Yesterday marked our 7 year anniversary! Seven years people! That’s seven years of chasing this Crazy Cotter Triathlon dream. That’s 7 years of ups, downs, triumphs, and frustrations. What’s even crazier is that my husband has been racing pro since 2006. Almost a decade of HARD training and perseverance.
But last year…. oye! Last year was year was a doozy, a true test of our marriage and faith. When you work so hard for a dream, sometimes you spread yourself so thin you forget the one REAL purpose of that dream. TO LIVE LIFE to the FULLEST together! No amount of money can make that happen. It is, in fact,… PRICELESS.
This year things are looking different. We haven’t give up, we shifted focus. Maybe that’s where you are too.
A healthy dose of reality can do you that to you, ya know? And although it may be hard to swallow at first, it’s really a wake up call to change your (our) perspective on life. One that opens yours eyes THRIVING versus striving. Even if that means letting go of one dream to embrace another.
This year we’re focusing on 2 LIFE HAPPINESS HACKS.
Thanks to Tony Robinson for the inspiration!
Trade your expectations for appreciations
Instead of expecting to be rewarded for hard work (in our passions and in our BIG dreamin’), maybe we need to just focus on how grateful we are for the opportunity we had to live and share our passions. The places we went, the people we met, the support system that believed in us!
This year the Cotters are focusing on one last race (for my husband) and grateful that he will still be able to coach and stay in the triathlon field when he retires. That being said, this last IRONMAN race is in New Zealand, where we can visit family. No expectations, just appreciation for the ability to be there! Sherpa wife too! And who knows, maybe it will bring us to another path … UNEXPECTEDLY.
“It’s when we’re grateful that we feel rich and wealthy, regardless of how our lives look.”
Where focus goes, energy flows
“whatever we pay more attention to in our lives grows”
Last year we had ONE focus, but it lead to us working about 5 different jobs. I know you can probably relate to this too. One focus to WORK WORK WORK and SAVE SAVE SAVE. Well, sometimes that one HYPER focus can make you lose ALL focus on what is truly important. And it can suck your energy dry too. I personally felt that way!
Note to self: Don’t say yes to ALL things, say YES to the BEST thing.
Which brings us here. This blog. It’s my second job. The only other job I have now besides being a wife. Which is the most important job to me right now! Our energy is focused on supporting each other. My energy is focused on being Sherpa (one that supports and guides) to my husband, to others, and to continue to share in this PATH to health, wellness, and more. Prepare to see more of that, including healthy bites, and recipes!
The kiwi (my husband) is focused on redefining his career (or potentially starting another). Either way, it’s 2 things, not 10! And we’re ready to LIFE hack our way to happiness.
What are your life HAPPINESS hacks for 2015?
[bctt tweet=”2 life hacks to happiness via @LCCotter #newyear #fitfluential #happiness #lifegoals”]
Cheers!
LC
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Last year we had ONE focus, but it lead to us working about 5 different jobs. I know you can probably relate to this too. One focus to WORK WORK WORK and SAVE SAVE SAVE. Well, sometimes that one HYPER focus can make you lose ALL focus on what is truly important. And it can suck your energy dry too. I personally felt that way!
Well said friend!
This post is so inspiring! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
yes the quote about where focus goes energy flows is somethign I’ve been working on for a long time, LOVE!!
this is a great post. I love your last statment!! God has to do the rest, and this is what i am trying to do…let go and let God. It was a rough year for our family with many new changes and unexpected changes (a new surprise baby). All have been gifts and challenges, and I have learned to trust God has a plan. I am excited for your new adventures as a married couple and to see where God will take you.
i know this year will be great for you! your surprise was totally a god send! praying friend. xxoo
Fantastic post my friend. I always say to remove expectations because then it takes away the pressure, the guilt, the stress, but trading them for appreciation is way better. I love it!!
It’s good to have a focus, although sometimes you need to be flexible with that focus. The Hubby’s first year back in school, I didn’t want to spend a penny more than I had to so I cut all fun things (that cost money) from our budget and suffered emotionally as a result. Now, I’ve learned how to be frugal with the occasional allowance so we can still watch our pennies but not lose out minds in the process. Balance, right?!
Great, great post.
Trading expectations for appreciations has been my motto over the past year, and I’ve been putting even more emphasis on that sort of mentality now that I’ve hit 30 and struggle with the thought that certain expectations might have not been met. Expectations are sneaky little thieves of joy. They make us lose sight of all the wonderful things we have, and my vote is to remove them from the club.
Loving these ideas… especially the focus one! So true!
It reminds me of “what you focus on grows” and I always remember that when I start focusing on blahblahblahfat. Because I don’t want that shiz to grow!
ahh you could never be fat. Just FULL of love!
I love this LIndsay and I am happy you too will keep it simple!! Simple is best. Me too, I need to reorganize my life, too much chaos recently. It makes me want to crawl into my bed and hide, so I need to make it more manageable!
Love this!! I’m reading a book called Essentialism right now which I think you would dig. We can discuss in catch up emails 😉
I loved reading about your life hacks for 2015. You guys just seem to work so hard, so I think it’s great that you’re just going to choose to be grateful and to live and share your passions. I get that! 😀
Happy Anniversary- love the new look and love you! Trade your expectations for appreciations – perfect words.
Number one is definitely something I need to work more on. I’m always so focused on the results of my work instead of appreciating the process–appreciating that I get to focus on blogging all day. Thanks for the kind reminder!
2015 is going to be such a great year for you, I just know it!
thank you friend. xxoo
Great post! For me (especially after this year) I choose to think positively in every situation no matter how difficult it might be.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to an amazing and inspiring couple!
You know how much I soooooooooooooooo get this!!!! So close to my heart! I LOVE that first quote – people don’t get it! It is nor giving up but that door is just not the right one anymore. We have lots of doors in life!!!!
Love you & hugs!!!!
BTW, I tried tweeting with all the buttons to no avail. Will try again later!
This. Such an important message and something I’m excited for YOU to embrace this year.
I can totally understand where you are coming from. My husband is insanely busy with his job and so when he is busy and traveling I tend to overload my plate so that I am crazy busy too. Between that and raising our two kids we came to a very tense point in life and realized we needed to simplify in order to do less but do it well and to be able to live and love what we are doing. This is such a great post and will hopefully be an awesome new chapter for you and the kiwi. Love this quote: Don’t say yes to ALL things, say YES to the BEST thing. Perfect. Thank you for opening up about all of this.
Happy 7th!!! Great hakcs, and I really love that last quote. Then again, I always enjoy a little magic!
I cannot tell you how much I love this post Lindsay. Those two hacks sum it up perfectly and I’m excited for you and James and this coming year. xox
Happy 7 years! It’s crazy how fast time flies by. My goal for this year is to find the fun again. I have lots of fun in my life but there’s some areas that have begun to suck the life out of me. It’s become a dread. I want to find the fun in work again. Is that possible to have fun and work in the same sentence? I don’t know but I hope to find out this year!
My biggest goal for 2015 is to work smarter. Like you, I’d like to get away from working so many jobs and just concentrate on what will bring us the most happiness. I’m so happy for you two and I know it’ll all work out great. And I’m thrilled that the Ironman is in New Zealand! xoxo
Happy 7th!! This is such a great post! For me gratitude, staying present (trying to!) and keeping a sense of humor carries me a long way.
yes, love that michelle!
Well said friend. Well said. My life happiness hacks are sleep and letting go of what doesn’t serve me.
speaks to me on soooooo many levels 🙂
I LOVE these life hacks for you, friend! they are perfect!! You sound content and happy about where 2015 is heading and you have worked so hard to get to this point. I can’t wait to see what is in store for you two!! as for me, let’s see, my happiness life hack right now is stepping away from social media more, being present, changing my habits and being in the moment. Aka I took Facebook off my phone 5 days ago and it has already made such a big difference. I am embarrassed how much I mindlessly went on Facebook for no good reason!
Keep following my heart. Look at myself in the mirror every single day and ask myself if I am doing everything I can to reach my BIG goals. My life hacks for 2015 (:
Love this. Absolutely love love love this. I’m so happy for you two and this focus for the year! Looking forward to all the wonderful things that are waiting for you two this year. 🙂
What an amazing post lady. I wish you all the happiness in the world this year 🙂
same to you friend!
what a great post! happy anniversary! 🙂
Great post! My two words I am focusing on lately is BALANCE and ABIDE. I am trying to strive for BALANCE with my parenting, relationships, work life, fitness life, and spiritual life. ABIDE is purely relational with my God… I need to learn to ABIDE in Him. 🙂
It makes me so happy that you are going to NZ, because it means you are going to disconnect and I won’t hear from you for a while. It’s going to be marvelous…XOXO
Happy Anniversary. I hope you find more peace this year. I feel like I’m not shifting my focus this year, but shifting my energy. I’m still working the same jobs, chasing the same dreams, but my energy in which I’m doing is is shifted. We’ve made home and “us” goals a bigger priority to get exactly what we want, and if all of the other goals don’t happen, we’ll be ok with that. Make sense? Maybe?
Happy anniversary! You hide your life challenges well – I’d have never guessed you had a hard year!
it’s was a battle. Trying to stay positive but also really struggling and needing to be real.
First off, I am in love with your new place– such a beautiful update! My life hacks right now are, “Purge” — get rid of things, people and circumstances that don’t serve you. “Gratitude” be grateful, especially in the most difficult moments, and “Plan” write things down… I’m more likely to do things that lift me up, when I stay organized, if I don’t, I end wasting time doing things that suck up my time.
2015 is going to be the year of the cotters. love you both!
Love this soo much! And love the new blog layout!
Happy 7 year anniversay! Love the way you are focusing your energy for 2015. Mine are prosper and gratitude. I hope this next year brings you all the best!
thank you lauren! and i love that word you chose! prosper is a good one!
Love! I cut out quite a few things from last year that we too overwhelming. This type-a knows all to well about overcommitting. I’m working on saying yes to the best…and I’m reading The Best Yes (great book by the way). Such a great reminder, Lindsay!
oh i can’t wait to read that book! so good for us, yes!
I think simplicity is good. Really more fulfilling than busy-ness any day. I’m praying for you guys and I will be cheering hard from the virtual sidelines. I’m focusing on one main things for this year…Follow. Not planning extensively, staying busy, or my usual. But learning to Follow Jesus and trust that he’s got the plan already figured out. 🙂
amen to that!
I love the ‘trading your expectations for appreciations.’ Such a great way to look at it! Expectations can get us down, but appreciations will always lift us up.
Loving this on so many levels! I wish you could sing this from the mountain tops for all! I wish you the best and can’t wait to follow you this year!
Only 5 days into the new year and our path and focus has been altered. I tried to focus on less this year and we are already being tested as I try to balance the families goals and activities. Trying to keep things to one activity as we all have our own things, marathons and run for my husband, my youngest gymnastics and soccer, and my workouts, family running, and was hoping to maybe get a certification. However we might have a little overlap as my oldest just signed up for run club only to find out yesterday she made the traveling soccer team she had been hoping to make since last year. It is going to be a crazy, busy, active, fun year!
2 great goals to have! I totally agree about the energy concept. I always tell my boyfriend that if you are positive, positive things will happen. I also like the idea of being appreciative. After the philly half in November, which was my worst half ever, I was feeling so bummed and angry that after all that training I didn’t get what I wanted. Then a few days later I realized how lucky I was to even be able to run 13.1 miles…or run at all. And my mom’s friend ran her first half at Philly too because she said my mom and I inspired her. I realized it’s not always about how fast you go or PRs…we have to take time to be grateful for all the small things as well. Thank you for that reminder as we start 2015!
let’s be honest…at least 50% of the reason you took the first picture is because you enjoy the way he looks from behind in a wetsuit.
😉
Also, the last quote made me think of the Sound of Music (the good one, with Julie Andrews) “Let’s Start at the Very Beginning, A Very Good Place to Start.”
yep, i stare at it daily. a must (life LUST hack)
This is going to be THE year! I can feel it. New look is bangin’ too, brother! Cheers to 2015!
Lindsay this is a beautiful post – life can sometimes go crazy and everything goes the opposite way you would have hoped, but remembering that you have each other, and that’s the main thing, is the most important.
I cherish and am so grateful for my husband and our life together – our strength together makes me know I can conquer anything and everything! And sometimes the unknown of what you are facing ahead (together) can be so exciting!
Love these so dang much. Thanks for sharing, friend.
Love this – just reading this post feels light and happy!!!
Happy 7 years and many more to y’all!!!
This year I’m all about the truly important stuff – family!!!
New adventures ahead…how exciting! Thrilled for you guys! Love you! xo
Love the new layout!! It’s so pretty 🙂
I am so in love with the new look. so clean and fresh! Makes me excited for our blog redesign soon!
Yes, 2015 is going to be a great year of success and happiness!
Love these! I’m sure God will bless you as you seek Him and are faithful to what He has already given you. I love that advice to exchange expectation for appreciation. So true and a real path to joy!
Happy anniversary! I feel so happy for you that you both have new focus, one that will keep life simpler, and grow your bond together even more.
Happy anniversary, my dear sweet friend!! Tim and I have been married for 7 years as well, and this past year was a challenge for us too. We joke about how this year we should try to see more of each other (but really if I think about it, this isn’t funny…sad rather). But now that I’m done with school (yahoo!) and he’s not working crazy hours, we can set aside some time for us.
You are such an amazing wife and you two make a wonderful team! I can’t wait to see what happens unexpectedly this year. I can definitely practice more gratitude.
Yesterday, our pastor preached about how our Lord delights in our work and loves seeing us pursue our passion, but it shouldn’t and cannot be a substitute for Him. I struggle with this bc I put so much time and energy into work that I lose sight of what’s most important. It’s time that I shift my focus as well.
Love you, friend, and text me when you’re free this month!! Stay warm 😉
Trade your expectations for appreciation- I LOVE that. How very true. Thanks for the wise words this morning. I’m excited for you both to get more focus in 2015!
Love you!! xoxox
great advice 🙂 and i love the look of the site!!
Love this. Simplicity is so powerful and these two goals sound like the right direction for thriving not just striving!
What a beautiful post! I want to come to NZ and meet you! Keeping things simple is so underrated!
The site looks great–so fresh!
And fresh starts for the Cotters. I’m sure facing the last big race is bittersweet. But I love your outlook on it and I’m sure closing this door WILL open new ones for you both. I’ll be thinking about you as you go down the new path.
Happy anniversary my sweet friend. I love that the last race will be back home for James. That seems appropriate and special. Love the inspiring quotes you have included.
Love the redesign Lindsay, it’s gorgeous!
To stay happy this year, I want to focus on goals and actually getting s**t done. And remembering that in life, everything is a TEAM EFFORT so support those special people in your life.
These are great reminders- and I agree that you can’t be great at everything; its better to put your energy into a few things you are passionate about rather than spreading yourself too thin. Happy 2015!! I love the new blog look too:)
LOVE this! It will be 7 years for us this year too!
And I adore focus on appreciation vs expectation. It is so easy to get swept up in the end result rather than enjoying all aspects of the journey! Happy Anniversary you too!! Hope you lovebugs make it to Canada this year!
Loving all of this. The message (priceless) and the new feel here 🙂 im so glad you are sticking around this space, it wouldn’t be the same without you! Happy anniversary and may 2015 be your best year!
love the new look…. and I’m so thankful you only have 2 jobs!! Praise Jesus!
OH HOW I LOVE THIS! Happy 2015 🙂
Cheers to 7 years! Being present and focus on gratitude always shift my perspective for the better.
Sounds like a great shift of focus! It seems like you’ve really done some reflecting and you’re ready for the year ahead! Can’t wait to see all the joy it brings! xo
PREACH, girl! This is awesome, and so so true. Thanks for this awesome reminder – it’s great stuff to think about as I start my week!
“Don’t say yes to ALL things, say YES to the BEST thing.” <— I love this, so very true. My 2015 is going to be one of those years where I am hyper-focused in the "work work work, save save save" point of view. I'm trying really hard to avoid burnout, but I know it will be worth it in the end. Happy anniversary to you and the hubs!
Wonderful post Lindsay and happy anniversary! XOXO
Learning to apprectiate instead what comes instead of just expecting is something that can really help us grow and define our lives in joy and peace!
Congrats friend! So happy for you and your new goals. Mine are staying positive and healthy.
I love this post Lindsay. So true, ” just focus on how grateful we are for the opportunity we had to live and share our passions.” I need this reminder on those days when it seems too hard. A little attitude adjustment is all that’s needed really.Thank you and happy new year.
Love, love, love this! Happy anniversary!!! I myself am learning that what we pay most attention to grows and am going to try my hardest to focus on those areas of my life this year!
Expectations for Appreciations. Perfectly said. Love it. Couldn’t have said it better.
“Where focus goes energy flows.” I LOVE that!! Happy Monday, Lindsay! 🙂
I’ve been reflecting on this sort of thing too as the year begins and I’m trying to keep that mindset. It’s so easy to let daily stress and frustrations get in the way of what’s important. I love your take on this!
I love the new layout! Wishing you a very happy anniversary!
I really like the quote above that reads “don’t say yes to everything, say yes to the best things”. That is definitely something I need to remember more often. I’m trying to focus on quality/quantity in all areas of my life. Wishing you a happy and healthy 2015!
Karen @karenlovestorun
Oooohhhh love the new layout lindsay! Looks great! I am ALL about this, and I am so happy you are cutting out more time for yourself now, this will bring you much happiness. I love that quote! Where focus goes, energy flows!
OH I LOVE LOVE LOVE THE NO LONGER LEAD SENTIMENT!!!!
a lot lot.
i really do think it takes constant reevaluation and refocus, and I’m proud of you for level-setting and remembering what is important!
My life hacks: attitude, gratitude, and most importantly balance (which is an ongoing struggle for me).
Happy for you guys! Hugs!
Thank you friend! and I’ll be checking in with on your BALANCE work. 😉
Wishing you a belated happy anniversary and a lifetime together! So fabulous!
My life happiness hacks = gratitude and action.
My life hacks in 2 words believe and gratitude. Focus on the combination of the 2 and the rest naturally falls into place.
Happy 7 years to you both!