The Importance of our Why
In her reflective blog post, Melissa Sonners shares the profound personal insights gained from her experiences with natural childbirth, emphasizing how these lessons apply broadly to setting and achieving life goals. She recounts the meticulous preparations she and her husband, Jason, undertook to ensure a safe, natural home birth, illustrating the importance of understanding the "why" behind our actions. Melissa outlines how clarity on their reasons for a natural birth helped them navigate challenges and maintain focus, paralleling this understanding with how they approach personal and business goals. She offers practical advice on staying goal-oriented, such as establishing a supportive network and maintaining alignment with personal values, which has guided them through various ventures and life decisions. Melissa encourages her readers to consider their "why" to help steer through the complexities of life, especially during uncertain times.
Jason and I love the Summer, the time of our children’s births, and I am once again reminded of how those births were a reflection of our relationship and how we work together to get through challenges and obstacles in life and business. In this crazy time, I wanted to share with all of you my personal guideposts when it comes to setting and attaining goals and intentions. They’ve served us well and perhaps you can apply them in your own lives.
This picture was taken during Wyatt’s birth when we were fortunate to have the beautiful home-birth that we had worked toward for so long. We researched, we studied, we understood the physiology of birth and contractions, the purpose of the surges and sensations and the role they would play in getting our baby out in the way nature intended.
Although we spent very little time researching the best stroller, we spent much time understanding the physiology of pregnancy and birth. How to prepare my body and his to be as healthy as possible before my body grew a human. How to optimize my microbiome and environment (chemical, physical and emotional). We learned about contractions and the purpose they serve, that epidurals not only knock out the sensory nerve pathway to block the pain, but also block the motor pathway meaning my body wouldn’t be able to help our babies down the birthing canal. An epidural would also require me to be on my back (no motor or muscle control), literally minimizing my pelvic opening and the space for our baby to come out.
We clearly understood that traditional medicines and interventions had roles to play—important ones—but we knew pregnancy and birth were normal physiological events. If supported correctly, and all scans and monitoring of myself and the baby were healthy, we would be medically cleared to have our baby at home and my body would know what to do.
It was hard, it was intense, there were moments when I questioned everything and felt like giving up.
But Jason and I knew what was important to us: the most natural birth possible for our baby. And as always when we have undertaken a new “venture,” we were very clear on our WHY — in this case, why we wanted the most natural birth possible. Because our WHY was clear to us, the many obstacles during my labor and delivery (or anything else we set our intentions on) were things I understood to be part of the process. I recognized and accepted the purpose contractions served in the birthing process, rather than questioning if their intensity was “normal” (it is).
Once Jason and I set our minds to something, we may not always know HOW we are going to make it happen, but we know that we will. We follow a few simple steps to help us stay on track when setting our goal, intentions, or dreams with a deadline.
These are:
1. Be clear on WHY you want this. Our WHY becomes super important as we encounter obstacles, life challenges or “opportunities” along the way.
2. Create a network of support—your partner, a friend, family member, hired coach, etc. Know your audience and who you need to surround yourself with in order to achieve your goal.
3. If it’s not your focus, don’t focus on it. We live in an age of constant pop ups, interruptions and distractions. Being clear on what our end goal is
helps us focus on the things that bring us closer to that goal, and helps us spend less time worrying about or reacting to things that don’t.
Most importantly:
4. Stay aligned and congruent. Jason and I have one MAJOR rule when making business and personal decisions for ourselves, our companies and our family. Is this congruent with our values and morals? If so, it’s an easy YES. If not, it’s an easy NO. This not only helps prevent decision fatigue from having to spend a lot of time on every single decision that comes our way, it also helps us feel good about what we are doing, confident that we are doing it for the greater good, and I truly believe when all those things are in place, things come easily not only TO us, but THROUGH us.
I would love to hear from you. How are you continuing to move forward in regards to your goals, dreams and plans during this time? Although it may be taking a (very) different path than you had intended, perhaps you can still continue your forward momentum.
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