What are you changing for Elul/this year?

amother

Mon, Aug 21 2023, 11:02 pm

I know that many of us use Elul to think about what I need to improve and to try to improve one small thing.

Can we share what we're working on to try to motivate ourselves? Maybe we can even check in about how it's going.

A member of my family is going through some hopefully very minor health issues recently. I am going to try to say one asher yatzar every morning with real kavana.

Also, I am going to try to find one time each day that I am getting impatient with my children, and I will take a deep breath and think that I am going to give them thirty more seconds in order to stretch my "patience muscle." (For example, I find myself losing patience when my younger kids want me to sit and play with them and it's something I'm not interested in playing. If I'd normally last about 3 minutes, now it will be 3.5! Although honestly, today I was patient with my 3 year old for those 30 seconds and the game ended up shifting and we had a really good time together afterwards.)

Goody2shoes

Mon, Aug 21 2023, 11:15 pm

I want to try and focus more on the good in my life, which I have so much of, rather then focusing on everything that's not going my way.
Hashem keeps hearing I want I want I want and how unfair somethings are, shouldn't be be hearing just as many if not double the thanks?

amother

Tue, Aug 22 2023, 8:55 am

Wow, a lot of tech kabbalahs. I have a dumbphone and stopped facebook a couple of months ago, so the only thing I really have to still give up is imamother, and I'm not ready for that right now.

For the record, I already did both this morning, maybe partially because I knew I could post about it here. I find this sort of thing gives me the most motivation.

I find it's easiest to have kavanah at the first asher yatzar of the day, the problem is that I often wake up to my baby crying and really need the bathroom...and it obviously wouldn't be right to make her wait, crying, just because I want to say a bracha with more kavanah. Need to think of another time that is easy for me to remember and stick to.

I had more patience with my seven year old this morning. It didn't work out in the end, she still screamed "You're not listening! You don't understand!" but I stayed calm and told her I was happy to listen to anything she had to say if she'd like to try again, and I'm trying my hardest to understand her. She gave up, but at least it wasn't because I shut her down. (It was about a fight between her and her older brother, where she knew she was in the wrong, so she didn't know what to say...and what she said didn't make much sense. But I was patient anyway.)

amother

Tue, Aug 22 2023, 8:57 am

amother Blueberry wrote:

Here are mine
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....24840

Maybe pick one or two of those, hone in on one aspect of them that you can work on ("Once a day, I will...") and make sure it's doable each day. And then post it here. I think that will be more helpful than the laundry list of wishes, at least that's what I've found for myself.

amother

Tue, Aug 22 2023, 10:24 am

amother Lightcyan wrote:

I am going to try my best to not look at inappropriate pictures/websites or books
So far its been a month. I am very proud of myself

Wow, this is hard. Impressive that you've kept it up for a month! I hope that you are able to make it work through Rosh Hashana and beyond!