Girlfriend's Life Survival Club

Do you ever feel like your life just isn't going the way that you want it to? Are you frustrated with your career? Do you wish that your relationships were better? Would you like to be in better shape, more organized, or more relaxed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need the Girlfriend's Life Survival Club.

Here's what you need to get started.

• 4 friends (including you)
• 10 weeks
• A willingness to make small steps toward a better life

Sounds too simple to be true? Well it's not. The Girlfriend's club is a little experiment that I have been working on with a few of my friends. It has been a great way for all of us to stay connected and try simple solutions to make our lives more fulfilling.

If this sounds like something you would like to try, here's what you need to do:

1. Find 3 friends who want to join the club
2. Commit to calling each of the girlfriends 1/week
3. Each pick 2-4 goals to work on for the week (small goals that are attainable in a week like working out 3 times etc.)
4. Send an email to the girlfriends each week sharing about your goals, your struggles, and your progress.

Those are the basics. Over the next few months I will be sharing topics that will help you and your girlfriends to grow together. So keep tuning in.

Move Forward Solution

I have been sharing for the past few weeks about a difficult decision that I have had to make. I made the decision to send my daughter to preschool. She is a bit young, but she really seemed ready so I signed her up. She has had some difficulty with separation anxiety. I had to decide whether to push through it and keep her in school or admit that she wasn't quite ready and pull her out. I decided to keep her in for three reasons.

1. I knew logically that it would be good for her to go and that she actually enjoyed school and was probably putting on a bit of a show for mom to see if she could get her way.
2. I knew emotionally that I needed the few hours break that preschool would provide to pursue a writing and speaking career that would be quite fulfilling and take the pressure off of my husband and kids to be my sole source of existence.
3. I knew instinctively that she was ready and it was the right thing to do for the entire family.

It was a decision that was confirmed in my head, heart, and core. I call these kind of solutions Move Forward Solutions. A Move Forward Solution is a solution to a problem that is confirmed in all three areas. Finding a solution that agrees with your head, heart, and core will greatly increase your chances of having a solution that actually works.

Shadow Solutions agree with only one or two of these areas and are often the simple solutions that we settle for because we believe that these solutions will be "good enough." We often find ourselves struggling with the same problem over and over because these Shadow Solutions don't actually solve the problem but merely act as a band-aid that will slow the bleeding for a time. But as all band-aids do, these solutions eventually fall away and we are left with the same problems.

When you commit to finding a Move Forward Solution, one that is confirmed in your head, heart, and core, you can be almost sure that it will work. When you find that you have an answer that is logically, emotionally, and instinctively confirmed, you can Know that you Know that you Know you have found the solution to your problem.

The next time you face a difficult problem in your life, don't settle for the Shadow Solution; fight to find the Move Forward Solution. You won't be sorry you did.

Core Solutions

Over the past few weeks I have talked to you about making decisions and finding solutions. I have used the example of sending my not-so-enthusiastic daughter to preschool. First I told you about the logical decision to send her; it just makes sense to make her go. Then I talked about the emotional decision to send her; I really needed a break and a chance to work on my career. Today I want to talk to you about my core decision to send her.

A core decision is something that is instinctive. It is a decision that you can't necessarily explain, you just know in your gut that it is right. Many people talk about core decisions when they are intending to marry, they don't know why it is the right decision to get married, they just have a gut feeling that it is the right thing to do. People also trust core decisions when planning which college to attend. After all the research and school visits, one school just "feels right."

When making decisions, we are often forced to go to our core, the place deep down inside, to come to a final conclusion. When the right answer isn't always clear, we often trust that gut instinct to guide us to the right decision.

Sending my daughter to school right now is a choice. She is young enough that I could pull her out. However, something in my gut tells me that this is the right decision for both of us. She really wants to be there and the only thing holding her back from fully enjoying school is the five minute separation anxiety that she feels when I drop her off. For now, I believe that I need to trust my gut instinct that I am doing the right thing by sending her.

If you are struggling to make a decision now, ask yourself what your core is telling you. Call it women's intuition, call it gut instinct, whatever you call it, the internal sense that guides you to a decision is more often right than wrong. Trust it.

Emotional Solutions

Last time I told you about my logical decision to keep my daughter in preschool despite my emotional pull to take her out. As a woman, I often defer to my emotional side when I am making a decision. It is what comes naturally to me. My husband, on the other hand, prefers to lean on logic. This is much more typical of a man. While I was torn emotionally to pull my daughter out of school, I also had emotional prompts telling me to keep her in.

I was not always inclined to be the mother type. When I was in high school and college, career had been my main focus. I wanted to be a success in that arena long before I ever attempted to have a successful marriage and family. My husband messed up those plans (in a good way) when he proposed to me before I had the chance to finish my degree (which I still obtained after we were married).

As often occurs, marriage led to children which led me to the hold button on my career. Don't get me wrong, I have loved every minute that I have spent with my husband and children, but I know that it isn't enough. My kids will grow up and leave some day and I will need to have something else to do with my life. I owe it to them to take the pressure off. They should not be wholly responsible for my happiness. And, while my husband is a wonderful support and the love of my life, he should not hold sole responsibility for my happiness either.

Therefore, I was left with the need to make an emotional decision to find something that would fill my days, give me satisfaction, and allow me to find joy and fulfillment outside the role of wife and mother. In order to do that, I would need a few hours a week in order to pursue a career.

I know that a few hours a three times a week will not make me the writer and speaker that I eventually want to become but I know that it will give me a great head-start for the time when my kids are a little older and a little more self-sufficient. If I take the time now to work on these things, my career can really take off when I have the time.

In my heart I know that, for now, I need to keep my daughter in school. Tears or not, she needs to go or I will completely lose myself