life in January

Do you ever let yourself look back at where you've been and how far you've come?
It's funny to revisit this time last year. Literally one year ago to this day, January 28th, we were deep in the middle of the Polar Vortex and I was dealing with the same mid-winter "what am I doing with my LIFE!?" introspection.

So much has happened since then, so much has changed, and yet so much is still the same.

This time last year I was struggling to balance my full time job with my dreams of turning my Etsy shop into a thriving handmade business. I had no idea that Beachbody was about to drop into my lap and completely change the trajectory of my life. Over the past year I've grown into myself, I have a clear and exciting vision for my future, but my Etsy shop is still always on the poor backburner, haha! But in the meantime I've learned so much about running and marketing a small business, and this year I promise I'm going to make good on my intentions! Although I think I'm still going to view the shop as a passion project on the side instead of pressuring myself to turn it into something too huge to handle.

Anyway, this January has been a month of huge and transformative personal growth. I've struggled and battled to gain clarity on exactly what I want to accomplish this year, and even though most of the time I feel like I'm running as hard as I can just to stay in place, I know I'm also making huge strides and progress in my confidence and vision for my life and career.

When I look back on January 2015, here is what I will remember.



Endless bowls of fancy oats to warm up chilly mornings.



Pushing myself past my mental, emotional, and physical limits every single day with Shaun T's Insanity Max 30 (although I must admit I actually miss my early morning gym adventures! Working out from home while you work from home is awesome, but my hermit tendencies are starting to get to me).

Fueling and nourishing my body with enormous salads and allllllll the veggies.

Finding balance and rewarding myself with my favorite treats! Wine, milk stouts and chocolate porters, mugcakes. I'm happy Ben and I finally checked out the Map Room, it's adorable and brings me back to my grad school days as a geographer!

We joined a church! I started to make pillows, a sewing project I've been putting off for way too long. Ben bought a new car and I discovered the amazing and wonderful Andrea Owen whose blog, podcast, and book are helping me joyfully accept myself for who I am and lay off the internal pressure! 

During the first half of the month I was obsessed with planning, reflecting, goal setting, and organizing. I developed and hosted my first ever coach training workshop for the new members of my  team, I started to create a new vision for my monthly accountability Bootcamps, and I blogged more thanks to this amazing editorial planner from By Regina. I've slowly started to develop monthly and quarterly goals that align with my core desired feelings. This is a hard process and I'm balancing my inner overachiever with my determination to live more intentionally and find joy in life instead of being constantly overwhelmed. I feel like I'm literally bursting with energy and inspiration and I have a desperate desire to write more, share more, and embrace my journey in all its messy glory. 2015 is the year I will grow into myself, and I'm so excited for what's in store!

I've always struggled with insecurity, fear, perfectionism, and feeling like I'll never be "enough," and this was the month I started to recognize and confront all those little voices holding me back.
Every day I'm practicing self compassion and I'm slowly accepting myself for who I am, right now. I'm taking action on things that I've been thinking and journaling about for years, instead of letting my perfectionism overwhelm and paralyze me.

I really love how I've been blogging for almost six years now because it's fun to remember where I've come from and recognize what has always been important to me.
In January 2011 I said "I am trying to project self-confidence, optimism, and excitement towards all the unknowns coming up in my life this year, and not stress out too much."

Yup, I'm still me :)

how to set 2015 goals and follow through

I've been thinking and obsessing A LOT lately about what I want to accomplish in 2015, and I'm just now finally hashing out my goals and intentions even though we're already almost a month into the year. Better late than never! This is the first full calendar year that I'll be self-employed, so I feel a lot of self imposed pressure to have all my goals and dreams beautifully organized with made to match action plans and long term and short term objectives. But it's not that easy!

It's freaking hard to set goals and follow through. This is why only 8% of people actually achieve their New Years Resolutions. It's really scary to trust yourself enough to set a long term goal because who knows what will happen! The great unknown is a big obstacle. Will I actually be able to make this happen? There's only one way to find out. Obviously you have to have faith and give it your best shot, but the fear of failure can be self sabotaging and my own fears have been holding me back.

I'm obsessed with the big picture and long term dreaming and visioning, which is why I went to grad school for geography instead of ecology (if you're an environmental scientist you'll understand), but I also struggle with a lot of self doubt, which prevents me from setting and accepting really big scary goals. When I quit my day job to follow my dreams, I was surprised to discover that my self doubt hit me even harder and stronger than ever before!

For the first time in my life I'm cut free from external expectations of school or a job. I have complete control over how I spend and manage my time and let me tell you, it's not necessarily a blessing! Some days it feels more like a curse. I don't know what to prioritize. I don't know WHAT is the most important thing for me to be focusing on at any given moment, no structure, and that paralyzes me and prevents me from doing ANYTHING.

I'm also obsessed with absorbing books and blogs and podcasts and printable questionnaires that will tell me what I should want out of life, how I should feel, and how I should plan out my strategy, but it's hard for me to know what I'm capable of, or what is possible and realistic, because I'm so new at all of this. Because I don't know what to expect, I don't know what my end goals should be. I don't know how to plot out the details and baby steps because I hate not being able to see exactly where I'm going. I am a chronic overachiever and commitment-phobe, and I'm easily overwhelmed by all the information I'm overloading myself with.

Sooooo yeah. All this is what I've been dealing with this past month, but I'm starting to finally feel like I'm developing a plan. I've discovered several bloggers and coaches who have amazing perspectives on goal setting, and here are some of the resources and posts I've found most useful!

Blog Posts
Know Where You're Headed by Tara Gentile
How to Set Goals Intentionally by Jess Lively
How to Set Goals and Commitments That You'll Actually Keep by Alexandra Franzen
How to Make It Happen Already in 2015 by Lisa Jacobs
Set Blog and Business Goals Without the New Year Hangover by Kyla Roma

Books
Push by Chalene Johnson (great for taking action and making shit happen!)
The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte (for putting values front and center in your jam packed crazy life)

Worksheets
PowerSheets by Lara Casey
Design Your Creative Year by Kyla Roma (free!)
Unraveling the Year Ahead Workbook by Susannah Conway (free!)


What I've Learned About Goal Setting

-Start with how you want to feel. What makes you excited to think about? What would make you dissappointed if it never happened (no matter how scary it seems now?)

-Instead of setting goals based on what you want to accomplish, think of benchmarks or milestones as intentions that align with your core desired feelings and values.

-Focus on daily actions that you can control. For example, you can't control the number on the scale, so instead of saying "I want to lose 10 pounds," say you're going to eat whole foods 6 days/week and exercise 4 times/week. Allow room for fun!

-It's important to focus and simplify! Set a Chief Initiative for the year ("Push" Goal), and a handful of supporting goals.

-Plan actions and benchmarks seasonally. Every three months ask yourself "what do I want to accomplish?"

-Braindump for each goal! What do you need to learn, do, acquire, and who do you need help from? Break all steps down into tiny daily action items.

-Sort the steps into 3 categories: This month, next month, third month.

-At the end of each season, re-assess!

-Set deadlines. Be aggressive with yourself so you don't procrastinate.

-Journaling every single morning really helps me feel more in control and less overwhelmed.

Now go forth and dream bigger, girl!

Do you set goals or New Years Resolutions? What is one big scary dream you want to accomplish in 2015? Let's make it happen!

what do you do? my career identity crisis

Ah, December. The month of parties, social events, family gatherings, and constant networking with people who are usually either:

A. Old friends/fam who are genuinely interested in your life these days.
B. New acquaintances who are trying to figure out who you are and if they should be friends with you.

Last Saturday night Ben and I found ourselves in the crowded and loud back room of a nearby bar, munching on quesadillas and cheap beer (him), pita and hummus and cherry vodka/diet coke (me), and celebrating his ten year high school reunion. It was my first high school reunion experience, and it was weirdly fun, like a suburban high school yearbook came to life only everyone is starting to get a couple gray hairs and wrinkles (ok seriously--when did we become adults??). Since I've known Ben since I was nineteen, I always love getting the rare opportunity to experience a new side of him and his history. I also like parties and meeting new people, but as an introvert these specific types of networking events (crowded, loud, chaotic) definitely drain and intimidate me. Give me a quiet living room and a small group of interesting people and I can stay up until 3 am talking, but making small talk with strangers when you have to yell over loud music and everyone else's yelling is kind of hard.

Ok, now that the scene has been set, this is what I really want to talk about. What's always the first thing you ask someone when you're meeting them for the first time? Yup, the dreaded question.

"So, what do you do?" 

I generally do like hearing about other people's jobs because I'm fascinated by the different opportunities and paths out there, but I personally dread the question because I've struggled with a lot of insecurity over the fact that I've never had a traditional, easily defined career path. Not being able to respond with a confident, easy to understand, and suitably impressive answer is kind of like how I grew up with the unpronounceable name "Anna Vandervlugt". Ahhh-Nah, last name sounds like "looked" with a V in front of it. I'm used to having to justify, explain, and correct misconceptions but I hate it because deep down I really want to be immediately accepted and understood, just like we all do.

Ever since I left grad school I've struggled with a silly inferiority complex regarding my career path and job, which definitely stems from my two year stretch of un/under-employment. I never had to TRY to be successful when I was in school. Sure, I worked hard and earned my success, but I was a good student and was proud of the fact that I always held a high GPA, high test scores, good internships, and landed multiple full rides to top graduate programs. But then once I was launched into the real world, things didn't come so easily. And let me tell you, being in a group of apparently successful and corporate-ladder climbing young professionals and having to explain how you graduated from a top tier graduate program but now you're working part time as a field trip leader and babysitter and have no idea what you really want to do but all you know is that no one wants to hire you........yeah it's not really empowering.

But then I did finally get a full time job as an educator at a wonderful, well recognized zoo in Chicago, and all of a sudden people "understood" what I did, or at least thought it sounded exciting. But then came the follow up comments.

"Oh I've always wanted to play with zoo animals!"
"Do you get to work with the animals?"
"I've always felt bad for zoo animals..."
"That sounds...fun!"

And I had to justify that I was not in fact a zoo keeper or circus performer, but an educator who did outreach in underprivileged CPS schools around the city, and that in fact my zoo is a research and education centered non-profit institution focused on science and conservation, not entertainment. Then they were suitably impressed and I felt very proud of my job, but I knew in my subconscious that it wasn't the best job for ME, so I still felt crappy.

Aaaaaand now I have to explain that I recently quit my job and am working for myself.

Which makes me FEEL like people jump to the conclusion that I'm unemployed/broke again, which is probably an untrue story I'm making up to cover my own insecurities. Because to be honest? Sometimes working from home feels a lot like my life back when I was unemployed. I'm in the same apartment, doing the same things (blogging, sewing, working out, cooking), and even though EVERYTHING ELSE has changed, it's easy to forget how far I've come in the last couple of years! The truth is, when I was unemployed I was actually happy (apart from the whole uncertain future/being broke/feeling worthless part), because I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do every day. The only difference is that now I've figured out how to turn what I want to do, the things that make me ME, into legitimate businesses that bring in money. Small shifts but huge implications. Yeah, I'm a head case.

Does the question "what do you do?" make you feel uncomfortable and stressed out too? I'm starting to believe that those negative emotions stem from a disconnect between the ACTUAL answer of what we do, and how we truly FEEL about what we do.

Student/grad student/Nature Conservancy: Loved my job, loved telling people about it, but I knew it was only temporary.

Unemployed/substitute teacher/part time education guide: Didn't love my job, didn't love telling people about it, knew there was something better out there.

Zoo educator: Didn't love job but liked it enough to love telling people about it.

Self employed: LOOOOOOVE THIS JOB!!!! It freaking rocks. But now I have to figure out what to call myself, since there's no convenient HR department to write me a title and job description. I am the HR department now. And allllll the other departments. Hello career identity crisis!

What do you say when people ask you what you do?
And more importantly--how does it make you FEEL? 

I've been reading The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte, and she's got me thinking more about connecting with our feelings and desires. "It's better for your nervous system if your description of your current career or life status feels honest to you when you deliver it." BOOM.

It doesn't even matter what you do. What matters how you feel about it. This makes total sense! Someone might have an incredibly impressive sounding title but if they are constantly stressed and hate their life, there's no glory in that.

Now I feel AMAZING and empowered and excited to wake up in the morning, but I struggle to convey a neatly packaged description or elevator speech, because I don't have that official HR approved job title! I'm a small business owner, but that doesn't really say anything.

The short version: I own two small businesses--I'm an online health and fitness consultant and also have a handmade shop on Etsy where I sell scarves and (soon to be) watercolor art and paper goods.

But does that really tell you anything about what I do? I'm practicing getting better and more confident, because I am truly proud of my work and I honestly feel pretty dang successful!

The long version: I'm a health and wellness coach, and lead a team of over 50 other motivated and driven women just like me who want to make a positive difference in the lives of others. We run online accountability groups for people who want to gain confidence, lose weight, and learn how to stick to a healthy eating and workout routine for the long haul. I'm also an emerging social media marketing expert and trainer. I'm working on developing a lifestyle blog centered on empowering others to create a healthy balanced life. I'm a watercolor artist and wedding stationery designer (although I haven't made it public yet) as well as a handmade artisan and I design, sew, and knit one of a kind beautiful scarves for women around the world. I also love photography, and want to design and publish healthy recipe e-books and possibly a cookbook. My ultimate goal is to provide life or business coaching services to women who want to feel confident and empowered, meet their true potential, and design fulfilling, purpose driven lives.

Ummmm yeah. Did I tell you I have big dreams? I've been struggling a lot with trying to figure out what I should be prioritizing right now, and how to balance it all.

The other week I discovered Marie Forleo, a business coach and personal development guru who describes herself as a "multi-passionate entrepreneur," and everything started to click. YES! That's me!

I am a multi-passionate entrepreneur!

I don't have to feel confused or overwhelmed or frustrated by having too many interests and passions and dreams. I can run more than one small business. I don't need to combine everything. It's ok to be diverse, because ultimately everything that I'm passionate about comes together naturally because its all a part of ME. I am the brand. My family jokes about me being the next Martha Stewart and I just laugh it off because that's never going to happen, right? I have no idea what I'm doing. But. But but but...what if it could happen? What if I could be an internationally recognized lifestyle brand? I mean, yes it does sound ridiculous and I'm not sure if that would even make me happy, but what I'm trying to say is that I REFUSE to mentally dismiss possibilities purely because my current situation is not at that level.

In the meantime, I'll just continue to learn, read, create, and figure out how to define what I do.