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“What if you took the entire month of January as a transition?”

My good friend, Allison Mueller from Big River Coaching, wrote this in her newsletter this week and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We spend so much of December in a crazy, fun-filled, emotion drenched, frenzy that many of us look forward to January first as that chance to hit reset and get back to normal. But I have found that January first isn’t a light switch. December 31st – crazy. January 1st- serenity. It doesn’t really work that way, does it? In fact it is January 14th and I am still getting into the groove of 2015.

Allison goes on to say in her newsletter: “Rather than feeling rushed to make a plan for creating a whole new me before January 1st, let’s recover from the holidays. Take some time to replenish ourselves and see what’s what when back at work, with the kids in school and take some time to see what we need. You are not behind.”

Her words could not have been sweeter music to my ears.

Allison wasn’t the only wise business friend who was singing the song I needed to hear this week. Brittany Becher from Foundation and Flow, talked about being a firm believer in having several business mini-restarts throughout the year, not just January. I think this really applies to us Mama CEOs who have a restart in September as well as January and I’m going to follow Brittany’s lead and add a restart in April to my calendar as well. This means that my “new year” plans only have to get me to the end of March…and that sounds perfect to me.

So, here are the 3 things I am doing in honor of taking the entire month to transition into 2015.

Spend lots of time talking…to humans: This idea Allison shared in her blog actually came up during a phone conversation she, another amazing entrepreneur  and I were having last week. I was sharing how I was having a hard time getting back in the groove of January, when she replied with her wisdom bomb of taking the whole month to transition. Talking with my mama business friends made me realize I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Yesterday, I got on the phone with another business friend and today I have another call planned. And next week, a real strategy call with my own business mentor.

I find this world of online business ownership, and this world of motherhood, can be a little isolating. It is easy to think everyone has it all figured out when you just see an endless stream of Facebook promotions. Talking to real live people helps you feel validated, sane and just plain better.

Ease back into healthy habits: I kicked off the month by adding my favorite green smoothies back into my daily routine. Not only does it make me physically feel better, but I think the mental effect its has on feeling like I am taking care of myself might even have a bigger impact. I also have been going to bed as early as I can manage to bank some extra rejuvenation.

I’m not trying to overhaul my health in one day (or one month) I polished off the kids christmas chocolate last night and said yes to a second latte 2 days in a row, but I’m not beating myself up about it, I know I am on the track to get back to being healthy.In fact, I’m joining my friend Sara Bradford for her Free webinar this afternoon all about kicking sugar. I make no promises that I’ll be able to cut sugar out entirely, but I know I’ll feel so much better if I cut way back!

Set aside time to plan, but not do: I’m a planner…we’ve established that. But like Allison said, sometimes it can be overwhelming to feel like you have to start (or finish) all your new plans right away. But I set aside some time to dive really deep into what my projects for the first 3 months of 2015 are. In fact, I used the method I created in my new Virtual Workshop – My Tiny Empire, to plan out my big projects for the next 90 days. Once I was able to see clearly what needed to be done, and when it needed to be done by, I didn’t feel so overwhelmed with starting everything right away.

I saw that I had time in my ‘plan’ to veg out with my husband in the evenings, take myself out to lunch (to celebrate the launch of My Tiny Empire) and meet a friend for an afternoon coffee (even though I had had one that morning as well).

Having a little more space in my schedule to ease into my year, celebrate successes and slowing ramp back up has made January feel like serenity again.

And that is music to my ears.

 

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