In April, it was 12 months that I have been taking group fitness classes and now as July has passed, I have been personal training for 12 months. I have learnt a lot in this time and I have loved the learning process and establishing myself as a personal trainer. I had intended to write six things I had learnt but the post was super long after just three things, so I will leave it at three for this post and if this is of interest to you, let me know and I will write a part two with the other three!

People misunderstand resistance training

I have been doing consistent resistance training for over 13 years now. I love it, love the positive impact it has on my health and love the confidence it has given me. So I have been surprised at how hard a sell it is to get women who attend group fitness classes at the centre I work at, to also come into the actual gym area and do a resistance training session. I teach group fitness classes and think they absolutely have a place in a weekly fitness routine, but when I talk to women about their fitness goals, I know they will benefit from adding some structured resistance training to their routine.

One of the key reasons they give me as to why they won’t get into strength training is they “don’t want to get bulky”. This refrain is most often heard from women who are 40 plus and doing lots of cardio based group fitness classes and who are currently trying to lose weight. I completely understand why they say this. We grew up in an era where skinny was queen, and if you wanted to change the way you looked you ate less and ramped up the cardio as much as possible. We saw the gym as mainly the domain of blokes who wanted to get big and muscly. However, if you are a 40 plus woman, the chance of you getting bulky from doing 2-3 x 30-45 minute resistance training sessions a week is close to 0%.

When you look around the gym and see people who have significant muscle on their body, if you asked them how they got that way, they would say something along the lines of - years of consistent workouts, periodised training, potentially bulking phases that contain being in a calorie surplus for periods of time and eating a high protein diet. As I mentioned at the start, I have been resistance training for 13 years and would not consider myself to be bulky. In fact, other than my running goal this year, the other key fitness goal I have is to at least maintain the current muscle mass I have. I work hard in the gym and this year I have been doing 2 x 1 hour full body sessions with a lower body emphasis and 1 x 30 minute upper body sessions a week. And even with that much resistance training, I have been struggling to keep my existing muscle mass through out my latest marathon training block, let alone getting bulky.

As we age, if we do not resistance train, we begin to lose muscle mass if we are not actively doing some form of resistance training:

Among the prominent consequences of ageing are the physiological and morphological changes to skeletal muscle, resulting in an involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength and function. Muscle mass and strength begin to decline from 30 years of age, accelerating after 50 years of age, resulting in a loss of approximately 20% in muscle mass and 40% in muscle strength from their peaks in early adulthood. Physical function decline accelerates after age 65 years, resulting in an approximate 50% reduction from maximal capacity. These declines are a leading contributor to loss of independence and poor quality of life and predict disability, hospitalisation and death. {Source}

This progressive and accelerated loss in muscle mass, strength and function is known as sarcopenia, and it is estimated that one in five Australians aged 60 years and older have sarcopenia. Add to this the potential impact on your bone health if you are not resistance training, and you have significant implications for your health and quality of life as you age. Wolff’s Law states that our bones adapt to the stimulus it receives. If you are not lifting heavy things, not loading through impact training, then your bone density begins to decrease - hello osteopenia and osteoporosis!

Resistance training as we age is really not negotiable if you want to give yourself the best change of living long and well. Australian Government guidelines recommend for adults (18 to 64 years) that we muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days per week

Yes, BodyPump classes and the like are fun, and they are 100% a better option than not lifting any weights, but these classes work on muscular endurance (high rep, low weights), not muscular strength - which is what we need for our muscles and bones especially as we age. Doing training you like to is important to make a training program sustainable, so take your group fitness classes, but also head into the gym another time for a structured resistance training session. I promise that you won’t get bulky, and with a bit of luck, if you have a good program, you might even enjoy it and want to do it more than once a week!

People under train

There is a growing group of women who have listened to the podcasts, watched the YouTube videos etc, know they need to strength train and have signed up to a gym. They are doing three sessions a week but haven’t really seen the changes they were hoping for. The key reason I see for lack of progress is not their lack of commitment or their lack of following a plan someone has set them, but they are just not training hard enough. This is not intentional but more a gap in their understanding of what is required to get the results they want.

I work at a gym that has an excellent member pathway where each member can come and see a gym instructor for free as part of their membership. We chat with them, discuss their fitness goals, write them up a program and then take them through it. They can then come back in 8 weeks, have a check in and have a new program created for them.

When a gym instructor writes you a program in the gym, we take into account your goals and the time you have said you can spend at the gym when you come in for a session. With that in mind, we select a certain number of exercises with an associated sets and rep scheme* that fits your time constraints. We take you through this program, set your starting weights and then your are on your own. There is no magic number of reps you need to do of an exercise to get gains but the most important thing is how hard you are working and how close you are getting to failure. Unless someone like me takes the time to explain to you how to progressively overload the program, there is a very high chance you will be doing the same reps and sets for the foreseeable future.

When I am taking someone through a program and setting the starting weights, I spend time explaining the when and how behind increasing weights and/or reps. This is a lot of information to take in at one time. I see some take it on and implement it and they are the ones that get great results. Not everyone does though, and I see people who have been doing the exact same workout for three months or longer with no change in weight or reps. For example, I set them 3 x 10 for goblet squats at 12kgs in April, and I can see that in July they are still doing 3 x 10 at 12kgs. To get the results they are after, they should have progressed the weight or reps depending on their circumstances, so should be doing something like 3 x 10 at 16kgs. Our bodies are pretty amazing and they adapt quickly. The same workout becomes less challenging as the body adapts and it will no longer provide the stimulus we need for improvement - we need to progressively overload to prevent this from happening.

This post is already quite long, so I won’t go into details of progressive overload. But when you are working out in the gym think of it this way - if you get to the last rep of your last set of an exercise and it feels similar to the first reps, then you are not training hard enough to get the results you want. The last reps should feel harder. If your facial expression is the same on the first rep as it is on your last rep, you need to be doing more reps or more weight.

People think the gym alone will get them their body composition goals

The gym is awesome for building muscle and increasing your cardio vascular fitness but if you are after body composition changes, you have to also work on what you are eating. If you are not familiar with the term body composition, in simple terms it means changing the muscle mass and fat mass of your body. This is what I have found most people are actually after when we chat about their fitness goals. They will often come in saying they want to lose weight, but when you ask a few more questions, they reveal that they would like their body to look “more toned”, have “less wobbly bits” or have “more definition”.

Changing the definition, tone and texture of your body will be driven by what you do in the gym. Losing fat mass, so you can see your muscles, will be driven by what and how much you eat and there isn’t any escaping this. So many people sign up to the gym thinking this will instantly transform the way they look. You will most likely have heard this adage before, but it is absolutely true - you cannot out run or out train a poor diet. And a good diet is key not only to how you look on the outside but integral to how healthy you are on the inside. It is outside of my scope as a personal trainer to offer personalised or specific nutrition advice, but if you stick to the key guidelines the Australian Government puts out via their Eat for Health program, you will be doing pretty well. Is it perfect? No, but for a large majority of people, if they were to make changes to their diet along these lines, they would most likely see a significant improvement in their body composition and key health markers.

Some Anecdotes

Before I finish up this post, I want to leave you with some inspiring anecdotes from my first year in my new career as a personal trainer. One of the things I love most about my role is being able to educate those I come into contact with and empower them to make positive changes to their exercise routine and diet. Here are a couple of anecdotes to show how even small changes can have a significant impact on your health and well being.

Seniors Group Fitness Class

I take a weekly seniors’ strength training class at a local community centre. The heaviest dumbbells used in the class are 4 kgs and many participants are using 1kg or 2kg dumbbells. The classes are structured to work on key movements that will carry over strength into their everyday life. Participants enrol for the term, and I created a simple benchmarking protocol we do at the start and end of each term (including a balance exercise). Participants are asked to note their own results so they can see their progress. This data isn’t for me; I want them to have it so they can see the value of turning up each week. But most participants share them with me and let me know they have improved as they are super excited about their results.

Benchmarking results are one thing, but the thing I love hearing the most is their personal stories about the impact this class (most only do my class as their only form of fitness training across the week) has outside of the class, like:

• One participant said she used to have to wait for her husband to get the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard for her so she could use it and now she can do it herself

• Another participant who used to have issues with balance when her dogs were around her feet said it no longer bothers her because her balance has improved so much

• Multiple participants have told me they can now work in the garden longer, get up and down when weeding more easily and can simply do more as they are stronger in both the legs and arms

Building Back Bone Density

A personal training client has been working with me for a few months now. She has one 45 minute session a week with me and then I program sessions for her to do on her own in the gym. She is very dedicated and almost always completes those 2 x 45 min sessions I set for her. She is over 60 and was diagnosed via DEXA scans to have osteoporosis. I started training the key movement patterns with her using dumbbells and kettlebells. She has now progressed to a barbell and other heavy for her strength exercises. Her latest DEXA scan revealed that she had improved the bone density in her spine and is now considered to have only osteopenia! The hip bone density was the same - this is harder to move but it still completely achievable to increase it and we continue to work on this as her skills and strength in the gym improve. Our goal is to keep using progressive overload on exercises that load the spine and hips and move her from osteoporosis/osteopenia back into the normal range of bone density for her age.

If you only skim read my long post or scrolled instantly to the end, the key takeaway I want you to leave with is that it does not have to take much to make significant positive changes to your muscle mass and bone density that will have a positive impact on your health and well being - but it does take consistency and applied effort.

If you are keen to hear more about my learnings from my first year in the fitness industry, let me know below in the comments :).

Nic

* Reps and sets are the basic building blocks of a workout routine, where reps are single exercise movements and sets are groups of those movements done together. For example, you may have written that you need to do 3 x 10 for goblet squats. This means you do 10 squats have a rest and then repeat again so you have done 10 repetitions a total of three times.

Hello! Happy halfway through the year! I am normally pretty happy to see the halfway mark each year; it means we are one month down for winter (my least favourite season), and the mornings have finally started to get lighter earlier. I still have those feelings this year, but I also feel some sadness that the clock is ticking so fast.

With our youngest in Year 12, he effectively has only one school term left. With the other kids, I have found Term 3 flies by. Term 4 is the wind-up of school and exams. By late November, my life as a school mum will be over. After about 23 years of school parenting, it does feel like it is time for it to end, and I look forward to the new stage this will bring for me. I do feel, however, quite sentimental about it all and have almost this visceral feeling in my chest when I think about it. I imagine I will shed a few tears before this school year ends.

My 2026 goal update

So being halfway through the year, it is time to do a little progress check. My 2026 single goal statement is to:

Create steady rhythms so my life feels calm, connected and sustainable

Below, I go through each habit I chose to help support attainment of this goal, but in summary, I do feel much calmer and connected this year. If I had to choose which one of the habits I have been working on that has contributed the most to this, it would be creating a new routine for a mini weekly planning session. I do this Friday nights. It takes between 30-60 minutes, and it is definitely a domino habit that triggers a positive knock-on effect to other actions and behaviours I take.

If you are feeling like I was at the end of 2025 - disorganised and not happy with how the weeks were flying by without spending time on activities I wanted or with the people I wanted to see, I can highly recommend trying a 30 minute planning block habit. Pick a time of the week that you know you can hit 95% of the time. It may be that you choose to get up 30 minutes earlier one morning a week or block it in your work diary so that one lunch break a week becomes a planning block, it can have a huge impact on the whole week. Planning for the week has allowed me to

• be proactive and not so reactive across the week

• delegate tasks to the family

• amongst a varied work schedule, fit in the training sessions I need

• keep the family and me eating well and on a budget

• stay ahead of tasks like buying birthday presents, scheduling key appointments etc

Likewise, if you are feeling stuck, taking time out to plan what your week will look like can allow you to think about what it is you want to achieve each week. You can allocate time to exploring what you want the next few years of your life to look like. If you are in this situation, I shared the process I went through when I closed down all my online businesses at the end of 2024 in the post A little update from me. I am now 12 months into my new career as a personal trainer and am loving it!

Now on to my progress for my 2026 habits!

1. Weekly Planning Session (30 minutes, once per week)

Habit description - Each Friday, I will spend 30 minutes planning out the next week. For many years, I used to do this on Sunday nights. With Sunday night dinners last year, it dropped off, and I believe that my feeling of disorganisation was in part caused by not knowing I had a plan for the week. This planning session will cover:

• Planning work blocks

• Social / family catch ups

• Training sessions

• Menu planning

How it helps me achieve my goal - this creates rhythm before the week starts and relieves stress. I feel prepared for the week, helping me feel calmer.

Half Yearly Result - This is by far the best habit I have set this year. It is turning out to be a domino habit - a habit that triggers a positive knock on effect to other actions and behaviours:

• Once I have the menu plan and associated shopping list, it makes the shopping not only easier for me to do, but also easy to delegate this task and the cooking of meals to others in the family.

• I can ensure I spend time with friends and family

• I can fit in my running and strength training in

2. Body Care Block (at least 15 minutes daily)

Habit description - An intentional block of time each day that supports physical sustainability. It can include any of the following:

• Mobility

• Yoga

• Strength - while I do this regularly now, the key will be to keep it going when I start marathon training

• Recovery - massage gun, foam roller, massage, heat

How it helps me achieve my goal - these small blocks will help with injury prevention and make my running feel better.

Half Yearly Result - This habit has reminded me that to have an impact you don’t always need big blocks of time. Being consistent even with small time blocks builds over time and can lead to big results. My body has coped with a big load through the marathon training block and is feeling good. Absolutely, the bigger strength training sessions I do across the week have had a big part in this, but so too have the small sessions I have done almost daily - estimate I would have a 95% hit rate for this habit.

3. One Scheduled Catch Up Each Week

Habit description - This means having one scheduled friend or family catch up a week (other than Sunday night dinners), for example:

• run with a friend

• walk catch up with a friend

• book club

• outing with family or friends

How it helps me achieve my goal - I am an introvert at heart and unless I am proactive with catch ups, they can become too far apart.

Half Yearly Result - While I didn’t make our last book club meet up of the year, I have had scheduled catch-ups weekly for most of the first half of 2026. Weekly planning has definitely played a part in being successful with this.

4. Device Free Hour Before Bed

Habit description - No phone or computer, etc an hour before I go to bed. I used to be great at this, but little by little, it has crept back, so I am often putting my phone down just before I go to bed

How it helps me achieve my goal - I know from previous experience, I sleep better when I do this, and when I sleep better, I am calmer. With no device an hour before bed, it will also help me read more too!

Half Yearly Result - not anywhere close to where I want to be on this one. If I were to pull the time back to 30 mins before bed, I would have better compliance, but at my stated target of an hour before bed, I would be lucky to have hit this 50% of the time. I started to write excuses as to why this is the case but deleted them. The truth is I could have been off my phone if I wanted to, but I have chosen to watch a video or scroll Strava etc. I need to think about how I can change my behaviour on this one, so I have a better result for the second half of the year.

If you haven’t set a goal for this year, it is never too late to set a goal. Click here to see how I create my goal and use the free templates to help you create yours!

How has the first half of 2026 for you?

Nic

{Photo Credit: fotobycaro}

Hello! How was April for you? It has been one of those months that has just flown by for me. I had intended to share some fun things I did in March in April, but here it is, almost halfway through May!

On the 21st March, I did a 5K track race, which was put on by some friends (Anna and Phoebe) who have the Cheeky Run Club Podcast. If you haven’t listened to their podcast, I can highly recommend giving it a listen if you are a runner. It is super inclusive and is aimed at the everyday runner. They also have a newsletter on Substack that you can subscribe to as well.

Anna and Phoebe put on a Cheeky Track Night in Melbourne and Sydney. They were women only running events, and the goal was to encourage as many runners as possible who had never run a track race to come and run one in a super supportive environment. And they pulled it off beautifully. Hundreds of women ran across the evening in time based races. Each race had multiple pacers to help runners achieve the time goals they had set for themselves.

I made a relatively last-minute decision (less than two weeks out) to register and have a crack at breaking 20 minutes for the 5km. I have broken 20 minutes only a couple of times before. The last time I did it on a track was back in March 2021. I was now five years older at 53, I didn’t do a 5km training block, and I had only been back running since August last year after my PCL and blood clots issues! All of this was quite freeing really - I could give it my best and just racing a 5km after so long off running was going to be a win.

There was going to be a 20 minute pacer and a supportive environment so there was nothing for me to lose. I knew I could hold a sub-20-minute pace for the first 3 km but was not sure how I would go beyond that. There was a good chance I would blow up and it would be a tough last 2km, but I was happy to take that risk.

As predicted, the first 3km felt pretty good, and then it began to feel really hard. The 20 min pace group had taken off a bit quick, so I was no longer in a pack. At this point, I started to doubt that I could do it. With two laps to go, Phoebe jumped in with me and ran alongside me for the last two laps. This was so bloody helpful! It helped distract me and keep me on pace to come in just under the 20 minute mark at 19:58. I was elated.

Getting a sub-20-minute 5km was more than just a time goal achievement. It was a celebration of months of rehab paying off, of being patient, building slowly and sticking at running when it didn’t feel easy or fun. (You can read about some my rehab stuff here.) It was also a reminder to take a shot even if you are not sure you will make it. This time, the shot hit its target, but if it hadn’t, my life would not be any different from what it is now! I went into the experience wanting to tick off a goal, but I was not attached to it and was prepared to take the shot and miss. If I missed, I would have known I needed more training. Testing myself was the real win here.

Burto’s Bush Adventures - A Kayak and Canoeing Trip

At the end of March, I went on a Bush Adventure with three of my oldest and dearest friends. Cath was the brains behind the trip, and she got us organised for a weekend away with Burto’s Bush Adventures to Gunbower National Park. This is the sort of camping that I am happy to do! Dan and Rian from Burto’s Bush Adventures do all the hard parts - they have all the equipment you need, they plan the meals and shop for them, they set up our swags and cook the dinners for us! We just needed to bring along our clothes and personal items, and then we could enjoy hanging out in nature and paddling on Gunbower Creek and the Murray River.

We had the best time, and I would love to have more time away with friends like this. I love active holidays, and our tour guides Dan and Rian were both very knowledgeable on the environment, bush tucker, and they had great stories to tell. The food was absolutely delicious and they went to such an effort to cater for me (I prefers to eat dairy free and gluten free). I had brought along some snacks, but they weren’t needed as they supplied so much great food.

We arrived Friday afternoon in time for a couple of kilometres kayak around Bungower Island, we did this with just the four of us. On Saturday, we had two canoes which fitted two people each, and one kayak. In total, we paddled over 21km on Bungower Creek. There wasn’t much current, so this did require some effort. We stopped a couple of times along the way for morning tea and lunch, and would swap up the combinations of people in the kayaks and canoes.

I did the first stint in the kayak on my own, and we hit a patch which almost like mangroves - it was a hard slog to get through. It felt like a workout out! There were a few little patches like that, but the rest was relatively straight forward. We were on the water for about 4.5-5 hours. Around the campfire that night, it led to a great discussion on whether it was a “fun” or a “rewarding“ experience. For me, it was both - but I am someone who also thinks marathons can be a fun experience!

On Sunday, we were then driven to a launching place on the Murray River and we had our final paddle. This was for about 90 minutes, and the current did most of the work; it was a much easier day of paddling. It led me to reflect that I do get a lot more out of experiences where there is some level of effort or exertion required! It was lovely to float along the river; the sun was out, the sky was a beautiful blue, and the company was excellent. But when we finished, I didn’t feel quite the same as I did on the Saturday.

We all paid for our trip, and I can honestly recommend Burto’s Bush Adventures. They provided us with such a fabulous experience, and they are great people. This business is currently being done on top of their full-time jobs, but they are hoping to transition to doing the tours full-time. If you feel like a bush adventure, definitely get in touch with them!

What did you get up to in March and April?

Hey There! Hope you are going well. First quarter of 2026 is done and dusted and time to take a little look back and see how things are going for me in relation to my goal and the habits I set to support my goal. In case you missed it, my goal for 2026 is:

Create steady rhythms so my life feels calm, connected and sustainable

To sum up how the first quarter has felt overall, it has definitely felt better in terms of all three areas - calmer, more connected, and more sustainable. I don’t feel like I am chasing my tail as much as I was last year. I feel like I am more organised in terms of small things like having dates in my calendar so there are “surprise appointments”, organising birthday gifts and other presents as needed, visiting the supermarket less, and just feeling less rushed.

The biggest contributor to feeling this was changing from Sunday night weekly planning to Friday afternoon/evening planning. For many years, I used to do this on Sunday nights. With Sunday night dinners starting last year, I wasn’t fitting in, and it dropped off entirely. I believe that my feeling of disorganisation was in part caused by not knowing I had a plan for the week.

To successfully set a habit, you need to remove as many friction points as possible. Sunday afternoon/evening is now family time. I needed to move my planning to somewhere that was less busy and where I would have the energy to do it. With the youngest often not knowing where he is playing Saturday sport until late in the week, Friday seemed the most logical spot to put it, and it is working really well.

This was such a reminder to me that routines should be flexible, not fixed. What works at one stage of family life will not always work forever. If, like me last year, you are feeling a little disorganised or just not on top of things as much as you feel you usually are, but don’t know where to start to remedy it, ask yourself these questions:

What habits make everything else easier?

What habits, when missed, create chaos?

Once you have your answers, work out the one habit that, if you maintained it, would have the biggest impact, and focus on it for the next month. To get ourselves back on track, harnessing our attention and energy to one habit can give us a quick win and the quick win can give us momentum to then tackle other habits.

If you haven’t set a goal for this year, it is never too late to set a goal. Click here to see how I create my goal and use the free templates to help you create yours!

1. Weekly Planning Session (30 minutes, once per week)

Habit description - Each Friday, I will spend 30 minutes planning out the next week. For many years, I used to do this on Sunday nights. With Sunday night dinners last year, it dropped off, and I believe that my feeling of disorganisation was in part caused by not knowing I had a plan for the week. This planning session will cover:

• Planning work blocks

• Social / family catch ups

• Training sessions

• Menu planning

How it helps me achieve my goal - this creates rhythm before the week starts and relieves stress. I feel prepared for the week, helping me feel calmer.

March Quarter Result - Placing this planning session on Friday has been an excellent move. It fits much better with the way our weeks now flow. Such a reminder to me that just because a weekly rhythm or routine worked for you at one stage of life doesn’t mean it will always work well for you.

I am doing this every week, as well as adding in some other planning tasks as needed, like:

• Writing on the physical calendar my monthly shifts so everyone in the family knows what I am doing. Updating as needed and when I have confirmed PT sessions.

• Working out Phil and I long run logistics - we are both trainign for Gold Coast marathon and during term still have our youngest’s Saturday morning sport commitments to cover as well.

• Determining who else in the family is cooking

2. Body Care Block (at least 15 minutes daily)

Habit description - An intentional block of time each day that supports physical sustainability. It can include any of the following:

• Mobility

• Yoga

• Strength - while I do this regularly now, the key will be to keep it going when I start marathon training

• Recovery - massage gun, foam roller, massage, heat

How it helps me achieve my goal - these small blocks will help with injury prevention and make my running feel better.

March Quarter Result - Would have around a 95% hit rate for this. It is really critical to keep me on the road and running so it while so often I do not feel like doing at all, I know I will pay a high price for not doing it. There is such inbuilt accountability on this task that means I do it!

3. One Scheduled Catch Up Each Week

Habit description - This means having one scheduled friend or family catch up a week (other than Sunday night dinners), for example:

• run with a friend

• walk catch up with a friend

• book club

• outing with family or friends

How it helps me achieve my goal - I am an introvert at heart and unless I am proactive with catch ups, they can become too far apart.

March Quarter Result - compliance for the first quarter of the year has been excellent however as the months become colder and I get further into marathon training, I can see it will become harder for me.

4. Device Free Hour Before Bed

Habit description - No phone or computer, etc an hour before I go to bed. I used to be great at this, but little by little, it has crept back, so I am often putting my phone down just before I go to bed

How it helps me achieve my goal - I know from previous experience, I sleep better when I do this, and when I sleep better, I am calmer. With no device an hour before bed, it will also help me read more too!

March Quarter Result -This is the habit I have performed the worst in for this quarter with around only a 60% compliance rate. I know my sleep is so much better when I do this, so there should be the inbuilt accountability, but I am just not sticking to it as much as I would like. I need to be more disciplined with this.

How was the first quarter of 2026 for you?

Nic

In mid-January, it started. I did the last start of the year school uniform and school shoe shop of my life. The whole experience was super nostalgic for me. At the uniform shop, there was another mum and kids in the next change room to us. It seemed like the oldest child was in about year 5 trying on her new uniform, a toddler was lying at the mum’s feet, and mum had a baby on her hip. I could not help but smile, remembering the multitude of times I had been in this store with all five kids in varying forms of organised chaos.

It was then off to another store to get school shoes. Being mid-January it wasn’t too busy, and we were served pretty quickly. We were in and out in what seemed like only 10 minutes. In a post I wrote on the blog several years ago (My new school shoes feel weird and other back to school sagas!), I shared how, after a number of years of doing all the kids at once for new school shoes, I had to split them into two groups to help cater to the youngest, who really hated wearing school shoes. Even with breaking it into two groups, taking the youngest and just one other child, it could take us a very long time.

When we went to pay for the shoes, the youngest raised his eye brows when he heard the total for school shoes for the family in front of us - they had three kids. I laughed out loud and said, “What do you think it cost us when you were all in school and we bought a new pair of school shoes and runners each January?” He is pretty quick with his mental maths, and while he didn’t articulate an answer out loud, the look on his face told me his calculations were most likely correct!

And of course, we have now had the first day of year 12 for our youngest. His last year in school and my last year as a school mum. The first two days back were retreat days, which we didn’t really count, but on the first day back in school uniform, I drove him to the station with a mixture of excitement and sadness. He is absolutely ready for this year and is maturing into such a lovely young man. But as I watched him walk further away from the car, it was symbolic of another step he was taking toward independence and less need for me.

This is, of course, my role as a mum. To help him grow up, be independent, be capable, thoughtful, and a positive contributor to the society around him. And this means that as he continues on this path, there is a significant amount of redundancy in my role. Being the last child at school, I have more time on my hands, so I offer to do a little more for him. I am a big one for parity with the kids, and I justify this slight indulgence in my mind by telling myself that, as the youngest of five, his early years of life were largely dictated by the routines of his siblings. He was carted around a lot to school drop offs, picks ups and after school activities etc (which he loved, and to this day, he is still the happiest when he has more of his siblings around him) so the offer for extra driving around etc is a way to make that up.

He was happy for me to drive him to the station on the first day of school, but he has not wanted me to do so since. He stays back after school quite a bit at the study centre, and I tell him to message me so I can pick him up from the station, but he chooses to walk home. He works a couple of days a week at a local supermarket about a kilometre from home, and I will offer to drive him, and unless it is raining, he declines that too.

I know I am offering too much help at the moment, and I am going to have to adjust my behaviour as his polite but firm responses of “I am fine mum, I can do it myself” are a clear signal that while he knows I mean well, I need to back off. I knew that his last year of school would be challenging for me. I know myself, and with more time on my hands and previously seeing how things change once they finish year 12, I am hanging on a little too tightly.

My kids have always been great teachers to me, and the youngest is pushing back and setting the boundaries on how much help he wants from me. It is taking me some time, but I am adjusting to the feedback. Previous experience has also shown me there will be times across this year that he will want more from me - when the workload is demanding and feels heavy, when the weather is bad and when the end-of-term tiredness hits. My challenge is to read his cues and be there when he needs me.

Wish me luck!

Nic

PS. If you are looking for my monthly review for January, you can find it here.

My goal for 2026 is to create steady rhythms so my life feels calm, connected and sustainable. While I did well sticking to my habits I set for the year, January didn’t feel as calm as I would have liked. As you would know, I am very much a creature of habit. When I moved to the new gym in early December, part of the reason they were hiring was to cover people being away on holidays in January. I was very happy to do this. Being relatively new in the industry, I saw this as a great opportunity to build up my hours on the gym floor and keep working on my craft.

A by-product of this was that the shifts I worked were a bit all over the place; this made scheduling new PT clients tricky, and it too became a little all over the place. I felt like I had to check my calendar every day to make sure I knew when I was working!

So while the first month didn’t feel as calm as I thought it might for 2026, I think it was definitely calmer than it would have been if I hadn’t stuck so well to the habits below 😊.

1. Weekly Planning Session (30 minutes, once per week)

Habit description - Each Friday, I will spend 30 minutes planning out the next week. For many years, I used to do this on Sunday nights. With Sunday night dinners last year, it dropped off, and I believe that my feeling of disorganisation was in part caused by not knowing I had a plan for the week. This planning session will cover:

• Planning work blocks

• Social / family catch ups

• Training sessions

• Menu planning

How it helps me achieve my goal - this creates rhythm before the week starts and relieves stress. I feel prepared for the week, helping me feel calmer.

January result - I did this every Friday, and it was the one thing that gave me some sense of knowing what I was doing and when. I also bought an old school wall calendar and wrote my work times on it, so the rest of the family had an idea of what I was doing. I made sure to get the kids involved with the menu planning to take some pressure off me too. This looks different from when they were younger. No longer is it asking for suggestions for meals; I am asking them what night they can cook in the upcoming week. Having to cook fewer nights a week is quite amazing!

2. Body Care Block (at least 15 minutes daily)

Habit description - An intentional block of time each day that supports physical sustainability. It can include any of the following:

• Mobility

• Yoga

• Strength - while I do this regularly now, the key will be to keep it going when I start marathon training

• Recovery - massage gun, foam roller, massage, heat

How it helps me achieve my goal - these small blocks will help with injury prevention and make my running feel better.

January result - I missed a handful of days doing this, but if we were to add up the total time across the month (31 x 15 mins = 7.75 hours), I would have easily exceeded that. I am so grateful to be back running after my time off the PCL reconstruction. It isn’t hard to do this habit as my body feels so much better when I am running because of it. The positive feedback from the body is so helpful to get on the floor do some mobility or yoga, even if I don’t really feel like it. See my reinforcement quote above! It is really important that we recognise the benefit of the habits we do and the positive impact they have on our lives - this helps give us the internal drive to keep doing them.

3. One Scheduled Catch Up Each Week

Habit description - This means having one scheduled friend or family catch up a week (other than Sunday night dinners), for example:

• run with a friend

• walk catch up with a friend

• book club

• outing with family or friends

How it helps me achieve my goal - I am an introvert at heart and unless I am proactive with catch ups, they can become too far apart.

January result - habit was achieved for January but I can see this is going to be challenging at times for me.

4. Device Free Hour Before Bed

Habit description - No phone or computer, etc an hour before I go to bed. I used to be great at this, but little by little, it has crept back, so I am often putting my phone down just before I go to bed

How it helps me achieve my goal - I know from previous experience, I sleep better when I do this, and when I sleep better, I am calmer. With no device an hour before bed, it will also help me read more too!

January result - I still have some work to do here. At a guess, I would have been device-free an hour before bed only 50% of the time. Other times it was more like device-free 20 minutes before bed. To improve on this, I need to plan my client programming work a little better. On most occasions, it wasn’t the phone I was on, but the MacBook working on client programming and communications. Refining the way I do this will be a focus in February.

I did, however, still read more, which was a great outcome! In January, I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte which the youngest is reading for English this year.

How was the first month of 2026 for you?

Nic

My 2026 single goal statement is to:

Create steady rhythms so my life feels calm, connected and sustainable

For many reasons, last year felt a little disorganised for me. While I had a feeling of unease about how the year panned out, it wasn’t until I went through the process of answering all of the questions and then spotting the themes did it come to me. Many of my answers to the questions are quite personal but I will share a selection of the statements I wrote under some of the questions to give you an insight into how I came up with my goal.

What didn’t work out?

• Blood clots and varicose veins interrupted my rehab and meant I couldn’t run NYC Marathon

• Dad died

• Didn’t menu plan all the time

• Boring dinner meals a lot of the time (kids liked them but I was bored!)

• Felt like I didn’t have my systems and processes up to date for the current life stage

What made you happy?

• Sunday dinners

• Running

• Working out in the gym

• Running with friends and family

• Being outdoors and active with friends

• Writing running and strength plans for friends and family

• New career

• Writing again

What made you unhappy?

• Continuing injury issues

• Feeling disorganised

What did you want to do more of?

• Time in nature and sunshine

• To relax

• More fun resistance training and not so much rehab training

• More reading

• More scheduled time with friends

• More structure

What did you want to do less of?

• Rehab training

• Injuries

Are there any overarching themes in the list?

• Traditions

• Routine

• Ritual

• Structure

• Simplify

What images come to mind when reading over the list?

• Calm colours

• Rings - as in intertwined circles showing bonds

Crafting my goal statement

This year, I tried something different once I answered all the questions. I was struggling to find the words for my single goal statement. So I copied all the questions and answers and pasted them into ChatGPT and asked it to help me set my goal. The first outputs were not at all what I wanted. It gave me a list of traditional SMART goals. I gave ChatGPT more context. I copied in some of my posts where I talk about my goal setting process, how I use a single goal statement and make it my “north star” and a decision making framework etc. I gave it the two part structure I like to use for my goal statements - What I want to create or focus on + Why it matters.

I then asked it to try again. The results were not perfect, but they gave me a great draft to work from. I honed it to what you see above.

So what habits have I set to support my goal?

Once I set my single goal statement, I then asked ChatGPT to identify the key habits that would help me achieve my goal. It was surprisingly good at recommending appropriate habits! Again, I used the recommendations as a draft and honed them until they felt right for me. They are as follows:

1. Weekly Planning Session (30 minutes, once per week)

Each Friday, I will spend 30 minutes planning out the next week. For many years, I used to do this on Sunday nights. With Sunday night dinners last year, it dropped off, and I believe that my feeling of disorganisation was in part caused by not knowing I had a plan for the week. This planning session will cover:

• Planning work blocks

• Social / family catch ups

• Training sessions

• Menu planning

How it helps me achieve my goal - this creates rhythm before the week starts and relieves stress. I feel prepared for the week, helping me feel calmer.

2. Body Care Block (at least 15 minutes daily)

An intentional block of time each day that supports physical sustainability. It can include any of the following:

• Mobility

• Yoga

• Strength - while I do this regularly now, the key will be to keep it going when I started marathon training

• Recovery - massage gun, foam roller, massage, heat

How it helps me achieve my goal - these small blocks will help with injury prevention and make my running feel better.

3. One Scheduled Catch Up Each Week

This means having one scheduled friend or family catch up a week (other than Sunday night dinners), for example:

• run with a friend

• walk catch up with a friend

• book club

• outing with family or friends

How it helps me achieve my goal - I am an introvert at heart and unless I am proactive with catch ups, they can become too far apart.

4. Device Free Hour Before Bed

No phone or computer, etc an hour before I go to bed. I used to be great at this, but little by little, it has crept back, so I am often putting my phone down just before I go to bed

How it helps me achieve my goal - I know from previous experience, I sleep better when I do this, and when I sleep better, I am calmer. With no device an hour before bed, it will also help me read more too!

Free Goal Setting Template

When I was running my Planned + Present E-Course many members found the single goal statement a challenge to write, and I would spend time workshopping ideas to help them. Once they came across one that felt right, they would have great success working towards the goal that they felt fit them. It provided a reliable framework they needed for the year.

I am no longer running Planned + Present or Goal Setting workshops, but I have come up with a two part process that can be used in place of it. The first part is a template in which you can review the previous year and look forward to what you know 2026 already holds for you. I have created a Google Doc which has the process I use to set a single goal for the new year, you can find it here. To be able to write in the Google Doc and make it your own to add your yearly review and thoughts, you need to make a copy of the document first. To do that, you need to:

• Open up the Google Doc

• Click on ‘file’, then ‘make a copy’*

• Name the Google Doc and click on okay

• Enter your answers to the questions

Then once you have completed the document, if you need help developing your goal statement and habits, follow the next step below to get ChatGPT to act as a life coach and create a draft you can work with.

*You will need a Google account to do this. If you don’t have a Google account already you will need to sign up for one. This doesn’t mean you have to get a Gmail address. Google accounts don’t have to use Gmail addresses. A Google account is simply a unified sign-in system that gives you access to Google products, including Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. You can associate any email address with a Google account. To sign up for a Google Account go here.

ChatGPT as a Life Coach

Once you have completed the questions in the goal setting process, use the Chat GPT prompt below to help you craft your single goal statement. Copy all the text from the Google Doc, including all headings, even section 4 if you have not completed it. Paste it into ChatGPT after the prompt, then hit enter! The output it creates will be a draft only. Work with Chat GPT to refine your single goal statement and habits.

Tips for refining ChatGPT output

None of the first versions of my single goal statement resonated with me. ChatGPT had picked up on the word ritual from my answers, but this word was too strong for what I was after for my single goal statement.

I feel ritual is a bit too over the top if you look at its true meaning - can you create a few versions with different words instead.

I asked it to try again without using the word rituals, and I liked the next batch much more. The next versions had the meaning I was after but were a bit too long and fluffy, so I asked ChatGPT to simplify the statements.

I like the meaning of these statements, but they are too long. Can you keep the meaning but make them simpler.

This gave me the version you see above! I then asked it to recommend five habits that would help me achieve my goal and give a short explanation of how the habit would support my goal. The recommendations, as I mentioned, were pretty good!

In the first round, it did suggest habits like a gratitude journal, which I am already doing, so I asked it for more recommendations.

With my habits I already have a gratitude journal practice, can you recommend another couple of habits that could be good options.

It then offered me three new habits to choose from. I also wanted to reinstate my weekly planning habit, so I mixed and matched its recommendations with my own to come up with a final four that I felt would help me reach my single goal for the year.

I changed some of the names it gave to the habits as well. For example:

• One Scheduled Catch Up Each Week was originally One Planned Connection Touchpoint per Week. This didn’t sound like me at all, but the actual activity was something I definitely wanted to do!

• Device Free Hour Before Bed was originally Device-Free Bookends (morning or evening). As I was choosing one, I wanted to name it the time of day I was doing.

Don’t feel the need to choose five habits either; you can see I have chosen four. Ask for five and then choose only those that feel right for you. You need to choose the right number of habits that you feel you can manage without being overwhelmed. If the ones ChatGPT suggests don’t vibe with you, tell it more about what you would like so it can provide better recommendations; don’t just go with the first iteration.

Use ChatGPT as you would a life coach - give it more info, ask more questions, challenge it, and decide what info you want to take away and use, and rewrite its output to sound like you.

The prompt

Act as a calm, practical life coach.
I am going to paste my annual goal-setting reflections below.

Your role is to:

1. Read everything carefully

2. Identify patterns, themes, and tensions (what I want more of vs less of)

3. Help me craft one overarching goal statement for the year

4. Then recommend 3–5 simple weekly habits that would realistically support that goal

Important guidelines:

• Do not create multiple goals — I want one clear guiding statement

• The statement should follow this structure:
  What I want to create or focus on + Why it matters

• Keep the language grounded, calm, and realistic (not motivational or cheesy)

• The goal should work as a decision-making filter for the year

• Habits should be simple, repeatable, and supportive of sustainability, not optimisation

After you suggest the goal statement, offer 2–3 refined wording options, then help me select one.

Once the goal is chosen, recommend 3–5 weekly habits, with a brief explanation of how each habit supports the goal.

Here are my reflections:

(Paste goal-setting steps and answers below)

Share your single goal statement and habits!

If you follow this process and create a single goal statement, I would love to read what they are. Please come back and share in the comments.

Leave a comment

Happy New Year and I hope the new year brings you much happiness and success.

Nic

This is a long email. It is less polished and a bit rambly. Based on what works these days on the internets, it would have been wiser to give it a big edit, split it up into parts and send it out as separate emails etc. But when I came back to writing this newsletter, it was because I wanted to write. Writing helps me structure my thoughts, keeps me accountable, and I love the connections I have here with you, the reader. So if you are up for a long, rambly email, grab a drink and enjoy. If you want some actionable takeaways or a dot point list, then give this email a miss 😊.

2025 did not turn out at all as I expected. It is so hard to know how to review this year. The loss of my dad is still looming large, and it is by far the most significant event that has happened to me since the birth of our last child back in 2009.

Traditions

Every second year, we spend Christmas in Mildura - my other two sisters who live in Melbourne travel to Mildura with their families and we all stay with our sister and her wonderful family who live in Mildura. They have plenty of space, and they hire two caravans to accommodate all the extras sleeping there.

I love traditions, and we have many around our Christmas time in Mildura. These are some of my favourites:

• All ages soccer games after dinner - my dad never played, but you would never see a happier man than him, sitting outside watching all the mayhem and carry on. I don’t play either, and I missed him sitting with us watching.

• Games of Crib - it is known fully as Cribbage and my dad taught all four daughters to play and he taught all my kids to play too. On Christmas afternoon, my sisters and I played together. My dad was always very efficient with scoring, something that I was not great at. My sisters were always much better at it, and they filled the void from dad this year and made sure I didn’t under score my hands.

• Rocky road - I have been making this rocky road at Christmas since 2009. My dad absolutely loved it. I made it again, and it made me miss him, knowing he wasn’t here to enjoy it.

Not only was my dad missing, but my sister in Mildura had also lost her father-in-law in May, so we were missing two people at Christmas lunch. It was a large void, but we still had a lot of fun together. My kids love the biannual Christmas trip to Mildura and the traditions they take part in. They are etching deep memories that will stay with them forever. This means a lot to me.

This year, we started our own tradition of Sunday dinners. There is an open invitation for our kids and nephews living outside the family home to come for dinner at 6:30 p.m. They don’t have to say they are coming, there will always be enough food, and hopefully, if I have catered well, some food to take home too. After dinner, we share a high and low of the week, and the evening is finished off with some form of games. I love it. The older ones who have partners have started to bring them along too.

When it is someone’s birthday, we extend the invitation out to the broader family and usually end up with between 15 - 18 people for dinner. Sometimes we are lucky and we can time a Sunday dinner when my sister and her family are visiting from Mildura and it bumps it up to over 20 of us! When we share our highs and lows of the week, we also share our favourite memory of the birthday person. The birthday person can choose the meal and the type of cake they would like. I make lolly bags featuring their favourite lollies, a nice call back to parties when they were all little. It is so much fun for all of us.

The first dinner back after my dad’s funeral, we all shared our favourite Dad/Poppy memory, and it was so beautiful to hear what the kids had to share.

Being a beginner again

Completing my Cert III and Cert IV in fitness in 2025 and starting a new career as a PT saw me at the beginner stage again, and I loved it. To be so keen to learn more about the craft, to feel so excited to get new clients, to try things and fail, to try things and see them work, to create new processes was so refreshing and re-energising.

It was also about accepting the need to start at the very first rung of a new ladder. My entry role at the first gym I was at was not my ideal role, but I knew it would be the foot in the door that I needed. When you are 53 and entering a young person’s game, you have to be realistic about where you can start. I am so grateful to the manager and the team at this gym for the opportunity they gave me, the support and encouragement and what I learnt from them. I feel so lucky to have started there and to have worked with them all.

At the start of December, I started at a different, larger gym that offers more opportunities for me, and I am so excited for what 2026 will bring with my PT career. I am still very much learning and keen to do so. Most of the podcasts I listen to, and YouTube videos I watch, are centred around absorbing as much info as I can, so I can help clients achieve their health and fitness goals. I shared some of what I have watched here. I am also planning for professional development for myself next year as well.

Being a beginner again has been a great teacher, too. For many of my clients, they are beginners at the gym, and for my predominantly female clientele, this comes with some apprehension and nervousness - feelings I have experienced this year. I am far more mindful of this and factor it into how I program their sessions.

Rebuilding my running base

(Image above is from my Fitness & Freshness section of Strava. It considers your heart rate based Relative Effort and power based Training Load to track your levels of fitness, fatigue and form over time. Not sure how accurate it is, but I am more interested in the overall trend, not a specific number etc.)

After a couple of false starts, I am finally getting some consistency back with my running. I am only running four days a week at the moment, but I am being consistent and progressing my runs. I have a long way to go, but I am starting to feel fitter. You can see the dip in fitness in July when I had my varicose veins done and another dip in October when I had a couple of days off with a really bad cold, and then my heart rate was sky high for a couple of weeks after.

My running and strength training week has looked like:

• Mon - Lower body strength. Still very rehab-focused with emphasis on quad and calf strength

• Tue - Running session at the track

• Wed - Lower body strength. Still very rehab-focused with emphasis on quad and calf strength

• Thu - Longer easy run

• Fri - Upper body strength

• Sat - Long run

• Sun - Shorter easy run

I honestly didn’t think I would still be doing two very rehab focused strength sessions a week over a year after my surgery. When I had the time off for the clots and varicose veins, I could only walk for four weeks. In that time, I lost a significant amount of my newly regained strength in my PCL (right) leg. Running when you have a strength differential of greater than 10% in your quads is a recipe for another injury, so I had to really temper my rebuild in running and work on the strength in my right quad. This has meant doing maintenance only on my left leg for single leg exercises and doing additional single leg work on my right quad.

I am really hoping that when I go back to the physio in late January, the strength differential will be less than 10% and I can dial back the rehab to maintenance exercises. When that happens, I can move strength training to Tuesdays and Thursdays, have one day completely off and add another easy run.

Reviewing my 2025 goal

2025 was the first time I revised a goal during the year. You can read more about that here. My goal was to Prioritise time under the open sky and in good company to create moments of joy and connection. As usual, I set some habits to focus on to help me achieve this goal. I will go through them one by one, assess how I went and then summarise how I think I went overall at the end.

Daily - gratitude journal

Rating - 99%

Reflection - This habit is now so ingrained in my daily routine, I don’t even have to think about whether or not I will keep this habit, it is just what I do now. For me, it is such a grounding and clarifiying activity that takes me less than 5 minutes. Can highly recommend and you can read about the Journal App I use here.

Daily - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use

Rating - 75%

Reflection - If you read my review for November, this fell off a cliff in November with only a 50% success rate. December was better, but would only have been about 75%. There is a tendency in me to not take time for a proper meal break when I get busier. The reality with doing this is you end up eeking out time somewhere else because you crave the break. While I won’t set this habit again, I will hold myself to account to make sure lunch is a proper break, whether it is inside or outside.

Weekly - minimum one run or walk with friends a week

Rating - 100%

Reflection - I love catching up with people in an active way. I think you can chat in a way that is different from just sitting at a cafe etc. For the runners out there, I am sure you will be able to relate to the amazing chats you have on the weekly long run. A bonus about running over 2+ hours for my long runs now is that I can join in with the group for them, and the chats/banter/laughs you have are really something special.

Monthly - outdoor activity somewhere new with friends

Rating - 90%

Reflection - This was a great habit to choose. Being out in nature makes you realise how small you are and in some ways, how insignificant to the bigger picture. I actually take great comfort in this. When I feel overwhelmed by what is going on, it can be a real tonic to step out in nature and realise things that seem a huge deal are really not that big.

Sharing the nature of beauty with friends and family is also an amazing thing to do. The very top photo was taken by me at the World Heritage-listed Mungo National Park in NSW in late December - so stunning! And fits beautifully with the “Pink Skies” theme that has been running through the last half of 2025 for me.

Monthly - write 3 x letters / postcards to friends or family

Rating - 90%

Reflection - I was great at this until December, where I didn’t send anyone a letter. I did however, send some presents to people and give friends and family presents with some handwritten notes (more than just Merry Christmas), but technically it was a fail, hence the 90% rating. I did love doing this, but it felt a bit forced towards the end. I will still make an effort to write to people in 2026, just not on a set schedule.

Overall, how do I think I went?

If we are to average my marks above, my score is 90.8% and that feels about right. I did indeed prioritise time under the open sky and in good company to create moments of joy and connection. Amongst the sadness of 2025, there were many moments of joy within my immediate and extended family. Getting back into running and strength training allowed me to spend more time with friends this way and by focusing on doing things outside with friends, I got the calming effect of being in nature that I very much needed.

I have cried a number of times writing this very long post (thanks so much if you have made it all the way to the end!). My dad’s wry smile has popped up so many times in my mind. I am so glad for him that we went peacefully and without years of decline. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss him and wish he had been around for longer, but I am luckier than many, and so are my kids. They had all four grandparents for a significant part of their lives and have distinct and clear memories of them all. For that I am so very grateful.

Nic

(Before I start, I did publish a late monthly review for November here, but did not send it out as an email, as I know inboxes are overflowing at this time!)

I love that so many of the platforms we use give us a recap of our year. I have YouTube Premium, and it is definitely the platform I spend the most time on after Spotify. In case you cannot see the image above, it highlights that some of the most common categories of videos I watch on YouTube are Exercise Science, Healthy Eating and Supplement Reviews.

Naturally, I am drawn to these types of videos, but I have also made a considered effort to ensure that I am getting a wide range of views on these topics to inform how I train and communicate with the clients I work with. Exercise science and healthy eating are probably two of the most hotly debated topics on the internet, with many vocal proponents often at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

As someone who has held some views that are on more of the extreme end of these views at times, I can see how it happens. I don’t think these views are always necessarily held with bad intent. I have changed my mind on many areas once I have learnt more, listened to opposing views and followed the developing science or dug deeper into the existing science. However, I can see how some proponents who have made their name with a particular view or built a business around a particular view might find it hard to change direction.

What is interesting to me is that so many great scientists who live and breathe research in these areas on a daily basis are the ones who are most likely to give answers that include “it depends,” or “we don’t know for sure,” or “more research is needed to be definitive.” They are much less likely to say “everyone should” or “this is only way” about a particular diet or exercise philosophy. Sadly, this means they are less likely to be found on clips from podcasts, YouTube videos, Reels or TikTok. Nuance isn’t attention-grabbing enough for the algorithms.

Some of the videos I share here have fewer than 1,000 views, and some have millions of views. If you wonder why, this video here is talking about books and why some of the best nutrition books in terms of being scientifically valid don’t make it on to the best sellers list, but those which are deeply flawed do and I think it extrapolates to videos as well.

Anyway, enough of a preamble! I wanted to share with you some videos that I enjoyed and tend to challenge some very loudly shared views in the exercise and nutrition online space. I would very much love to:

1. Hear your thoughts on these videos (the majority of these videos are interview format, so you don’t have to watch them to understand them)

2. And let me know if you like these types of posts!

Exercise Related Videos

Women’s Fitness Needs Debate: Dr. Stacey Sims vs. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

Let me first state that I do love the work of Dr Stacy Sims. I think she has done amazing things to get women’s fitness into the mainstream and to encourage women to start resistance training. But I don’t necessarily agree with all her takes. I would have liked this debate to be moderated slightly differently, but I think it is great to have it out there. If you watch this video and feel confused by it, there is a great comment below the video from another Fitness Professional, HollyTBaxter, which I think sums it up well.

If you want to hear more from each Dr individually, I have those links coming next!

Video link - Women’s Fitness Needs Debate: Dr. Stacey Sims vs. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

Science-based exercise tips for women with Dr Lauren Colenso-Semple | The Proof EP#391

Dr Lauren Colenso-Semple challenges the idea that:

• Women must train completely differently

• Hormones dictate what exercises you can do

• Certain rep ranges or cardio styles are “off-limits” after 40

Colenso-Semple suggests that this is highly marketable, but not evidence based. She makes the case that this kind of messaging:

• Overcomplicates training

• Creates fear around “doing it wrong”

• Discourages women from exercising at all

• Pulls focus away from what actually works

And based on my own training and training clients in this demographic, I do agree to a large extent with this. There is more than one way to approach resistance and cardio training for women in this age group. Each person’s goals and current health status need to be taken into consideration, rather than a blanket recommendation for all women in this age group.

Video link - Science-based exercise tips for women with Dr Lauren Colenso-Semple | The Proof EP#391

Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims

This video has more than 2 million views, and I can imagine it probably has a similar reach on Spotify! It is so good that female fitness is getting this type of reach. In the 2.5 hour interview, Sims covers a lot of ground, but I do recommend you also watch the debate video(first video listed). Sims is very passionate and definitive in her views, so it is good to balance that out.

Video link - Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims

Are Cycle Syncing, Zone 2 Cardio & Ferritin Norms BS? | Diary of a CEO Review (Part 1)

This is a reaction video to another widely watched video on female health and fitness (over 2 million views on YouTube!). I have not watched the video from Diary of a CEO - Hormone & Fertility Experts: We’ve Been Lied To About Women’s Health! If This Happens, Call A Doctor. I am glad that the topic of female health and fitness is getting some prominent airtime, but I do also have some reservations about all of the information that is shared without any pushback.

This review video at the time of writing, had fewer than 1000 views. It is not a take-down of the video, and they often agree with what is said in the Diary of a CEO. They do have some more nuanced takes that I think are worth listening to. For example, they bust the myth of cycle syncing and talk more about auto-regulation. This is something I have heard from a number of scientists in the exercise science field. If this topic is of interest to you, then have a listen to this podcast from The Real Science of Sport Podcast - Hormones, Hype & High Performance: The Menstrual Cycle in Sport.

Video link - Are Cycle Syncing, Zone 2 Cardio & Ferritin Norms BS? | Diary of a CEO Review (Part 1)

Menopause, Fasting & “Cortisol Belly”: Diary of a CEO Review (Part 2)

I really enjoyed their takes on perimenopause/menopause in this second part. During this time, as with all other times in your life, you do need smart, progressive and periodised training. They discuss how women in this demographic are not fragile and hormonally broken. From personal experience, I know this time can definitely come with additional challenges, like poor sleep quality, motivation can drop, and mood swings can be at an all-time high. But perimenopause/menopause does not automatically have to mean weight gain and muscle loss.

Video link - Menopause, Fasting & “Cortisol Belly”: Diary of a CEO Review (Part 2)

Can Resistance Training Help Women Build Muscle & Prevent Alzheimer’s?

Professor Stuart Phillips is a world leader in research regarding protein requirements and resistance training principles. The host is Australian Louisa Nicola, a neurophysiologist and human performance coach. The points that Phillips makes in this interview do agree with much of what is said in the review videos above:

• Women can build muscle perimenopause/post-menopause

• Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not directly preserve or rebuild muscle

• But if HRT helps symptoms (sleep, energy, mood), it may help you train better, which matters

• The biggest threats to muscle in this stage of life are poor sleep and reduced training intensity or consistency

He also agrees that you don’t have to lift only heavy weights to get results. He says research shows:

• Muscle and health benefits can be achieved across a wide range of reps

• Effort, progression over time and getting close to failure safely is key (this is the philosophy I work on with my clients)

Video link - Can Resistance Training Help Women Build Muscle & Prevent Alzheimer’s?

The Truth About Women’s Hormone Therapy | Dr. Jen Gunter

Dr Jen Gunter is very direct in her assessment of women’s health and fitness on social media. She believes much of the fear and confusion around hormones, birth control, menopause and women’s health is being driven by social media misinformation rather than medical evidence. In the discussion with Dr Mike she highlights that online platforms reward certainty, outrage and oversimplified claims (totally agree with this!), which allows wellness influencers and hormone clinics to exaggerate risks, over-promote testing, and sell solutions that aren’t supported by good science.

Video link - The Truth About Women’s Hormone Therapy | Dr. Jen Gunter

Nutrition Related Videos

While some of the videos above are related to nutrition, the ones below are specifically on the topic of nutrition.

What’s the BEST diet for humans? | Dr. Christopher Gardner, PhD

I went down a rabbit hole watching videos with Dr Christopher Gardner and wasn’t sure which one to share. Dr Gardner is a Stanford researcher with 20+ years of studying human nutrition. He has done many great interviews online, but so many of the videos I am sharing are long, so I thought I would add this short one. This YouTube channel, Nutrition Made Simple! puts out great content, so worth checking it out.

Video link - What’s the BEST diet for humans? | Dr. Christopher Gardner, PhD

We Analyzed 114 Country Food Guides. 1 Diet Ruled Them All.

While overall they looked at many countries, in the video, they go into detail on the following:

• Japanese guidelines

• Swiss guidelines

• Canadian guidelines

• American guidelines

The video title is a bit clickbaity as they don’t really conclude a specific diet, but more like key principles:

• Eat mostly whole foods

• Carbs are not the enemy but quality matters

• Protein needs are moderate, not extreme

• Unsaturated fats are preferred

• Dairy is context-dependent and again quality matters

I also really like the content this channel puts out too.

Video link - We Analyzed 114 Country Food Guides. 1 Diet Ruled Them All.

The Most Honest Man In Nutrition Research | Kevin Hall PhD

I have also been down a rabbit hole with interviews with Kevin Hall and really love his work. Kevin Hall, Ph.D is an internationally renowned expert in human nutrition, metabolism, obesity, and neuroscience. At 2 hours 41 mins it is a long interview but it contains so much great info, it is worth the investment. Kevin is incredibly humble as well as knowledgeable.

Again, like other scientists, Hall’s research shows the most effective approach to nutrition is pretty simple (not necessarily easy!) and that no single diet wins. Adherence wins.

Some other key points I wanted to share from this video as I talk a lot about this with my clients:

• Intermittent fasting is not magic. If fasting helps you naturally eat less without feeling deprived, it can work. If it increases hunger, stress, or rebound eating, it’s counterproductive. Hall pushes back on fasting being marketed as a hormone fix, metabolic reset, or fat-loss shortcut.

• Low-carb diets do not burn more fat than low-fat diets when calories are matched. Any early rapid weight loss on low-carb diets is largely water loss. Long-term fat loss is driven by calorie intake, not carb avoidance.

• The “food addiction” narrative is overstated. They are simply easy to overeat due to texture, palatability, and convenience.

Video link - The Most Honest Man In Nutrition Research | Kevin Hall PhD

How Much Protein Do We Need? | Drs Stuart Phillips and Christopher Gardner | The Proof Podcast EP228

This is how I would have preferred the Dr Sims and Dr Colenso-Semple video to go. I really like both Dr Phillips and Dr Gardner so was happy to uncover this video (it is 3 years old) in one of my searches!

I thought there would be more disagreement on the nuances of protein intake, but they actually agreed on most things! Here were my key takeaways:

• Resistance training is the primary driver of muscle preservation, protein supports it, but cannot replace it. As Phillips puts it “Exercise is king. Diet is queen.”

• The biggest area of difference was in how much protein we should have each day. Gardner points out that when true calorie intake is measured, most adults already consume ~16–18% of calories from protein. This often translates to 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day.

• Phillips agreed with this but noted that frailer, more sedentary adults, especially during illness or hospitalisation often fall well below what they need. He said 1.6 g/kg/day may be useful for those training hard or lifting weights, but going higher than this offers little extra benefit for most people.

• Over-prioritising protein can crowd out carbs, fibre, and overall energy, which can see performance, recovery, and enjoyment of food can suffer.

Video Link - How Much Protein Do We Need? | Drs Stuart Phillips and Christopher Gardner | The Proof Podcast EP228

Did you make it to the end?? Well done! There is a lot of content to get through, and again, if you watch any of these, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Nic

I am such a proponent of better late than never, but reviewing November this late is almost ridiculous behaviour from me! But, it wasn’t a great month for me, so I felt I needed to own it by writing about it here.

Daily - gratitude journal

Writing a short list of things I am grateful for, my intention and key tasks for the day is such a great way to start and shape my day. For example, if my intention is to be calm and kind and when I get up and see the kids have left a mess and I feel like I want to send off a ranty message in the family chat, I remind myself of the being calm part. This doesn’t mean I don’t address the mess, but I do it in a calmer fashion and no surprise here, this gets a better result than ranting!

Rating - 100%

Reflection - completing this task first thing in the morning absolutely makes sure I get this done. The only down side is because it is on my phone, if I open it up and see messages it is sooooo tempting to read them! I prefer not to be on my phone first thing in the morning in that way, so don’t like that aspect of it. You read about the Journal App I use here.

Daily - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use

I know I feel better if I do this and it makes me spend more time outside which is always a good thing.

Rating - 50%

Reflection - This fell off a cliff in November :(. Two key excuses:

• I was busier

• The weather was awful in Melbourne

And I originally did have these listed as two key reasons, but then as I went to write about them, I realised they were totally excuses. I could have done better but I didn’t. I ate meals more often in the car eg breakfast on the way to work, lunch while going between places etc.

On a positive note though, when I did eat outside at home or work, I did do it with no phone. There is a tendency in me to not take time for a proper meal break when I get busier. The reality with doing this is you end up eeking out time somewhere else because you crave the break.

Weekly - minimum one run or walk with friends a week

Walking or running with friends is possibly my most favourite way to socialise with people.

Rating - 100%

Reflection - Phil and I have been running at least once together each week and I walked with a friend once each week as well.

Monthly - outdoor activity somewhere new with friends

This is aimed at spending more time outdoors and trying new things

Rating - 0%

Reflection - I didn’t plan this at the start of the month and therefore it didn’t happen! A great reminder to me that you need to schedule in what is important to you first, so it doesn’t get crowded out by other activities.

Monthly - write 3 x letters / postcards to friends or family

Rating - 100%

Reflection - Last month, I wrote that this is a habit that I feel I will keep even after the end of this year but I am not so sure now. I do love it but it is starting to feel a little forced now which I don’t enjoy.

How was November for you? Was it busier for you too?

Let me know by dropping a comment below. I would love to hear.

Nic

Hello! Hope you are enjoying a relaxing public holiday if you are in Victoria and if you are outside of Victoria, your Tuesday is going great.

You will see below in my monthly review of the habits I set, I did much worse on one this month - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use, with only 70% achievement rate. And when I analysed why this happened, it was clear that I was resorting to old habits and avoiding anything that made me stop and be still. I would multitask while trying to have lunch, pretending it was saving me time. The reality is I know better.

There might be a few instances where multitasking works, like listening to a podcast while driving somewhere, for example. But in general, while we may think multitasking is saving us time, study after study shows that multitasking makes us less productive. When you are online and switch between emails and completing a form, for example, your brain actually has to switch between these tasks. Each time you make the switch, your brain has to refocus, work out where you were up to and decide what to do next.

In experiments published in 2001, Joshua Rubinstein, PhD, Jeffrey Evans, PhD, and David Meyer, PhD, conducted four experiments in which young adults switched between different tasks, such as solving math problems or classifying geometric objects. For all tasks, the participants lost time when they had to switch from one task to another. As tasks got more complex, participants lost more time. As a result, people took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs were also greater when the participants switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. {Source: American Psychological Association}

Although the switch cost of multitasking may seem relatively small, it can really add up across the day when you are constantly switching between tasks. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.

And that isn’t factoring in how if we take a proper break for lunch (without doing something else like watching Youtube!) we come back properly refreshed and can be more productive when we get back to work or what ever the task was. A study by Hongjai Rhee & Sudong Kim found that workers who used their smartphones during lunch breaks reported higher levels of emotional exhaustion and did not experience the usual boost in mood and energy that screen-free break takers did.

So if I know all of this, why do I still fall into the trap of multitasking? For me, I think there are two key reasons:

Short-term reward

When I am busy or feel overwhelmed, passively watching something on YouTube feels like a reprieve, like a little treat. Opening up the YouTube app and choosing something to watch delivers micro-bursts of pleasure - unpredictable new videos, bright visuals, and instant impact. Reading a book or doing a task without watching something allows the brain to rest, which pays dividends over the longer term. It is a classic example of temporal discounting:

Temporal discounting refers to the phenomenon in which the subjective value of some reward loses its magnitude when the given reward is delayed. Similar to the notion of “delayed gratification,” relatively high degrees of discounting are synonymous with impulsivity. On the contrary, when individuals demonstrate a sustained interest and motivation in a delayed reward, they are said to have less discounting, and thereby more self-control. {Source}

It’s easier

Honestly, I am just taking the easy option! There are days when I feel like watching something, and I don’t. I don’t feel like going outside but I do head outside and sit under the sun or the grey cloudy sky Melbourne is offering and eat my lunch. This definitely takes more effort on my part. I have to push through the resistance to do it and I am always glad I did. The resistance is always there, and some days it gets the better of me. Some days I simply take the easier option.

And I want to point out that the only reason I am writing about this as an issue for me is because I made a commitment to myself to do it. Dinner is always with the family and no phones, but I wanted to add one meal a day that was outside and no phones. I did this because I know the research on being outside and being off phones - it is super beneficial in so many ways, and this was a way of building more of both into my days.

So what am I going to do in November?

For November, I am going to do two things to help me get 100% for this habit and both involve my journal, a habit I already have well cemented.

Implementation Intention

If you are not familiar with the concept of implementation intention, it is as follows:

When people encounter problems in translating their goals into action (e.g., failing to get started, becoming distracted, or falling into bad habits), they may strategically call on automatic processes in an attempt to secure goal attainment. This can be achieved by plans in the form of implementation intentions that link anticipated critical situations to goal-directed responses (”Whenever situation x arises, I will initiate the goal-directed response y!”). Implementation intentions delegate the control of goal-directed responses to anticipated situational cues, which (when actually encountered) elicit these responses automatically. {Source}

I will write my implementation intention down each day and it will be something like:

When I have lunch, I will put my phone on charge, step outside, and focus on enjoying my food and being outside.

It won’t be worded in exactly the same way each day, as some days I have breakfast outside, some days it is a meal I have at work, so the circumstances will be different. What will be the same is I am going to think about it first thing in the morning and set my intention for how I am going to implement the habit for that day. I will let you know how this goes next month!

Positive Reinforcement

At the end of my break time outside, I am going to…… get my phone! Ha! But I will do so to note in my journal how I felt after my proper break in a few words. This reflection will help build intrinsic feedback, enabling me to value the benefit in the moment. This will allow me to work on establishing the habit permanently and not make it feel so forced.

Now on to my assessment of my progress for October!

Daily - gratitude journal

Rating - 99%

Reflection - making sure I do it first thing in the morning led to a higher success rate. The one day I missed was a classic example of thinking I would do something later, as I had lots to do in the morning. The reality is, of course, I would have had 2 minutes to do the journal. I went away that morning for a night stay with friends. Once away I completely forgot about it. The beauty of tracking is that missing one day in October is fuel for me to hit 100% for November. You read about the Journal App I use here.

Daily - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use

Rating - 70%

Reflection - I had a number of days where I crammed quite a bit in, and it was interesting to see how easily I resorted to old habits - eat lunch while I am doing something, thinking it saves time, but it really doesn’t. I would also completely fold on those days and for example, be cooking something or doing laundry, eating lunch and watching something on Youtube. Total fail by me and I see a pattern in me that when I get busy, I tend to ramp up the pace of everything I do. I am more likely to multitask and avoid anything that makes me stop and be still. See above as to why this is not a good idea and also how I am going to work on this issue I have.

Weekly - minimum one run or walk with friends a week

Rating - 90%

Reflection - I had to cancel on a friend due to me having a cold and then Phil cancelled on me because he was unwell, so not 100% this month.

Monthly - outdoor activity somewhere new with friends

Rating - 100%

Reflection - This requires a little planning to get done but it is definitely worth it. It has actually made me want to do more outdoor things for longer periods of time. As the year winds down with school/uni for the kids, I am hoping to get them out with me at some point too!

Monthly - write 3 x letters / postcards to friends or family

Rating - 100%

Reflection - This is a habit that I feel I will keep even after the end of this year. There is something really satisfying about popping a letter to a friend in the mailbox. I need to buy some new note cards. If you are thinking of doing this, the key is to make it super simple and set yourself up for success. You can see how I do that here.

How was your month?

Let me know by dropping a comment below. I would love to hear.

Nic

Leave a comment

PS. A couple of OG bloggers that I grew up with as an online writer are also on Substack that you might like to follow!

Styling You - Nikki from Styling You is a tremendous positive energy in the fashion influencer space. Similar in age to me, I love seeing someone in my demographic show that what you wear doesn’t have to be defined by your age. Nikki has been a wonderful support to me - absolutely consider subscribing!

Stonesoup for Menopause - Jules has always been a great writer, and I love that she is now focusing on eating well through perimenopause and menopause. If you are in this phase of life or getting close to it, you should definitely subscribe!

Prioritise time under the open sky and in good company to create moments of joy and connection

Two of the habits I am focusing on to help me achieve my goal are completing a daily gratitude journal and writing at least three letters a month. I have found the key to making habits like this stick is to:

• Set yourself up for success to complete the habit

• Remove points of friction

Daily gratitude journal app

A long time ago, I used the 5 minute journal app to practice gratitude. I really liked it and then at some point, they closed the app. I went to using a notebook and a pencil. In May this year, I am not sure why, but I decided to give the Apple Journal App ago. It is one of the apps Apple installs on your phone and I absolutely love it. You can see the app here. The screenshot on the left above is what it looks like in the App Store. The screenshot on the right above shows how much I journaled in September - I missed two days.

Some of the reasons why I love the Journal App could be reasons why you may hate it! You give permissions for the app to track what you are doing on your phone, use your location, what you listen to on Spotify etc. I have my Garmin watch connected to Apple Health so it gets a feed from that as well.

When you create a new journal entry, you can add this info to it by clicking on the sparkly wand indicated by the purple arrow below. You can add your own photos, voice memos, location and the last icon at the end lets you add how you were feeling. I spend less than five minutes creating my journal entry for the day. You can name the entry whatever you like. As I don’t want to spend time thinking about a fancy title, I just write the date.

You can write whatever you like in the journal entry. I write out the same format every day. I write:

• My intention for the day - Today I will be…

• I am grateful for - list 3 things I am grateful for

• Key tasks - my 3 key tasks for the day

I then add any photos, podcasts, locations, etc, that I feel are relevant and I want to note for that day. By keeping my gratitude process super simple and using prompts from images, phone calls, locations and the like, it removes friction and means I am more likely to complete it.

Letter writing process

As I noted, to be successful at setting a habit, you have to set yourself up for success. For me, the letter writing process looks like the below! I bought a box of note cards, a sheet of stamps and have a pen with it. That way, when I decide I want to write, I have everything I need and no excuses.

The note cards are blank inside, and I write on both sides. I find the note card less intimidating than a blank piece of paper. I also think they are a pretty note card, making it a nice note to receive. I have this set up on my desk, so it is also a reminder that writing letters regularly is something I now do.

Here is how I fared with all my habits for September!

Daily - gratitude journal

Rating - 95%

Reflection - with the structure I am using, I find this a much more meaningful process to do this first thing in the day. It allows me to have an intention for the day and start the day off reflecting on the good that is in my life. Some days when I had very early starts, I didn’t do it until later in the day, and I felt it didn’t set me up as well. For October, I am going to commit to doing it before 9am. Also, if I don’t do it at the start of the day, there is always the chance I will forget and not do it - this is how I have missed a couple of days over the month.

Daily - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use

Rating - 90% on the outside part, 100% on the no phone use.

Reflection - I didn’t go outside on a few days when it was very cold or raining. A bit soft of me really, as I could have rugged up and sat under cover - not really a good excuse! There were absolutely days when I really wanted to have my phone with me while I ate my lunch. I had to really push myself to put the phone down. I did read a book on many days with breakfast or lunch, and I am very happy to read at these times as long as it is a physical book. Doing this has helped me get back into reading more, which is always something I want to be doing, so it was a great byproduct of this habit.

Weekly - minimum one run or walk with friends a week

Rating - 100%

Reflection - I do include running with Phil (husband) in this. Returning to run it can seem a bit of a waste of time, driving to meet someone when you are only running for 30-40 minutes. Having set this as a habit, I push through this process and it makes me organise walking/running catch ups with friends so I can tick it off and know I have achieved it. And every time I walk/run with friends, I am so glad I did. It makes me feel more connected - a key part of my goal 😊.

Monthly - outdoor activity somewhere new with friends

Rating - 100%

Reflection - I had a couple of outdoor adventures throughout the month, including a single-track walk with some girlfriends and a couple of hours on a coastal walk with family and friends. Neither of these activities had great weather, but even so, I found that after being outdoors and active, I felt calmer, slept better and had a better sense of perspective.

Monthly - write 3 x letters / postcards to friends or family

Rating - 100%

Reflection - I am enjoying this much more than I thought I would and it takes much less time to do than I thought it would too. The time part is something I remind myself of often. When I think about it being time to write to someone, for some reason, my first thought is “I don’t have time.” The reality is, I need 10 minutes or less to write a note to someone I love. I have plenty of time for that. This reframe gets me sitting down and doing it.

How was September for you? Did you make progress towards your goal for 2025?

Let me know by dropping a comment below, I would love to hear.

Nic

Image is from a post on the blog in its first year on creating independent kids. Pictured is our eldest, who was 10 (now 26!), making his first solo train trip into the city.

Since December last year, we have only had three kids living at home. I am super happy for the kids moving out and finding their feet in the world. But I do feel a huge sense of loss with them gone. So many times I wished that we had more space, another bedroom, etc and now I am often wishing for more people roaming about the house, more chatter (even bickering would do!), and I definitely wish there were more people at dinner time.

Many Friday nights, it is just Phil and me for dinner now. The two younger boys have work and social lives, and our daughter has lots of great stuff going on in her life that has her out and about. I imagine there will come a point where I really enjoy our kid-free Friday nights, plan different things for us to do, and find peace in the quietness of the house. But at the moment I am not.

However, I do enjoy the reduced running around, the less mess, and how easy it is for Phil and me to get out for a morning run together on the weekends. I do enjoy the significantly reduced grocery bills and having fewer emotions to manage! I haven’t yet got used to cooking for fewer people; that is a work in progress. And I am so proud of how easily the kids have transitioned to living independently and the wonderful adults they are.

Aiding their transition

Long time readers will know that a key parenting philosophy of mine is to allow kids of all ages to do for themselves what they are capable of doing. It starts when they are little with simple activities like getting their own kinder bag ready, getting their clothes out ready for school the next day, before they go to bed etc. It then builds to doing more around the house that helps the whole family - you can check out our family contribution schedule for how we managed that.

Once they finish secondary school, the bar is then lifted again. I have grouped our expectations for our young adults under key headings below. As always, this is just how we have chosen to do things in our house; it is far from perfect, definitnely not the only way to do things, but it is a balance that we have found works for us.

Clothes Washing

We give them a couple of months into uni and then they need to do their own washing. With the exception of our daughter, who does her laundry a few times a week, the boys have all chosen a weekly weekend schedule. This means that we make sure they have enough socks and jocks to fit this routine! I spend the first few weekends assisting them with things like sorting clothes, showing them different wash cycles, and going through what can and can’t go in the dryer. Then it is up to them.

There are times when I am doing a load of washing, and I might ask if they want something washed and add some of the gear in if they do. And there are times where I will see they are swamped, and I will help out where I can, but that is pretty rare.

Cleaning

When they leave secondary school, they come off the family contribution schedule and are asked to take a proactive adult approach to helping keep the house tidy and clean. This means if they see the dishwasher is full, put a tablet in and turn it on. If the dishwasher cycle has finished, then empty it. If the benches need to be wiped down, do that etc. This is hard yards at times until it becomes part of the way they naturally see the house. I have had many, many conversations about showing initiative and just doing things that they can see need to be done as opposed to walking straight past mess.

To a certain extent, because they had allocated jobs before this, they would see cleaning in terms of only worrying about what “they had to do”. Previously, I would certainly always emphasise that this was the minimum they needed to do, and they could always do more - an option not taken often! Unlike doing their own laundry, where there are direct consequences for them if it doesn’t get done, general cleaning doesn’t have the same impact (on them!). This is an area that requires a lot more intentional direction from Phil and I at the start to ensure their behaviour changes.

All the kids share one bathroom and after finishing secondary school, they go on the roster to clean it. It was great for a brief period when we had three post secondary school kids in the house - I only cleaned the main bathroom once a month. Now that another child has left, I clean it once every three weeks. There is a window when the cleaning must be done. Anytime from Friday night to 4pm Sunday. It is not up to me to remind them to do it, they must take responsibility for this.

Cooking

Throughout their teenage years, the kids move from having a household task that is simply cutting veggies for a meal or assisting me in cooking dinner, to cooking on their own. This is one of those activities where it takes time for you to receive the benefits of investing this time, but it really does pay off. There are many skills to teach when it comes to cooking a meal, so having them just spend time in the kitchen with you from a young age is super helpful. By the last couple of years of secondary school there is an expectation that they can cook a meal for the family.

The plan is then once they have settled into their new routine at uni, they cook a meal once a week. This one, where I am not as great at enforcing it 100% of the time but it is super helpful in reducing my workload and giving them much needed cooking experience.

To factor in the kids cooking meals, I am back to weekly menu planning. Still using the same framework for meal selection but writing the meals up on a weekly basis. When I write the menu plan on the weekend, I will ask the kids what they want to cook and discuss which night is best for them, as they have varying casual work schedules. This goes on first to the menu plan and I work around their choices. Their name and the chosen meal are written on the menu plan. I buy the ingredients for the meal and then it is over to them to make it happen.

Other adulting things

There is a whole bunch of other things we do/did to help increase their independence and life skills so they were ready to be on their own. This post 37 essential life skills for adulting covers some things we have done and other skills that they might need too as suggested by readers of the blog.

Connection points

With the practical elements taken care of, I thought I would share some of the ways I ensure that I still connect with the adult kids when they have moved out. The bulk of this work, like the practical elements, is done before they leave home. As they grow older, I find it super important to have points of connection with each child. Things that we talk about or interests/activities we have in common - it doesn’t matter what it is, just something we can connect on. For me, this looks like:

• Philosophical chats with one child - for example, do humans have free will? We very often have opposing views on these topics, and the chats for me are not about trying to convince them of my view but engaging in conversation, listening to what they have to say, sharing links on topics of interest etc.

• Exercise and nutrition - as you know, I love both of these topics and all of our kids are active and interested in them too. We have lots of conversations about macros, programming exercise across the week, running workouts and the like.

• Sport - I like sport but definitely not to the extent that my boys do. Two of the boys are super keen Arsenal fans, so I genuinely take an interest in the Premier League so I can understand what they are talking about and at times even add to the conversation. I have found a podcast I like listening to about the Premier League, and I will listen to it regularly to get an overview of what is happening.

• Music - I love music, and for someone my age, I have a weird penchant for EDM and techno. The three older kids and I will often send each other links to songs on Soundcloud that we think each other will like. Last year, I went and saw fred again with one of the kids, and later this month, I will see SWIM with two of the kids.

Having a solid history of connecting in these ways means I can keep them going even though they are no longer living at home via their preferred messaging app!

Sunday 6:30pm dinners

But nothing beats seeing them in person again, though! This year, I started Sunday 6:30pm dinners. It is an ongoing open invitation to my kids who have moved out of home, and my nephews and nieces who have finished secondary school, to come to for dinner. They don’t need to let me know if they are coming (although most often they do let me know if they aren’t coming). I will always have enough food for everyone who comes and most times have some left over to take home.

It is a highlight of my week. They generally come half an hour or so before dinner and there are fun chats or sometimes game playing, depending on the mood of everyone. As we eat dinner, we take in turns to share our high and low of the week. Sometimes I throw in random requests for additional info, for example, with the first 6:30pm dinner after the death of my dad, I asked everyone to bring along their favourite Poppy memory to share as well as their high and low of the week. That was pretty special.

Sometimes there is only one additional person at the table, as others have commitments elsewhere but this still makes me super happy. I have become more efficient at cooking meals in bulk that fit the needs of the group and while it does take me a little time cooking in the kitchen, I love doing it.

Checking in

I check in regularly with the kids who are out of the home. My goal is to check in often enough to have an idea of what is happening in their lives and then circling back to see how things went, the outcome of important meetings or life events etc - but not drive them mad by being too nosy!

This is organic, doesn’t run to a schedule and sometimes they don’t respond as quickly as I would like or answer my calls. They have full lives, and I remind myself of this if I am getting antsy about their speed of response or their three word answers. Only if I feel they have been avoiding me for a decent period of time will I call them out on it.

Appreciating the present

Having five kids means that I get to go through key stages of life many times in a row for each child. This gives me the benefit of hindsight. As noted at the beginning, there were so many times when having five kids - three of whom were young adults in the house drove me crazy. In those moments, I didn’t always fully appreciate how much I did love the chaos and hubbub of a full house.

Now I do. This is not to say that the kids who are still at home don’t annoy me at times; they do. Their ability to place dishes on the bench as opposed to in the dishwasher is frustrating. The number of towels used in our house some weeks is ridiculous, as is their apparent inability to brush their teeth without making a mess. I still work with them to “do better”, but I let it go pretty quickly.

When the kids were little, I tried to maintain a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments. To achieve this, you need to switch your thinking from looking for all the wrong things they do to being on the lookout for all the positive things they do. It doesn’t mean that they can get away with poor behaviour or not pulling their weight around the house. But by me noticing the positive things they have done, they are more likely to listen to my feedback when things need to change or be done differently.

I am not perfect at this, nor are the kids in how they respond to my feedback every time. However, with me leading in this way, the house is more harmonious and I feel like less of a nag. With their remaining years left with us in the family home, I want there to be less friction and more fun. With our daughter finishing uni this year, I know it is only a matter of time before she moves out - I cannot even imagine what that is going to look and feel like for me!

Nic

Hey! I hope you are going along great. Last time I wrote, I was one week post-PCL surgery. If you missed that, you can catch up on it here. A LOT has happened since I last wrote. In the world of short attention spans, what I am going to cover is way too much for one post but I am going to write it all in one anyway.

I have been thinking about writing this post for some time. Writing has always helped me frame my thoughts and take my reflections below the surface level, so honestly, this post is as much for me as it is to give you an update on what has been going on. To help you navigate it, I will give each key life area a heading so you can skip scroll past the areas you don’t want to read until you get to the next section. I appreciate reading about my PCL surgery recovery is not of interest to everyone!

PCL Reconstruction Recovery

Prior to surgery, I was so focused on when I would be able to run (they said it would be at least 4-6 months), that I completely overlooked a key step in the recovery process - learning to walk properly again.

With the PCL reconstruction, the torn PCL is removed, and in my case, I had an artificial ligament threaded through in place of my torn PCL. The knee area was swollen and painful after surgery. The constant pain went after a few days but pain from moving the knee in certain positions was pretty extreme.

I had those forearm crutches to aid in walking, but was advised to try and put pressure through my right leg and not keep it elevated off the ground. I used the crutches solidly for two weeks, then my physio wanted me to go to one and try to walk with a normal gait. It was like I had forgotten how to walk. My knee, muscles, and brain all needed time to sync up again. Prior to surgery, I was walking to protect my sore knee, keeping it pretty stiff, so I was having to undo some bad habits.

At my next physio visit, he had to show me how to walk with bending my knee — I was keeping my leg stiff, which of course is not at all how you walk. My physio had me back in the gym a week post surgery working on strengthening all the muscles in my legs, especially the quads and calves. Getting my leg to perfom a full range of motion was often painful and I had pain scale that I was to work within.

I couldn’t drive for six weeks so had to rely on others to get me to the gym for my rehab sessions. Our second eldest was amazing. He would get up 10 minutes earlier than he needed to drop me off at my gym, then go to his. Phil would then come and pick me up. There were many gym sessions where I would want to cry. Cry because the exercises were hard. Cry because improvement seemed so slow. Cry because I wondered if I would ever walk properly again, let alone run.

Here is an entry from my journal on 2nd January 2025, just shy of two months post surgery:

The recovery process is tiring. Progress is so tiny you have to look hard to see it. The gym rehab sessions are physically and mentally exhausting. So many times I feel like giving up or crying - especially on the prone hamstring curls.

I haven’t given up.

I haven’t missed one strength rehab session with the exception of when Pocket died.

I know it will get better - I have to be patient.

The rehab sessions at the gym were taking me one hour and 45 mins three times a week. It was a lot, but they were working. A couple of weeks later, I came to the realisation that I needed to change my mindset. This was from 17th January 2025:

Today was the first strength rehab session in over a week where I haven’t felt like crying. I realised I was feeling sorry for myself and dwelling on all the things I couldn’t do or found hard. I decided to change my attitude and I would no longer complain about my rehab. I had put myself in a doom cycle.

It didn’t mean I loved the session and the split squats were still really hard but I had a mantra for the session “hard is good” to flip the way I was seeing the hard work.

For each session from this point on, I would go into the gym with a little mantra - something to repeat to myself when it was feeling hard. When running is hard, you know you will have this amazing feeling at the end - the runner’s high. There was no “rehab session” high, but I kept reminding myself that this was the only way back! My physio had strict parameters on my strength before he would let me return to running. If I wanted to run, I had to hit those targets.

By mid February, walking began to feel more natural, and I didn’t have to think about it all the time. It would still be another three months before I would finally start running again, but that day finally came at the start of May. This was now phase two of my recovery - building back my running.

New York City Marathon

I ran Canberra Marathon in April 2024. It was a qualifying race for the 2025 AbbottWMM MTT Age Group World Championships (AGWC). I made the qualifying time for my age group and it was a matter of finding out where the (AGWC) would be and if my time was fast enough to gain me a spot. Towards the end of 2024 they announced it was going to be at the New York City Marathon - a marathon on my dream list of marathons to do.

Both my surgeon and my physio felt that a marathon at the start of November would be doable and we work towards that if I was lucky enough to secure a spot. Mid January I was offered a spot, and I had one week to take up the place. Here is my journal entry from the last day before the offer closed:

Today I registered for the NYC Marathon. So scary signing up to a marathon when you are still having to think about walking, going up and down stairs etc. I do feel that I am getting much stronger. The rehab strength exercises at the gym, as much as I hate them, are making me stronger. Sometimes you just have to back yourself and have faith in the process.

I still have numbness (around the knee).

I still can’t slide my right leg back as far as my left.

I still have pain going downstairs.

I still worry if I will ever run again.

But when I push away the worry and focus on the process and the tiny steps of progress I have made already, I know I can get there.

A Career Change

While all of the above was happening, I was working two days a week in an admin role at a small family accountancy firm. This was a placeholder until I could determine what I wanted to do post Adapt Drinks. I wrote about the process I used to help me with this decision in my last update. My decision was to move into an area I love - fitness. I thought I could use the additional downtime while recovering from my PCL surgery to study a Cert III and Cert IV in Fitness. The end goal was to become a qualified personal trainer.

I signed up with Women’s Fitness Education because it was 100% online and I knew one of the amazing founders, Mish Wright. Mish has a great philosophy towards fitness, and the Cert III and IV came with additional courses specialising in women’s fitness, which is where I would like to specialise, so it was a perfect fit for me.

I studied through November and December, then took January off. I completed my Cert III in April and started teaching a group fitness class at a gym once a week. At the end of June, I completed my Cert IV, and this week I started doing personal training at the gym. I am so excited for this next step!

Varicose Veins

By mid June, I had been back running around 8 weeks and was joining in for part of the group long run, running up to 80mins. I had been noticing some discomfort behind and around the side of my left knee (not the knee I had the PCL surgery on) post running on the drive home. The strange thing was that the pain was much worse at night in bed - it was waking me up multiple times at night. I would get up, shake the leg out, do some calf raises, go back to bed and try to get back to sleep.

At my annual check up with my GP, I discussed this with her and my thoughts that it was my varicose veins. She agreed and sent me off for an ultrasound that day. Usually, when I have had ultrasounds before they just send you on your way when they have finished and email the report to the doctor. This time it was different.

The sonographer advised that I had a significant sized clot and I needed to see my doctor as soon as possible. Since then, it feels like I have had medical appointments, blood tests or ultrasounds on a weekly basis!

It turned out I had several clots, the biggest was 45mm and while it was only in the superficial vein, it was very close to the deep vein and had been travelling up my leg. I was put on blood thinners straight away and discussed longer term options with my GP. I sought out a vein speciliast and she wrote up her recommended treatment plan for me. I felt that this was the best course of action. The issue was however that while the procedure is done in a clinic and I would be able to get up and walk straight away after the sessions, I would not be able to run for four weeks. I would only be able to walk (daily walking strongly encouraged) and I would not even be able to do any upper body workouts, yoga or sauna.

If I was to undergo the treatment, then the New York City Marathon would be off the schedule. The tiniest part of me rallied against this but the reality was I felt very lucky to have caught the clotting issues before anything more serious than some pain happened. I had my PCL surgery so I could keep running for another 20 years. I will run New York City Marathon another year.

My Dad

Around the time I made the decision to have my veins treated, my dad died suddenly on July 9. He was 80 and had some health issues but none of us saw this coming. He had a chair in the lounge room where he liked to take an afternoon nap each day. On this day he went to sleep and never woke up.

My dad lived in Mildura where I grew up and I did the long drive back home with my younger sister as soon as we could. We have driven the Calder Highway many, many times but I think this felt like the longest of drives.

We gave my dad a beautiful send off. My mum is the Catholic in the family and dad did not want a church service. The funeral directors had a beautiful on site chapel so we had the service there. Each of the four daughters and all the grandchildren could speak if they wanted to. Two of my sisters spoke and many of the grandchildren including two of my kids spoke. Everyone who didn’t speak had a part in the service as well. The eldest six male grandchildren carried the coffin out of the chapel. Poppy would have been so proud of all his grandchildren and how they carried themselves on that day.

I am still getting used to dad not being around anymore. I have been back to Mildura already and while I know it is real, it still hasn’t really sunk in. His passing has left a huge void.

The below song is from a playlist we created for my Dad’s wake. Everyone could add songs that they new Dad/Poppy liked. The song below was added by my kids as a song they thought Poppy would love. We had planned to introduce Poppy to Zach Bryan at Christmas time.

Mildura has the most beautiful Pink Skies you will find anywhere. (The photo at the top of this very long letter doesn’t really do the Mildura sky justice, but you can get the idea). This song is just so fitting. I listen to it almost every day. Some days I cry. Some days I smile, remembering sitting outside with my dad looking at the pink skies.

The Running Rebuild - Take 2

On Friday 22nd August I received the all clear from my speciliast to return to running. I have seen my physio again to see where I am at with the strength in my legs. I have a little work to do but that can happen along side me getting back running. Mid September it will be a year since I fell over and tore my PCL. What a rollercoaster it has been.

Today I went for a run with Phil. It was super windy, it rained at times but I loved every moment. While I do want to run another marathon and run another fast (for me) 5km, for now I am just so happy to be able to run again regardless of how unfit I feel!

The Kids

We only have three kids at home now. The second eldest moved out mid December. I am still adjusting to this. I listened to this podcast last year and think it covers the feeling of kids leaving home pretty well. You are so happy for them, you know developmentally it is important for them to do it but you still miss them a lot.

Our daughter is in her last year of university and I cannot wait to see what she does next. Our second youngest started uni this year and has adapted super well to uni life. He loves nothing more than a gym session at midnight 🫣. That then leaves us with just one child at school in year 11. If you have been with me since I started online back in 2008 - he wasn’t even born then!

I will write more later about how it feels having only three kids at home as this post is already of epic length!

My Revised Goal For 2025

With so much happening this year, it is the first time that I have changed my goal mid year. You can find my revised goal here. As I write in that post, I am committing to come back at the start of each month to review how I am tracking against my goal, share some learnings and some strategies I am implementing to keep me progressing with my goal. And I do feel an urge to do more writing, so hopefully, I will write something in between these goal updates too 😊 .

If you feel that is not for you, there is always an unsubscribe button at the end of each letter you can use and there will be no hard feelings. There are so many newsletters out there and we only have so much time to read them!

What about you?

If you are keen to stick around, I would love to hear how you are going? What has been happening with you? If you are reading via email, click through to the post and comment below.

If you have made it to the end here - congrats! That is a lot of reading and I appreicate you taking the time to read it all. Nic xx

When I finished the blog at the end of 2023, I didn’t do a yearly review at the end of 2023 and I didn’t write up a personal goal for 2024. I had a goal for Adapt Drinks and it was really about trying to make it work and hit certain targets by the end of 2024 or make the decision to close the business (which I ended up doing).

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to achieve personally and 2024 was one of those years where I swung heavily towards work. However, I did miss not having the accountability of checking in monthly on the blog and felt like I was a bit directionless at times without it.

When 2024 came to a close and I closed the business, I went through my usual process of setting a single goal for the year and committed to myself that I would check in monthly to track my progress. I did work towards the goal each month but I didn’t do the monthly check-ins as I promised myself and the reality was I was only half hearted in my endevours.

Then, in June and July, some things happened, and that goal felt so out of sync with where I was at, for the first time since setting a single goal back in 2015, I started over again. I did the full review, asked myself the usual questions, and came up with a new single goal statement for the remainder of the year.

Prioritise time under the open sky and in good company to create moments of joy and connection

Habits to support my goal

As I always do with goal setting, I am choosing habits that I can work on daily to help me achieve my goal. The goal is my north star. It is my reference point when I need to make decisions on how I spend my time. If I say yes to this activity/commitment etc, will it be taking me closer or further away from my goal?

The habits are what I want to be doing regularly, so each day I am working towards my goal without even having to think about it. This is the beauty of habits. Life gets busy at times, no matter how well you try to prevent it from happening. Having key behaviours and actions ingrained into your daily routine (that is habits!) means even across busy times you can still be making progress.

Here are my habits that I will be working to establish for the remainder of 2025:

• Daily - gratitude journal

• Daily - eat one meal a day outside with no phone use

• Weekly - minimum one run or walk with friends a week

• Monthly - outdoor activity somewhere new with friends

• Monthly - write 3 x letters / postcards to friends or family

So I am committing to come back at the start of each month to review how I am tracking against my goal, share some learnings and some strategies I am implementing to keep me progressing with my goal. And I do feel an urge to do more writing, so hopefully, I will write something in between these goal updates too 😊 .

Hope your 2025 is going well and if you have set a goal for the year, I would love to hear it. If you haven’t set a goal for 2025 yet, it is not too late. You can check out my goal setitng process here and set one too!

Nic

PS. Here are the previous goals I have set if you are after some inspiration!

• 2015 – Be a planned and present mother to my beautiful kids

• 2016 – Create space in my life for creativity and calm

• 2017 – To invest in my relationships with family, friends and community to bring joy and connection

• 2018 – Detach from the old and embrace the new to nurture a family spirit of adventure

• 2019 – Nurture new routines to re-energise, re-invigorate and create personal growth

• 2020 – Simplify daily life to spend more time with family and friends

• 2021 – Do the inner work to be able to give more to those around me

• 2022 – Cultivate routines to expand my knowledge and experiences

• 2023 - Embrace life with curiosity and experimentation to gain greater connection

It is just under a year since I last sent you an email - how are you? I hope you are doing really well. There is quite a bit going on for me at the moment and I thought I would drop back into your inbox with a little update.

The kids

In the middle of the year our eldest moved out to a share house in the inner city. I am still getting used to not having him around. He seems to be loving his new digs and I love it when he comes back for dinner 😊. Our second eldest started his first job post uni and he has definitely chosen a career that is perfect for him. He is in the process of looking for a share house too 🫣. Our daughter has finished the third year of her four year double degree. She has a couple of part time jobs, one of which is in her field of study and she also has chosen a career that she loves which is excellent. She is super independent and will be even busier next year so the dynamics of our house will be changing significantly in 2025.

This morning the fourth child went off to his last year 12 exam. He has been very calm throughout the exam period and has applied himself really well over the whole year. He will be off to schoolies soon and will definitely love the increased independence he will have now as he has completed his secondary education. The youngest is in year 10 and he has his first exam for semester two tomorrow. He towers over me and is often leading the banter in the house. My challenge next year will be to ensure that I allow him the same space I gave the others in year 11. 2025 will be a huge period of readjustment for me and I am mindful that in adjusting I could smother the youngest child! I am sure he will push back in his own polite way though.

The drinks business

About a month or so ago, I announced that I am closing Adapt Drinks. As I wrote in the Adapt Drinks newsletter I absolutely adored working on this drink and seeing the difference it has made to the lives of many has filled me with immense joy.

I wholeheartedly believe in the power and goodness of Adapt Drinks and with 4000+ cartons sold and over $200,000 in sales many others do too. But for the time I was putting into it, it was largely a labour of love.

With only a small amount of stock left and the end of 2024 nearing, it seemed like the right time to make a change and wind things down. To clear the remaining stock I have as quickly as possible, all cartons have been reduced by 25% (best before date is 25/04/25). If you are keen to pick up a carton you can do so by clicking here. (Lemon myrtly is already sold out.)

Me currently

Early in September I had a fall when running and did quite a bit of damage to my knee. An MRI showed I had a:

• Moderate to high grade tear of the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL)

• Low grade partial tear of the lateral collateral ligament (LCL)

To fix this, last Thursday I had a PCL reconstruction. The surgeon said the LCL was healing well and was not causing instability like the PCL so he left that alone. I am currently on crutches and not super mobile but getting around a bit. I have been doing my rehab exercises three times a day. They are super simple exercises but I am finding them utterly exhausting! The best guess at this stage for a date when I can return to running is 4-6 months. I am reminding myself often that 6 months over a period of 20 years is not a long time. I want to be one of those crazy 70 year olds still running marathons!

Prior to surgery I had been dutifully doing all the prehab exercises recommended to strengthen the glutes, quads and calves so as to give me the best results possible post surgery.  I actually don't think my quads had ever been as strong as they were prior to surgery and their strength has definitely helped with my ability to get up, down and around. Keep your fingers crossed for me that recovery continues to go well.

Phil has been amazing at doing all of the things around the house over the last week and getting lots of things for me! Very grateful for his support and encouragement.

Me in the future

I am now working out what I am going to do with myself in 2025. I shared some links in this week’s Adapt Drink’s newsletter of some content I have been reading, listening and watching around careers and jobs which you might like to check out if you are thinking of a change or feeling a bit meh about your job.

I am working through this process via a spreadsheet (yep, I still adore spreadsheets!). A key tab is one that lists the following:

• What strengths can I bring to a job

• My interests

• My weaknesses

• What I want from a job

• What I don't want job

• What someone will pay me to do

• Potential jobs that are a cross section of the above - as illustrated in my little venn diagram!

Lots to think about and to be honest, lots to worry about. I am cognisant of my age, my unconventional CV and how it may be seen by recruiters. Letting go of Adapt Drinks was hard but I did learn so much over the last few years growing the brand. As I have moved into acceptance, I am beginning to feel a bit excited about trying something new and seeing it as the start of a new stage of life for me.

How are you?

How has your year been? Any career changes? Any kids move out of home? Any unexpected surgeries? I would love to hear about you and what you have been up to. Please let me know in the comments below or hit reply!

Nic

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Hello and welcome to the last-ever newsletter from NOW. Before the content, a reminder on some of the logistics. On Sunday evening I will hit disconnect on the payment system and it will automatically calculate a pro-rata refund. If there are any issues at all please just email me at nicole@planningwithkids.com but it will take 3-5 days for the amounts …

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Hello and happy Friday!

I hope your week has been a great one. It is a big in meaning but short in length newsletter this week. Today I published the last blog post on Planning With Kids and this is the last newsletter I will send for Planning With Kids. I explain in the post why and share 33 key lessons I have found from my 25 years of parenting.

Thank you so much for being part of the Planning With Kids journey. It has been an amazing experience for me and I would love it if you would head to the blog and read my final post.

Thanks so much in advance,

Nic

Hello! Firstly thank you so much for all the lovely comments and emails regarding the closing of Now. It means so much to me to read them and it is the reason why I will really miss doing this - the connection with such smart, goal-oriented, compassionate and talented women. I have several meetings at the start of the week but will reply soon.

Please kno…

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Hello, I hope your week has been a great one. As you most likely guessed from the subject headline, I have decided to close Now. Next Sunday and Friday will be the last two emails I send.

I had intended to stop publishing on Planning With Kids by the end of this year and stop the midweek newsletter but thought I would keep this going as I really love wr…

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