Inspired Forward

Cut Through the Confusion and Chaos to Live a Well-Organized Life

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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-Six

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-six: August 5 – 11, 2018.

This week turned into a lesson on going with the flow and jumping in with two feet! I kept consistent with my 1000+ words a day despite appointments, new things popping up, and a movie night. It’s all about scheduling time when I know I’ll do things!

week twenty-six top image

What I Said I’d Do

  • Write 1000 words a day
  • Complete VA Action Step 2.6
  • Finish reading Slay Your Goals Planner
  • Complete Module 3 Get Legit Toolkit
  • Finish Module 2 Writers Block Course
  • Complete Module 3 VA
  • Watch Intro Module Get To the Point Workshop
  • Complete IB Action step: create autoresponder sequence of 6 emails based on Jeff’s templates.

What I Actually Worked On

  • Finished Module 3 of the Get Legit Toolkit
  • Completed VA Action Step 2.6
  • Finished VA Module 3
  • Finished Module 2 Writers Block Course
  • Completed Intro Module Get To the Point Workshop
  • Wrote 1000+ words a day!

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Anxiety Pocket eWorkbook Review

I’ve mentioned in several posts, like this one, that I have anxiety. So when I found out that Heather LeGuilloux, a therapist and mental health blogger, had resources for anxiety – specifically her Anxiety Pocket eWorkbook?

I jumped all over that.

Full disclosure that Inspired Forward is an affiliate partner with Heather LeGuilloux. That means if you buy something of hers through one of my links, I may get a commission at no extra cost to you.


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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-Five

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-five: July 29 – August 4, 2018.

This week started out with a more relaxed plan—basically finishing everything I’ve been putting off for the last two or three weeks.

And it worked!

Giving myself grace on these things helped me feel more in control when I went to do them. (The extra time helped too!)

week twenty-five header

What I Said I’d Do

What I Actually Worked On

  • Finished Action Steps 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 for the VA course!
  • Finished scheduling pins for August
  • Started my first 30-day challenge to write 1000 words a day! This is pretty important because I’m planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, which means I’ll need to write a minimum of 1667 words per day during November.
  • Wrote the review post for the Anxiety Pocket eWorkbook, which will be posted on August 9th

Sunday, Day 169 – 72nd Annual Seattle Scottish Highland Games

One of my favorite family traditions, besides going to diabetes camp every year, is attending the Seattle Scottish Highland Games. It’s always held on the last weekend of July, which makes planning my year a lot easier!

A lot has definitely changed about the Games since my first memories of it. We used to bring my grandma along, the Fischer scones were only $0.25 (while now they’re $1.75 each), and an entertainment troupe called The Royal Stuarts took up most of my younger self’s attention.

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How I Discovered That I Have Anxiety

I was one of those people who thought I would never have any kind of mental health problems. When I was a kid, I thought I was the most normal person in the room – minus, of course, my diabetes.

My sister and I, as well as our classmates in school, were told about the “mentally ill” as if they were a contagious subset of the population. Just look on any corner in downtown Seattle and you’re liable to bump into someone homeless and raving.

I have anxiety header

When I was a kid, those two identifiers were inseparable.

I thought, “There’s no way I’d ever have mental problems.”

Oh, how I laugh at my younger self for that thought.

Surprisingly, I made it through high school, college, and almost two years of full time working before I finally admitted to myself that something wasn’t working – something wasn’t right – and went to a therapist.

Lo and behold, I have a mild form of Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-Four

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-four: July 22-28, 2018.

I’ve been stalling on the VA action steps for a couple weeks now. This is because I’m scared of reaching out to people through cold-emails, so instead of avoiding thinking about it, I thought about it. And decided who to talk and reach out to, and the general gist of what to say.

However, I’m looking forward to crushing this fear and gaining momentum on all the things stalling me out.

week twenty-four sunset

What I Said I’d Do

  • Finish the action steps for module 2 of the VA course
  • Review new affiliate products for some review posts in the middle of August – post schedule got shuffled because of this!
  • Schedule pins through August

What I Actually Worked On

  • Read through affiliate materials
  • Decided to do 12 months of 30-day challenges, starting in August – Write 1000 words a day
  • Finally succeeded at achieving Inbox Zero
  • Thought a lot about how to move forward with building a VA side-hustle

Sunday, Day 162 – New Bullet Journal Supplies & Getting Crafty!

Right after Amazon Prime Day ended I decided I needed washi tape, new pens, and stencils for my bullet journal. It was a little ridiculous, and now I have almost 100 rolls of washi tape, but my BuJo looks WAY better than it did before.

Now I’m not artistic like my mom, but I like to think I can pick colors that go together and come up with a nice spread that will work for me.

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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-Three

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-three: July 15-21, 2018.

Oh man. This week went off track from the plan in so many ways, but I’m totally okay with it! It brought about new opportunities and new connections, so I’m rolling with it.

week twenty-three top image

What I Said I’d Do

  • Finish writing & scheduling the Thursday posts for September.
  • Spend 1 hour working through online course material.
  • Schedule pins for August.

What I Actually Worked On

  • Signed up for the rest of the non-time restricted WAHS courses I want to take
  • Started Janet LeBlanc’s Get Legit Toolkit (spent more than an hour on that and the VA course!)
  • Finished the action steps for modules 1 & 2 of 30 Days or Less to VA Success
  • Connected with some people for new collaborations: guest post & affiliate programs!

Sunday, Day 155 – Inbox Zero Not a Pipe Dream Anymore, It’s Totally Doable

Today got eaten up mostly by a LOT of email management. I really need to meter how much time I spend on this, though I suspect it’ll be better once I’m finally at inbox zero and can just catch the new stuff once or twice a day.

Besides that, I signed up for all the non-time restricted WAHS courses I’m interested in and started Janet LeBlanc’s Get Legit Toolkit! I’m in it primarily so I can start thinking about actually setting up as a business. Important if I’m going to be doing VA work!

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How To Be the Poster Child for Organization

poster child organization

When I was in high school, I had a “college binder.”

It contained all sorts of information on colleges I thought I might want to attend, majors to consider, school clubs I might want to join.

It had tips on taking the SAT and ACT, when to submit the FAFSA, and some of those laminated cheat sheets to help with biology and chemistry.

My sister called it my 10-year binder, but really it only could have covered 5 years at most.

And it was only about college – nothing else.

I participated in a program called Running Start, which allows high school students to take college classes for college credit starting in eleventh grade. I actually got my high school diploma and my Associates Degree from the same community college on the same day. After I finished tenth grade at my private high school, I was “officially” a college student.

One of my skills is that I’m extremely organized. Like that 5-year binder, I had classes figured out down to the quarter in which I was to take them.

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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-Two

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-two: July 8-14, 2018.

This is going to be a very short JTM post because I spent my week volunteering at a day camp for Type 1 Diabetics. I’d gotten most everything ready to go beforehand: social media, scheduling posts, and shortlists for what to do each day.

I ignored a lot of it, to be honest.

In any case, this week felt both long and short, and I’m excited for next year!

week twenty-two camp boats

The lake where diabetes camp is hosted. Stunning day!

What I Said I’d Do

  • Write for 30 minutes each morning.

What I Actually Worked On

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25 Truth Bombs to Make You Re-Think Type 1 Diabetes

I’ve had type 1 diabetes since age two. Diabetes education is near and dear to my heart, especially since I volunteer every year at a day camp for young, and often newly-diagnosed type 1’s.

type 1 diabetes tools

Let’s dive right in.

1. Type 1 Diabetes is not preventable.

You either get it or you don’t. Changing your lifestyle won’t prevent your pancreas from attacking itself.

2. Type 1 Diabetes is not curable at the moment.

It’s only treatable. Insulin is not a cure, it’s a treatment.

The science community has been telling us that a cure is 5 years away for over 50 years. The closest we’ve gotten is cell replacement therapy, but that’s just trading insulin for anti-rejection medication.

Personally, I’m looking forward to artificial pancreases and closed-loop insulin pumps.

3. I’m “allowed” to have sugar. I just choose not to.

There are only two things I can’t have: poison, and cookies made with poison. It’s an old joke intended to get the point across that, as long as we correct appropriately, literally nothing is off limits. 

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The Journey to Magnificence: Week Twenty-One

Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week twenty-one: July 1-7, 2018.

I hope all my American readers had a great Fourth of July!

I capitalized on the time off work to spend on the blog, doing both writing and administrative work. In general, I feel like this week has been all right, especially in terms of my to-do lists. But I think I really knocked it out of the park on the writing part since all 5 of August’s Thursday posts got finished and scheduled!

Yay!

week twenty-one top image

What I Said I’d Do

  • Re-evaluating how much I can actually do in any given day, and cut out the to-dos that just don’t seem to get done.
  • Write a lot from Wednesday through Saturday to make the most of the holiday.
  • Finish Module 4 of Intentional Blog AND all their Action Steps
  • Make a plan for 30 Days or Less to VA Success

What I Actually Worked On

  • Got better at deciding which to-dos to actually DO
  • Scheduled the all 5 Thursday posts for August and got 2/3 of a post for September written

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