If you didn’t know already, back in November we got literally the cutest dog ever named Penny.

Since we got her from a rescue, even though she was a year old, we had to potty train her from scratch, and boy has it been a deal.

She’s a pretty nervous dog overall, and when we took her to obedience school the teacher told us that everything she learned would just take a lot longer than other dogs because of this, so to just be patient and keep at it ~ for everything.

When it came to potty training we made some pretty big strides fairly quickly, but this last stretch to fully potty trained and no more accidents has been eluding us for a while now. In our house, between my manfriend and I, one of us tends to be a bit more patient than the other {I’ll let you guess which is which, lol}, and as someone reached the end of their rope last week and declared emphatically that we should return the dog, I realized we really needed to take a step back and reset things. And it triggered something in me that is rippling through other parts of my life too.

How is our energy toward our dog? Is our attention on her successes or her failures?

We really weren’t celebrating the successes, {i.e. every time she went potty outside} but boy was one of us making a big stink about the failures.

Honestly the more I thought about this the more I wasn’t surprised that Penny wasn’t where we wanted her to be yet…

We weren’t being as positive as we could be. We only made huge deal when she failed, and to be honest, we were pushing our luck sometimes with how long she could hold it, in our own laziness trying to avoid those three {very tall} flights of stairs more times than necessary.

We weren’t even always empowering her to do great. That’s not her, it’s us.

But this same thing came up a lot while I was in meditation and psychic school. And really, it’s just about one thing. Where is our energy? Is it in what we don’t have and what isn’t working, {which is often the case} or are we putting our attention and energy into what we do want to be having and creating?

You will experience what you have your energy in. If it’s in what you don’t have or want… you’ll just stew around in that, stuck, frustrated, and not moving forward into what you want. If you pour yourself, your energy, your attention into what you want, that’s what you’ll experience. That’s what you’ll have.

The more you do that, the more movement and momentum you’ll get… the more and more you’ll have of those things.

So we started really really celebrating every time Penny went potty outside like it was her biggest achievement ever. Big cheers, and her favorite treats and lots of affection. It might seem silly, but we saw a massive shift and almost zero accidents in just a matter of days. We even started putting a star on our calendar in the kitchen to keep track of all the days with no accidents so that we could see her progress overall, since we knew that the misses were sticking in our memory much more than the days where she did great. I loved it, and I loved seeing the visual reminders of all the successes, and opposed to really only focusing on the setbacks. It helped shift our energy and made things more real.

It’s so easy for us to fall into the habit of only seeing what isn’t working, or what we don’t have yet. I fall into this old habit all of the time, and as I get frustrated {and usually stuck} I realize that the only thing holding me back is myself… am I pouring my energy into what I want to be creating, is that what my attention is on? Or is it everywhere else… and am I getting sidetracked by only seeing what isn’t working, or what isn’t growing fast enough…

I know the answer. And if this resonates with you, you know the answer too. Shifting potty training energy with Penny has me shifting my energy with myself too, as silly as it might sound. I think I’m even going to go old-school and give myself stars on my calendar for everyday I spend time working on my goals and hitting small everyday goals, so that I can see the actual progress there too! What can I say, I’m a visual person, and seeing that I’m doing certain things everyday makes it feel more real, and it will keep my energy and attention on the successes and growth.

So here’s to focusing on and celebrating our victories, as small as they may be each day, as they are moving us toward having more of what we love. And pouring our energy into what we love, and not what we are actually letting go of and leaving behind.