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First and foremost: welcome to Living For Me at QVC! We want you to spend some time on carving out a plan to focus on YOU, please. You spend so much time taking care of everyone else: will you please do something for yourself too? Ok, thank you. We have divided our initiative into three teams: Team Advanced, headed by Captain Albany Irvin; Team Optimist, headed by Captain Jayne Brown; and Team Rookie, headed by yours truly!

Team Rookie is about getting back into the swing of things: maybe we’ve let some eating habits slip. Maybe we’ve let exercise drift by. Or, maybe a great night’s sleep is a thing of the past. No more! We will make goals, track them, support each other, and live our lives (even if just for a few minutes each day) “for me!” You don’t have to sign up for anything, you don’t have to buy anything. All you have to do is remember our team motto: “DON’T QUIT.” Then, you are in it to win it.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts so far and I sure hope you continue to do so. (If you haven’t done so yet, you can do so on my Facebook (Mary DeAngelis) or toGather page.) So far, what I’ve heard loud and clear is: “there is just so much I want to do, but I don’t know where to start.” I know it can be daunting, but I want you to back your focus up a little bit. You are strong, kind, smart, and you can do this. Here’s my advice for getting started: start SMALL. Make your first goal attainable. For example, my first goal this week is I HAVE TO eat a vegetable with every dinner this whole week. Mr. D. and I bought a big bowl of them and we have to eat them. If we don’t get to it during the week, we have to eat them ALL Friday night! HA! We’re doing great so far, basically, because we’re afraid of what could happen Friday night…

If you need some help getting your thoughts organized on how to start, here’s something I made for myself. If you find it useful, PLEASE feel free to do it at home for yourself! I started with a blank sheet of paper, and drew a grid: four columns wide and eight rows down.  Then, I labeled the column across the top with the following: number, problem, solution, frequency.

Under the “problem” section, I did a brain-dump. ALL of the major things, that in a dream-world, I would love to FIX. Need more rows? ADD THEM. Just download your whole brain. Need LESS rows, don’t worry…you’ll fill them later! But be sure to leave yourself some room to grow.

Under the “solution” section, add your “weeks” so you can track the ideas that you try! Maybe they work, maybe they don’t … IT’S ALL OK. There WILL be failure along this road. The failure is fabulous: it means we tried. TRYING means you’re alive! If one of your solutions does not work out along the way, cross it out! If it works, celebrate it! Highlight it, add a sticker, make it fun!

Your “frequency” box is your suggested amount of times to “check in” on this part of your journey. If you do it less, if you do it more, that is also OK! Customize all of this for YOU. The first column is your “numbers” column and that’s where you’re going to track how often you ACTUALLY did this. Make tick marks, use a pencil with an eraser, whatever works best.

And there you are! You have downloaded your brain and you are ready for action! Most importantly, you are putting in the effort to take care of yourself and that’s what matters. It may sound silly to you because we may not have met in person, but I am truly proud of you for doing this. We’re all in Team Rookie together and supporting each other is what it’s all about. Remember, whatever it is you choose to do: DON’T QUIT!

To end each blog for this project, I’ll be sharing a “Team Rookie Inspiration.” And for today, I want to talk to you about Kerstin Lindquist. She’s a great mom, great host, and someone to SERIOUSLY look up to as far as fitness is concerned. She’s a lovely friend and WAY FUN to follow on social, which is where I saw her love of the Fitbit! I mean, how can you get to where you want to be if you don’t know where you’ve been, right?! Done and done. I’ve been wearing mine for about a week and am learning more from it every day! It tracks food, water, sleep patterns: it’s crazy-cool! And so is my friend, KL. Thanks for the inspiration, my friend. Big ‘ol Team Rookie salute to YOU!