Goal Setting 101

Why do we set goals for ourselves? In the therapeutic setting, we set long-term goals as well as short-term goals. These goals help therapists to structure our therapy sessions. Without goals, we do not know what we are working on or for.

In our personal life, we also set goals. However they may be much more general and less specific. We set goals for retirement, vacations, weight loss, personal goals, and maybe even home maintenance. When you set a goal, do you sit down and plan it out in detail, or is it something that you just keep in your mind? I want you to think about how successful you are in reaching your goals. What do you think helps or hinders you in reaching your goals?

Did you know that research indicates that those that actually write their goals are much more successful in reaching them? So let’s write some S.M.A.R.T. goals! For those of you unfamiliar with this acronym, let me break it down for you:

            Specific

            Measureable

            Achievable

            Reachable

            Time specific

 Ok, so how do you write a S.M.A.R.T. goal? I will direct you to my friend over at OT Mama for her break down her goal of waking up early in the morning.

When we take the time to write our goals in a structured manner, we are increasing our success in actually reaching them.  Today’s challenge is to write your own S.M.A.R.T. goal.

Mommy Me Time?

Mommy me time, is this even possible? When I found out that I was pregnant, I had all these plans in my head how I would be able to find the balance between being a mom and keeping my self-identity. I always knew that my number one priority would be my daughter and that my needs will follow second. What I didn’t plan on was how difficult it is to schedule me time.

In theory my husband and I have worked out a great arrangement. I mentioned in a pervious post that we have verbalized our “me “ time, in that we each have 3 days a week in which we each have time to ourselves. I find for me the problem comes on days in which he works until 6. We attempt to keep a nightly routine for our daughter, which consists of eating dinner as a family, bath time with daddy, and then bedtime by 7:30.  In order to accomplish this, I find that my “me time” is significantly cut short. I am not sure how many mothers out there have the energy to work out after dinner at 7:30 at night and still be able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. 

Okay, enough complaining. So what is a mom supposed to do? I recently visited OTMama and she had some thoughts on waking up early before the rest of the house to have a few minutes to herself. The idea behind this is that a mom can enjoy piece and quiet in the house and prepare for the day in a less stressed manner. What do you think of this idea? I think I will work on making this a goal for August. Check back later to see how I do!

Habits, Roles, and Routines -Oh My! (Pt 3)

By now you have begun to think about how your roles are impacting your life, as well as ways to make adjustments if needed. I want to continue our discussion and move on to routines now.

Dictionary.com defines the word routine as “commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or every day activity”. While I feel that this definition is a little sterile, it does stress how routines can be perceived as rigid, inflexible instructions for our daily lives.


I challenge you to think about your life. Are you one that functions more efficiently when your routine is written in pen? Meaning your life runs smoother when there is structure and consistency? Or are you on the opposite end of the spectrum and just fly by the seat of your pants? I personally find that especially now that I have a child, I function best when I have a schedule written in pencil. Having a plan of action helps to guide my day and increase my productivity, however having a child has taught me to be flexible.


This can be applied to all of the contexts within your life. For example I find that when I am more structured and prepared when it comes to meal planning, I am better able to stick to a healthy diet. I take the time on Sunday to go grocery shopping and stock my fridge with healthy foods and snacks. Within my work life, the more organized I am, the better I am able to handle challenges that pop up.  The same also holds true on the home front as well. When I take the time to keep up on housework, I tend to be less stressed. However if I take a couple of days off from straightening up and laundry, I become overwhelmed with the catch-up game.


What role do routines play in your life? Would your life be less stressful if you followed a routine, or abandoned one?

Habits, Roles, and Routines- Oh My! (Part-2)

So now that you have had some time to ponder your new habit and begin to implement the steps for success, I want to move on to our next topic- Roles.  I am going to gear this article more towards the women- sorry guys.

I invite you to participate in a little exercise with me. Take out a sheet of paper and write down all the roles that you take on.  Now take a look at that list and notice the order that they came out in, specifically the first role you put down. Would you describe that is being the most meaningful/important for you or is it a role that, not by choice, has moved its way to the top?

Here is my list:

1.     Mother

2.     Wife

3.     Daughter

4.     Sister

5.     Friend

6.     Homemaker

7.     Career

I know that I carry many other roles with me, but those are the ones that came out the quickest. I think that I actually did an accurate job in placing them in the order of most importance for me personally.

So what do we do when our roles are not lining up with our heart? Make adjustments! What is important to you? How can you adjust your schedule or do things differently so that the roles that are important to you are being addressed? Here are a couple of ideas that work for me:

1.     I enjoy eating meals with my daughter. I spend time preparing nutritious, healthy meals for her. I take time the night before I work to prepare her meals. While I am preparing her food, I think happy thoughts. That way I know the next day she is eating food that is prepared with love.

2.     In order to keep a balance within my life, my husband and I devised a schedule that allows “me” time. While I do not always leave the house, I know that 3 evenings a week when my husband comes home from work he is on baby duty. This mentally frees me to do what I want. Which tends to be laundry.

3.     The husband and I also reach out to family or hire a babysitter at least once a month for “us” time. We use this time to go out to dinner and relax together without being on parental duty. Extra bonus- the baby is able to get her grandparent’s fix.

4.     Find a good daycare provider. This was a biggie when I went back to work. I struggled for 4 months to find someone what I trusted my child with and that she also liked. This caused me stress in my job, as I was always rushing to get back home to her.

So I challenge you to look at your roles. Are they in line with your heart? Where can you make changes?

Dessert spelled backwards is stressed.

It is that time again; you are running around attempting to get a million things done. You do not have time to prepare your usual healthy meal, so what do you grab? For me it is something sweet and portable.

This past weekend we celebrated my daughter’s first birthday. While I succeeded in my goal of letting go of perfection, I still had tons of prep work to complete. Lucky for me my planning ahead of having the cupcakes baked and ready to frost for Saturday morning would lend itself well to having a tasty snack to get me through the morning (and afternoon, evening, breakfast….)

Are you a binger like me? I am able to display self-control most of the time. But add a combination of stress and sweets and all bets are off. As I am stuffing my face with all sorts of sweet goodness, I tell myself “back to being healthy Monday”. I find that I justify this to myself by remembering my diet has significantly improved over the years. I find a good binge now and then reinforces my healthy habits.  And after eating sweet empty calories for a couple of day’s wrecks havoc on my body and I begin to crave that nutritious healthy food again.

I challenge you to notice what is happening in your life when you crave your desserts. I also challenge you to forgive yourself when you binge. Enjoy that cupcake (or three) and set your date to bring yourself back to healthy. Mine is tomorrow.

Seeking Perfection

Are you a perfection seeker? Some days I am. I personally find that when I am seeking out perfection in an activity, I become paralyzed. I become hung up on the smallest details, unable to move on to enjoy my project.

I recently decided to challenge myself in NOT seeking perfection. Today was my daughter’s first birthday and I hosted a nice little party for her.  When I started thinking about her ideal party a couple of months ago (yes, I know she is 1), I was overly focused on finding the perfect invitation. I opted for e-invites. They were “perfect”; I could track who opened them and who responded. 

Next was the planning of the food. I originally was looking to have a barbeque. After some deep thoughts on food preparation, especially knowing how my family does not RSVP, I chose to just do a dessert party- specifically cupcakes. I thought it would be “perfect” in that I could make them during the week, freeze them, and frost the morning of the party. This would relieve some of the last minute stress of morning preparation.

The biggest part of letting go of perfection came with my cupcakes. I feel that what I cook tends to be mighty tasty (or so my husband says), however I lack in the presentation area. I resorted to my go to chocolate cake recipe and prepared as cupcakes. They cooked all sorts of funky and lopsided, which started to foil my letting go of perfection plan. I remained positive and decided they were “rustic”, and they tasted amazing.

Next came the frosting of the cupcakes. I dug out my fancy frosting tips and of course, did not have a pastry bag. No worries, I just snipped off the bottom of a zip lock bag. But of course the frosting had other plans and did not come out of the tip. Again, no worries, I can just snip off the bottom of the bag and frost from that.  Well, what came out was a sort of ribbon looking blob. Again, I decided not to stress and put the better looking cupcakes on the pedestal and the imperfect ones had a flag placed in them to hide their flaws and I moved on.

Skip ahead to the party. I had strategically planned the party around my daughter’s naps. However my daughter had so much fun she needed an early nap. Instead of stressing and hoping people would understand, I just put her down and opted for no excuses- she was tired, end of story. The amazing thing was people actually understood. And what was I left with- a great time! It ended up being a perfect party after all.

So my question to you is in what area do you seek perfection? What happens when you let go of that expectation?

Habits, Roles and Routines- Oh MY! (Part-1)

For those of you that do not know, for my "career", I am an Occupational Therapist. I specialize in working with children ages 3-5. My most simplistic definition of what I do is I work with children to address their challenges so that they are able to play, explore, and learn. Of course I work on handwriting too :)

When I was completing my Master’s degree, we had a whole semester dedicated to exploring the theories that frame our thinking when working with a client. Per my usual self, I spent the minimum amount of time learning the theories behind what I do because, well, they are theories and I am a “doer”. Now that I have graduated and began my practice, I find that I resort to few of my favorite theories to help guide my treatment with my clients.

Now back to my title: Habits, Roles, and Routines. This is a simplified version of Gary Kielhofner’s Model of Human Occupations Theory (MOHO). Ok, so what does all of this OT jargon have to do with wellness? EVERYTHING! (Sorry for shouting there). Since this may get a little lengthy, I will break it to 3-parts.

Habits. Did you know the research indicating that it takes 21 days to change a habit was actually from a Plastic Surgeon who discovered in the 70’s that it took 21 days for a person to adjust to the loss of a limb? (random bit of information) So how long does it take to build healthy habits? It can take upwards of 2-3 months. Please don’t be discouraged by this. When we are talking about your health and wellness, 2-3 months is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the years we are living.

So how to we create new habits that stick? That is the million-dollar question. I suggest starting small and do not try and change everything at one time. Here is a little exercise that I find useful. Sit down with a piece of paper and list the areas of your life you would like to address into columns. Under each column, list 5-10 things that you could do to improve that area. Now take one just one change under one column and make that your priority for the next month. Try writing a mantra and placing it around your house so that you can focus on that one change.

Here is my example: I am working on drinking more water during the day. I know how important water is to my health, plus it just makes me feel good. To help ensure that I drink throughout the day, I make sure that I always have water with me. In my car I have my cute purple Sigg bottle, at home I just bought a bright blue COPCO cup with a straw. I even have cups of water strategically placed throughout my home. Having this visual reminder helps to cue me in to drink.

The most important thing to remember when creating new habits is that you may take 1-step forward and 2-steps back. Just keep moving and change will happen. Sometimes the path is not straight, but we must keep moving in the direction of our goal and we will get there, learning all along the way!

Diets Don't Work

I know, I know, you were on a diet once and lost all this weight. But I ask, how long before you gained back the weight? I also want you to think about how you felt while you were dieting. How much time did you spend trying to plot out what to eat, or what not to eat for that matter? How many times did you start a diet, only to have an event come up in which you felt deprived and stressed when you attended?

I attended a presentation one day by a Bariatric Surgeon for potential patients. While his presentation was full of amazing scientific information boasting the greatness of the surgery, the presenter stated over and over “Diets do not work for our clients”. Well duh!, diets do not work for most people. (FYI I DO believe in Gastric Bypass surgery for the appropriate candidates)

Diets are designed to be restrictive, short-term weight loss “fix”. Think about the cabbage diet, the soup diet, or even the Adkins diet. Think about how specific these diets are. Do you think that you could sustain them for a long period of time without inducing health complications? Moving forward, once you are off that diet, what are your eating habits like? Do you resort back to your previous pattern? If so, then how do you expect the weight to stay off?

Back to my introduction statement, Diets do not work. Small, realistic, healthy changes in your diet and lifestyle are what DO work. When I use the word diet, I am not talking about the restriction, rather the quality of food that you take in. My first step in living a healthy life very simple in theory: Eat as clean as possible.

What do I mean clean? There are many different perspectives, and you need to decide what it means to you. For me it means to limit the amount of sugar I consume. When I do eat sugar, I try to avoid white sugar. It also means limiting the amount of ingredients that I cannot pronounce. If I am not sure what it is, I am pretty sure that it is produced in a lab, therefore not real food. Check back soon to learn more about Clean Eating!