Personal Endowments: What did the Fairies Give YOU?

   

Fall is just around the corner! And now that the transition back to school has calmed down, I have an opportunity to continue sharing my thoughts with the world. 

Before I wrote my 7 Habits post, I was reading the 7 Habits book and a theme that kept coming up for me was that to fully achieve success with those tools you needed to know what your personal gifts were so you could plan accordingly to put them into play effectively. This goes hand in hand with Energy Profiling for me because knowing what your gifts/talents are is part of knowing your own personality inside and out. This circles back to Covey's work of adding an 8th Habit: Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs. Strangely, this isn't found on the main Habit website, but it does have its own book which is on my reading list so we will probably discuss it more in the future. 

This post goes with the first part of finding my own voice. Pulling from Energy Profiling and knowing that I am a dominant Type 4 with a secondary Type 2 I have a good base knowledge of what makes me tick, but to boil it down to what my cores gifts are, I connected with my childhood. 

So, apparently I am a member of the "Millennial" group. Being born in 1991, I am on the cusp between Gen Y and Gen Z. I prefer to think on my "generation" as the Disney Generation because we grew up with all the classics... on VHS mostly.

One of my favorites was Sleeping Beauty. (Team Blue!) Gotta love those fairies. They are the true stars of the show, at least in my opinion. I've always been fascinated by the gifts they give baby Aurora. I think all of us budding Disney Princesses want the gifts of Beauty and Song; we all love to dress up and sing along.

My burning question has always been, "What was Merryweather's original gift going to be?" We will never know.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wondered what gifts I would've received in Aurora's place. Being LDS I didn't think I'd have to wonder about that after I received my Patriarchal Blessing. This is a special Priesthood blessing you can receive as a youth and I got mine as soon as I could. I was very eager to have this road map to my life that was supposed to tell me more about myself.

In reading through it again, I'm actually surprised how many times the word "gift" is used. But the part that has stuck in my mind since I received this blessing at age 14 is, "There are many gifts and talents which you may not have yet discovered." I was told to seek out and develop these other talents in order to fulfill my potential.

It's been a solid twelve years since I first heard those words. So what have I discovered about my talents? I have found some of them have a parallel to the three Good Fairies and the gifts they gave Aurora.

Flora is the leader of the group and gave the gift of Beauty. Fauna is the glue and gave the gift of Song. Merryweather is the go-getter/problem solver and gave the formula for breaking Maleficent's curse. This is the original order of the gifts but my parallel is in a slightly different order of priority.

For me Fauna comes first. The gift of Song matches my overarching gift of Harmony. My favorite definition of Harmony is, "the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole". Harmony is my watchword, what I look for in every aspect of my life. It is also what I try to create in various forms. Harmony is my vision of life in one word. I expanded upon that in my Mission Statement post last month.

Merryweather was able to think on her feet and come up with a plan to break the curse. Planning is my next gift. Planning is how I work to create Harmony. Planning can also be thought of as Organizing which I am really good at. I like to think that my house seems clean (Harmonious) because it is Organized as far as things are within their correct boundaries. I'm not super OCD. My sense of Harmony allows for my house to feel "lived in" (slightly messy because i have three small kids) thing as long as things are generally in the right area.

Flora gave the gift of Beauty. I make things beautiful (Harmonious) by being able to effectively implement my Organization (Planning) with Authority. Mmm... Authority. As a T4, Authority is a big thing in my world. I prefer to either have the Authority or be able to respect others who have it over me. Mostly I just like having it. Being a more "mature" personality, Authority comes quite easily to me. I'm able to stand in front of a group of people and take charge. Prime example: I may be the youngest Cubmaster ever... maybe. (Do the math, I gave you my birth year already.) It was actually a relief to be officially called because I had felt like an impostor being the acting Cubmaster for about a month and not feeling like I really had the Authority I was trying to wield in keeping our Cub Scout Pack running.

It's fun seeing how my three gifts interact in almost every aspect of my life. I could go on and on giving you examples, but I think maybe you can just go read more of my posts and you'll be able to see them for yourself.

I'll just close with a visual metaphor of how I see my gifts make up a the best parts of me. I found that an umbrella made a good match for what I had in mind. I labelled it, but here's a walk-through. Harmony is the canopy that does the actual job of the umbrella of keeping you covered and safe from the elements. It's also the part that you see as a possible fashion statement. But the canopy can't function without the underpinnings of the shaft and ribs. That structure is my Planning portion. Now, the traditional umbrella is one you have to manually push up, but the one I have has a button in the handle that does the popping for you. The pop is the action that moves the structure to accomplish the task of the umbrella. Just so, my Authority moves the Planning into fruition to create Harmony.

Now for the second half of the Habit. I hope I have inspired you to think about your gifts. Yours may not coalesce into an umbrella metaphor, but that's kind of the point; we can't all be umbrellas and we're not supposed to be all the same.

I'd love it if you'd share your gifted metaphors once you have them figured out.

7 Habits for a Highly Effective Summer

Hello Summer!

And also hello and no school! Which means kids are home and routines are going out the window. (As a T4 who loves routines and structure, this is breaking my brain.)  I have the added element of being married to a teacher, so he is home as well and is wanting to be in relaxing mode the whole time, which makes it harder for me to be doing my job as mommy and homemaker.

Fortunately I took the Home and Family Management class at BYU-I where Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for Highly Effective People was our textbook. It has been five years since then, so I have been feeling ready for a review anyway, and this ts the perfect time to share as we take on this season.

We'll start with the image that represents the 7 Habits and how they flow together, below.

I love how the goal of the Habits is to raise us to a higher level of living through personal and interpersonal growth. It's fun to then apply this format to different realms within our circles of influence. I've already worked on putting a Cub Scout spin on it (that may be September's post), but right now I'm needing to put this into practice in my home. That would be the point of learning this whole process in the Home and Family Management class to begin with.

With the Habits being split as Private and Public, I find it easy to replace those labels with Mommy and Family. This works because as a Mommy (or leader of any kind) you'll want to get yourself in order first so you can operate from a place of confidence and order, which is what the first three Habits focus on.

The First Habit is "Be Proactive". To paraphrase what is on the website, being proactive is taking responsibility for our own choices including our responses to life, to be "response-able" if you will. For me, this means pulling on my Big Girl Pants and actually being ready to be The Mom. 

The opposite of proactive is reactive. As a mom, I'd rather be ahead of the game and running things rather than have things running me. In daily life this looks like taking care of things before they become problems you have to react to, usually in an emotional way. An example of this can be as simple as making sure everyone is fed before anyone has the chance to get "hangry" which leads to everyone yelling at everybody else.

So, the first step here is getting into the mindset of "I can do this!" In other words, we are using faith in ourselves that things will work out if we put forth the initial effort to get on top of things. The next part is identifying our Circles of Influence, meaning the things we can actually take care of and affect. This saves us from using our energy to worry about things outside of our control. For me a great example of this is that I don't worry about politics at all. That is what Charles is for ;) 

My other notes under being proactive are: keep commitments, don't judge (those other people are outside of your Circle of Concern so don't be worrying about them), be a model, and be part of the solution.

The Second Habit is "Begin with the End in Mind". This is something that I'm pretty good at. For me, I can see the big picture, or at least solid glimpses of it, and some of the steps in how to get the results I am wanting. That is the beginning of this habit. You have to know where you are headed in order to plan out the steps of how to get there. Here we start the process of creating our lives. Mr. Covey suggests creating a personal Mission Statement at this point to help give yourself direction before moving ahead.

To create your own Mission Statement there are a few things to keep in mind: What are your principles that you base your life around? What are your roles? And what are your goals?

In exploring those topics, I just wrote my own mission statement out. So that will be my next post,

which saves me space here.

The Third Habit is "Put First Things First". Here is where action comes into play. After the first two

Habits we should be feeling empowered (#1) with a road map (#2) at least in a general sense. Now

we use that power to move forward in the direction of our mission. The quest has begun! (Sorry, I

married a nerd and it's had almost seven years to be rubbing off on me.)

The important thing about this forward movement is to make sure it is in a forward direction, hence

"first things first". It may seem redundant on paper, but think about how easily we distract ourselves

from actually being as productive as we know we can be? I know I have fallen into this trap. That is

the reason I'm revisiting this whole program is to get myself out of such a rut of diverted stagnation.

Habit 3's war cry is "PRIORITIZE!!!!!" And they provided a spectrum format to help us with that,

below.

The intention behind this is that we should spend the majority of our time in Quadrant 2 where things

are important but not urgent. This is where proactivity lives. Quadrant 1 is Reaction Zone. I tend to

avoid Quadrant 3 which is why my email inbox drives Charles crazy. None of the emails I get need

any sort of immediate action, so I only take enough time to mark them as read just to make the

notifications go away. Quadrant 4 has been my vice, but I am getting better at managing that. I'm

writing instead of playing Minecraft, enough said.

The application of this system of spending more of our time in Quadrant 2 is to use those planning

skills from Habit 2 to schedule things out. Remembering to connect to our Mission Statement, you

identify the "big rocks" you need to focus on to accomplish the important goals and plot them out

first. Everything else, all the "little things", then can be organized around what time is left. That is the

step I want to work more on for myself. (Structure=Good)

That wraps up the Private/Mommy/Leader half of the Habits. Onto the Public/Family/Organization

Habits.

Habit 4 is "Think Win/Win". This is where the rubber meets the road. It's great to be doing all the

private deep thinking of setting goals and making plans, but then you have to set all those wonderful

designs into motion... with other people involved.

I know at school, most of us probably preferred to do "Group Projects" alone. We can't do that in the

real world.

To explain this win-win mindset, I'm going to pull a quote from the Covey website:

"Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and

heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements

or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty

darn good! "

To illustrate this with a relevant biographical example, I'll put this in the terms that I used for my Cub Scout group. The boys come to Scouts with their "win" of having fun and (hopefully) learning something. As a leader, I come with the "win" of being able to present the material I have prepared to teach and guide these prepubescent males.

To make this a cooperative win-win situation, I have to put forth effort to make my material "fun" (not my strong suit, but I can default to being dramatic at least) and the boys have to reign in their energy enough to respectfully listen to and participate appropriately to the instructions/discussion/activity. If that goes smoothly we can have a positive experience where they aren't bored and I'm not wasting time and getting frustrated with ... shepherding their exuberant interruptions (read: telling them to "shut up!" every ten seconds).

I can happily report that I have seen success with this arrangement with this group of boys, which is beneficial for my sanity seeing how I teach this same bunch of boys' Sunday School class.

How did I achieve this success? I imposed Habit 5 on them: "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood". I made sure they understood my expectations of our interactions. (I recently introduced them to the metaphor of the carrot and the stick...)

If Habit 4 is about cooperation, then Habit 5 is about communication. The actual emphasis is on empathetic listening. This is a surprisingly useful skill, even when parenting toddlers (assuming they have sufficient language skills or you can interpret their intentions).

My biggest application of this, particularly when issues are arising and my children entering fussy territory. Instead of just listening to what they are complaining about on the surface with their actual words, I try to be in tune enough to intuit what the root problem they are dealing with. I try to understand what is going on inside of them, probably better than they do in the moment. Depending on the circumstances, I either "suggest" they leave the situation to get out of that energetic space and we can talk about it later (time out) or I bring them into a hug right then before addressing the surface concerns. Sometimes my little boy just needs to get some "sads" out, then we can rescript the situation so we don't have that current problem again.

Once cooperation and communication are established, then we can begin to "Synergize", which is Habit 6. The innovation that can come from the healthy background that all the other Habits have set up can be mind-blowing. This is truly a situation of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

I think the secret behind this is the humility and confidence that have grown out of the other steps of this process. We have confidence in our own abilities and ideas but are still humble enough to work together to combine ideas to make something new that can work for everyone (win-win).

In the parenting format I can imagine an example of this being involving our kids when planning out routines or schedules or codes of conduct. When the kids are engaged in these processes they are more likely to respect them. Don't be afraid of this step; they may have ideas that will surprise you. Of course, this is more applicable with older children, but even little ones can at least make the planning stage more... entertaining with their input. (At 10:00 we slay the dragons!)

Our last Habit is "Sharpen the Saw". This is my second favorite Habit because I am a big fan of self-care. I have a firm testimony that I am not the best Momma I can be if I don't have the pieces of my inner puzzle all in the right order. A consistent pattern of this is when I don't get "enough" sleep then I turn into a "Mombie" and I don't use caffeine to combat the effects, so watch out!

Those "puzzle pieces" that need tending to, and ways to maintain performance in those areas, are:

•  Physical: Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
• Social/Emotional: Making social and meaningful connections with others
• Mental: Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
• Spiritual: Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

I know I am still working on finding a good balance of all of these myself. The great part is that this

Habit is taken into consideration back in Habit 3. These activities are contained within Quadrant 2.

And that wraps up my rather long summary of the 7 Habits. I'd encourage you to follow the links to

the Covey website to learn more. I'll end with a little infographic that has a much more concise

review with added applications and affirmations. I'm feeling inspired. I hope you are too.

May we all have the best summer ever!

Adventures in Polyvore: Illustrating My Project 333 Capsule Wardrobe

Well, it's been so much fun doing the full capsule wardrobe experience the last couple of months that I thought I'd go another round of talking about it. My first three month round of the Project 333 system is almost up. This has been a rather freeing experience. I love everything in my closet, I wear everything in my closet, and everything in my closet works quite well together. You usually can't say that about a normal closet full of clothes, especially if you find yourself complaining that you "have nothing to wear".

I think my biggest secret to having the capsule wardrobe work so well is starting with a pretty tight selection of colors that you know work well together. Here's my color palette from this round.

As a Type 4, black and white will probably always be the base of my wardrobe, and I'm ok with that. But playing with the accent colors is where I get to have fun changing it up and giving spice to a wardrobe that might seem rather one-note otherwise.

Another trick is being able to have all the levels of dress represented in the capsule. From casual all the way up to dressed up, you want to feel like you are ready for any circumstance. This does mean having some understanding of the levels of dress that are appropriate to your life style. I'm a church-going stay-at-home mom, so my capsule might lean more to the casual side. But I also have comfortable items to look amazing in on Sunday's too.

Even though I have worn everything I selected for this capsule, there are of course combinations that I noticed that I wore a lot. These are they. The striped pencil skirt is actually a LuLa Roe maxi, so I actually wore that as "lounge wear" when I didn't feel like wearing jeans (read: jeans were in the laundry), but I still make a point of getting dressed everyday. (I feel like I really don't get anything done otherwise.)

The following are several slides showing just how many different combinations you can make with a capsule wardrobe using items I actually have. Mostly I think the theme here is to pick great basic pieces with a healthy dose of accessories so you can have fun mixing and matching to find new combinations to fall in love with.

The rules of the Project 333 system call for you to include outerwear in the 33 items. Since it is winter here in southeastern Idaho, I have a heavier coat and snow boots out. The lighter jacket is for when I'm just running out to the garage for something or when I'm sitting in our almost unheated computer room working on the blog and such. Plus it wasn't completely freezing when I put this capsule together back at the beginning of November. 

Another awesome bonus that I discovered was the fact that for three months I had one purse out and never felt a need to switch it up. Raise your hand if you are a woman with more than one purse. (Guilty as charged.) Before doing the capsule wardrobe I think I'd change purses on almost a monthly basis because I knew the current purse didn't match the outfit I was wearing one day. With the capsule wardrobe and having a limited color palette with a purse to match, I never had to worry about that.

Now I'm looking forward to creating a new capsule for the next three months, purse and all ;)

My Project 333 wardrobe Winter 2016-2017 by heather-horikami on polyvore.com

Time to Try Minimalism: A Project 333 Experiment

As a Type 4, minimalism is something that is supposed to come naturally in theory. In practice, the habits and accumulations of life lead to stuff building up.

I've read the purging challenges of the Mary and Martha book. Sarah Mae doesn't go into any depth about purging your wardrobe, but I felt that was a natural place for me to begin anyway.

I've had thoughts of doing a capsule wardrobe percolating in the back of my mind for some time now, and so I have now begun. I've heard of the 10 Item Wardrobe, but my lifestyle doesn't match wanting to do laundry more than twice a week and my little bit of Type 1 balks at having so few options to rotate through. And as I've looked more at this system, it seems a little confusing to me to only have 10 core items and then extras. So I've settled on an extended version of the Project 333 format. Project 333 means going 3 months with only 33 items, including clothing, accessories, and outerwear. This seems easier than deciding what constitutes a core item or an extra. Project 333 kind of lumps things together and counts everything (except pajamas, workout clothes, and lounge wear, which are all the same for me). I've stretched it a tad. I may be closer to 40 items. I justify this by saying it's winter, so I have an extra coat to count and then I had a hard time narrowing down my jewelry choices.

In choosing my items I used the Vivienne Files All Seasons Packing format as a starting point keeping this post about color schemes in mind. I kept to a concise selection of black, white, cobalt, teal, and red. It's a beautiful thing really. I'm only a week into my 3 months, but I'm still having fun making different outfit combinations.

Here is my new closet and the color palette broken down.

 

So simple and so Type 4. I'm sure more refining will happen and there are some gaps I'd like to fill while keeping a "one in, one out" mindset. But already I'm loving how streamlined my outfit making has become. Dressing Your Truth got me to one level of clarity with keeping only one color family on hand, but Project 333 and pared it down even more.

I really like the Project 333 motto of "Be more with less". I'm hoping to carry that through more of my life in the coming months as I follow through on doing the Martha challenges.

Let me know what you think and Enjoy this holiday season!

Something is Different!

Happy Birthday to Me! In honor of my 25th birthday I made a big change.

I've actually been looking forward to this for about two years. That's about how long I've known about Dressing Your Truth. This is not a total coincidence. Part of having my own DYT course is having a personalized Fashion 101 class, basically. The Type 4 course provides guidelines for what will look best on my Type 4 body to match and express my Type 4 personality in a beautiful way.

These guidelines are actually quite thorough. Everything including clothing, makeup, accessories, and hair are seen in terms of design line, texture, fabrication, pattern, and color and many examples are shown. Now, all Types can have long or short hair. I've had long hair for most of my life. I've even cut and donated it a couple of times. But I'd never gone this short. After DYT, I had the confidence and knowledge to know that I really could do a pixie cut.

So two years ago, I decided that I wanted to give it a try when I turned 25.

Unfortunately, the place I went to get my hair done doesn't have WiFi (weird, I know), so I wasn't able to show them the Pintrest picture of the exact cut I wanted, so I'm not fully in love with the details of the cut that I got. Fortunately I am very familiar with the fact that hair grows and I can get it fixed in a couple of months. Here is the picture of what I really wanted:

Gorgeous, right? The cut, not the color. Sorry, but I don't think I'll ever go blonde. I did however also die my hair when I got it cut. I went darker to an ash-based brown a couple of shades darker than my natural brunette and I LOVE it!!

For such a big change, I've only gotten positive feedback. My babies didn't freak out. Charles didn't really care other than he was happy that I was happy. And everyone else has been really supportive as well. All the compliments are right on point with what I was going for.

The whole point behind changing my look was to turn up the dial on my Type 4-ness and the compliments I've gotten just prove that I got it right. Each Type has a list of great descriptive words and you'd think that people were just reading off my list. my favorites have been, "Chic" and "Stunning". Stunning is actually the "Beauty Code Word" for Type 4 as a whole.

Another reaction I got a lot at the beginning was remarks at how brave I was for going through with such a big change. I don't feel like "brave" is the right word. I feel that I've been "bold" (another T4 word). I think that is the power of the empowerment of the Dressing Your Truth program. They give you all the guidelines and then you are left to follow your (more informed) "Beauty Sixth Sense" in creating your own style.

I don't think you should have to be "brave" to live and dress your truth. That makes it sound that most people are in fact scared to do so. Admittedly, I know that without the DYT program most people are left to guess their truth in a world that doesn't give us great tools to navigate a trend-driven fashion industry. That's why I'm so passionate about sharing this "makeover system" that goes far beyond just the surface appearance.

Currently there is a very exciting sale going on. Until Nov. 22 the courses for all 4 courses are being sold as a bundle for only $100. What an investment! Please use my link to get registered and start learning what Type you are before you buy it so I can get some referral benefits. I'm here if you have any questions or if you want a closet makeover. I'm particularly gifted in being able to sort clothes by Type.

I want everyone to feel empowered to look amazing in their own special way.

Closet Before and After: Maryann

As a DYT veteran, I can't help but try to share this knowledge with everyone I know. Of course I do try to be tactful and wait for "opportune moments".

One such opportune moment came this Memorial weekend. I'll admit I only briefly mentioned this part of our big road trip in my post about it, but for me this was kind of a big deal. Being the catalyst of someone's journey of self-awareness through this program is exciting. And to have this gift so well-received was much appreciated.

Maryann is my father-in-law's wife and we have become friends. During that weekend we bonded over gardening and how cute my boys are. In fact, I can attribute the "opportune moment" to them.

We were discussing how similar yet different Jon and David are. To me, this of course makes sense because of their shared genetics and different Types. So, yes, I approached Dressing Your Truth through The Child Whisperer.

Explaining about how I can approach parenting my babies differently with the intent to honor their true natures segues quite nicely into introducing others to how they can discover their own natures in turn.

Plus I was able to point Maryann to my own experience as recorded here because I was also finishing the post about my closet purge while we were there.

The bonus for me was that Maryann was very open to watching the free Beauty Profiling course while I went through her closet. How nice of her to let me scratch my organization itch.

After viewing the course she decided that she is a dominant Type 1 with a secondary Type 4.

The course is fairly short and I wasn't done in her closet yet, so I pulled up some YouTube videos I had compiled to give some more context for the program.

Now, we know how I love makeovers but Carol had gone the next step of having members of her crew try on all the Types and share how they feel when not dressing their truth. Watching these was where Maryann got her big "Ah ha!" moment in seeing what a difference dressing your truth can make in your attitude, demeanor and confidence.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a major pruning session in the online realms and those videos are now private. Furthermore, the Carol Tuttle online space recently went through a major consolidation as well and I cannot kind those videos anywhere.

Fortunately my angels listened to my frustrations and there is a new version of Carol in the other three Types. I just hope they will do the same for the other Types because I recall that each Type reacts to the other Types differently.

There are still plenty of makeover videos to watch at liveyourtruth.com. (Real Women, Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4) For those not already in the program, seeing these women's stories can be a great first step to be able to say, "That sounds just like me!"

Now, back to Maryann's closet.

This was her closet when I first walked in.

A fairly ordinary closet with straightforward organization but not much by way of cohesion or theme. most of us would be familiar with such a closet.

And here's her closet after my first go-through.

I was able to get it all sorted by Type and then the blouses by rainbow order within the Types.

Since then, they have finished a big closet remodel and Maryann has done some eliminating of her own. Here is her new closet or at least the sections of tops.

I can tell that Maryann is doing more to embrace her truth because the colors seem much brighter and happier to reflect her Type 1 nature. (I also suspect there is better natural lighting in the new closet.) She is still at the beginning of her journey but she can recognize what items aren't really her colors and being okay with the fact that she isn't quite ready to let go of all of those off-Type pieces. It took me a while to get rid of everything not Type 4 as well, so that is very normal. Just the awareness of what is truly right for you is a big first step.

With (DYT) I am more aware what is better for me inside and out. And now I see happy colors in my closet associated with my personality. What an education now to being clued in! With this new knowledge I am able to shop for who I am. It is really strengthening. -Maryann 

I wish Maryann all the best in her future journey and extend my assistance to anyone else who would like help in starting their DYT journeys. I can do the closet sorting but the true first step is figuring out what Type you are. My personal referral link is heatherh1.dressingyourtruth.com. It takes you to a login page so you can get signed in the system before viewing the Free Beauty Profiling course. I think my referral benefits kick in once you buy your Type's course.