I have a real job - week two

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Sitting by Seth's side ...

 Hi there, I am Lauren; 50 year old mother of four, video creator, blogger, meditation teacher, personal trainer, counsellor, and more. 
My dear friends; welcome to my unplugged weekly blog.

This morning I write to you from my comfy meditation chair, with my son Seth tucked up in bed at my side. Seth is home from school with a painful shoulder.  He woke up this morning not able to freely move and in a lot of pain...poor little mite. Perhaps he slept in a funny position? Or perhaps he hurt his shoulder playing basketball yesterday? Either way he is in way too much pain to go to school. ...so into bed he goes. And speaking of kids staying home... yesterday I had my daughter Sage also stay home. Sage had two stubborn baby teeth removed at the dentist yesterday in order to make way for her adult teeth. Her cliff hanging two front incisors have been overlapping the baby teeth giving her a quirky vampire look. Sage is really really scared of injections... in fact you may comfortably call her phobic. So it took some cajoling to get her to submit to the dentist's various attempts at providing pain relief. Finally I offered her the incentive(bribe?)of having her nails done. As the dentist stuck that great big fat scary needle into Sage's little tiny mouth I heard Sage mumble almost incoherently ‘French-polish Mum’. I am so proud of her. 

My brave girl

Do you have kids? And if you do have kids- how many children do you have? Most of you know that I have four children including twin boys.  Are you like me? Do you find the work-life balance a little harrowing at times? Are you time-poor like me( time-bankrupt would be closer to my truth)? And how do you cope? Or are you one of those super duper parents( able to jump tall buildings in a single bound) who never put a foot wrong, are always organised, and have a clean microwave? Well I can safely reassure you that that is definitely not me. I am more like a tentative two steps forward and one step back type of mum. I have a joke among some of my close friends that I am the tortoise rather than the hare of you tube and business development.  I might be painfully slow and steady but always resolute and no one can stop me. 

Do you find it challenging to set goals and actually achieve them? Last week I spoke to you a little about my occasional frustration( I refrain from swearing in a blog) at trying to develop a sustainable business model for a well being business while simultaneously being the primary carer of 4 brilliant beautiful amazing kids.  Do you find that although you may try a number of methods to achieve a productive work-day sometimes kids just throw a spanner into the mix and all you can do is shrug your shoulders and laugh? Well This week I am definitely laughing.  LOL!

Its all worth it!

Being a mum of four I try to schedule everything I do from my daily morning 4.30 am weight training session to making meals to teeth brushing to the uploading schedule of my videos and blogs.  Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that my organisational approach to parenting and work means that life runs according to plan because that would be plain ridiculous..but well you know the saying...'failing to plan is planning to fail’. Goals are like my rudder on a stormy sea...so If I schedule my videos for uploading on a Thursday then I know that it will be done no later than Friday. If I plan to train at 4.30 am nine times out of ten it happens. Always keep your eye on the ball my friends no matter how much fitness and agility that may require.

So scheduling keeps me on my ‘goal’ toes with my eye on the ball. Saying that Monday is my scheduled day to upload my weekly blog and I am now a day behind. Eeek! And true to the nature of my sometimes frenetic life this morning was a wild crazy day. I arose at 4 am feeling quite tired but enthusiastic about training. At 4.30 am I was at the gym pumping iron with my dear friend and training partner. We did 'back and biceps' this morning. We only have 55 days left until the competition date ( yes I have a phone app which counts down the days!)  so we are starting to both feel nervous and at the same time quite excited. For those of you who did not tune into last week's blog I am aiming to compete in a natural body building competition on September 20 http://www.inba.com.au/ and October 3rd http://www.anb.com.au/ I have competed 8 times in the past and really love the discipline, the camaraderie, and mixing with the many friendly supportive people I meet along the way. ( Thank you Anita my friend) I do love the journey of the training, nutrition, and anticipation of the day also. Though I am a teeny weeny little bit nervous about possibly being the oldest woman on stage.

My dream journey

  Speaking about goals...Here is a list in no particular order of what I have achieved this week toward realising my incredible dream of changing people's lives ..oh and creating a 'real job' while I am at it. 

1.  I visited my awesome life coach Louise who wisely cautioned me ‘Stop the blitz kreig Lauren everything will work out- you have the skills now so take it one step at a time, Whether you have time or whether you do not have time always visualise that you do and behave that way’ I felt that these were wise words indeed so have focussed this week on letting go of my need to adhere to self imposed time lines. 
2. I achieved a video about back mobility( took me 8 hours). I am really passionate about back health and making back health achievable for all levels. I plan to add more to this series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEi126Nxxk4 
3. I achieved a video about relaxation( took me 6 hours). These videos are uploaded weekly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN7zWrjGtdI 
4. I have read everything I can about podcasting in preparation to launch my podcast on the 16th August. And the count down begins....
5. I joined Lybsyn.com and here( drum roll) is my brand new podcast website with nothing on it lol! http://beingwellwithlauren.libsyn.com/podcast 
6. I joined http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/ with the awesome John Lee Dumas. The site is packed full of handy insightful podcasting hints. I am just loving this association. 
7. In preparation for my upcoming podcast I watched Tom Merrit http://www.tommerritt.com/ and Tim Ferris http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/01/29/alex-blumberg/ before going to sleep each night. I noticed what set them apart is their incredible sense of dedication and self belief( apart from their talent)
8.  I wrote a business plan ( yep I am that serious- I love a business plan that i can tick along the way) 
9. I started a closed patreon team facebook page to encourage motivate and inspire my team. I am really enjoying interacting with my members and planning goals together.
10. How is the book going I hear you ask? Well thank you so much for asking. The book is looking great with 8 chapters and 77,000 words.  YES I am working hard on the book but it is a huge project. I will be uploading a sneek peek audio soon of me reading from the book.  I will need to raise funds to finish it so another hurdle but such is life.  I can do this( Thank you Patreon). 
11. The amazing DMITRI of massage asmr https://www.patreon.com/massageasmr has agreed to do the intro to my podcast...whoooaaa and YAAAAAYYY!!!!! I say jumping up and down with excitement. He will be one of my first interviews. 
12.  I plan to start the podcast Aug 16th.  Soooo excited.

Does it sound to you like I am motivated, resolute, and on track? Well let me balance out the scales and share some of my vulnerable soft underbelly with you...Do you ever have those moments when you feel totally crest fallen? Do you ever have those moments when you desperately need reassurance? Well I had a big doozy yesterday. Yesterday I was learning how to load a podcast step by step (scary scary scary) and I felt quite overwhelmed.... for a moment I found myself asking 

'Can I really do this?'

I then said to myself...

'I don't understand technology. Audio visual terrifies me. Who am I kidding? Who will ever want to listen to me?

Consequently looking for a reassuring shoulder I turned to a trusted well meaning( but quite conservative half glass empty) friend and asked for advice. After pausing for some seconds he then responded sombrely to my plea for validation...

"but other people who have a podcast actually have artistic talent. You don't have any artistic talent at all- why would people want to listen to you? ’

What a lead balloon! Holy cow!!! I took several moments to breathe and then pick my proverbial jaw up off the floor. And then I thought about why do some people have such a doubtful( to say the least) view of others who are simply trying to make a go of it? Why is that? What do you think? Why are we at times so quick to tear each other down? Why is 'I cant' or  'you can't' sometimes part of our routine internal dialogue? 

Why don't we say instead... 

'good on you!!! Have a go, Yay -You can do it, Believe in yourself, You have this in the bag.????

Why why why????

After speaking with my friend  and then spending a time crying and ruminating about whether I had what it takes to start a podcast, I then dried my eyes, sat down, and carefully wrote down what my artistic talents are, and why I believed that my podcast would provide real value for others. 

My list came down to three core elements; I believe that I can provide value, I have strategy, and I am resilient. Thats it in a nutshell. Thats what sets me apart. I will never give up and if one method fails well 'heck harry' I will simply try another. 

If you have a dream then make it happen!

Define yourself my friends

Turning to my well meaning friend was a mistake; a mistake I chose to make. For a short period of time I based my self worth on the opinion of another person and lost minutes of meaning from my life. That was my choice; my bag. One thing that we must never ever do to ourselves is to allow others to define us no matter how well meaning they are. 

My amazing dad and mentor once said to me that there is a clear difference between a leader and a follower....a follower will look upon a leader standing upon the stage of life and may say . 

‘heh thats not fair he/she does not deserve to be there'

...a true leader may say 

'good on him/her for being up there, now then....( rubbing hands) what can I learn from her/him? 

So as I said last week ...to the person who said to me 

'Go and get a real job' 

I shrug my shoulders and say in response 

'I have a real job my friend and that is being a mum and despite the ups and downs I do my real job pretty darn well thank you very much.' 

Part of being a mum is showing my children that dreams are possible all we need to do is believe in ourselves. Part of being a mum is to never never ever let some one else's petty judgment define us. Part of being a mum is not to allow the opinion of others to falter our step. At the end of the day I know that I can do this. I feel it deep in my gut.I know that I have the skills, the dedication, and the resilience to do this. 

Do you have a dream? Do you have something you really want to achieve? Well what is stopping you? If you find yourself saying ‘ some one said I cant do it’ slap your wrist right now. Remember we only have one life..this is it..Don't let someone else define you. 

JUST DONT!!!!!! Choose to define yourself. Look up onto that stage of life, decide to get up there, and then say with your head held high 

‘how can I get up there?’ 

and then get those little tortoise legs of yours churning. 

No matter how many times you fall off that stage just keep on getting right back up . 

 Thanks so much for reading my blog my friends - have an awesome week. Catch ya next week.

Catch you next week . 

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