believe when faced with a challenging situation in which you would normally compromise on your ideals out of a desire to avoid conflict. And then doing that again and again, every time that type of situation arises. Yes, it’s hard! But, it works if you work it. Positive changes are the direct result of consistent behavior.

What changes do you want to make in your life? What work can you do on a daily basis to make those changes happen for you? If you need guidance, check in with your own intuition or book a session with me, I’d love to help you!

One of my favorite tools for staying focused on my goals and accomplishing more in my life is something I call “Ruthless Priorities.” This is a great tool for those of us who have a lot of things to do that all seem important. It’s easy to get caught up in the pull of all the things we care about, but it is not productive. Having your attention in 20 different places means you’re not going to give any one thing enough attention to actually get anywhere with it. Follow these steps to put the concept of Ruthless Priorities to work for you:

1. Pick the one thing on your plate that is the most important. This is your #1 goal.
2. Make a list of things you need to do to accomplish that goal.
3. Do those things.
4. Don’t do anything else unless you absolutely have to.
5. Keep going until you’ve accomplished your goal.

What? Really? It’s that simple? Why yes, yes it is. You may be thinking you already do this. Trust me, you probably don’t. You are probably checking Facebook and shopping online and accepting too many social invitations and staying up too late and doing all sorts of other things that are not moving you closer to your goal. Life is busy and if you really want to get important things done you need to be ruthless with your time. You are going to need to say no to things you don’t want to say no to. You are going to have to sacrifice things you don’t want to. Don’t worry, it’s not forever, but if you have a big important goal that you really want to accomplish you need to remove the impediments that are keeping you from accomplishing that goal.

Here’s how I used the concept of Ruthless Priorities to launch this website. I had planned to launch my website in May 2013. Well, May came and went and I was busy with life. I’m a mom and a wife and was planning a cross-country move and just trying to keep it together, you know? But I’m also a businesswoman with an important mission and every day that my website was not live was another day that I was not reaching people who could use my help. When June rolled around I finally got serious and realized that fitting my work into the tiny nooks and crannies of my days and nights and trying to do all the other things that are important to me, too, was not working. I took a look at all the ways I was spending my time. Getting my website live was the most important thing I needed to do. I set some ruthless priorities and decided that I was going to cut out everything I could that was not related to launching my website. I still took care of my kids and made meals and did laundry but I did not clean the house. I didn’t run errands. I didn’t work out. I didn’t have movie nights with my husband or see my friends. I simply said no to everything I possibly could. If it didn’t contribute to my goal of launching my website and I didn’t absolutely have to do it, I didn’t do it. My website went live within two weeks of me establishing my Ruthless Priorities. And then I smacked myself on the forehead and said, “Why did I wait so long to get serious about this?! It only took two weeks!”

Even the most motivated and focused people put things off and get distracted sometimes, it’s part of life. But if you have a goal that’s been lingering around that really is important to you, get on it! Set up your ruthless priorities, say no to whatever you can, and get to work. You may be surprised by how quickly things come together once you are truly focused!