📖 Smart Reads

🎗 Have you ever considered that wellness is a privilege? "I believe that the wellness industry has started to listen to the call to action saying wellness is for everyone, not only a select few." Read These Are the Wellness Trends We'll Be Talking About in 2021

🥗  Is your determination to lose weight negatively affecting your health? "I’m proud of the fact that I gave myself enough grace to get back up on the horse after falling off several times." Read How to Give Yourself Grace to Start Again When You Feel Like You’ve Failed.

🧗🏽‍♀️  Are you aware of the mental and emotional benefits of exercise? "We often think of our personal fitness as being all about “workouts and nutrition” – but TRUE FITNESS is much more about PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT." Read The benefits of physical fitness for personal development

🏡  Did it ever occur to you to design your home for wellness? "Simply put, our current built environment is working against our health and wellness." Read Designing for Wellness

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  Have you considered the benefits of exercising as a family? "How can we strengthen our family while building self-esteem and improving family relationships? Family exercise." Read Exercise as a Family to Build Stronger Relationships, Mental & Physical Health

🗂  Whether you're a stay-at-home or work-from-home mom, these are helpful tips! "Being a mom is difficult job, make no mistake, but with a little bit of planing, a few tweaks to your schedule and some good habits, you can manage to get things done, and still have enough space to relax and work on yourself." Read 5 Productivity Hacks For Stay-At-Home Moms

🎗 Do you know the history behind the resolution to exercise more? "While New Year’s resolutions in general are thought to date back to the ancient Babylonians, the New Year’s resolution to get in shape is part of a much more recent trend." Read Trying to Get in Shape in 2021? Here's the History Behind the Common New Year's Resolution

🥗  Is your determination to lose weight negatively affecting your health? "you could choose another resolution that focuses on improving your wellness instead. You might lose weight anyway, but even if you don’t you’re taking a step toward a healthier you!" Read 5 Healthy New Year’s Resolutions for Wellness, Not Weight Loss

🧗🏽‍♀️  What's really driving your resolutions? "The reason why so many of our well-intentioned resolutions ultimately fail is that they rarely come from a genuine desire to spark self-growth." Read 5 Resolutions That Will Actually Help You Grow This Year

🏡  Look around, is your home sparking Joy? "Every year when January rolls around you vow to lose weight, save money or spend more time with family and friends. But what goals do you set for your home?" Read 5 New Year's Resolutions for Your Home

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  What's on your family resolution list? "While making a family resolution may seem as sensible as herding cats, it’s worth the effort." Read Make Your New Year’s Resolutions a Family Affair

🗂  Do you have a TickTick account (that's TickTick, not TikTok)? TickTick is the preferred online productivity platform of Grace in the Race. We use it in conjunction with our new app (coming soon)! Read 8 Tips of New Year’s Resolutions

🥗  Do you ever feel like your monthly cycle owns you? Rachel leaves it all on the table (or rather the chair) in this up close and personal account. Read The Bloody Truth (Period!)

🧗🏽‍♀️ Do you ever have a day where you feel like you absolutely rocked it? "It’s like all the stars align and you even had a good hair day. On those days, you feel like the best version of yourself and you are! Nice work, Mama!" Read Rock Your Best You

🏡  Did you know Rachel's nickname is Snow White? "I couldn’t tell you how many winks I’d logged when I woke with a start to a splashing noise coming from down the hall." Read Never Wake a Sleeping Baby (unless there’s a squirrel in your toilet)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  Do you wake up exhausted, immediately in the throes of the daily grind? This was our first story; the one that started our Grace in the Race journey! Read Are you a Chaos Coordinator?

🗂  Have you tried the declutter challenge that Amanda swears by? "Peace is just a 27-Fling Boogie away!" Read The 27-Fling Boogie: A Tool to Declutter Your House 27 Items at a Time

🎗 What is your comfort level when racial tensions rise and more importantly, what do you do about it? "We need to take action, even when it’s uncomfortable." Read Keep Showing Up

🎄 BONUS: How do you balance holiday joy against holiday stress? "Ah, the holidays... presents and music... and peace and love and joy, right? Except that, for moms, holiday break translates to two weeks of zero childcare, a bleeding wallet, and lofty expectations." Read Why the Holidays are So Hard on Moms.

🗂  Are you holding strong to your holiday traditions this year or calling it "2020" and punting? "I decided that this year, I’m cutting through the BS and removing the added stress and anxiety. I want to keep it simple and enjoy this time of year with my family." Preach, mama! Read Keep Christmas Simple: A Busy Mom’s Most Stressful Season

🏡  We want to know what you're TV-binging this holiday season! "December is the time to watch (and rewatch) all of the Christmas movies. But with more streaming platforms than ever before, tracking down where to find your favorite all-time classics can turn into a chore." So, here you have it! Read Where to watch all the best Christmas movies in 2020

🧗🏽‍♀️  Is there a relationship in your life that could use some grace? "To find genuine forgiveness and move on with our lives, we must understand the sometimes counterintuitive psychology of forgiveness and commit to our own unique journey toward genuine peace and freedom." Read The Psychology of Forgiveness: 7 Lessons on How to Finally Let Go and Forgive Someone

🎗 Do you ever find it hard to be hopeful? "For some people, it’s always hard to be hopeful. But right now just about everyone is finding it challenging to maintain any semblance of a positive outlook. Still, it’s not impossible—and may just be the key to mentally surviving a crisis like this." Read How to Be Hopeful, Even When It’s Really, Really Hard

🥗  Have you ever considered the health benefits of smiling? "A strong link has been found between good health, longevity, and smiling." And it's free! Read Top 10 Reasons You Should Smile Every Day

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  What are your plans to get through the break? After all, we're pros now at being home together. "The holiday break sounds like a magical time with fewer commitments, lazy days cozying up with hot cocoa, and quality, quiet time with family — and it is… for about 36 hours." Read 15 holiday break activities that will keep the kids busy, not bored

🎄 BONUS: Give yourself the gift of presence! "Taking care of yourself is essential in order to fully enjoy this magical time of year!" Read Mindfully Merry: How to Stay Present this Holiday Season

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  Would you agree that with the bar of motherhood set so impossibly high, there really is no doing it right, all the time, in every way? "Every job is hard if you're doing it all-day every-day with no end in sight, the way most of us with children are… or at least that’s the way it feels." Read Why Do We Always Feel Like We’re Screwing Up As Moms?

🧗  Do you hold yourself to impossible standards that make you want to give up and stop trying to improve? "Here are five views of imperfection that can help you to soften your expectations of yourself, embrace your incompleteness, and hopefully create more room for beauty, compassion, and contentment as a whole." Read 5 Ways to Embrace Imperfection.

🎗 Have you ever considered that books have the power to change your mind and outlook completely? "Reading about the life and times of people who live or lived in different circumstances from you can make it easier for you to understand and relate to those who are different from you." Read 15 incredible benefits from reading every day.

🗂  Would you read more if you felt like you could concentrate better? "In this busy world where everyone is constantly trying to get work done, the benefits of reading are as overlooked as reading itself." Read What are the benefits of reading and can it help boost your productivity?

🥗  Have you ever considered the health benefits of listening to podcasts? "From the soothing sounds of meditation to heart-pounding true crime stories, podcasts are more than just background noise." Read How Listening to Podcasts Can Benefit Your Brain.

🏡  Do you feel at home when it comes to podcasts or is it something you haven't yet dabbled in? Rachel and Amanda actually look forward to getting things done around the house thanks to the option to listen podcasts while they do their dirty work. Read A Beginner's Guide to Finding and Listening to Podcasts.

🧗  How do you stay mindful and present on a daily basis? "Once you understand what it is and how it can shape your life, it seems like the simplest thing to implement." Read “Where your attention goes, energy flows and results show” — In praise of the Reticular Activating System.

🎗  I'm really busy, is it worth my time to practice mindfulness? "People who practice regularly find that mindfulness contributes to an overall sense of well-being, capability, and contentment." Read Benefits of Mindfulness & Awareness Meditation.

🏡   Could you use ten simple tips for a mindful home? "How simple? Well, as Karen says, if you can do the first one, the next nine take care of themselves.” Read 10 Tips for a Mindful Home.

🗂   Could mindfulness be the secret to actually accomplishing "less is more"? "You may not notice the improvements in your emotional intelligence, patience, or productivity right away, but if you do it consistently, you will get better." Read Why Mindfulness Is Your Greatest Productivity Tool: How our greatest gains in productivity are often derived from less productivity, not more.

🥗   Is your glass half-empty or half-full? "Positive thinking doesn't mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life's less pleasant situations." Read Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress.

 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧   How can we be more intentional about family time? "Busy schedules, digital devices, long commutes—all of this leads to families who are disconnected from each other as never before." Read 7 Things Mindful Families Do Differently.

🎗 How would you rate your gratitude practice? Could it use some revamping? "Gratitude practice benefits include health and well-being perks like reducing anxiety, decreasing depression and improving sleep, and also by allowing us to stay present." Read 10 Questions To Bring More Awareness To Your Gratitude Practice.

🏡   Did you ever consider the relationship between your happiness and your level of gratitude toward your home? "If you find yourself challenged by your current surroundings and losing sleep over it, you may want to take up a practice of daily gratitude towards your home." Read 6 Ways To Enjoy Your Home Through Gratitude.

🗂  Could you get more done with an attitude of gratitude? "In fact, gratitude has some hidden benefits that can improve your productivity and your life." Read 20 Ways Gratitude Improves Productivity.

🥗  Do you associate Thanksgiving with being healthy? Think beyond the calories. "The act of giving thanks is good for our physical and mental health." Read 5 Wellness Benefits of Gratitude.

🧗  Have you heard the theory that gratitude breeds self-satisfaction? Are you buying it? "Does gratitude lead to complacency? Do all those benefits of gratitude come at a price—laziness, apathy, and the acceptance of inequities?" Read 4 Ways Gratitude Motivates Us to Become Better People.

 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧  Are you teaching your kids to have an attitude of gratitude? "Creating a grateful family culture is a challenge in our entitled, indulgent age. Yet research has confirmed what we intuitively know that practicing gratitude and being grateful are keys to a happier life." Read 5 Gratitude Practices: A Grateful Family is a Happy Family.