Consistency in Training - Day 1

This post is a big deal.

I am making a choice here - it's time to change my life in a BIG way. I'm stepping out of my comfort zone to create the life I've wanted for a long time.

I could have created a new blog for this purpose, but I decided to hijack my old one. To actually keep my promise of writing more often. To keep myself accountable for my past decisions. And for my current decisions. In the end, it probably doesn't matter who reads this, but for me to post daily, and in public is a big deal.

A year ago (May 31st) I joined Zurvita, a fantastic network marketing company. We market a product called Zeal - a wellness supplement that has helped my family in a variety of ways. I love the stuff! I have heard so many amazing success stories from all over the US and now Canada about how Zeal has quite literally changed lives. It is a nutrient dense formula that nourishes the body down to the cellular level. Of course it isn't for everyone, but it works so well for so many people, it's hard to conceive keeping it secret.

Yet, that is mostly what I have done. Because it's a network marketing business, and for as many people as a product can help - there are at least twice as many skeptics of the industry. But truthfully, the industry is amazing! It is truly the model of wealth in a failing economy. I believe in Zurvita as a company as much as I believe in Zeal the product. But, due to fear, I have kept myself 'safe' in who I speak with about it - but that is not how a business grows. And it's time for me to change that.

I have been teaching yoga and Pilates for 7 years. I enjoy it, I do, but in the last few years my ideologies have been shifting. I have come to realize in the last few months that I never really intended for teaching these modalities to become my 'career'. I have floundered for years searching for what to do with my life. At my base, I am a singer. I sing out of love, out of anger, out of hope, and just to be silly. I used to sing as a narration for my life. Fear held me back with music, also, but I do believe deep in my soul that it will rise up in my life again. Music is forever, and it will always be there for me.

The other passion in my life was to become a mother. For as long as I can remember, having children has been not only important, but a way to complete my being. I now have two, and yearn for more, but with these two amazing boys I have seen that idea - the completion of my soul in motherhood - ring true. I feel more at ease as a mom than I ever did flying solo. Don't get me wrong, the transition to motherhood was rough and leaving my childhood behind was hard, but I have settled into my role as mom and love every day that I wake up too early to nurse my 1.5 year old, and every sweaty hug from my 4 year old. In the end, they are my life, my love, and my legacy.

And that brings me to my WHY. We live simply, we can financially only do so much due to the bills we have. We purchased our tiny home at the height of the housing market in 2006 (yay) and the job I relied upon - and our mortgage was based on - ended (business closed) once my first was born in 2008. We were left struggling with a way to make ends meet. I do a bit of this, a bit of that - I cleaned houses and offices and such and brought the babe with me. I taught classes once my husband returned home from work. I babysat. It was all *just* enough to scrape by. Then things got to an okay place, and I got pregnant with #2. We were trying, but I kind of just gave up the finances to "we'll figure out a way". We made a lot of terrible money decisions. In fact, we are still paying for some of the ones we made in our early 20's; 10-15 years ago.

Last year I hit rock bottom. I called the housing help hotline to see what they could do for us re: our too high mortgage. When all was said and done, they recommended we go for a short sale. It was the better option than foreclosure. I couldn't speak. The kind man on the other end of the phone gave me a bunch of websites and phone numbers to places that MIGHT be able to help us lower bills, and I hung up. I took a deep breath, and I sobbed.

And then I got angry. Overwhelmingly, bright red hot angry. We made too much for most of these places to actually help us. I tried before I broke down and called them. We fall in a bad place of making too much for government financial aid, but too little for a bail out. I tried getting help with a refinance. Refinancing the car, even. Nothing worked. My credit rating fell in an instant from 720 to 548 the day after we missed a mortgage payment. I thought the world was going to end. Ha!!!

I wasn't going to let them try to take our house. Plus, any rental we could find in our area was going to cost us just as much as our mortgage AND be much smaller. Did I mention already that our house is tiny? I couldn't see how that was the way out. Sell your house, then go into worse debt paying for someone else's mortgage! Yes, that fixes things!

So, instead I called my brother and bravely asked him for a loan. He graciously gave it to us. We scraped by, managing to pay our bills just within the time frame to keep them from qualifying as late. But, there had to be a way out.

I opened my heart up to options, and began watching one of my Facebook friends' posts. She spoke about how her family was doing so much better financially, and their health was improving as well. I watched for two months, and then I decided to contact her. We didn't know each other outside of Facebook - in fact, she lives on the other side of the country and we've never met. But that first phone call lasted an hour and a half, and ended only because my baby woke up and I needed to go nurse him. She introduced me to Zeal, and after a month of research and trying it out, I made the decision to join. I was terrified, but I pressed the button on my computer and didn't look back. And while I have not made leaps and bounds in my financial life this last year, my personal growth has been amazing, and I am so much better off for making that decision.

This year, my decision is to follow through with the financial aspect. I am making changes in my approach, and I am getting the word out in a big way. I believe in Zeal, I believe in Zurvita, and I believe in me. It's time.

And with that, the title of this post. Consistency is the name of the success game. I have been inconsistent with nearly everything. Yesterday I decided to make this blog my consistency blog - my accountability. This year - 365 days - I am going to post daily, even if it is just a couple of lines. It's about the consistency in my life. I'll be posting about my successes, my failures, my learnings. In the end, I will be grateful - and satisfied.