Whats New
This Month?
New content is released each week and will be updated below. But don't worry, all of the info still lives in the Vault section for you to refer back to anytime! Release schedule:
Simplify - First week of the month
Nourish - Second week of the month
Enjoy - Third week of the month
Celebrate - Fourth week of the month
Simplify
Simplify your mornings
It’s March!
And this month in the Membership our theme is ‘organise’.
Oh how I used to LOATHE the concept of being organised. I thought it was an idea for other people, other people not living my circumstances who had the time and energy and inclination to get their shit sorted.
I was wrong.
Feeling organised is actually the ultimate freedom.
For some of you this comes as no surprise. You love feeling organised and have created systems for your life that make you feel in control.
But let’s be real - I’m sure there are some areas you can still simplify. Some aspects of your life that you complicate through being disorganised. Am I right?
This week let’s turn our attention to the morning. I can tell you, the way my morning rolls can set me up for the entire day. I wonder if you’re the same? So let’s put a gentle focus on next-level organisation for our mornings this month.
And no - I’m not going to suggest getting up two hours earlier - just a few small steps you could take for a smoother morning routine that I’ve been able to implement with all the little people around! (And if these are ones you are on top of - then pick another area of your day or week that feels chaotic and create your own small steps to bring a new level of simplicity to your life!)
I explain them a bit further in the video above, but in summary - here’s a few things you could try…
- 1. Don’t turn on your phone as soon as you wake up. Leave it in flight mode, or off until all the morning jobs are done. This small step has revolutionised my morning.
- 2. Put your clothes out the night before. Do this for any other member of the family that will let you too. That five minutes the night before makes a world of difference to the morning routine.
- 3. Start with gratitude. When you get up, lay your feet on the ground, take a deep breath and say “thank you, thank you, thank you”. Doing this first thing sets a beautiful tone for the day - especially if I haven’t had a cheeky scroll of my socials from bed!
Not huge - but could be hugely beneficial!
Have a go of one of these, or think about how you could simplify and streamline your mornings in other ways. Anything that you’d like to get in the habit of? Maybe chopping the veggies for the kids school lunches the next day?
Remember - change requires repetition - so choose one or two things and do them every day. Then move onto the next once it’s become a new habit.
Lisa x
Nourish
Organise your meals!
This month our theme is ‘organise’ and there isn’t a simpler way of feeling organised with meals than MEAL PLANNING! Especially if that meal plan incorporates cooking once, and eating multiple times #ease
We have an amazing collection of meal plans in the Membership and you could literally map out an entire month’s meals with EASE to help you get organised. Choose your hero protein and mix and match the recipes to suit your family’s needs - voila!
On the meal planning page inside the membership, you’ll find plans for using the following hero proteins:
Roast chicken (summer and winter)
Mince (bolognese)
Lamb Traybake
Meatballs
Mince (mexican)
Roast Lamb
Sausage traybake
Honey-Tamari Chicken
Challenge yourself to plan some of your meals this month (or all of them!) I often have Monday - Thursday planned out and that gets me through my week. And if I’m being honest - that often means only cooking twice.
Let’s challenge ourselves to get organised and feel the freedom!
Oh and getting organised means knowing the basics and making them work for you! As a reminder we are putting some recipes in the spotlight for you this month.
- - Roast Chicken & a leftover meal - honestly - roast chicken leftovers are my saviour!
- - Cook a double batch of bolognese and use over pasta or zoodles and then make the Easy As Pies!
- - Zucchini Slice is a staple in this house because of the many varied things I can serve it with for lunch or dinner.
- - Sweet Potato, Salmon & Pea Patties - honestly - have you tried them?? Do it!
Enjoy your planning? What’s going on your list? Let’s share with each other and get inspired!
Lisa x
Enjoy
Get it out on paper!
I’m sure you’d agree that a huge part of simplifying our lives is the extra mental space this provides. I remember that so much of my disorganisation came from having WAY too much in my head. And seeing as this month we are focused on getting organised I thought I’d share a few ways I do this in our mindset week, because it has made so much difference to how much I ENJOY my life!
Let’s face it….
Getting your dinners written out for the week – relief!
Having your inbox at zero – so good!
A handbag that contains only essentials – praise be!
And so this month a practice that saves me on the daily. And look, it’s not sexy. If only you could see the MOUNTAIN of notebooks I have lying around….
But it’s effective, and it involves spending five minutes at night writing out essentials for things that need to happen the next day.
You don’t need a fancy notebook, you can even do it electronically.
Just get five things that you’d like to happen onto paper. I mean – let’s go a step further and write out the meals you’ll eat!
Here’s what will happen…
You’ll stop that horrible mental planning in bed at night.You’ll actually tick things off your list, instead of having them floating about in the ether.
You can begin to trust yourself that things won’t ‘fall off the radar’.
You can begin to prioritise and create space because you won’t waste time chasing your tail.
You could choose to put something just for you on that list. And begin adding more joy into your life.
Sound like a plan?
If you already do something similar we’d love to hear about it. If not – buy a simple notebook and practice this simple nightly task that could just change your world…..
Lisa x
Celebrate
March Outstanding Member - Rachael Burns
Well, this has been an interesting month, hasn’t it? Who could have predicted that we’d kick off Simplifying our morning and meal planning and then end up in the situation we’ve found ourselves, with Coronavirus?
I went live inside our Facebook group to talk about it, and how Small Steps can help you right now - watch here.
There has never been a more important time to celebrate yourself. To celebrate however you have navigated the uncertainty and disruption of finding yourself living in a time of a pandemic. It’s going to be important to keep doing this.
Because if we can look at our world leaders and think - wow, they don’t know what they are doing - then we also need to give ourselves that grace. Not one of us knows what’s coming AND YET we are walking forward.
Over the coming months we will keep the goodies coming for you inside the Membership and thanks to all your suggestions in this thread when I asked what it is you need, we are reworking some of the content in order to be relevant at this time.
But I want to remind you about the power of community. The power of a safe space. You have that in Small Steps. Our Facebook community can be anything YOU make of it at this time. It’s your space and there has never been a better time to double down on simplifying our lives, nourishing our bodies, and working on our mental game.
Let’s celebrate the fact that we’ve been on this path for a while and that is absolutely going to stand us in perfect stead for whatever evolves in the coming months.
I celebrate you!
And this brings me to our extraordinary Member of the Month. She has made some huge leaps in a ‘small steps’ kind of way during her membership over the past two years. Rachael Burns, it’s a pleasure to have you inside our community - we will be in touch shortly with details of your gift!