The closer we come to the new year - and decade - the more I’ve been reflecting back over what I’ve gone through this year. It’s amazing to me how all of these little moments add up and create lessons that we can learn and grow from.

These are the silly and serious lessons that I learned throughout 2019. They have all helped me better understand who I am. My hope in sharing these is that you’ll look back and find lessons that have shaped you into your best self too.

19. I am obsessed with three things: Water bottles, coffee cups and camping chairs!

This may seem random, but it’s actually the perfect snapshot of my life! I spend hours, camped out on the side of a baseball or soccer field and I need these three things to keep me going! Water bottles because it’s a million degrees in Arizona and I’m constantly drinking and having my kids drink water. Plus, a cute water bottle is so much more fun! Coffee cups, because it’s what keeps this mama going when I’m running from activity to activity all weekend. Finally camping chairs because, again, I’m sitting on the sidelines for most of my weekends and a comfortable chair is LIFE! I have a pretty sweet collection going of all of these things and I’m not embarrassed about it!

18. I am a night owl. My most creative and productive moments are after 9 p.m. or at 4:30 a.m. - which is still the middle of the night! Bahahaha

17. My kids literally think I can do anything, which is great - until they want me to make their Halloween costumes!

16. I am in competition with NOBODY. I am exactly where I am meant to be in all things - family, business, personal growth and love.

15. I LOVE being an entrepreneur and a coach! I really love the difficulty of it, even when it sucks and I absolutely love it when it is good!

14. Journaling is LIFE! I truly believe that if you want to change anything you have to start with understanding what is going on in your head about it!

13. I am a people person. I need to be in community with people. I especially love to be in community with people working towards something. Which is about to make number 12 a catch 22.

12. I’m in a season where I want to cultivate incredible friendships but my kids and their activities are where my heart is at. I don’t want to miss a single thing!

11. I have a “SOUL contract” to help people heal.

I have spent a lot of time this year discovering what my soul’s purpose is. The way I’ve designed my coaching program this year is completely different than what I’ve been doing the last four years. My soul was created to help people heal, and my work reflects that mission now. I don’t just help people lose weight. I help them overcome the burdens they are carrying such as; self-dislike, destructive thoughts and patterns, and other forms of darkness that are hiding underneath the weight gain. It’s not enough for me to just address the scale. I want to help heal people from the inside out. Weight loss is just a beautiful consequence of working on mental mindset and using nutrition and macro tracking to help people take control of their lives.

10. I am a mess. Complicated, unsure, insecure and afraid, but I show up anyway

9. Nutrition is like religion people are very emotional about it and old programming, even if it doesn’t serve us is hard to let go of.

8. My attitude at the gym has gone from, “I’m going to KICK ASS. Your ass and my own ass” to “A good little burn will do”

7. People don’t believe my hair is real or mine! Bahaha

People ask me multiple times a week if my hair is real or mine. One time when I was traveling I had a stranger stop me and ask if my hair was all mine. When I told her it was, she didn’t believe me and asked to run her fingers through my hair! My hairdresser even has asked me because she thought I was wearing extensions! I am half Irish and half Hispanic and have thick, coarse hair on both sides of my family. I have been blessed with thick hair and a lot of it!

6. I’m an 8 on the Enneagram: loyal protector.

5. In time all wounds and hurts do heal. Lucky to be on the healing side of things right now!

4. I have finally accepted that I am an 11 in shoes and not a 10.5 - only took 37 years! No more stuffing these boats into glass slippers!

3. Austin and I still really love each other, even though we don’t get to spend as much time together as we would like. We have so much fun and we are into the same things even after 14 years

2. I like change. I like to be uncomfortable. I am a good problem solver!

1. Self-work is the most important work I will ever, ever do!

If I have learned one thing about running and owning a business it is that you have to get your mind right. My insecurities have been uprooted and my challenges have been magnified as I’ve grown my business. I’m about five years into my own self-work journey it’s been my guiding light to be able to turn around and help others. Working with people on their weight loss journey is a very vulnerable, intimate job. People share so much with me and I in-turn share so much with them. I’ve had to learn how to protect myself and my energy so that I don’t get too bogged down. I’ve also found that I finally have the tools to increase my own confidence and to lift myself out of the trenches that inevitably come in life. I love where I am at in my business, in my body and in my life.

I was able to come to these realizations and understanding as I reflected on the last year. Journaling played a huge role in this process because I didn’t just sit and come up with this list in ten minutes. I wrote these things down all year and then just compiled this list after taking the time to look at what I learned piece by piece.

If you want to find your own 19 lessons for 2019, then take some time to go over your experiences. Write down the big and small things that stick out to you and find out what lessons you learned this year!

19 Lessons I learned looking back over the last year that led me to understand my true purpose