It’s no secret that my 2016 theme is “do less, live more”.

I have been feeling this nudge for at least a year before I finally gave myself permission to listen to it.

At the end of 2015, I basically looked back and realized I’d missed “it”. Whatever the IT was, I missed out.

A lot of the IT is the small stuff… walking to school each morning, folding laundry, dominating at mario cart with my four year old… the nothings of life that somehow all add up to be something.

But at times, the IT I missed out on was big stuff.

Have you ever been too tired to go out for dinner on your wedding anniversary?

Have you ever fed your kids goldfish for dinner because you were doing really “important” things for work?

Have you told your four year old “Mommy can’t play right now, I’m BUSY”?

Trying to give myself the permission to “do less, live more” was a long time coming… and long overdue.  For months I’d been feeling like S-L-O-W-D-O-W-N.

And when I started to listen to what I was feeling it all made sense.

For me, there are five main reasons I am doing less… and living more.

1. I was sick of being crazy busy
2. I was tired of missing my children as little people
3. I was exhausted
4. I was done with saying “yes” just to please others
5. I was tired of not having energy to love my husband the way I should

I’m sure there are more reasons than that, but those were my main ones.

Truth be told, I felt a buttttttt load of guilt for feeling like I needed to do less.

As a Mom, I felt like I should have it all together and be able to do “all the things” and do them well.

The guilt is there.  When you decide to do less, all the thoughts come creepin’ in… And I’m resolving to just leave the guilt there, where it belongs… over there.

Along the way, I came across a new book called Breaking Busy, have you heard about it? (Insert life changing moment coming your way in 3…2…1….)

This book was written by my friend and mentor, Alli Worthington. She was the co-founder of Blissdom – the very first blog conference I ever attended.

I attribute Blissdom to changing my life as well so let’s just agree that Alli is a rockstar at putting on events and writing books that change lives. #thatisall

I also remember a huge moment in Alli’s life when she announced that she was no longer going to be putting on Blissdom. Now, if you aren’t a blogger and don’t know how huge and amazing Blissdom was – trust me, it was all that and a bag of chips.

I remember being so confused why she would shut it down.

Funny how a few years later, after closing Happy Mommy Box, I realized her “why” and even more so… I realized that Alli and I were going through the same thing in life – getting our priorities straight for once.

Something in the title of the book captured my heart… it almost felt like someone finally wrote a book that I had already wrote in my head.

Basically one page into reading I knew it… I had to tell all the people and all the peoples Mommas… there is freedom.

Doing less and living more, that’s a real thing.  And someone wrote an entire book telling you it’s ok to do.

HALLELUJAH.

Finally.

Alli hashes out page by page so beautifully, all my fears and insecurities about doing less, not being supermom… she knows them.

She’s talking at you over there momma reading this at midnight baking homemade cupcakes for the 10th baby shower you’re throwing in a month.

“You have to start breaking the busy before the busy breaks you.”

The busy broke me in 2015.

And it was not pretty.

It hurt.

It left my family feeling a void.

It made me mad.

It felt like hundred pounds of miserable.

I’m telling you,  if you do one thing for yourself this year, save yourselves and get to reading Breaking Busy…

To make it easy for you, I’ve got a link HERE for ordering your copy.

I was honored to be a contributor for her pre-launch and I got to share my story on how I break busy!

I encourage you all to evaluate where you’re at in your life and make sure you are living a life that speaks joy not busy.

*This post is written in partnership with Zondervan, but all opinions are my own. Alli is a great friend of mine and I admire her work in so many ways!