Providence Moved Already!

Hello sexy wordpressers! 💗 Rise and sparkle/smoulder! 🔅

I feel awesome this morning because I just finished a 30-minute HIIT and lower body strength combo workout and … it’s only 8AM 😀

So as I’m enjoying my morning cuppa, I am reflecting on the amazing fact that I am doing HIIT + strength workouts. It wasn’t too long ago when I truly thought I wouldn’t be able to do them again because … well because post baby I really had a hard time getting back into the workout zone. I tried several times, each time starting slow and having had to adjust my pace even slower … I tell you even a 20-min lower body Pilates workout would leave me sore for days. Pilates! 😭  (And my baby turns 2 this month 🤨).

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

But now let’s talk about this post’s title because it really is amazing what happens when you articulate your goals. Here’s the backstory in case you guys are interested.

So after the said post/backstory I sat my lazy arse down and proceeded to crochet, unconsciously adopting the mindset that I was gonna start working on my goals in January (because I’m a perfectionist and I’m fond of clean starts).

But then I thought … but it’s only September! 🤔 Why waste all that precious time? What can I do NOW to make sure I hit the ground running in January. (Because we all know there’s usually a lot of hemming and hawing at the start of something 😴).

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

Soooo …

Goal #4 is to find an outside interest that I could do regularly at least once a week. Preferably with a good chance of socializing.

Well, 2 Sundays ago I [finally] found a good Christian church that my family can attend every week. Mind you, this is no small feat considering we were looking for an English-speaking church. What’s even more awesome for me is that this church is made up of foreigners (like, 9 out of 10), so we have something in common right away.

Plus, they have Bible study classes for kids of all ages 😀 Score!!!

Goal #3 has something to do with my crochet & knitting hobby. It’s been a goal for almost a year now and I knew “something” was preventing me from moving forward.

Well, I finally understood what was standing in the way and it’s not what you think! 🤗 But it’s a long story and it’s about my chosen artforms so I’ve decided to talk about it in a separate post.

And as for goal #1? Well, I seriously & excitedly believe that my (sudden comeback) ability to do higher intensity cardio & strength training will help me achieve this in time. Maybe I’ll talk about this in another post too because getting to this place has been a real journey that I struggled both physically and mentally with.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”

In any case sexy people, my message to you is this: start now. Don’t wait for January (but you can wait until Monday because I believe Mondays are perfect for starting something 😁 😁).

The start of something can be slow, filled with additional challenges & roadblocks that are usually unexpected and can undermine your efforts. I’m beginning to think it’s good to start something at the tail-end of the current year if you want to see real results by the following year. I don’t know 😏 maybe that’s just me 🤪.  But sometimes we start something in January expecting to see results in March and are frustrated that we didn’t meet our deadline. I think it’s because starts can be messy and you just have to account for it depending on your goal.

~~ oOo ~~

So okay, I’ve blabbed enough for today.

Thank you for visiting and reading and you can always give me warm fussy feelings by sharing your thoughts below 👇

Have a sexy one! 💋

About the 1000 Tiny Steps that Lead to Your Destination

In this post I want to continue talking about setting goals and, more specifically, the 1000 or so teeny-tiny steps you take that move you closer to your pot of gold.

Do they matter?

So as mentioned in the previous post I’m reading a book about goal setting because I want to get better at accomplishing goals. What prompted me to explore this subject further is the couple or so goals I set for last year and this year that I didn’t accomplish.

But if you ask me why I didn’t accomplish them, it really isn’t for the lack of trying.

For instance, one of my goals was/is to get back to exercising the way I did pre-baby. I tried, and tried, and tried again. I got discouraged many times, stopped, tried again, and finally had to admit to myself that my post-baby body just needed to start someplace waaaaay less intense. And then there’s the matter of finding the time to exercise considering I’m taking care of a baby/soon to be 2-yr old.

So really, if I think back to all the times I tried and to finally now reach this point where I have been able to consistently exercise every day … that’s a feat!

But this falls way too short of the “real” goal.

And how about that goal where I wanted to earn money from my crafts. That’s also taking an entire lifetime to come to fruition! But I certainly do recall having explored options, working through a few disappointments, testing some stuff, etc … so that by now I still don’t have that online shop I envisioned, but I finally know what my product is going to be.

When I set these goals I truly didn’t think that they were too big. And I truly thought they were doable within the timeframe given

Anyhoot, after some thought I just felt that I wasn’t being kind to myself by dismissing all those tiny steps I took to move me closer to my goals. I felt that they deserved to be acknowledged and celebrated too.

So with that said, what I plan to do moving forward is to log all the tiny “victories” in a special notebook that keeps track of my goals. That way I can see how far I’ve come without getting disillusioned at the perceived “lack” of progress. I can see that I haven’t been idle, and I can see that not all of the steps were complete failures.

I believe that the tiny steps deserve their applause too.

That is all I wanted to share today sexy people! Thank you so much for reading 🙂

Have a good one! ❤

Is It Too Early to Think of 2020 Goals?

Hello sexy people! ❤ 🙂

It’s Friday morning over here in my sunny corner of the globe and I am reading a book about goal setting ~ why? Because I want to set and accomplish some goals in 2020. I want to look back on the year with the satisfaction that comes from having earned new “gold stars”. And I want to be deliberate about it.

Now just to backtrack, I’ve always been a goal setter. Even when I became a full time SAHM I continued to set goals, daily, weekly, monthly, you name it, I’d set a goal for it. ‘s Matter of fact, I had a big goal for 2019 … it didn’t make it past the front gate.

Most of my goals do not make it past the front gate 😦

I kinda dabble at it in the beginning and then I get distracted and blah, blah, blah, & fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la ….

I must hold myself to a higher standard, being a life coaching student & all that jazz!

So I have decided to devote the remaining months of 2019 to studying how to set goals. Because I’ve never really studied it.  I fish something interesting out of my head, buy a fancy whiteboard to write it on and hope that by placing it somewhere visible it will somehow get done.

Well, that strategy rarely, if ever, works for me. Obviously.

And it’s struck me that I am actually being flimsy with this powerful tool for life improvement.

So as I made this decision a few goals immediately started to materialize in my head (they’re like flies swarming about!). Now I’m trying to be choosy because I want these goals to actually mean something. The book I’m reading says that the stronger your emotions are around that goal, the better the outcome. So here they are so far –

A flat tummy by my birthday.

(Oh yes, I certainly have some strong emotions around this one!)

I want some tone in there, I don’t want it to bulge. I don’t need a 6-pack, I just want it flat.

Celebrate my birthday with my family at a nice resort in Bintan.

I have just very recently discovered that the next-door island to Batam (where I live), Bintan, is a paradise! I saw gorgeous pictures of luxury resorts and I’ve been itching ever since! There’s even a place that’s nominated to become a UNESCO world heritage site! Who needs Bali when it’s much farther & expensive?!!

So this is goal #2.

An online shop by July. Or within the 3rd Qtr. But the goal is July.

This was my 2019 goal but I did not even know what my product was going to be. Let alone the criteria for selecting said product – very important!

In fairness, I did experiment with a few options and learned quite a lot in the process ~ including the need to learn about goal-setting 😀

An outside hobby.

I do not want to stay cooped up at home anymore. I understand that most of my time will still be indoors with the adorable toddler but I want something that will bring me in contact with other adult human beings at least once a week. I can do once a week.

Notes on goal 2 & 4 

These sound more like to-do’s but these are sub-goals that I’ve broken down from a bigger, kinda nebulous goal which is to enjoy where I live.

An open slot for goal #5

I still lack 1 goal. I want to make it 5 because I am turning 45 next year and I just like to relate things and turn it into a fun game 😉  I’ll let you gorgeous people know as soon as I’ve finalized it 🙂

 

~~ meanwhile, let me ask you 🙂 ~~

Have you started to think about your own goals for next year already?

Do you enjoy setting goals?

What one new thing would you want to bring into your life next year?

👇👇👇👋

 

Expanding Horizons

What one new thing (or two) are you excited to learn or explore in 2019? 🙂 (We gotta keep levelling up, right?)

Howdy amazing folks! We are moving into the final month of the current year which … likely means that you’re giving a think about the year ahead, right? 😉 And if you haven’t yet then I would love it if you used this prompt to do so 😀

So that up there is Question #4. Give it some thought and share your answer/s below so we can inspire each other with awesome ideas & positive intentions 👇👇👇 And don’t worry if it’s not final yet, we’re all entitled to brainstorm! 😀

~ My answers:

1.  crochet earrings
2.  working with t-shirt yarn

 

What are your answers? 😀

My Brain’s Abuzz With 2019

Blame it on the ambivalent & un-inspiring goals I set for myself in 2018 (though I can’t be too hard on myself, I had recently given birth you know 😊), but my brain’s been abuzz with goals for 2019.

My episode of painful gastritis really did help me clarify things, one of them was realizing that I can’t really do “loose weight” as a goal again. I mean, yes, I could do with some weight loss, but I want this to be a side-effect of something bigger (and healthier!). Like fasting, because weight-loss is just one of the many effects of it and it isn’t even the best or most noteworthy.

Anyhow, I realized that I am galvanized into action by level-up goals that are fun and exciting but are also a bit scary and outside my comfort zone. I mean, I guess all of us are like this, no? In my case the more thought I gave to it the more it started to look like this:

goal: make life in Batam fun & engaging <- learn Indonesian <- make local friends (I only have fellow expat wives as friends so far) <- use my craft as a springboard <- sell my creations for fun <- learn all about social & online selling

Now this is really starting to look like a decent party 🤩

Already, because these goals are that exciting to me, I’ve taken some relevant action. I got friendly with my next-door neighbor. Now at least I’m friendly with someone local and hopefully she knows of a church that has English service (next action item).

I also made good on something I’ve wanted for some time, a dedicated craft site (fifiandriri.com). I also opened an IG account to serve as a portfolio of my creations. I’m finishing up all my crochet/knitting WIP’s at the moment so that I can start clean asap, with an eye on social selling this time.

I’m reading up about the handmade business, and my brain is lit with ideas and more to-do’s like learning product photography and opening up an FB for biz account.

So exciting! 🤪

How is all this going to help me with learning Indonesian? Simple, language is best learned though interaction & immersion. I’ve tried cooping myself up indoors facing my computer, the results are minimal and I’m not having any fun at all while at it. So I need to be out there and talk!

And how is this gonna force me into loosing weight? Well, lemme tell ya: I love to crochet lacy pieces of clothing. Clothing need to be modeled by a real person. You do the rest of the math 😁 😁

Hunkering Down: Learning the Indonesian Language Week 2

Let’s Start With A True Story

This week’s work commenced last Saturday when, while visiting a nearby mall, I told my husband “jangan bantu saya, mau berlatih bahasa indonesia saya” (do not help me, I want to practice my Indonesian).

I went in to a store selling women’s accessories and, as expected, was approached by the attendant. She was explaining something about an ongoing promotion, which I understood by just focusing on key words (and the promotional signs). I asked something in my broken Indonesian, she realized I didn’t speak the language and, as I have observed many times in the past, answered by speaking so very fast that all I understood was the language’s signature rolling “R” 😳

Good Lord, help me. Whenever this happens, I want to revert to English so that it’s them having the headache, not me! (That’s my frustrated reaction).

But I soldiered on.

I asked her to please speak slowly, that I was still learning the language – all this in perfect Indonesian because by now this phrase is burned into my brain. Her reaction was one I interpreted to be akin to mockery, complete with that side-smile and downcast eyes. She then removed herself from the scene/situation ☹️

Now, I am not saying they all react discouragingly like this (although I do remember another store attendant who also attended to me with an air of annoyance). I don’t know what that lady’s problem was or what she was thinking at the time. Although I managed to walk out that store with 2 sets of lovely earrings (and 2 bracelets for my eldest), I spent a good part of the weekend feeling disheartened.

Jeez, it sure feels like “arse” to feel incompetent like that.

😒😒😒

Here’s how the rest of week 2 went:

Monday

Lesson 49. Done!

Tuesday

Lesson 50 & 51. Done!

The cleaning lady praises my efforts for learning the language. She calls me “pandai” (smart/clever). She goes as far as to compare me with other expat wives who go back to their home countries with nada an Indonesian word under their belts.

Finally some encouragement!

I feel like I’m Wonder Woman 😀

Wednesday

Lesson 52 & 53. Done!

Thursday

Something unpleasant happened the evening before. So today I just want to soak my brain in positivity and possibility.

And knit.

Friday

It took me all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to go back and tackle lesson 54 again.

Week 2 Conclusion:

On speaking with the locals ~ Most of the time, my frustration is that they don’t speak slowly when they reply. They only try to choose other words to explain the same thing but this just confuses me even more. They appreciate the effort I make, but it’s as though they get self-conscious when they respond that they just want to get it over with by speaking very fast and leaving it at that. And if the person being spoken to happens to know a bit of English, he will respond in English so that I am no better off than when I started.

But, I am fortunate to have a cleaning lady who knows enough English for us to be able to communicate. She’ll be taking on a more active role in this process moving forward 😁

On studying:

It still feels like punishment.

 

… to week 3, and beyond!

Hunkering Down: Learning the Indonesian Language Week 1

So after this realization, I decided to dedicate 1 month to each goal.

This doesn’t mean that everything must be wrapped up and neatly tied with a bow by the end of the month. This is just to make sure I give each about 20+ weekdays of undiluted attention during which I put all my other goals on hold.

If a goal resonates, and I decide I want to spend more time with it, I will for as long as I need to. If a goal doesn’t resonate, then I will feel no guilt putting it away by month’s end knowing that I gave it a fair shot.

Let’s do this! 💪

I decided to dedicate July to goal #1, learn the Indonesian language. Here’s an overview of how the 1st week went:

Day 1

After weeks of neglect, I resumed with lesson 46. Focusing is difficult because I have ideas about my other goals and I have to exert willpower to bring my mind back to the day’s lesson.

Day 2

Moved on to lesson 47. Started to ask myself how else I could reinforce my learning. Dusted off an old edition elementary school workbook that I found on bargain a long, long time ago and proceeded to werk.

After 2 pages, looked for and found a podcast about language learning on which I heard Benny Lewis say that he didn’t need to speak the new language perfectly, he just needed to be able to communicate in it (or something like that).

Perfect! That’s what I want too.

What is coach surfing? 🤔

Enrolled in Benny Lewis’ 1 week email course : “Speak in a Week”.

Day 3

Woke up at 6AM with the intention to do some reading in my target language while everyone else was still asleep.

I worked on my new diamond painting project instead, and I wasn’t even aware that I made the switch! 😫

Plodded through lesson 48, midway, I was typing in my credit card details with 4 items for check-out in my online shopping cart. 😫😫

Day 4

I decided that if something was driving me to shop online when I had no need to, then I needed to take a step back from this and re-group.

Found a local TV program about arts & crafts, enjoyed it so much, and wrote down some new vocabulary.  Finally. Score! 😃

Day 5

I sat down for the day’s lesson but found myself watching a YouTube video about the 10 people who hate Megan Markle instead  😲😲

Good Lord, I have never sunk so low!

Decided to redeem my dignity by watching the local arts & crafts program again with notebook and pen in hand. Hmmm … decoupage looks like something I could get into. 🤩Noted!

😵😵😵

Week 1 Conclusion:

I’m really struggling with this. Maybe the language classes I bought is no longer engaging because at this level, I’m bombarded with words that are not common to everyday conversation. Then there’s grammar … 🤢

The local TV program helped because it was interesting and it’s training my ears to how Indonesian is actually spoken. I am happy when I am able to make out words, even those that I don’t know the meaning of 😀 I then write these down and note their meanings.

The old schoolbook also helps. Somewhat.

Here’s hoping week 2 will go much better.