Which of the following are you?

a) Someone who’s never meal planned, or batch cooked in her life, but dreaming to one day have a meal system, for a promise of a slower paced life?

b) Someone who’s dabbled, but not quite killed it, and desperately seeking guidance, and/or accountability?

c) Someone who’s already doing some meal planning or batch cooking, yet hasn’t got the knack of a complete system, that goes from A to Z without a hitch (on most days 🤗)

The thing is, no matter which one you feel you are, this blog post is for you.  Today I want to talk to you about taking a leap of faith and investing in getting some time back.  And I want to talk to you about how having better time management in the kitchen is by far one of the best things you can do to free up your time, lighten your mental load, and be truly present.

Now whether you struggle with having picky eaters, or babies, or not having ideas on what to cook, or especially — if you struggle with time — it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is your willingness to believe in yourself and your abilities and take yourself seriously, and your want for less stress, and more joy.  

Today, I’m letting you in on my story, and how I kept going even when my self-confidence wavered, because I wanted the promise of joy so bad.  

I want you to use this blog post to try and put yourself in my shoes. I really want you to see how similar my story is to yours.

If you’re reading this when it was published, the doors to Dinner in a Flash are open for a few days before they close again until 2021.  The truth is, if you enrol, you are going all in.  It means you’ve seriously made a commitment, and I know, that can be scary.

Whether you are thinking about joining Dinner in a Flash or not, this blog post is for you, because at some point in our life we all have decisions to be made, and you’re always going to have to bet on yourself.  And I am going to give you some tools to do so today.

But before I do, I want to let you in on my back story.

Did you know I was possibly one of the most disorganised humans on the planet?  It’s hard to believe, I know.  It’s important for you to know this because once you do know, you realise that all that I do and teach is as achievable for you, as it was for me.

I didn’t have a smooth ride into motherhood, homemaking, or finding the balance in between work, family, and myself.

Becoming a mum at the tender age of 19 had me anything but ready. Throw in post-natal depression, a failed relationship, and no desire to pick myself up…and it was a sure recipe for disaster. Mothering and trying to stand on my own two feet was challenging, to say the least.

Yet I fought, I cried, I struggled, and I started to learn to love myself again. When I met my husband, and he moved in, my life was nothing short of MESSY.

Chaotic house, disorganised life, no structure whatsoever. And when life started to get busier, I quickly realised…”Something has to change. This can’t be it”

In the beginning, it was rough. With three people under one roof, including an active three year old, and two adults who worked full-time, staying on top of things was brutal.

I didn’t meet my husband, have him move in, and lived happier ever after. We struggled with balancing work and play, and when we finally made it home after a long day we were both too exhausted to try to understand that we are in control of life as it is.

Long hours at work.  Short hours at home. Wasted chasing our own tails. Exhausting weekdays spent on the job, then rushing to get dinner on the table and off of it, get ready for the following day, and off to bed it was.

Painful weekends trying to catch up on errands and housework instead of spending quality time together. Desperate days feeling too tired and completely unmotivated to tackle the mess that our home had become.

Burning ourselves out trying to do it all, yet accomplishing nothing at all. 

Guess what?

The day we discovered batch cooking (by accident, but that’s a story for another day 🙂 ), is the day we started to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Here’s what I taught myself after a lot of batch cooking mishaps, and then a few successes:

• How to make simple yet effective adjustments to my routine and schedule to free up a significant chunk of time every single day
• How to prioritise, automate, outsource, delegate and say NO to allow myself some breathing space.
• How to meal plan, batch cook, freeze and simplify the food process, so cooking everyday became a thing of the past (and yes – we still eat delicious home-cooked meals almost every night of the week!)

And after all that was in place…

I discovered that all of a sudden, the guilt was gone. I had my life back. The life I never had, yet dreamt about over and over.

And best of all…

I had time to spend with my family.  And time, as well as want, to spend with myself.  My life slowed down to a pace I could dance to.

Enough about me.

If you’re curious to know what it looks like to bet on yourself, here is the real deal.

It’s going to feel scary, but that’s okay. It is all about believing you really want to be less overwhelmed, so you can be more present for your loved ones.  Betting on yourself means you are ready to take the next necessary step.  That is the only thing that is standing between your wants and goals.  Just one little step.

I’m going to switch topic a little bit, because I really need to talk to you about a limiting belief that’s front and centre with a lot of us: ‘I don’t have enough time’.  

I’m going to say this as tenderly as possible: we all have the same amount of time. And when it comes down to it, you have to make the time.  Think of someone you find marvellously inspiring – be it Oprah or Rheese Witherspoon or whoever…you have the same amount of time that they do.  

You have to find a way to prioritise what matters most to you. 

Now, I’m not saying it is easy.  Far from it.  And I know, and fully get that your circumstances could be massively different to the next person.  But I also know that in order to design a meal system that truly supports your busy lifestyle, you don’t have to kill yourself trying.  What you do have to do is make some tweaks to your schedule.  You need to find a way to make this a priority.

I have a question for you.

Are you willing to make little sacrifices now, to achieve what you want in the future?

How bad do you want this? 

And are you willing to change how you’re spending your time or tweak your schedule slightly to support whatever changes you want to make?  

It could be learning to create this new meal system, or anything else, because anything new will require tweaks.

For me, it meant staying up later to experiment with batch cooking.  

Sometimes, it meant I ate food which was not so great,  because I was yet to discover a better way to do things.  But with every ‘mistake’ I made, I reminded myself that that meant I was on the brink of learning something new, something which would facilitate the process.  There were tears, arguments, fighting.  Shouting even.  And lots of guilt.  The process wasn’t enjoyable.  Google didn’t know it all at this stage.  Back in 2010, batch cooking wasn’t really a thing.  But I know I wanted what the results promised, so whilst I didn’t love it, I stuck at it.  Small sacrifices now will literally shape what your (not-so-distant) future will look like.

Let’s take a moment and talk about picky eaters

 If you read my last blog post, then you already know, and might even be convinced, that having a picky eater is no reason to stop meal planning.  Or batch cooking for the matter.  My son (now 14), was a picky eater, and my daughter (aged 5) is the PICKIEST of eaters.  But you know what?  I quickly realised that we still need to eat, and meal planning will allow me to be a little flexible without being stressed out and not knowing what to cook.  Besides, did you know that studies show it takes around 8-10 tries of any new food for it to be liked?  If you struggle with this, I strongly suggest you check out my other blog post – ‘Why you should meal plan even if you have picky eaters’.

My stories are meant to inspire you, to show you what it really looked like back when I was on the other side.  

I also want to show you what betting yourself looks like.  Can you imagine how different my life would had been if I hadn’t bet on myself all those years ago?  Heck, I literally wouldn’t be where I am right now.  And this is precisely why I love to give back.  Because I realise what could have been if I didn’t — and because I know it is my why.

Today is the day I want to bet on you mama.  If your next big leap is joining me and other fellow mums for Dinner in a Flash, then so be it. 

Maybe it’s another leap of faith you need to take.  Whatever it is, it’s time to go all in.  YOU DESERVE THIS.