What in your life do you want to create anew? At the end of this article is a link to take my free “Healthiest You” assessment and help you answer this question. AND through April 30^th, I am offering a free 30-minute coaching session with me to debrief your assessment and claim your intentional fresh start!  Read on.

We are less than a week away from the first (calendar) day of Spring!

What does the approach of Springtime evoke in you?

For me, the start of Spring evokes excitement and wonder over the new life happening in the natural world around me:

• Shoots and sprouts are pushing up through the earth
• Trees and perennials are forming buds
• The animal world is busy welcoming in new babies
• Color is slowly creeping back in to my yard
• Bright leafy greens adorn the local farm stands

The start of Spring also brings to mind ‘spring cleaning’. When I was a kid, spring cleaning involved washing and ironing curtains, emptying and washing out kitchen cupboards, and cleaning out closets. While I’m sure I did my share of complaining, I did, at some level, feel connected with the idea of de-cluttering and an intentional “fresh start.”

An Intentional Fresh Start

My examples above are but a few of the many metaphors Springtime offers us, pointing us in the direction of “creating anew.”

What in your life do you want to create anew?

Perhaps a relationship, your fitness level, your work/career, your emotional resilience, a goal you want to reclaim, your home environment? Align with the inspiration of Springtime and create some new possibilities for yourself now!

I’ve created a coaching package to support you, called The Healthiest You. The package provides a structure for you to explore:

• Your goals and taking action towards them NOW
• The balance in your life now (or lack of balance)
• New perspectives and activities to get you “unstuck” and make a fresh start
• Empowered choices for yourself
• Fulfillment in your work and relationships

Get started now! I am offering you a no-cost opportunity to take my

“The Healthiest You” assessment, powered by ChangeWorks (the online system you’ll click through to).

“The Healthiest You” looks at 12 activities that lead to a balanced and healthy life.  Click on the link above (and below) to access the assessment. It will ask you to rate how challenging you find each activity, how important each activity is to you, and your current ability to successfully handle each activity.

Through April 30^th, I am offering a free 30-minute coaching session with me to debrief your assessment and claim your intentional fresh start! I’ll email you to schedule our session once you’ve completed the assessment.

Here’s the link again:

The Healthiest You Assessment.

And thank you for taking this first step to creating anew the life you truly want!

In my last blog post, I mentioned sharing the story of my first triathlon, turned biathlon. Read on…

If any of you are from the Philadelphia area, you’ll likely recall the torrential rains, flash floods, wicked lightening storms we had in late July and early August. One such storm occurred on the morning of August 2^nd. This was the morning I was racing in my first triathlon, SheROX, taking place in Fairmount Park. On that morning, I woke up before my alarm to a familiar sound. “What’s that”, I thought? “No, it can’t be thunder. It’s not going to storm today.”

Fast forward a couple of hours. I’m standing in the field at Fairmount Park, wearing the rarely seen triathlon ensemble, a hot pink swim cap, my trisuit, and my running shoes, awaiting a decision by race officials. The decision in question was whether to allow the swim or to cancel it. If canceled, the half-mile swim would be replaced with a mile and a half run. Standing there looking at the Schuylkill River, I have to say, I have no idea what took race officials an hour to make the decision to cancel the swim. I will spare you the details of what was floating down the river. Though I did not personally see it, news reports said that a dead body was one such item. Even so, I was disappointed not to finally conquer my first open water competitive swim.

Fast forward another couple of hours.  I finished the first run portion in 11-minutes, grabbed my bike, and ran out of the transition area.  I have a really great road bike that I was lucky enough to score from a female Hawaii Ironman Champion living nearby. So I’m flying along on my bike, having a blast passing people, when all of a sudden it starts raining. No, let’s make that pouring. I was still having fun until the spills and crashes started to happen (not me thankfully). I decided I should probably slow down (a little). Which I did and safely finished the bike portion and was off for the final run. I crossed the finish line with my husband and kids cheering me on!

I was standing in line for a leg massage, when the STORM hit. Thunder so loud it shook the ground like an earthquake; Lightening bolts struck seemingly within feet of where we were standing. And the rain! It was like having buckets dumped over your head, one after the other. News reports said that Philadelphia received 5 inches of rain in 2 hours that day! That’s a month’s worth of rain in 2 hours! Fairmount Park quickly turned into a bunch of ponds with some grassy areas in between. Race officials eventually closed the racecourse and urged people to return to their vehicles, which were parked literally a mile away. Not feeling like taking chances with my two small children, my family and I huddled inside a trailer for a while. Eventually, the worst of the lightening passed and we began our long walk back to the car. And to an eventful ride home. One road after another was closed due to flooding, rockslides, bridges out. Ironically enough, by the time we got home, the sun was beginning to shine.

Later that evening, I went online to see my race results, which were pretty good. Until I began to think, had the first run really been a swim, it would’ve easily taken me 15+ minutes longer to complete. And I would never have made it through the transition area so quickly either.  I still hadn’t completed a triathlon! I immediately searched TriMax Triathlons website and registered for the Blue Marsh Triathlon on Sept 20, 2009. Please everyone, do your sun dances and send prayers out for clear skies!