Parenting, just like business, is an amazing and crazy process of self development.  I am so fortunate to be learning from both. My kids and my business both test me and push me. Through it all I have learned much about myself and refined the way I do things both as a parent and as a business owner.

I’m excited to share with you the benefits of this refinement – and it’s not all pretty. In fact, a lot of it is like wielding my frying pan and whacking parents over the head.

Parents deal with so many different parenting challenges – especially once the kids enter school. And I’ve noticed in my work that not every parent is open to talking about these challenges or even admitting that they are faced with a challenge. I often wonder if it’s to save face or to make themselves feel better or not so alone. Yes, talking about the reality of parenting troubles is still very much a closet topic.

This surprises me because every parent is eager to talk about how they want their child to be happy and successful. That’s a noble and loving life to want for your children; I want it for my children too.

Parenting troubles can especially escalate once your kids go to school because they get influenced by so many new sources of information, behaviours, and attitudes. They begin to try on all these new ways of talking and being and bring them home to test on you, the parent. And it’s in your reactions that the true learnings lie for your kids.

Why? Because when your kids listen to you and follow the rules at home it’s easier for you to behave. It’s easier to be the person you want to be. When parents misbehave the kids misbehave too. You see, when your child changes and you feel at a loss for how to reinforce your own values and boundaries you find yourself feeling squeezed. And that’s when all your own stuff comes up – you notice how much like your own parents you are or how much you don’t want to be like them. And you begin to fight your own upbringing and experiences.

You begin to feel like you’re losing connection with your child and you’re unsure how to talk to them so they listen to you. You may find yourself yelling a lot and getting more frustrated with your kid’s new attitudes and behaviours. You may feel like you don’t know how to discipline your growing child or how to get on the same parenting page as your spouse or partner. If you have a younger child who looks up to their school aged sibling, chances are they are also exhibiting behavioural changes and you’ve got double trouble on your hands!

In short, you find your own confidence as a parent waning – that confidence that was so hard earned over the first five or six years of your child’s life. You finally thought you had some things figured out and here the school years are throwing you a curve ball. The elementary school years can be just as challenging as the teenage years. And unless you know how to handle yourself and your changing child now – you will be certainly headed for trouble when they turn 13.

Why do parents not want to talk about this stuff? Perhaps because they don’t think they have the resources they need to really do anything about these feelings and troubles they’re facing. Or perhaps it’s because they worry that someone else will see them as even more inadequate than they already feel. The truth is, parents do the best they can and the only one who can make you feel inadequate is you. It’s just more old programming from your past! It’s those old, unconscious beliefs that make you feel inadequate, un-resourceful, lacking confidence, and even unworthy as a parent. And the worst part is that by not healing yourself from these core beliefs that you carry around with you often from your own childhood, you pass them on to your kids.

Success in life is not about winning at everything and never having anything “bad” happen to you. It’s about how you deal with all the stuff that does happen. It’s about how long you stay down after life throws you a curveball. Do you focus on the limitations and victimize yourself? Or do you get up, dust yourself off, and do something different? And if you don’t know how to handle your own stress, emotions, and parenting style how do you ever expect to empower your kids and teach them to handle life?

I know that not everyone will agree with me and that my new, refined stance on being better, stronger parents may even offend some people. I am willing to take that risk because I fully believe that in order for our kids to truly grow up happy and successful, we have to start with ourselves. Yes, our school-aged kids have more influences now – but as parents we are still their biggest source of influence. And unless we deal with our own stuff and baggage we will pass it onto our kids just like our parents passed theirs onto us. Are you ready and willing to be the pattern interrupt?

I’m launching a brand new series of Empowered Parenting Play-shops in February where I will show you exactly what’s standing in your way of really understanding how to communicate and support your child in this new stage of their development. I will address the top ineffective parenting styles and what they’re really teaching your kids. And I will provide you with the solutions and tools to help you manage your own beliefs and baggage so that you can step into being the parent you really want to be and stop worrying that you’re going to lose your connection with your growing child. These play-shops are happening in Langley and South Surrey and space is limited. So email me right away and secure your spot to learn how to reframe your parenting experience and unlock your parenting powers.

Kasia Rachfall is an effervescent speaker, author of Keys For Moms: Enough is Enough! and parenting expert whose grand golden mission is to empower children through releasing their parents from preconceived values, guilt, past hurts, and judgment. Starting at the source, she assists parents to bring conscious responsibility to the future. With tools such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypnosis, and Time Empowerment®, Kasia holds your heart while you move forward and take control of your life.

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If you’re like any parent out there, you have a loooong To Do list. And it’s probably one of those lists that has the following Categories of tasks:

• Needed to be done yesterday
• Must, absolutely get done today
• Should do today
• Should do at some point
• I wish I had the time!
• When I win the lottery, hire a housekeeper, a gardener, and a personal chef
• Yeah right! Who has time for this?
• If I start this now…I only have 10 minutes…nah, what’s the point I won’t get it done anyway!
• etc

My discontentment with the state of my house a couple summers ago and my dislike of my To Do list with its endlessness and its ever growing tail led me to a breakthrough. We had been renovating our house for what seemed like ever and there were still a bunch of things that needed doing. Since both my husband and I work and our kids have activities and we do like to have a bit of a life…time is a precious commodity. But the house renos were getting on my nerves and I wanted to finish them so I came up with the 15 minute list.

I wrote down every single thing that needed to be finished on one piece of paper. Then every day I would set my egg timer for 15 minutes and work my way down the list. I had decided that I could spare 15 minutes a day to Do Something rather than Do Nothing and fret about it for hours. I had to get over the whole “If you’re going to do it, you might as well just finish” concept. Because that’s what causes procrastination in the first place. And to my pleasant surprise – it worked!

Turns out that Doing Something for a focused 15 minutes actually eventually gets stuff done. Even painting! Imagine my surprise…seriously! The first day it took me 15 minutes to track down all the supplies. The second day I stirred the paint in the can because it took 15 minutes to stir it back into the color it was supposed to be. The third day I finally managed to paint a strip or two of wall. And by the end of a few more days the room was done! And then the mouldings and the window sills…

The real secret to this whole mad idea was that I left all the stuff sitting there waiting for my next 15 minute chunk of time. I didn’t put it all away because that would take more time…yup, the paint can, brushes, and trays all sat there during this whole process. And the cool thing is that no one really cared. There was no To Do List Police that came and told me I was doing it wrong or to clean up my mess.

I felt so proud of myself! I decided to use this 15 minute list for other things on my to do list – not just renos. In fact, it’s when I don’t use the 15 minute Sanity Saver method that I get stressed out again.

Here’s a the 7 Step How-To Make the 15 Minute Sanity Saver work for you:

1. Make a list of aaaalllll the stuff that you want to get done that you never get around to doing
2. Get yourself a timer – I like the Pig Timer, but you can use your phone too, or an hour glass that counts 15 minutes worth of sand
3. Pick something off your list
4. MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Give yourself permission to start it and…gasp…not finish it!
5. Set your timer for 15 minutes and get going on your task
6. STOP when the timer rings
7. ALSO IMPORTANT: congratulate yourself on doing something and do a happy dance. Or at least Woohoo really loud!

Are you a parent who dislikes the To Do List? Do you think this 15 Minute system will work for you? I want to hear your secret systems for getting things accomplished. You can also comment on my FB Page.

Kasia Rachfall is an effervescent speaker, author of Keys For Moms: Enough is Enough! and parenting expert whose grand golden mission is to empower children through releasing their parents from preconceived values, guilt, past hurts, and judgment. Starting at the source, she assists parents to bring conscious responsibility to the future. With tools such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypnosis, and Time Empowerment®, Kasia holds your heart while you move forward and take control of your life.

There’s been a great discussion about how to believe and one reader suggested that it comes from faith. I remember not having any faith – not even knowing what it means to have faith in anything. I learned a valuable lesson that the best place to start is to have faith in yourself and from that will grow everything else.

I do a lot of reflecting all the time – sometimes to the point of paralysis by analysis as my friends and family kindly point out to me. It’s taught me to be self aware but I wasn’t sure what to do with that awareness. This year instead of analyzing more I’ve decided to just change everything that didn’t work last year.

Yup – everything. Big, small, significant and insignificant. Anything that I’m aware of that didn’t work – I’m changing it!

Now, I didn’t actually sit down and make a list of things to change…I’m usually a list person. This time I am flying by the seat of my pants. Yup – spontaneous change! And it’s so cool! I think everyone should try it!

Here’s how it works: As you notice things, you change them. For example, I’ve started using a timer and setting it to 15 minute increments to help me focus better. It’s amazing! When I decide to do things now they get done! It’s what Tim Ferris writes in his book 4 Hour Workweek that the smaller the time increments you give yourself the more efficient you are. I thought he was crazy when I first read that!

I’m also changing how I approach exercise. Before the thought of exercise alone would un-motivate me. Now, I exercise when I feel like it and I do it in small chunks. And I know there are people out there who say that if you’re going to half-ass a workout, you may as well not do it at all. Well, I am not half-assing it – I am giving it my all in very short spurts of time. For example, I do 25 push ups. Then if I feel like it I do planks later on. I’ve actually discovered a passion for yoga and I do my half hour Bob Harper Yoga every day. Who knew twisting yourself into a pretzel would be so much fun?!

I draw or paint every day now too. I never used to because I thought art really didn’t add up to anything useful. I’m finding though, that my definition of what is useful is changing. If I used to think something wasn’t useful before I try it at least twice now. And I find I’m more productive because I do fun things as part of my routine now – I simply add them into my day in 15 min increments. And as a result I am much less likely to waste time being distracted or feeling like I never get to do anything fun.

What about you? Are there things that didn’t work for you last year that you’re willing to change this year? What are those things?

Kasia Rachfall is an effervescent speaker, author of Keys For Moms: Enough is Enough! and parenting expert whose grand golden mission is to empower children through releasing their parents from preconceived values, guilt, past hurts, and judgment. Starting at the source, she assists parents to bring conscious responsibility to the future. With tools such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypnosis, and Time Empowerment®, Kasia holds your heart while you move forward and take control of your life.

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When I was faced with having to take (and pass!) 5 statistics and calculus classes to get my Business Degree at SFU I didn’t believe I could do it. I wondered if there was enough wisdom in my brain to comprehend probability and other complicated equations. I passed and graduated with flying colours, but sometimes I still think it was by the grace of God.

When I was pregnant with my daughter and my son was 9 months old, I remember wondering if I could possibly love the new baby as much as I loved the one I already had. And, of course, I could and I do. But I remember wondering about it before I was a believer.

When we were going through our bankruptcy and the whole turmoil I wondered if I would ever feel happy again. And, of course, I began feeling happy again – but I didn’t believe it at the time.

Believing. What does it mean to believe? And how do we come to believe something?

These are the questions I’ve been asking myself recently. I journal a lot and I was inspired last year to write a letter to a younger version of myself. The self that I was about 6 years ago. I wrote from the heart and I found  myself feeling really compassionate more than anything. I knew that if I could go back and tell myself only one thing – the one thing that would change my life and give me hope again – it would be to Believe.

Believing that it’s possible even if you don’t know what “it” is, is enough to get you through the hardest parts. Because eventually the how shows up if you believe that it will.

What I didn’t know was how to help this younger version of myself believe. And just like in those three situations I described above – I don’t really know how you teach someone to believe. How did I graduate university? Well, hard work was a part of it. How did I learn to love my child? It’s just a natural instinct that mothers have – I just loved her. How did I believe in happiness again after all the financial turmoil ended? I worked hard and focused on being grateful for all my blessings. I’m not seeing the connecting dots here yet.

I think there is a way to help someone believe – just believe – and I will keep incubating this idea until I find my answer. Even if it is a really complicated answer or more likely a very simple one, I want to find it. Because by finding it I believe I will be able to contribute more to others’ lives.

What is your answer? How do you believe in something? How do you show others to believe?

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