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Happy New Year, friends!
Iâm freshly finished with my 2020 goals (the best feeling!) and excited to kick off this new year of Friday emails!
To get the decade started, Iâve got a fun (and hopefully inspiring) treat for you! Itâs a behind-the-scenes tour of my very small kitchen, complete with three things to think about when making your kitchen a more enjoyable place to be: visibility, ease of use, and maximizing counter space.
Before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you briefly about excuses. Excuses, excuses! We all make them. We all have them. We all use them to explain why we canât do something we claim we want to do. Here are some excuses one might make:
I donât have time to cook.
I canât ask for that thing I want.
I canât get a new job becauseâŠ
Here's an amazing nugget, related to the above, from one of my favorite books:
- â99% of the time when we say we âcanâtâ do something, âcanât is a euphemism for âwonât.â What does âwonâtâ mean? âWonâtâ means weâre not willing. In other words⊠You donât really want to. You donât want to do the work. You donât want to take the risk. You donât want to get uncomfortable or be inconvenienced. Itâs simply not a big enough or important enough priority.â - Marie Forleo / Everything is Figureoutable
Marie suggests replacing the words âcanâtâ and âdonâtâ with âwonâtâ - making for a more honest version:
I wonât make the time to cook.
I wonât ask for that thing I want (because... Iâm too scared to be rejected).
I wonât get a new job because⊠(Iâm not willing to take the risks associated).
She goes on to say that not wanting something doesnât make us bad or lazy, it just makes us honest. And if we're honest, we can either step up and do it, or let it go!
I think often about all the excuses people make about why they canât cook. (And I plan to debunk them all, muahaha!) In order to overcome an excuse for anything, we have to have a strong sense of WHY something is important enough to make a priority. WHY?! Why do you care or not care about cooking? (Or that job? Or that other thing you want?)
Only you can answer those questions. Only you know what's actually important enough to make happen this year. The *why* is what gets us to try try again, even after we (predictably) fall off track.
Alright, that's your deep food for thought this week. On a lighter note, I am also here to debunk one common barrier to cooking: the small kitchen! And I am debunking it in the most fun way possible - by giving you a tour of my own tiny kitchen!
Your kitchen is QUITE an important topic, because if you donât like being in your kitchen space, I believe you will be subtly, subconsciously discouraged from cooking. Donât worry, though, no matter how small your kitchen may be, there are *always* things you can do to make the space better! I'll show you how I made my not-ideal kitchen 10x better by:
- increasing visibility
- making my most-used items the most convenient
- maximizing counter space
Even if you have an awesome kitchen, you'll benefit from these tips. A new year is a great time for a kitchen refresh! For the 10-min tour complete with details on all this, check out my video on YouTube or IGTV. Enjoy!
Oh, and if you still want to make some 2020 goals and need a little guidance, check out my process here (from last week's email).
Happy January, all!
love,
Jess
PS. My cooking course, INTUITIVE COOKING 101, starts Jan. 15, 2020 and is on sale now: Check it out. If "eat healthier" or "cook more" are part of your new year's resolutions, JOIN US! AND... stay tuned/get excited for 4 FREE live workshops I'll be teaching online in the next two weeks... all about the 3 Secrets to being a great cook that you *already have* but no one ever told you about :) More on that very soon!
If you're new, welcome to Food for Thought Fridays with Garlic Press Jess! Every Friday I share something short (... or long) and sweet and food-related. Once a month I share a recipe, and I only share those with my email subscribers. Make my day and forward this to your favorite food-loving friend(s), or better yet, forward and then cook something together! Wannabe subscribers can sign up here!
You can check out past issues here including some favorites:
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