WELCOME LETTER AND INFO!

 Your Beautiful Soul Challenge

First off- if you haven't seen my silly "Before and After the Challenge" videos- you must watch this one right away! 

I hope you liked that craziness! In this next video, I explain everything you need to know to start the challenge. You don't need to read the main part of this blog post if you watch the video... PLUS I INVITED SOME SILLY FRIENDS to join me! You might recognize some of them from the first video and you might want to watch it a couple times to catch all their shenanigans!! Just sayin'...

Ok! Here you go! (Inspiration about the No Sugar Challenge and info about the bracelets/lanyards to come in another email.)

Huge thanks to my husband, Bill Norton, for editing this amazing video!

For Audio of the blog post below- click here 

(the following is covered in the video above).... Hello and WELCOME to the Your Beautiful Soul Challenge!! You are going to love this challenge… eventually! You might hate me at first but then you will be so grateful you did what you were told, earned points and felt better, body, mind and soul! I have run three challenges like this before and the people who did them made awesome healthy changes in their lives with wonderful results and were so glad they followed through, all the way to the end! But this one is also new and special and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds and that will be mostly UP TO YOU!!! Some of you have done these with me before and that is why you are back and some of you joined because of a friend who loved doing it and some of you are just taking a step in the dark and I think that is so brave and awesome. So welcome aboard everyone. I can’t wait to get to  know you all and for you to get to know each other too! Miracles are on their way! Truly, they are!!

Now, you are about to voluntarily change your life in some small and big ways, every single day and every week, right up until Christmas!! Yep!! Haha. Suckers!  We all have things that we know we should be doing in our lives but we either think we are too busy, or too weak or we just are like little kids and want the things we want!! Human nature is such that we usually don’t make any big changes in our life until we have some big huge crisis, or someone around us does. Maybe we have a health crisis and realize our lifestyle was literally killing us, or at least making us sick. Or we go through something so tragic we realize our current level of spirituality is not going to get us through it, so we dig deep and do the work to reach out and up and it’s a beautiful thing! Well, this challenge is an opportunity for you to have a little kick in the butt (as well as have a support group of people whose butts are also getting kicked!) and get yourself in an amazingly healthy place ON YOUR OWN, RIGHT NOW!! You will be so glad you did. And when life hits us from the side, we have more strength and resilience to get through that hard thing that we didn’t have before. We will be so blessed and can focus on helping others. Plus… unlike regular life, in this challenge, WE GET POINTS!! WOOT WOOT!!

I mean, how lucky are we? Those points are just floating out there in the atmosphere and we get to wrangle them up and give them to ourselves. It’s those cute little buggers are what make this challenge a challenge! We all know we should eat better, but when you get points for doing it… it magically happens!

So, let’s talk about points. THEY MATTER but they should not stress you out because they don’t really matter! Haha! I will explain how you earn them exactly in a minute but here is how we share them. Each Sunday, or sometimes Saturday, I will email you. In the email is lots of information about the next week’s rotating challenge, and lots of pep to get you excited about it!! ALSO in the email will be a link to a survey. In the survey you will report your points. Now before you get stressed out, you have lots of options. 

1. Never keep track of points. Just do the challenges and enjoy the challenge that way.
2. Keep track of your own points and don’t ever report them.
3. Keep track of your points and report them ONLY to me, for some accountability but not public.
4. Keep track of points, report them to the group with a pseudonym.
5. Keep track of points and report them with your real name.

The surveys are super important for other reasons too! I will ask you questions about how hard the daily and weekly rotating challenges are, and how much effort you are putting in. I will ask for your feedback on certain things. You can ask me questions and you can also give encouragement to the group! 

On Tuesdays I will share the point standings and I will share some super cool graphs showing the results of other questions I asked, as well as encouragement or testimonials or “Ah ha” moments you had during the week. THESE EMAILS ARE THE FUNNEST TO READ! It’s how we all stay connected and encouraged (or even a chance to gripe and share your discouragement, if you so choose)!

SO this is how the points break down.

Weekly rotating challenge: Each week we will focus on an awesome, healthy habit that we will practice all week long. Most of them are something you do every day. For example: the first week is our NO SUGAR WEEK!!  Here is how it will work. 

• Week 1: No candy, sugary snacks or desserts. It’s time to detox and break our addiction with sugar. You will thank me later!! It is doable!! Earn 1 point for every day completed and 1 cheat day allowed (try not to binge on sugar that day  to make up for all the days you didn’t eat sugar). So if you eat great 6 days that week, give yourself 7 points total! This is not a weight loss program but it is a feel better, have more energy and be proud of myself challenge. Getting rid of sugar can help with all three! 

• I am a recovered bulimic and I want to be super careful with this one. If you have recovered from or still have an eating disorder or feel like restricting in this way triggers you, take it easy and be gentle on yourself. Choose a different way to care for your body. If you are struggling right now, talk to someone about it and get some professional help. Eating disorders are the deadliest of all mental disorders. It took me a lot of work with counselors and even medication for a year to get well but it was so worth it and the secret was getting to know and to love my beautiful soul.  That was 17 years ago! I know it’s possible!!

Daily Challenges: (we do these every day for the entire challenge)

• Read from (or listen to) an uplifting book daily. (you decide how many pages or minutes- stick to it!) You get 1 point for every day with 1 cheat day. Read 6 days and get 7 points! If you are a religious person and not reading from scripture every single day for at LEAST 15-30 min. a day, I BEG OF YOU TO MAKE THAT YOUR GOAL for this challenge!!!!!!!! Total game-changer!! Other recommended reading will be at the end of this email, or in another one.

• Exercise daily!  This doesn’t have to be a huge gym workout or anything. You can count anything, like a walk, yoga, or bike ride. Just get out and get moving every day! Take one day off (rest day) and give yourself 7 points if you do all 6 days!! 

THIS JUST IN….  From here on out… the NO SUGAR CHALLENGE is going to be part of our daily challenge list, YEP. Only one day with sugar each week. Give it a shot! You just might realize sugar was the enemy (and not your best friend) all along. 

Your personal challenge: Choose one bad habit to break or one good habit to implement and earn 7 points a week! (give yourself a cheat day or bonus point) Make is something meaningful and life changing!! Don’t short change yourself of this opportunity to really tune up your health (and get POINTS!) 

Examples:

• Quit drinking diet soda!!!
• Stop biting your nails
• Quit smoking
• No more yelling at your kids or spouse
• Rein in your spending habits
• Massively reduce screen time
• Practice the piano daily
• Learn a new skill
• Paint, draw or create a little each day
• Spend more quality time with my family each day/week
• Cut out the swearing

Mystery points: (worth 3 points each week) You don’t have to do anything for these points. On Sunday, BEFORE you fill out the survey, I will reveal the mystery point requirement. If you happened to have done that thing during the week prior, then you get these points! They are totally random and you can’t plan for them so don’t feel bad if you don’t always get them. 

BLOG: I created a blog www.yourbeautifulsoulchallenge.blogspot.com with information, thoughts, inspiration, videos, photos, and encouragement from each other often! When I update it I will usually send you an email and/or post on our facebook group. This will be your home base. There is also the Yourbeautifulsoul.net website, but it won’t be where we do all our challenge things from. It’s mostly for advertising and getting people signed up. 

FACEBOOK: I will create a “Your Beautiful Soul Fall 2021” group on Facebook (I will send you an invitation) then we can really cheer each other on! I love to hear how things are going and what you are doing during the week. If you are not on Fb, no worries. 

ZOOM Meetings:  Zoom wasn’t even a thing last time I did a challenge and so this would be new, but I think it would be amazing to meet as a group a few times during all of this! We will try different times of day and different days so it works for those with crazy schedules. Would you like some live mentoring, discussing and cheering each other on? We would record meetings and send them out to the whole group for those who couldn’t or didn’t want to log on. (What do you guys think? Would that be fun?)

CHEERLEADERS NEEDED! One really fun aspect of the challenge is learning from each other. So, please contact me and let me know if there is a weekly rotating challenge that speaks to you, that you can help me with. You could write up information about it and/or share your own thoughts on the importance of that particular area. Maybe a before and after type testimonial? I could REALLY REALLY use your help and the group would love to hear from people besides me! Thank you!

OK! I love you, I am happy you made it to the end of this long letter/video/podcast. You will be so grateful for the growth you experience these next 12 weeks! You can totally do this! This is about so much more than losing weight. This is about getting rid of things that are holding us back and having the energy and peace we need to really live our purpose! Life is not meant to be lived at a breakneck speed of trying to get money in the bank or compete with our neighbors. It’s about deep, lasting joy. It’s so much easier to find when our bodies, minds and souls are running well and in tune with each other. Some weeks will be easy and some will be hard but they all will be worth it. Great things are coming around the corner! I am so incredibly glad you are here. I love creating and doing things like this so I can spend time with you all and also because I NEED THE MOTIVATION TO GET MY OWN BUTT MOVING AND I NEED POINTS! HAHA! 

Call, text or email me anytime and let me know if you have any questions or issues! 

Now get to the grocery store and get some healthy snacks so you can have an amazing week with NO SUGAR!! I will send out an email/video with more info about the no sugar challenge. 

Lots of love!

Sarah Norton

480-236-2326

yourbeautifulsoul.net