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Not Your Average Mom - Susie Johnson - Cheezy
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Trying Not to Miss Out on Anything Is Making You Miss Everything - Not Your Average Mom
Three years ago the middle school swim team here in town was in danger of folding – there was nobody to run the program, and not wanting Kasen, Gretchen and Marit to miss out on the experience, I stepped up. I had been the head coach of the program before, but I hadn’t run the […]
Stop Setting Yourself On Fire - Not Your Average Mom
Divorce has been a real-life intensive course in boundaries for me. At first, it taught me that I had none, and now it’s teaching me how to establish them. But what the heck are boundaries? Boundaries is a pretty popular word these days, and I think it’s also misunderstood. Especially by women my age and […]
Young Grasshopper Is Learning - Not Your Average Mom
Ingrid’s swim coach has built a great swim lesson program and he runs it out of the university pool where she trains. Many of his swim lesson instructors are college students. They teach lessons to make some money during the school year, and some stay at school and work during the summer, too. Ingrid became […]
1% Improvements - Not Your Average Mom
When it comes to money, you probably understand the concept of compound interest. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of talk about compound interest in the rest of your life. But it’s always there. Just like money grows with small, consistent investments, the same principle applies to habits, mindset, and progress. Every choice you make […]
- Not Your Average Mom
When it comes to money, you probably understand the concept of compound interest. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of talk about compound interest in the rest of your life. But it’s always there. Just like money grows with small, consistent investments, the same principle applies to habits, mindset, and progress. Every choice you make […]
Consistency makes progress. Intensity makes a good story. - Not Your Average Mom
If your default mode of thinking, doing, and being is all-or-nothing, THIS IS FOR YOU! Black and white, all or nothing, perfectionistic thinking is a big obstacle for so many of us when we are trying to do just about anything. We jump into challenges like 75 Hard where the only thing that counts in […]
Failure is Feedback - Not Your Average Mom
You’re going to mess up. You’ll blow off a workout, lose it on your kids, forget about an appointment, overspend, get distracted from your goal. And when you do – because we all do – the words you say to yourself afterward matter more than the mistake itself. Failure isn’t the problem. The way you […]
Want to go far? DON'T GO ALONE. - Not Your Average Mom
What do yoga classes, running buddies, book clubs, 12-step programs, study groups, social media, and therapists all have in common? They provide accountability. And if you are like the majority of people on this planet, you operate better when you have some form of external accountability. Accountability doesn’t mean pressure. It means support. It means […]
Stop Doing Everything. Start Doing the Right Things. - Not Your Average Mom
Being a mom is pretty much an 18-year group project. And for most moms, you’re the group member doing almost all of the work while everyone else covers a little sliver (if you’re lucky). You’re the default meal planner, house cleaner, laundry folder, dinner maker, logistics figure outer, scheduler, problem solver, lost thing finder, and […]
Why You Need A Why - Not Your Average Mom
You don’t need more willpower. You need a reason. Most people think they just need a better schedule, more money, a new planner, or a little more motivation to get going and stay consistent when they are struggling to make progress on a goal, habit or behavior. But even if you have the most perfect […]
You don’t need more time. You need a shorter deadline. (Parkinson's Law) - Not Your Average Mom
“I just don’t have enough time.” How many times have you said this? I know I say it all the time. Probably daily. But here’s the truth: It’s not always about needing more time.Sometimes it’s about using the time you already have differently. There’s a principle called Parkinson’s Law that explains why we do this: […]
The Last Trip To DC - Not Your Average Mom
We have officially closed another chapter. Marit’s 8th grade trip to DC was last week. There were lots of parents walking their kids to the busses when they dropped them off at the middle school at 6 am. Not me. I pulled up to the sidewalk, Marit got out of the car and grabbed her […]
Trick Your Brain Into Liking It - Not Your Average Mom
The primitive part of your brain doesn’t like change.It likes comfort. Familiarity. The path of least resistance. If you want to stick with a new habit, you’ve gotta use the evolved part of your brain to trick itself a little by making that habit look really, really good. The more attractive it is, the more […]
Tiny Rewards, Big Results - Not Your Average Mom
We like results. We like progress we can see. If we are making ourselves uncomfortable and doing hard things, we at least want something to show for it. When you’re saving money, you can see the balance grow or watch a jar fill up. It’s visual and we can actually see our progress. This makes […]
Start With One Minute - Not Your Average Mom
Most of us set ourselves up to fail before we even start to develop new habits or make changes because we start too big. We are so focused on the result we want – lose 20 pounds, run a half marathon, declutter the house, finish a book a week – and we forget that results […]
If You Can't See It, You Probably Won't Do It: Make It Obvious - Not Your Average Mom
If you have to remember to do your habit, it’s already too hard. Want a new behavior/action/task to become automatic? Start by making it impossible to miss; make sure your environment isn’t working against you. When you’re working on a new habit, Make it Obvious. Put your water bottle where you’ll trip over it.Leave your […]
The Sneaky Trick That Makes Habits Stick - Not Your Average Mom
Between work, kids, laundry, and 250 new emails a day, it can feel impossible to find time for anything new, especially the new habits we can’t seem to make happen – drinking more water, stretching, strength training, organization, wathever. But there’s a way to make new habits feel doable – even on your craziest, busiest […]
- Not Your Average Mom
We all have that one thing we really don’t want to do. The email we’re avoiding.The laundry pile.The workout.The awkward conversation. That’s your frog. The trick? Do it right away. Either way, the frog is causing you discomfort. When you “eat the frog” first thing in the morning, you take care of the worst thing […]
- Not Your Average Mom
Every mother has been told this at least once: “Enjoy every minute – they grow up so fast.” But here’s what I wish more people told me: It’s okay to not enjoy every minute. I’m not talking about the waking up in the middle of the night or doing infinite loads of laundry or the […]
The Birds Left The Nest - Not Your Average Mom
On April 5th I went out on my back deck to repot some plants. I had left a bag of potting soil out there all winter. When I opened up the bag, a bird flew out of the bag and scared the crap out of me. Upon further investigation I discovered a nest in the […]
Implementation Intention - Not Your Average Mom
Want to make your habits stick? Start by being crystal clear with yourself – and the universe – about what’s going to happen and when. Most people hope their new habits will stick. They say things like: “I’ll try to get up early tomorrow.”“I’m going to eat better this week.”“I need to start exercising again.” […]
Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable - Not Your Average Mom
It’s human nature to do whatever you can to stay comfortable and safe. Our brains preserve energy and avoid discomfort at all costs. The caveman part of our brain has not evolved as quickly as modern society has. It doesn’t know we don’t have to forage for food or search for shelter anymore, so discomfort […]
Did You Do It Today? - Not Your Average Mom
It doesn’t take 21 days to develop a new habit. That’s misinformation that spun from a plastic surgeon’s observations. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon and a writer. In 1960 he published Psycho-Cybernetics, which is still regarded as a classic self-help book. Maltz noticed with his plastic surgery patients that it took about 21 days […]
Consistency over Intensity: Start Small - Not Your Average Mom
Most of us try to do EVERYTHING when we want to make changes. All or nothing. That’s because change is uncomfortable, humans don’t like being uncomfortable, and we want to see results immediately if we’re going to make ourselves suffer. But that’s not how change works. All or nothing leads to burnout and inevitable failure. If […]
Being An Older Mom Keeps You Young - Not Your Average Mom
When I was in my twenties, I had more than one “older” mom tell me, “Being an older mom keeps you young.” I thought of this today when I saw a post on Threads about Rihanna being pregnant with her third baby at 37 years old. It was reminding women in their thirties that it’s […]
This is What Determines Your Results - Not Your Average Mom
Your actions don’t determine your results. Every day you are presented with circumstances that you can’t control. The weather, your boss, traffic, your spouse, the practice your swim coach came up with, the wait at the doctor’s office, the person in front of you in line at the grocery store, your washing machine breaking, your […]
How to Find the Right College for Your Swimmer - Not Your Average Mom
If you have a kid who wants to swim in college, starting that process can feel a little overwhelming if it’s your first time down this road. I also think a lot of kids and parents have their sights set on the big Division I swimming schools, and they don’t realize there’s often a better […]
Can't vs Won't - Not Your Average Mom
Very often we don’t make changes because we tell ourselves we can’t do something. I can’t exercise because I don’t have time. I can’t quit my job because I need the health insurance. I can’t lose weight because my husband insists on keeping junk food in the house. I can’t go to bed earlier because I need time to unwind at night. In reality, these […]
The Pomodoro Technique - Not Your Average Mom
Back in 1987, Francisco Cirillo was a college student struggling to stay focused when he was studying. He started using a kitchen timer that looked like a tomato (pomodoro in Italian) to help and developed the method of using a timer to break larger work blocks into smaller, focused blocks. He’d work/study for 25 minutes […]
You're Supposed To Be Having Fun, Too - Not Your Average Mom
I used to do a lot of fun stuff. Then I got married and had kids and almost everything I loved doing came to a screeching halt as I prioritized everyone else and what they wanted to do over just about anything I wanted to do. Twenty years, five kids, and one divorce later, this […]
What Would Marie Do? - Not Your Average Mom
I first met Marie five or six years ago when she took an online course I was teaching to help women establish exercise as a habit. There was a closed Facebook group for the course, and eight weeks later, we were all more friends than participants. I met some of my favorite people through this […]
A Dining Room Makeover Using Stuff I Already Had - Not Your Average Mom
We spend a lot of time in the kitchen and dining room. I spend a lot of time looking into the dining room from the kitchen. When we moved into the house four years ago there was no money for furniture, and with two kids in college and three more to go, that budget remains […]
Do You Want Company? - Not Your Average Mom
Yesterday we went to my parents’ house for the annual Easter egg hunt. Every year my dad hides plastic eggs for the kids out in their back yard — 24 little eggs, and 1 big egg per kid. The little eggs have candy in them, and the big egg has money in it. The eggs […]
Me Week - Not Your Average Mom
This kids are going to see Ingrid tomorrow for spring break and I am kid-free for the next eight days. EIGHT DAYS!!! Pre-divorce I didn’t think I could handle being away from the kids for this long. I was wrong. I can handle it. In fact, I look forward to it. For the next eight […]
I Won't Miss This - Not Your Average Mom
Just about every time I share any parenting-related frustration online, I receive some form of this comment: You’ll miss this stage one day. There may be some validity to this statement. In those cases, only time will tell. But most of the time, I disagree. My kids are 13, 14, 15, 18, and 19. I […]
A Boundary-Setting Failure (and what I learned from it) - Not Your Average Mom
Two Saturdays ago we were at Yale watching Kasen swim his last high school meet. It was the tail end of an exhausting 5-week stretch of championship meets, and I was thinking about one thing: getting home, taking my bra off, and parking my butt on the couch and doing absolutely nothing for the rest […]
Setting Boundaries, Part 1 - Not Your Average Mom
It wasn’t until a couple months ago I realized I had almost no boundaries with the kids. We aren’t talking Lord-of-the-Flies-lack-of-boundaries or anything – they have expectations and responsibilities and the majority of people who know them would tell you they are hardworking, respectful, polite, decent (not perfect) human beings. But hardworking, polite, decent kids […]
Boundaries, Part II: Are you setting yourself on fire? - Not Your Average Mom
One of my favorite quotes is, “You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.” I think most women, and mothers in particular, grew up with this setting-yourself-on-fire mentality. You place not only the needs, but also the wants of other people ahead of you at all times. You do […]
The Greatest Victory Of All - Not Your Average Mom
Last year at her high school state championship meet, Gretchen unexpectedly finished 3rd in the 100 backstroke. It was her freshman year and she was psyched to be at finals and was just hoping to swim a best time. Finishing in the top 3 was never on her radar. When you finish in the top […]