illustration of woman on bicycle catching leaves for quit playing small and make yourself a priority page

Quit Playing Small – Make Yourself a Priority

It’s time to quit playing small and to start making yourself a priority. Are you playing small and allowing your life to pass by while you tend to everyone else’s needs? You say you don’t have time to take better care of yourself and your needs, and to make yourself a priority, but this is your life. And each day that passes is an opportunity you’ve lost. Serving others often comes first. I hear you. I feel that way too. But we’ve done plenty of caring for others, putting everyone…

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chalkboard with the words Choose Joy used as image for Cheers to Chapter Two blog post

How Acceptance Can Lead to More Joy

Defining ourselves by our failures and setbacks keeps us feeling stuck and stops us from feeling more joy. Sometimes things don’t go as we planned. We dream, we plan, we hope, and we take actions with the best intentions and still, some of our best made plans go awry or we’re dealt an unanticipated blow or are otherwise derailed from our goals. How can we cope with the ups and downs and twists and turns of life in a way that can lead us to experience more joy? We can…

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A notebook on a table with the words do your thing written so we can stop worrying about being liked

Midlife: Time to Stop Worrying About Being Liked

Midlife is (beyond) time that we stopped worrying about being liked. Women are complicated creatures. We are problem solvers, caretakers, nurturers and frequently, avid people-pleasers. All of that is fine, except that we can take the people-pleasing gig a little too far. And when we do, we suppress our own needs and desires, frequently because we’re worrying about being liked and being likable. But that’s got to stop. And there’s no better time than right now to kick that habit to the curb. At midlife, it’s beyond time we realize…

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Image of woman scrolling cell phone alone feeling lonely

Why You Feel Lonely Even When You’re Not Alone

We don’t have to be physically alone to feel lonely. The number of people who feel lonely (even when in the company of others) is epidemic. Feelings of loneliness can affect anyone from children, to teens, to us fifty-somethings, straight on through to the elderly. Loneliness can be at the root of other emotions that keep us from moving forward and living life fully, like sadness, depression, self-doubt, and unworthiness. Loneliness can make us feel disconnected from others and sometimes even from ourselves. Lonely on the outside Some people are…

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Image of a drop of water causing a ripple effect for the Cheers 2 Chapter 2 Little Things are the Big Things blog page

The Little Things in Life are the Big Things

Why the little things in life are actually the big things… If you’re like me, you’ve got plenty of goals and dreams that seem super possible on sunny days. However, on the grayer days it’s easy to feel discouraged and defeated when we don’t see the amount of progress we’d hoped for. We can get fixated on the bigger picture, the end game, and start to feel down on ourselves because we lose sight of an appreciation for the little things in life. The little things that can make us feel…

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A sign pointing to panic one way and calm the other way - to overcome worry

Five Ways to Help Overcome Worry

When anxiety is draining your energy and dragging you down it’s time to try new strategies to overcome worry. Worry is a part of the human condition, but it doesn’t have to be such a big part of our life. We can literally worry ourselves sick and in the end, the worry doesn’t change anything. It makes zero impact on how things turn out. There is no worry-to-positive-outcome ratio. Worry is simply a nuisance and drains our energy. So, let’s talk about five ways we can help ourselves overcome worry…

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