Posts Tagged ‘goals’

Mission: Share with Kids Your “WHY” for Choices

May 4th, 2010

People often ask me how I get my kids to go along with the choices we’re making in our home. Whether it’s about eating raw vegetables everyday, skipping the ice cream truck or asking them to give me a little space when I chat with a parent in our home about getting healthy.

The answer is simple: I tell them why!

I tried to refrain from “because I’m the Mom” or “that’s just how it is” or “Mom wants to/has to work today”.

I simply tell them what the benefit to them is if I can get my job done.

Together we made a 2010 vision board of goals. Everybody got their own section, searched for pictures of their dreams & goals, and posted them on the board. It hands in the laundry room where everyone has to pass through everyday.

If things get a little hectic in the home (which of course happens!) we simply talk about WHY we are doing what we are doing.

Julianne has the following dreams: swimming with dolphins and legoland in CA. Johanna wants to spend a fancy weekend in downtown Chicago and visit Mickey Mouse.

To help them make their dreams come true we need two things:

1. A healthy family to enjoy the activities.
2. Money to fund the adventures.

Here at Mission: Clean Kids our family enjoys sharing our journey and choices that we are making to work towards our family dreams and goals. There is rarely a struggle in the home when it comes to healthy choices because we have our WHY!

So tell me…why are you making the choices you are making everyday? Are they getting you towards your goals? Is your family involved and supportive? Are you collaborating towards goals rather than frustrating each other? Sitting and talking with your family and children about what they dream about and how you can work together to reach goals is an amazing experience and I can’t wait to continue to see what develops as my children mature.

UPDATE: Just walked through the laundry room and Julianne (7 years old) just wrote on our family goal board – “2010 is SO MUCH FUN!” That is an awesome proud Mom moment to know I’m helping her make dreams come true :)

Mission: Pick a Few and Just Do

January 20th, 2010

You won’t always get it right.  You can’t control everything in every environment.  You will not always know the answer.

However, as a Mom or Dad you can make some easy choices everyday to bring your children to better health, develop good habits and change the future.

Here are some healthy ideas.  Your Mission, if you choose to accept it – Pick a Few and Just Do!

Stop making excuses.  Stop the bad habits you created yourself.  Stop finding ways to justify putting them off just one more day.

Some ideas on good habits to start:

  1. Drink water with every meal. Bottom line: We’re dehydrated more than we should be.  There’s no reason to drink our calories.  Water is the best choice there is and making it a habit is easy!
  2. Keep the t.v. off during meal time. Bottom line: Engaging with your family is much more fun and healthy than that box.
  3. Eat fresh fruit and vegetables everyday.  Bottom line: They are good for you and you can eat them raw!  Less time cooking and more time with the family!
  4. Spread food thinly over the plate. Bottom line: It’s the piles of food that brought us to an obesity epidemic.  Spread it out and you’ll reduce your portion size without feeling the pain.
  5. Leave time in the morning to start the day off right. Bottom line: We all know if we get out of bed on the wrong side that it’s going to be a rotten day.  Why would you choose to start your nutrition in the negative?

Can you pick one or two of these things to start today?  Not tomorrow!

People ask me all the time if making healthy choices in our family is hard.  Absolutley not.  Sickness is hard.  Doctor visits are hard.  Medication is hard.  Making healthy choices and enjoying our days feeling well – EASY!

Our family also chooses a multi-vitamin for our children that has a probiotic built right in….sooo cost effective!  See our choice here.  (NOTE: The bottle is a two month supply for one child.)

What do you do everyday to help keep your family well?

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Mission: Healthy Choices in 2010

January 1st, 2010

Healthy choices in 2010…can you do this?  What are healthy choices?

In our home, healthy choices are doing what is right for our whole family.  We cannot be extreme, we must be flexible and we must look at the results from our choices.

Here are some choices and results we had in 2009:

Choice:  Shop organic as much as possible.

Result: More quality food in the house, less snacking, no adverse food reactions.

Choice:  Take our vitamins (kids & parents!)

Result: We each were sick minimally, maybe one time?

Choice: Continue Chiropractic Care for the entire family.

Result: A supportive office to go to on a weekly basis for support of our chosen lifestyle against easy mainstream choices.  We all had improved immune system and my back only hurt once this past year!

Choice: Change schools from Montessori to public.

Result: YIKES! We don’t know yet – Ask me at the end of January

Choice: To work from home helping other families achieve health and financial freedom with Shaklee.

Result: We bought the house of our dreams and just won a trip to Disneyland!

Of course, I could go on and on about choices and results, but I encourage you to reflect on your own choices and results in 2009 and what are some choices you are going to make in 2010?  Will you give in to what everybody else is doing?  Will you look deep inside and follow your parent instincts to what is right for your family?  Will you choose to be confident, yet flexible in your decisions this year?

Some healthy choices we are making as a Mission: Clean Kids family in 2010:

Share a healthy choice with us – We love to hear what you are doing to make a better 2010!

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Mission: Get Focused for New Year

December 26th, 2009

I don’t set resolutions – Do You?  Considering most people break their resolutions within the first month, I avoid setting myself up for failure.  However, I do set goals and revisit them often, especially at the new year.  A few goals we have in our home this year:

1. Continue to eat healthy and avoid the stuff we know is bad for us.  This includes trying more recipes with sugar alternatives, dairy alternatives, vegetables prepared in new ways, using the crockpot and oven more often and being more adventurous with our taste buds!  I love to jump on allrecipes.com!

2. Focus on the healthy weight I want to be and get more physically active.  I’m going to do much less sitting and much more physical activity, even if it is playing Wii with the kids.  In fact, the elliptical is set up by the Wii so I have no excuse not to participate!  I’ll be drinking my Cinch Shakes too since they keep me energized and losing weight!

3. Continue on Shaklee’s Fast Track.  We’re on Track to earn $100,000 in 15 months.  I’m not shy about sharing because you can be on the Fast Track  too! In fact, our only way to reach this goal is to help others who also want the health and finances Shaklee has to offer.  We’re growing our team in 2010 and focused on helping others – not the end result – we will get rewarded when we reach out to more and more people.  We are going to hold monthly conference calls and monthly meetings to meet this goal.  The healthy outcomes we’ve seen, especially with our families who have disabilities, is amazing and can’t be kept quiet any longer!

4. Enjoy the present more, appreciate the past and look forward to the future.  This goal will have to be a daily focus, especially since I have a habit of second guessing the past, missing the present and worrying about the future.  When I accomplish this, my whole family will benefit from a more relaxed Mommy!

Did you notice that my goals are focused on the positive, not the negative.  Focusing on choices for healthy weight versus focusing on limitations for losing weight is getting me to my goal faster!  Focusing on the money we are earning versus the bills that have to be paid is working better!  Also, putting numbers out in the open (Shaklee’s Fast Track $100,000 in 15 months) gives our family a clear picture of our goal so we can quantify our progress.

Do you think you can write a positive, focused goal that is quantified by a deadline or specific actions?  It’s tougher than you think and I’d love to see yours here! Come on you can do it!  Put you goal in the comments and lets hold each other accountable for good things!