This is the true story of a small-town girl who picked to live in a big city, and put her life on social media, to find out what happens when she starts a blog and sh*t starts getting real. Thank YOU for coming along on this journey with me around the sun. It’s that time of year to rest…and reflect on our epic presence. Yes, YOUR epic presence, too. Whether 2018 seemed like the best year yet or pretty meh, I promise there is a lot to be grateful for. Sometimes you just need to look a bit hard. Read on for the positive affirmations I’ll be taking with me into 2019 and tips on setting your best intentions for another amazing year.

Holy Nikes 2018 was a BIG year! I took a leap of faith 8 months ago and launched The Shooks Life. I traded teaching spin for exploring more fitness gems across the city, started developing my own recipes and actually made it in the top 20 for a national recipe contest (recipe here) and started simplifying my life by moving from a 4-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom apartment. And that my friends, is going to continue to be my mantra for 2019: Do more things that set you free, and less that hold you down.

Here are the affirmations that will be my guiding light in 2019:

1.) Let’s STOP priding ourselves in how busy we are and START bragging about how little we have to do.

2.) Let’s START making room for things that matter and STOP adding things that don’t.

3..) Let’s STOP making oodles of resolutions we won’t keep and START taking action towards one.

4.) Let’s START being content with what we have and STOP being envious of the things we don’t.

5.) Let’s STOP the outward comparison and START the obsession with loving ourselves.

Now it’s your turn to put your mark on 2019. What will your legacy be in the coming year? And if “legacy” feels a bit over dramatic, think about how your recap will read at the end of next year. Getting started is the first step. Your welcome. Genius, I know. Read on for a few less obvious steps to setting your intentions for an epic 2019.

Setting Up 2019 to Be the Most Epic Year, Yet!

Step 1: Envision your best day ever. What time do you wake up? Where are you? Who are you with and what do you do that makes your heart swell? If you’re working, what are you doing? How would you sustain this lifestyle? Details matter! Write that sh*t down.

Step 2: What values light you up? What are the words or feelings that describe your best day ever? These are the values that you seek. For me, it was “Free”, “Inspired” “Challenged” and “Connected”. Try to keep it to single words, active words to drive specificity and focus.

Step 3: Create a mood board. Yes, this will require either the old school approach of cutting out pictures from magazines or using the Google images search. Include images that reflect your best day every and those values. This will serve two purposes: 1.) it can be a reminder throughout the year of your goals and 2.) ask someone else to look at the mood board and describe it to see if there’s any values you may have missed. Perhaps someone else will look at your board and say ‘woah’ there’s a lot of movement and activity. Maybe you’re someone who needs to live an “Active” life. Or maybe it’s the polar opposite and exuding “Calm” is your thing.

Step 4: Set 3 goals that will help you live those values. First Goal: How can you exude those values today, in your current profession? What more can you do within the present constraints? Second Goal: How could you exude those values tomorrow, perhaps in another profession or role? What would you being doing outside of the present constraints to sustain a life you love? Third Goal: How could you exude those values without any constraints? What if money was endless and you could do whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted, with whomever you wanted?

Step 5: Make a game plan. Write down at least three specific steps that will help you achieve each of those goals. What ACTIONS do you need to take to get closer to those goals? What RESOURCES do you need to get there? WHO can help you get there? Be specific, action-oriented and set deadlines for each of those steps. I know, dreaded deadlines. But if it’s not measurable, there isn’t accountability. And YOU are the only one that is in charge of your future. So take charge! If it’s helpful, use the START, STOP and CONTINUE framework. What do you need to START doing, what should you STOP doing and what should you CONTINUE to do to achieve these goals?

Now start setting those intentions! Cheers to living, breathing and ACTING upon these mantras in 2019! And if you ever need accountability, your girl has your back! Feel free to comment below with your goals or one thing you’ll stop, start and continue below. Writing it down is the first step towards accountability.

Thanks again for coming along on this journey.

There is SO MUCH MORE to come in 2019!

The post Here’s Looking at You, 2018! appeared first on The Shooks Life.

So this is September. Feeling a lot of gratitude these days as we enter a new moon and an opportunity for a reset. I don’t know about you, but August was rather tumultuous for me with Mercury in retrograde and a swirl of emotion that had me contemplating a lot of personal decisions about career, family and…purpose. Like, am I mindlessly climbing the ladder…or am I truly following my passions, the things that light me up? It reminded me that what truly excites me is not random. It’s connected to my purpose. And I needed to follow those passions. Like reigniting my passion for travel, my passion for driving innovation and my passion for creating connections. Read on for what sparked my clarity and creativity while in Venice Beach.

What better way to express gratitude than through food? At Cafe Gratitude all of the plant-based dishes are named for inspiring feelings like “Nourished”, “Bountiful” and “Restored”. Flavorful dishes like the “Evolved” bowl (shown above) feature local, organic produce like the oyster mushroom bulgogi, daikon, cucumber, kim chee and chickpea frittatas that top the crispy brown rice with bibimpap sauce. So much texture and flavor going on! These dishes live up to their names. But also, isn’t it amazing how just a name like “Restored” can reset your entire mood?

My lust for travel…and ice cream was fulfilled and then some at Wanderlust Creamery. This artisinal ice cream shop on Lincoln features flavors inspired by global travels. Each scoop takes you to a new destination like the Ube Malted Crunch (above, purple) inspired by the Philippines and featuring sweet purple yams with malted milk pieces. The bottom layer (green) is a Japanese Neapolitan with layers of matcha, hojicha (a more mellow green tea than matcha, with a slight nutty flavor) and black sesame seed ice cream. I have no desire to site on a flight for 10+hours to visit Japan, but I will take a walk to this ice cream shop again!

If you’ve been watching my Instagram feed, you know my new obsession with Erewhon Market. This pizza is what raw food dreams are made of. Erewhon may be “nowhere” spelled backwards, but the name of this organic grocery store and cafe might as well be spelled h-e-a-v-e-n. The crust is a crispy blend of buckwheat, sunflower seeds and flax that is topped with a creamy cashew “ricotta”, walnut pesto, cherry tomatoes and olive tapenade. This is the kind of pizza you could eat every dang day.

This gourmet grocery store is a Mecca of healthy foods that’s named after the book with the same name in which the world is a utopia where everyone is responsible for their own health. The market continues to be a pioneer in functional foods with a tonic bar (where I ordered an activated coffee of ghee, collagen peptides and…), raw food bar and aisles filled with everything under the sun from local produce to every adaptogen you can name.

The Class by Taryn Toomey may have a generic name, but it’s anything but generic. This was my second time returning to The Class, this time at The Space, formerly know as Cardio Barre. I wanted to see if it could carry the same luster the second time around and whether it would be as insanely hard, or if that was a one-time event at Wanderlust Hollywood. The verdict? Just as mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting…in a good way. Check out my prior post for a low down on what to expect.

The Butcher’s Daughter featured vegetarian fare just as clever as the name. I’ll be dreaming about the Spaghetti Squash Carbonara for days. Carbonara is a classic turned plant forward with a bed of “angel hair” spaghetti squash layered with the most decadent and creamy cashew “ricotta”, adzuki “bacon” and a soft poached egg nestled amidst spinach and seared cherry tomatoes.

Adzuki might sound like something you would sneeze, but it’s actually a red bean that is indigenous to the Himalayas. It has a relatively neutral flavor that pairs well with buckwheat and liquid smoke to create a bacon-like flavor and texture. It’s not quite as crumbly as the real deal, but I can’t wait to try making it on my own!

The Venice Canals were my serenity on this vacation. It was a quiet and calm oasis of gorgeous homes lining these man-made canals off the coastline. The canals were developed back in the early 1900’s, but were left to erode. In the early 1990’s they were resurrected to their current state of beauty for the public to wander the sidewalks and dream of Italian Villas.

The theme of my trip was really wanderment (yes, I made up that word). I so often plan every minute detail of my life, and my trips, that it sometimes takes away the joy of discovery. I happened upon this exotic sausage shop and beer hall on my way back from yoga. Now that I’m working in innovation again, I take every opportunity to discover new foods, like this rattlesnake rabbit jalapeno sausage. Like I’ve heard before, the rattlesnake tasted surprisingly like…chicken. And the jalapeno was just the kicker to spice things up.

Usually when I run out of time during my weeks, the first thing to go to the wayside is yoga. On this trip, I cultivated the time for some much-needed introspection at Love Yoga. The practice at Love Yoga is a blend of Katonah Yoga, Iynegar and Vinyasa with inspiration-laden narrative winding through challenging poses. The hands-on practice made it personalized and was especially needed for some of the unique movements. Ultimately, I left feeling radiant, transformed and ready to take on September!

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