Preparation – Page 3 – Melissa Schlies

A Short Pause Before the Holiday Rush

Here in the US, the fall is full of holidays. Where I live, they sneak Halloween candy onto the shelves right before kids start school in August. In fact the way our grocery stores and Target behave, you would think fall is a four month celebration. Ghosts and ghouls haunt us down shopping aisles, until they’re replaced just before Halloween with Santa and his elves. While Thanksgiving squeaks in between the two like a ninja. One day there’s a rush on free turkeys, the next Mariah Carey is singing to us through the intercom, telling us all she wants for [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-11-03T14:45:07+00:00November 4th, 2019|Categories: Health, Mental Health, Preparation, Self Care|Comments Off

Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me About Moving Far From Home

Years ago, I talked to an expat who had lived overseas for over thirty years. He said that after being away from your country of origin for ten years, your sense of where you come from shifts. Your idea of home gets muddled. Because all your recent history has been spent in a place other than where you grew up, you begin to feel like you belong where you are, more than where you’re from. Living in a different culture for so many years, I am sure, enhanced his experience even more so. But now, after living fifteen years in [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-09-04T13:32:33+00:00September 26th, 2019|Categories: Acceptance, Adulting, Change, Freedom, Lead, Leadership, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, Preparation, Travel, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Five Changes I Wish I’d Made In My Twenties

Life is hard. There are dreams or goals we work for without any guarantee that they will ever happen. There are difficult family relationships for us to navigate. Friendships that never last as long as we’d like. Physical or mental ailments or allergies that wear us down or threaten to hold us back. And don’t even get me started on dating or marriage. Only sometimes, we are so focused on these things that we can’t see our biggest obstacle to living healthier and more joyful lives—is ourselves. Where some of our everyday behaviors are tripping us up. And possibly, even [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-08-30T19:50:23+00:00September 12th, 2019|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Change, Habit Making, Health, Lead, Leadership, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health, Preparation|1 Comment

Setting Our Intentions For Fall

Sometimes, the things that seem so simple—or perhaps even, silly—are those we need most to do in life. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Drink plenty of water. Wash your hands. All of these examples have become obvious necessities in our culture. Yet, with some of them we still struggle. Maybe it’s because we don’t like being told what to do. Maybe it’s that life is too busy to pull the covers over our bed in the morning. Or, who has the time to make sure they’re drinking sixty-four ounces of water a day? Only deep down, we all know [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-08-17T19:54:35+00:00August 26th, 2019|Categories: Balance, Change, Declutter Your Mind, discipline, Habit Making, Preparation, Purpose, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Declutter Your Mind (With This Free New Resource!)

Sometimes, things are quieter on the outside of us than they are on the inside. To an observer we may seem calm, cool, collected. But in our mind, it’s the complete opposite. Worries over a project we have at work or tension with our boss weigh on us heavily. Then there are those dreams we’ve been longing to make reality, only it’s never the right time. Not to mention, our mother, father, sister, or brother called yesterday and shared some concerning news about a family member. Earlier, we took a minute to escape from the world. We opened up [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-08-17T18:27:02+00:00August 19th, 2019|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Declutter Your Mind, Freedom, Health, Making Decisions, Preparation, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Back to Basics (Before the Fall)

Two weeks ago, I ran into Target to pick up a few things. I worked my way through the personal care and grocery sections. Then, as I came around a corner, there it was: the back to school section. It was only the middle of July, and Target was telling me to get ready for fall. Now, I could go on and on about how stores are always trying to push us into the next season. Putting Christmas candy out the day after Halloween, putting Easter Candy out the day after Valentine’s Day, etc. But when they put up these [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-07-29T19:52:23+00:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Adulting, Change, Habit Making, Health, Making Decisions, Preparation, Purpose, Routines, Uncategorized|Comments Off

My Summer Bucket List

“Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.” —Regina Brett Friends, can you believe it is the first day of August? My mind can’t even wrap itself around this fact. Though this means we technically have seven weeks left of summer, it feels like we only have four. Many of us have a fall schedule that begins when September does, cutting our summers short. In other words, Summer is going to be [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-07-29T16:09:04+00:00August 1st, 2019|Categories: Balance, Habit Making, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Preparation, Saying No, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Love: Great Podcasts to Start the New Year

Do you ever feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to read all the books you want to read? Or to learn all the things you want to learn? I feel that way more times than I can count. That is why I love podcasts. Podcasts can give you twenty to sixty minutes of good information right in your ears as you drive to the grocery store, fold laundry, or workout in the gym. Sometimes, the people being interviewed are the authors of the books we want to read. And we can learn some great stuff even if [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-01-31T15:42:19+00:00January 31st, 2019|Categories: Habit Making, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, podcasts I love, Preparation, Purpose, Routines, Success|Comments Off

Spring Cleaning In January

In early December, Tony and I did all the things most people do around Christmas. We picked out our tree then spent an evening decorating it, with Christmas carols playing in the background. We laid our nativity out on the top of our bookshelf. We gift shopped—mostly online. We made our travel plans to Wisconsin to see Tony’s family. And then, we started gutting our apartment. No, we didn’t move. Nor did the time of year make any sense, but as I like to call it, “The Urge to Purge,” crept up on us until we could no longer ignore [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2019-01-10T20:26:06+00:00January 21st, 2019|Categories: Change, Courage, Faith, Hope, Marriage, perseverance, Preparation|1 Comment

A Short Pause Before the Holiday Rush

Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me About Moving Far From Home

Five Changes I Wish I’d Made In My Twenties

Setting Our Intentions For Fall

Declutter Your Mind (With This Free New Resource!)

Back to Basics (Before the Fall)

My Summer Bucket List

Love: Great Podcasts to Start the New Year

Spring Cleaning In January

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