Fresh Start Energy

EP212: Harness the energy of a fresh start to transform your homeschooling journey this year.

In this episode of the podcast, Jean shares three new strategies to kindle your inner spark and inspiration after a transition such as the holiday season and New Year's.

Sometimes, the post-holiday shift can be even harder than the beginning of a brand-new homeschooling year in the fall.

Jean's three strategies will help you embrace this season's emphasis on inner growth so you can feel more grounded and connected to yourself and your children. 

Start with gentle rhythms and rituals, dear homeschool parent, and try one of these simple strategies.

Find the Show Notes here  https://artofhomeschooling.com/episode212/

Join the Inspired at Home Community

Chapters

• 1:03 Feeling low in motiviation to put new ideas into action or to face those pesky "shoulds" after the holidays and ringing in the new year?
• 3:15 Fresh start energy
• 3:42 A "becoming" board, an alternative vision board
• 5:19 Archive your to do list and evaluate your routines
• 7:39 The Plus, Minus, Next chart or journal
• 10:31 Start with gentle, nourishing rituals and rhythms

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, jean Miller, and here on this podcast, you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin, hello, hello. Are you feeling the pull of a fresh start, but aren't quite sure how to channel that energy into your homeschooling? Well, in today's episode, we'll explore how to embrace the new year with intention, ease and joy. And happy new year. To those of you listening in real time.

Speaker 1: 1:03

As I'm recording this, it's the early days of 2025. Time for a fresh start, I'd say. I've found, though, that in January, at the start of a new calendar year, we're often low in homeschooling energy, am I right? The holidays are over and we have a lot of shoulds rolling around in our heads, but not a lot of follow through. That was me, anyway, and so today, I want to share with you three strategies for a little shift in perspective. After all, just a little shift might be just the thing to embrace that fresh start energy, and that's where we want to begin with ourselves, with us, the homeschooling parent. Where can we find the spark of inspiration for homeschooling again after the holidays, for homeschooling again after the holidays. Let's dive into fresh start energy and how to make the start of this new year one of connection, connecting with ourselves first, and finding what motivates us so that we can return to engaging learning experiences with our children. Engaging learning experiences with our children there's definitely a fresh start energy this time of year, but I, for one, often felt guilty because I could feel the energy, but it didn't translate into motivation for doing homeschooling lessons, and what I found for myself and have discovered from coaching hundreds of homeschooling parents maybe thousands at this point, coaching parents inside my Inspired at Home community is that, in order to get our mojo back for homeschooling lessons, we have to start with finding sparks of joy inside ourselves first. That's why, every year inside the Inspired at Home community, our focus is a masterclass called Gathering the Light. It's the place to begin. You can find out more about the community in the show notes if you're interested.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Here in this episode, though, I want to share some new strategies for harnessing that fresh start energy. These are new to me anyway, and my hope is that one or more of these will inspire you. Be sure to hop on over to the show notes for this episode, because that's where you'll find links for more details on each of these ideas, and you can find those show notes at artofhomeschoolingcom slash episode 212. Okay, here we go. Three strategies to garner that fresh start energy.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Number one create a becoming board. Recently I saw a post from Karin Norden, a coach in mindset and behavior change, where she talked about creating a becoming board rather than a vision board. I don't know about you, but I've made many a vision board in the past, hung it on the wall or near my desk somewhere and then kind of forgotten about it. Karin describes a becoming board as a collection of images that are just tiny snapshots of what you want your daily life to look like, and as the days go on, you can replace the images you've collected with pictures from your real life to show your brain that your ideas and dreams are actually coming to fruition. This is very motivating, it seems. I'll link to Karin's Instagram post about this, where you can request the link to her private podcast episode to hear more about the idea of creating a becoming board. We're going to try this inside the Inspired at Home community this month and in fact, one of the members of Inspired at Home, sent me a link to Karin's post just a few days after I had seen it Love this spin on a vision board. She wrote those synchronicities are so much fun. And thanks, justine.

Speaker 1: 5:18

Okay, strategy number two start with a clean slate. Now I know this might seem obvious. It's a new year, you can start with a clean slate, but here are some might seem obvious, it's a new year, you can start with a clean slate, but here are some specifics on actually how to do this. The idea here is to literally get a fresh start. And how do you do that? Think about taking all of your to-dos and putting them on an archive list, and then you simply have a clean slate. Ask yourself a few questions here, like what do you want your days to look like? Then you can create a simple morning routine and an evening routine that will get you there.

Speaker 1: 5:59

I like to start with mornings. I think that's the best. We have a lot of energy first thing in the morning, and so it's the most achievable way to begin a new routine. My simplest morning routine is the acronym ME, m-e, which stands for meditate and exercise. When life gets really busy, this is literally my morning routine. I wake up to a latte that my husband, brian, makes for me I know so sweet. And then I do a short guided meditation from a free app called Insight Timer and I do a little bit of cardio or yoga, sometimes only for 15 minutes, but you can choose whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 6:41

You can make up acronyms. You can borrow this one. I like acronyms because they help me remember what I decided to do, which we sometimes need when trying this strategy of starting with a clean slate. Be sure to keep my mantra in mind scale back until it works and then build back up from there. Yes, you have permission to simplify Start small and build from there. Find out what works for you, especially to get your day started off in an uplifting way.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Check out the YouTube video from Laura at how to GIST, which stands for Get your Shizzle Together. I've edited that get your shizzle together. I've edited that and I'll put a link to it. The video is called how to Transform your Life and it's about crafting new beginnings for yourself. I'll link to that in the show notes as well. All right.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Strategy number three create a plus minus next journal or chart. I love this because it is so incredibly simple, easy to do in a short amount of time. This can be as simple as just a chart that you draw on a piece of paper that has three columns and then you label the top of each column Add, delete, keep doing or, as Ann Laurie at Nest Labs describes, label the columns plus, minus and next, represented by a plus sign, a minus sign and an arrow pointing forward. You can then give yourself 10 minutes or so to just jot down ideas for things that you want to first of all start doing this month, this year, this week however you want to look at it and then the next column. The second column is things you want to stop doing and the last column is things you want to keep doing or move forward. You might begin this process by asking yourself a few questions like how did my year go? If you're looking at the year as a whole, how did last year go for me? What do I want to start doing in the new year? What do I want to let go of and what do I want to keep doing or move forward with? I just love this idea because it's so simple and super enlightening. I'll link to Ann Laurie's website, ness Labs, in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 9:08

She creates science-based content to answer the question how can we make the most of our lives without sacrificing our mental health? I love that question and she has a new book coming out in March that looks wonderful, called Tiny Experiments how to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. I've already pre-ordered it and I'm really looking forward to reading this book. Here's a wonderful quote from the first chapter of the book. Here we go, quote.

Speaker 1: 9:38

Uncertainty has so much to teach us. By having the courage to leave the shore, we trade the illusion of control for the possibility of discovery. Rather than resisting uncertainty, we befriend it. The first step is to kindle your curiosity to imagine new possibilities end quote. That's what I'll be working on in the new year befriending uncertainty and embracing curiosity, creativity and connection. What about you? What are you going to start, stop and keep doing? There you have it three strategies to harness the fresh start energy of this time of year in a holistic and gentle way.

Speaker 1: 10:30

This transition time of the post-holidays shift can be both exciting and overwhelming. As a homeschooling parent, I know from experience. I actually think it's harder to get going this time of year than it is to start in the fall at the beginning of a new homeschooling year, so I'm here to remind you to start with gentle rhythms and rituals. I hope these three strategies help you feel more grounded and connected to your inner spark so that you can begin thinking of reestablishing rhythms and routines with your children. Maybe you just start by lighting a candle and singing a song or reciting a poem with them. That's enough for now. Small steps can create a sense of accomplishment without adding pressure. I often refer to this as layering in, and if you're interested to hear more about this, check out episode 167 here on the podcast called Layering in the Learning.

Speaker 1: 11:35

But for now, I invite you to embrace winter's energy for inner growth winter's energy for inner growth. After all, if we want to emphasize connection, balance and even seasonal awareness, we need to allow the time to reconnect with and kindle our own light. Thank you so much for being here today. You'll find the show notes for this episode at wwwtofhomeschoolingcom, slash episode 212. And if you want to join me and a wonderfully warm and welcoming community of homeschoolers, we'd love to see you inside, inspired at Home. Bye for now. That's all for today, my friend, but here's what I want you to remember Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.