When comes to being successful at something, you need a mentor. Not just any mentor will do. There are plenty of wolves in sheep’s clothing that claim to be “experts” at getting you what you want. Weeding through the fakes and scam-artists can sometimes be tricky. Take weight loss for example (since it’s what I work with for a living.) How many “experts” do you know that claim to have “cutting edge” or “secret information” to transform your body? Too many to count. My personal favorite is the obsession with celebrity bodies; everyone wants to know what x-celebrity has done to get her flat abs. When, in truth, the majority of celebrities are skinny, but not healthy or “fit” by any means. It’s easy to be skinny when you have above average genetics. But fitness? That takes work. So when it comes to “experts” in weight loss, seek out the people that are just like you, average, and had to work for their figure and level of fitness. Even better, find someone who has overcome seemingly unsurmountable obstacles to lose weight and has kept it off.

This brings me to my point in general, we all need good mentors. Find a mentor or “expert” that you want to be like that has been to the depths and the heights of your pursuit. There’s a reason why the story of the underdog appeals to so many of us. There is a universal truth at work in their lives. They have discovered what it takes to achieve real, substantial change and success by overcoming their circumstances and taking the driver seat in their lives. Who is a better mentor; the man who was given millions of dollars by his family and continued in financial success by wise investments, or the man who rose up from the slums, created his own business and is now financially stable? I hope you said the latter one. Because, at least in my opinion, it is much easier to make money out of money, than to make money out of nothing more than the human will and mind.

I believe that finding mentors, and finding the right mentors, can propel you leaps and bounds in the direction you want to go. It could take a lifetime of mistakes to learn how to do something successfully, or you can learn from someone who’s already been there. I personally have several people I consider to be mentors; those I’ve had the blessing to rub shoulders with in my lifetime and those I have not. Since I am not fortunate enough to know all of them in person, I have gotten to know some of them through print (that’s the book worm in me.) Some that come to mind immediately: Tom Venuto for health, fitness and goal setting, Tony Robbins for motivation, Benjamin Franklin for ingenuity and resourcefulness, Tosca Reno for nutrition, Jack Hodge for habit changes, Jane Austen for her literary genius, Alma in the Book of Mormon for conversion and spiritual introspection, and of course, the ultimate mentor for every aspect of my life, Jesus Christ.

I look to these people as friends, as people who have been where I am at one point or another and who have become what I desire to become. I would sooner take advice from a 90 year old women with 12 children than a psychologist that had no children. This because I know that her advice was born of sweat, blood and tears, and the guy with the degree has only read about it or observed as a bystander. And when it comes to the Ultimate Mentor, it’s so comforting to know that no pain, burden, experience, or sorrow is unique to me, that the Savior has endured it all.

Isaiah 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrow…

And although, my other pursuits are worthy, I know that the most noble pursuit is to become like Him because he is more than a good mentor, he is the only PERFECT mentor.

The Savior reminds us that He has “graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands.” Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way. –Jeffery R. Holland, Broken Things to Mend.

I am so grateful for the mentors in my life. I have so much to learn and am still in my infancy in my progression, and I know that I need as many good mentors in my life as possible. I am learning to surround myself with positive mentors (in spirit, print, music, in friends, etc.) And I am learning to tell the difference between good and bad mentors. The good ones all having one common thread, they all inspire one to become their best and this because they have experienced the joys and the sorrows of success and happiness. I am most grateful to the Ultimate Mentor and work each day to follow His example a little more than the day before.

Those are some of my mentors. Who are yours?

I got my braces! I’m a brace-face all over again. This will be my second round of braces (the first of which was for 6 years!) Needless to say, I’m not happy about it! But I am happy that my bite will be corrected so that my TMJ issues will be taken care of. And I’ll admit, I was a little flattered when the heater guy mistook me for Tim’s daughter. Lol!

This is my favorite time of year. I love Spring, Daylight Savings and all things that bring more sun into my life! I’ve been loving the weather (even despite the odd-ball snow storms thrown into the mix.) My friend and I ran outside for the first time in forever the other day, and it was so much fun. I love working out outdoors; it doesn’t feel like a chore at all to me. We’ve also started doing Crossfit’s workout of the day (WOD) and that has been a lot of fun to change things up. I am a big fan of functional workouts vs. workouts that don’t translate into the real world. Having functional strength is my new goal. Who cares if you’re skinny if you can’t do a single pull-up or push-up or run a mile without being winded?

In other news, Matt has been taking off in school. We rallied around him and have been putting in double time into his homework and reading to get him back on track. He’s come leaps and bounds and I am really grateful for answered prayers, just when we needed it most.

Matt also sang a solo at a funeral this past Monday! He sang the first verse of “I am a Child of God.” He did such a good job. I was so proud of him. The funeral was a really tough one because it was for my cousin’s 2 month old baby that died in her sleep. The whole thing was pretty tragic, but I can’t help but believe that God is in charge and now she is in His care. What a sweet little angel baby she was. It really makes you appreciate your little ones and hold on to them a little tighter. It also makes you realize how fragile life is, how God grants us our every breath.

I’ve been thinking a lot about a dream I had a last week where I was talking to a group of parents of troubled teens. I was giving them advice on how to know the signs of drug use and how to prevent it. Some of you may or may not know that I had a problem with drug use as a teenager. I hesitate to mention that here, as the past is past and that is not who I am anymore. But I think that if I could prevent one person, one struggling teenager, from going down the path I went down, it would all be worth it. I’m ashamed of my past, but I would be willing to talk about it to help someone who was on the fence, suffering and looking for some way out. I don’t really know how I could help, but I do have a desire to do so in some way. I know it was just a dream, but somehow it spoke to me, and has really haunted me since.

Well, to not end on a sad note, I should share with you a little funny from today. Here’s a conversation that Tim and Rae had this morning:

Rae: Did Jesus give us berries?

Tim: Yes.

Rae: Oh, that was nice.

I love her simple faith. And I want that kind of gratitude for the little things in my life.

In light of some of my ongoing self-help/psychology/motivational research, I’ve stumbled across a tiny little gem of a book called The Power of Habit by Jack D. Hodge (more on that later, it deserves an entire post on it’s own.) One of the recommendations of the book is to start identifying your “bad habits” so that you can effectively replace them with good habits. This starts with self-examination. Hodge suggests starting with personality profiles and testing. Being the good student that I am, I followed his advice and took a fascinating profile test earlier today.

Some of you might remember a little blog I had a few years ago titled “The Life Enthusiast.” I once had a good friend tell me that if she could describe me in one word it would be “Eager.” I’ve often thought about that ever since and wondered if that was a compliment or not. Interestingly enough, the personality test results categorized me as “The Enthusiast” or “The Adventurer.” Here’s a little brief about it:

Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me

• Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
• Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
• Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
• Don’t try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
• Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
• Don’t tell me what to do.

What I Like About Being a Seven

• being optimistic and not letting life’s troubles get me down
• being spontaneous and free-spirited
• being outspoken and outrageous. It’s part of the fun.
• being generous and trying to make the world a better place
• having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
• having such varied interests and abilities

What’s Hard About Being a Seven

• not having enough time to do all the things I want
• not completing things I start
• not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
• having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
• feeling confined when I’m in a one-to-one relationship

Sevens as Children Often

• are action oriented and adventuresome
• drum up excitement
• prefer being with other children to being alone
• finesse their way around adults
• dream of the freedom they’ll have when they grow up

Sevens as Parents

• are often enthusiastic and generous
• want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life
• may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive

If you are interested in taking the test, the abbreviated version can be found here.

It wasn’t all that long ago when I thought the lamest gift you could get your wife was some type of household appliance. ”Happy Anniversary honey, I got you a vacuum!”  BORING! I remember specifically asking my husband to never buy me something like that as a gift. Gifts are supposed to be fun, completely unpractical–the opposite of a household appliance.

You know you’ve turned a corner in life when you ACTUALLY WANT that kind of stuff. You also know you’re getting old when all the appliances you got for your wedding are dying out one fried appliance at a time. They must all have a 10 year lifespan or something. Needless to say, between those two factors, I had found myself in need of a crockpot. The crockpot was doing just fine (other than it was a fast-cooker rather than a slow-cooker and believe me, that’s a bad thing when trying to cook a roast that doesn’t taste like leather.) However, the lid went missing about 3 weeks ago and I’ve found myself going through some serious crockpot withdrawals. By the way, someone please tell me how a GLASS LID just disappears. It must be in the black hole with all the missing socks and my favorite sunglasses that vanished 3 years ago. I digress…

So tonight I got myself a new crockpot and I feel like it’s Christmas…or Easter. Yes, Easter. “Happy Easter honey, I got you a crockpot!”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens

It’s not a secret (nor should it be) that I have a hard time in the winter. I joke around that I am a solar-powered human, but in all seriousness, many of you know that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD.) Most days I get along just fine managing it, and I just feel unusually tired or unmotivated. On my worst days though, I am irritable and or lethargic. I hate those days. I grew up with a bipolar mother who would be depressed for months at a time. I vowed to never get like that. Funny thing, you can’t just tell your brain chemicals to not get out of whack. It happens, and the sooner that you realize that the better. No amount of positive thinking can wipe it out. That’s not to say that staying positive doesn’t help or that there aren’t other things that make a difference, because they do and they can. Exercise is my antidepressant, for example. It’s just that you need to know that there is no shame in your brain chemistry. It’s like being ashamed that you have blue eyes or that you’re short. You didn’t ask to be that way, it just happened. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

For me, I’ve started with the basics. Diet and exercise have to be in place. The days I don’t workout, I feel worse. The days I binge on sugar, I feel horrible. The days I sit around at the computer and don’t get anything accomplished, I feel lazy. And then it’s usually a downward spiral. Diet and exercise is one thing I can control. I can put nourishing food into my body and I can workout. I can’t make it warm outside and make the days longer, but I can get myself to the gym…most days.

The other thing that helps me, is giving myself permission to have a bad day. I used to beat myself up whenever I felt too depressed to get anything done. Sometimes I still do. There is this bogus idea that I have that happy, vibrant, God-loving people don’t get depressed. That’s not true. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the adversary speaking to me. I also don’t want to break the facade that I have of “having it all together” all the time. Does anyone really ever have it together all the time? (If you do, I want to talk to you!)

Letting myself have a bad day or (let’s be honest) even a bad week, and trying to see the bigger picture (the spring will come, the SUN/Son will come, the Light will come) helps me to put my trust in God. God knows me and he knows I’m not perfect. But he still sent 4 beautiful children to me (why, I’ll never know) even though He knew that I would have less than perfect days, months, years even. I don’t know why God sees fit to try my faith in this way, but I will trust in God, trust in His ability to make my wrongs right and to heal my soul. I will trust that the Atonement was and is everlasting and all-encompassing–including even the day-to-day pains and sorrows.

In the depth of every winter is the Hope of spring. To quote Elder Uchtdorf:

There may be times when we must make a courageous decision to hope even when everything around us contradicts this hope. Like Father Abraham, we will “against hope [believe] in hope.” Or, as one writer expressed, “in the depth of winter, [we find] within [us] an invincible summer.” —Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Infinite Power of Hope.”

And another gem from him:

I have seen enough ups and downs throughout my life to know that winter will surely give way to the warmth and hope of a new spring. … I am optimistic about the future. For our part, we must remain steadfast in hope, work with all our strength, and trust in God.

The Lord doesn’t expect us to work harder than we are able. He doesn’t (nor should we) compare our efforts to those of others. Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can—that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that may be. —Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Work, Learn, and Love.”

I was thinking today about some of my goals and aspirations for my life and the things that are stopping me from achieving them. In so many instances in my life, I sabotage my success for whatever reason. I tell myself there are certain things I am never going to do and, the self-fulfilling prophesy comes to life. One of the most valuable things I learned from BFFM by Tom Venuto was how the subconscious works (or doesn’t work) when it comes to setting goals and achievements.

The subconscious is like a missile, waiting for you to input destination coordinates. You tell it where to go and it will work to take you there. If you never tell it where to go, it’s like launching your missile and hoping it will hit your opponent without ever aiming it. My problem is not that I don’t tell my subconscious where to go, it’s that my mental programming is telling it to go in the wrong direction. I am constantly telling myself negative things and my subconscious takes me for my word and makes sure that whatever I say or think becomes my reality.

So how does one reprogram their mind? You have to set a mental recording to play in your mind to override the current negative one. There are many ways to do this, but Tom’s suggestion is to write your goals as specific, personal, positive affirmations that are written in the present tense, backed with emotion. Once you’ve written your affirmations, your job is to review them periodically throughout the day. Here’s an example:

I am so happy that I am always prompt and on time to all my meetings and appointments.

Here’s an example of the negative programming you’ll be rewriting:

I am always late! I can’t get my act together. I’m never on time for anything.

So, I am trying to target all my negative thinking and zap it in the butt. I am going to overcome my obstacles, one negative thought at a time. And while I was thinking today about what I really want out of life, the funny thing is that I have a really hard time picturing what it is that I want my future to look like. I know what I want in general, like my kids to grow up to be good human beings, my family to be close and happy, my marriage to be fulfilling, and my life filled with joy. But when I start to flesh out the details…that’s where things begin to get vague. I really don’t know what I want to be or do with my life. In some ways I think I’m afraid to dream. If I were to daydream, if I thought I could do ANYTHING I wanted, then that would be a heavy burden to carry. We can’t all grow up to be athletes and astronauts. At some point reality sets in and we realize that there are limitations to our dreams. Or are there? The one thing I know for sure is this, to quote a famous saying:

Aim for nothing and you’ll hit it every time.

As you can probably tell, I messed up my blog earlier this week and as a result, I am having to start over from scratch. Part of me is happy to have a clean slate, so to speak, but the other part of me really had the wind taken from my sails. Ultimately, I have to come back to the fact that I love to write, even if only for my own sake, and so I will press on and start anew.

This time of year is always hard on me. Being a “yellow“, having fun is of the utmost priority in my life. The cold weather and dreary days, really put a damper on my style. My solar-powered-human-panels are running on empty and I’m ready for a change of scenery. After watching the Olympics last night, (Shawn White rocks!) I’ve gotten the itch to try snowboarding. I love, love, love skiing, but snowboarding just looks like so much fun. I would love for hubby and I to take a weekend off and give it a try. But, since I’m still nursing my lil one, I can’t be gone from her for more than 2 hours. So, I think I will have to wait until next season to try it out. That will have to go on my bucket list.

In other news, I’ve been looking into charter schools for Matt (in order to protect my kiddos, I’ve come up with pseudo names.) I’ve been a little disappointed with his current school. I feel they’ve dropped the ball with him. During parent/teacher conferences, I told his teacher I was concerned about Matt’s reading and that something didn’t seem right. He’s tested just fine, and so up to this point, he’s really gone under the radar. But his teacher agreed to get him tested, and sure enough, there are definite “holes in his reading,” whatever that means.

So we have to go back to square one with his reading. I am really upset, that it got to this point without anyone noticing or doing anything about it. All along, I felt that he wasn’t catching on like he should have been, but he is my first child, and I really didn’t know what to expect as normal. I am so worried that he is going to get even further behind now. I just feel like we could have avoided this had his teacher discovered his “holes” earlier. At least we found this out now, and not in 5th grade, only to discover that he couldn’t read. The problem is that he is such a smart guy, that his learning problems completely went unnoticed because he managed to get by, riding off his intellect. However, his progress finally hit a standstill because he really couldn’t move forward missing some critical pieces to his reading skills.

The reason I am considering putting Matt into a charter school is because we can’t afford any of the private schools around here and I’ve heard some wonderful things about the charter schools. I know full well that we can’t run from our problems, but I feel like I need to put Matt into the hands of someone that knows how to deal with his unique problems.

I, myself, almost didn’t pass the first grade. I needed a tutor just to move on to second grade. Matt and I have similar thinking patterns. He is just like me. We are both visual spacial learners, and visual spacial learners have a hard time in a traditional learning environment. It took me years to learn how to learn. I grew up with people telling me I was stupid. I almost didn’t graduate from High School (which had more to do with other problems, but still.) I just don’t want Matt to have to go through that. After I learned how to overcome my problems and turn them into strengths, I was able to maintain a 4.0 in college, receive scholarships and make the dean’s list every semester. Learning disabilities can be overcome. But, often times it takes more than an overworked teacher with too many students and not enough funding. Matt is a non-traditional student and needs a non-traditional approach. Heck, if I have to go back to school and get a Phd to help him out, I will. But for now, I am hitting my knees, praying for guidance.