Tag: time

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Victory

lean into the discomfort

I posted this blog post in April 2021… I wanted to share it again as we all have a story to share, a story to encourage and a story to touch lives around you… enjoy.

Last night I was privileged to go to the graduation of a leadership development program of which my husband was part of. What amazed me – was the journey that every participant of which their was 20 went on, to get to the end of the program. The program was jam packed with leadership tools which formed a final toolkit, it involved more soul searching and personal development that you could poke a stick at the the most wonderful part of it was – the stories of victory, the stories of ‘we made it’ that shone through.

Often at a graduation ceremony we don’t get to hear – just how much blood, sweat and tears went into the achievement. We only tend to see the smile, the handshake, the certificate and camera flash. This ceremony was different. Each and every graduate had an opportunity to share a few words about their experience – in an in-conversation style presentation. My eyes brimmed with tears, as one by one the stories of transformation were explained. The stories of growing confidence, the stories of how now, they are closer to their families because of what they learnt, the stories of how they felt like they took up too much space in this world – but now realize that they as a person are amazing.

Do you have a story to tell? Have you experienced a growth journey of some kind? It may not be as intense as what these graduates experienced. It may not have been a facilitated type of personal or professional growth – but at some point, you must have lent into the discomfort and come out bigger, better and stronger for it. To the leaning in – I say thank you – thank you for wanting to be a better person, thank you for putting in the effort to change yourself and therefore your world.

Homes of Victory started out because we as a family experienced the most trying times of our lives. We made a choice to stick it out, to lean into the discomfort – even if it meant gritting our teeth and saying I love you – even when those thoughts were in our hearts but it was dreadfully hard to say Our heart for people of every stage of life and especially those with young families is to be supported and encouraged to lean into the discomfort – to grow – to influence – to live life victorious.

We know life throws us into all sorts of wild situations – ones we never imaged, ones we wouldn’t wish on any one – but you know what – you are brave, you are made for this moment. Even when it seems overwhelming and overbearing – lean into it, learn from it, grow from it. When the season changes – you’ll be able to look back and reflect. Make sure you do – reflect and reflect until you feel you have celebrated the wins, the best you can, when you have unpacked the disappointments the best you can, when you can pick up the growth in yourself and those who have experienced with you. Use each season to become a better person, to be all that you can be. Don’t be scared of expectations – what you expect of yourself or what others expect. Change your perspective and simply lean in.

After the learning, after the wild has calmed down remember to share your story. Share it with intention to encourage, share it with the intention to show others that it can be done. Your story is a powerful tool that will change the lives of those around you.

It’s a story about victory that will touch the lives of everyone… It’s powerful.  

Derek Luke

Categories
Victory

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Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

Desmond Tutu
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Leadership

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“I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”

Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre
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Leadership

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Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.

Ernest Hemingway
Categories
Leadership

Apple Pie and Kindness

A week ago my beautiful Nana went home to be with the Lord. It wasn’t expected but equally not unexpected. The shock has slightly worn off, the practical thoughts have kicked aside the lingering sadness for now, while the fun memories and good times have trickled through my mind like a refreshing stream. Apple pie, peanut biscuit’s, chocolate slice, the sewing, the tea cups, the roast lunches, the love of flowers the list goes on.

She was a lovely person, a kind person, never said a bad word – kind of person. She was resourceful and stoic in her strength. She faced every season with a smile. Her heart full of kindness was shared with those around her through cups of tea, her baking and her love for her family and everyone she met. My Nana always dressed immaculately but it wasn’t her clothing that made her stand out, it was her kindness and loveliness.

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Roald Dahl

Like my Nana, I try to focus on the good so I am like sunshine to those around me. Although she isn’t with us any more, the warmth that comes when we think of her is more than enough. It encourages me to live a life warm to those around me, to be present and aware, to be kind and unwavering, to be even and thoughtful through every season life throws at me. It saddens me to think, that it has taken this experience of losing someone precious to realize, just how important it is to be who you are – to let the sunshine and goodness in us shine into the lives of those around us.

I may not be able to bake like my Nana, but I sure can encourage those around me with kind words and thoughtfulness.

Categories
Victory

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Well done is better than well said

Benjamin Franklin

Categories
Victory

here we go again

I’m sitting here at 9:30am in my PJ’s – one of my kids is painting – the other two are playing Ring Fit – with the argument of it is technically exercise so it doesn’t count as screen time. My husband is sitting next to me working… I should be working – and in all honesty I have been working hard through this latest round of lockdowns… but not in my usual rhythm. For one thing, I am never in my PJ’s at this time of day, I am never normally this unmotivated nor willing to allow myself some grace and work according to my motivation levels. After four days of lockdown with three to go … I know I am blessed – we’ve been relatively lucky in terms of how many lockdowns we’ve experienced and generally they are not too long…. I am realizing my motivation to be productive is sliding lower by the day.

Usually I take the challenge of changing life rhythms and run with it, but this time, my motivation has been hit big time. The routine of life changes the instant lockdown announcements are made, the kids think its school holidays again – rather than thinking about school work from home, my mind goes into ‘how will we do this mode’ and the puppy well she is just super excited to have us all around all the time. The change and the thought of here we go again seems bigger this time – have you ever felt that? You’re not alone. The thing is, we need to give ourselves more grace – even when it’s hard to.

In our ever change landscape of life – be kind to yourself. Listen to the words you tell yourself – are they kind or critical? Check yourself – when you’re feeling it – when the down times come – what is the language you use? Flip it into a positive- allow yourself the time to do it.

Categories
Leadership

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When it comes to developing character strength, inner security and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in a child, no institution can or ever will compare with, or effectively substitute for, the home’s potential for positive influence.

Stephen Covey
Categories
Leadership Victory

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Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve done before.

Bonnie Blair
Categories
Blue Print

measuring success 2

Following on from the previous post – measuring success, here are some things we’ve learnt as we have started to put a criteria together to measure our success as a family. If you haven’t read the previous post, now would be a good time, to give the following context.

  1. The W factor

“Who” or ” What” is telling us the measure of success? The world external to us or internal contributions like ourselves and our family? I am not the car I drive, the job I work in, the home I live in, nor am I the social media account. I am simply me. Yes, we have goals, but they should be mine and set by me – not anyone else. The internal contributors should be the defining measure of success. All too often it is the external voices that influence us the most. The fine line here of comparison becomes clearer. If I have a better car, if my kids have a private education, if my home is a bigger – the list goes on. The scary thing about comparison is, it doesn’t stop. Putting the brakes on comparison and asking what are the contributing factors that make you happy, is an interesting question. One that may take a while to absorb and think through. The world is full of marketing and promotions that tell you to be the best you must have the best, until the next thing comes along. What voices are you listening to, and what images are you looking at – to feed your measure of success? It may not be easy to turn off the external factors, but the internal voice of yourself and your family needs to speak loud and clear as you take the time to listen. You need to determine your own measure of success, don’t let the collective culture of social media, advertising etc determine that.

What external factors do you allow to influence your measure of success?

How can you make your internal influences louder when you measure the success of your family?

2. Comparison will rob your joy

If you feel like you are on the bandwagon of comparison it can be a hard thing to jump off, but you need to find a way. Even for a day, week or month. When you compare yourself to others including strangers, your family, your children, your home, your have and have nots – it literally steals your joy. All you see is the could, should, would haves. Not what you do have. I become profoundly thankful for toilets after I watched a Netflix episode of ‘ inside Bills brain’. It was about a sanitization project The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is working on. It made me realise just how much I take simple luxuries for granted, such as running water, garbage collection, electricity, solar power etc… By stopping and being thankful and noticing just how much I do have in my daily life, it has enabled me to stop thinking about the next buy, the next gadget, the next item of clothing and step back and look at our long-term more strategic goals and how I can achieve them. Jumping off the comparison bandwagon was hard for me, it was a conscious thing I needed to do over a period of weeks to change my thinking. All I can say is, it’s been worth it. Don’t let comparison steal your joy.

Think of ways that you compare yourself or your family to others? How can you counter act that comparison?  

Determine a time frame for which you and your family will jump off the comparison bandwagon – a day, week, month, year. Add the end date to your calendar and reassess how you view comparison.

3. F… is it really a fail?

Finally, how do you perceive failure? As an adult I have struggled with a out of proportion fear of failure. I’ve worked through it… slowly. In our family, as a team we’ve decided that how the world perceives failure is not how we are going to perceive it. If we aim for something and we don’t achieve it, we are going to still look for the good and the lessons learnt during the process. We may not feel like celebrating a failure like some companies now do, but we will absolutely see it as a positive and use it to inspire us to be a little more creative, to step up a little more and to dig a bit deeper to reach the goals we set. With that said, we know we need to set reasonable goals to start with.

How do you and your family percieve failure?

What do you think you could do to make it a more positve experience?

4. A renewed sense of time

When telling a friend about our plan to not buy new in 2020, her first response was ” What about the Boxing day sales, you love them”. This is true, but I was able to respond with a smile saying, ” We went to the beach instead”. From this I realised, without even thinking, I chose quality family time over spending money on things I don’t need. You know how the saying goes:

We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.

Dave Ramsey – The total money makeover: A proven plan for financial fitness

The time we would have spent wrangling kids at a busy shopping centre on the weekend, for no real reason, has been transformed into meaningful family time. Our measure of success is no longer the bargain we snagged, but rather asking ourselves at the end of the day, ” Are the kids worn out from a day of fun?” ” Are their love tanks full?”. The interesting thing is, when we have family time, the smiles on the kids faces and the spontaneous hugs we get is amazing. We have found ourselves really proud that we could make the kids feel so full and loved that it overflows. A love full love tank is definitely a new addition to our success criteria.

What does your family value at its core? ( For us we’ve realised it’s time, read the post – )

Once you start gathering your crierteria of family success, this will feed into your family blueprint. Write down some elements that contribute to your family’s measurement of success?

Categories
Building community

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Comparison will lead you down the path of compromise and competition. Believe me, you don’t want to go there.

Lisa Bevere
Categories
Victory

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The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Steve Jobs
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Victory

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The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realisation that this is what the child will always need can be hard.

Sloan Wilson

Categories
Victory

work vs deed

When have we as a society stopped doing deeds for others and thought of generosity, acts of kindness and thoughtfulness, as work?


Is it just me or do you feel our culture in general is becoming more inward focused, selfish, and unkind? Is the rush of life, the desire to be somewhere, the overbooking of calendars etc… making us weary, without a capacity to think of others?


I’ve been mulling over these two words deed and work for some time, as the meaning of both words has ‘ accomplish’ in both definitions. I would argue although the definition of work has the terms ‘ exertion’ and ‘ effort’ in the definition, at times, when we carry out a deed towards someone else ( I am referring to this in a positive sense) it also does take ‘ exertion’ and ‘effort’.


work – noun: exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something. (labor/toil)

dictionary.com

deed- noun something that is done, performed or accomplished; an act… often deeds, an act or gesture, especially as illustrative of intentions, one’s character.

dictionary.com


What are your thoughts on this? I find as a leader, we can easily set the example by doing random acts of kindness that don’t often take much effort or exertion – but make a huge difference to the day of someone else. When was the last time you send a word of encouragement? When was the last time you thanked someone at work for organizing an event or meeting? When was the last time you noticed something your kids did well or did without being asked?

Don’t see kindness as work. See kindness for what it is – intentionally making some ones day that bit better. It may not take a lot of time, it may not take too much effort but what it does is brightens the world, encourages the ripple effect of smiles and kindness in a world that truly needs more kind in it.

Categories
Victory

Village building

The age old saying, rings true when raising children – it takes a village. But what if you don’t have a village, what if you are lone rangers, completely independent and don’t have family to step in when you need or want them to.

You build your own village, one person at a time.

Homes of Victory

Raising children is hard work, we cannot beat around the bush. Yes it is rewarding, yes it can be fun and all of those things, but break it all down, it is hard work: Emotionally, physically and we can’t forget financially.

If there is one thing that will make raising children easier and fun-ner (is that even a word?), is doing life with other like-minded people. You may already have your village set and be totally content. On the other hand, you may be feeling alone, and don’t know how to meet like minded people, let alone strangers.

Rest assured, as the leader in your home, as a person of influence in your home, you have all the the tools you need to build a village. It will take time and effort, but your efforts will be greatly rewarded by a sense of belonging, a sense of not doing it on your own, a sense of being able to connect. Life is better together right!

Homes of Victory is designed to be a place of support and a place of community. We are here to assist and point you in the right direction for help. Please reach out and contact us and allow up to support you in building your own village.