Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 67

Habit Stacking: 10 Steps to Finally Have the Life You Yearn for this Year

Last year I learned the term “habit stacking”, and it has changed my life immensely.

As we’re at the beginning of a new year, it’s a natural time to reflect on what’s working in your life and what’s not. Often in January we feel overwhelmed and angry at ourselves–I’m going to finally lose the weight this year and I’ll beat my body into submission; I’m going to never eat chocolate again; I’m going to get up at 5 am every morning. You’re going to get so much more done, you’re going to stop with all the bad habits. You’re going to quit TV. But it rarely works.

What does work? Changing your routines, little by little, so that you create new habits and you don’t have to think about them.

The Ultimate Productivity Bundle is for sale right now, but only until tomorrow! It’s an amazing collection of 12 ebooks, 30 ecourses, 29 workbooks & printables, and 2 membership sites to help you get organized, form new habits, overcome obstacles, use your time well, map your life, review and reflect, and set new goals. As a goal-type person who is not naturally organized, I love it so much!

There are so many great products there that I can’t tell you about all of them, but I want to share some principles with you from just one–Habit Stacking from the Routines category–that can help you think differently about how to develop new habits.

1. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Small Things

He starts off by asking everyone to stop reading and go tell someone that you love them–send a text, go into another room and talk to a loved one, send a nice email. It doesn’t take long. But it feels great!

That’s the power of small things.

Imagine what life would be like if you began each day with small actions that created a chain reaction of positive benefits throughout your life.

You eat a healthy breakfast, have a great conversation with your loved ones, and then begin your workday focusing on the important tasks. Then, throughout the day, you complete other habits that positively impact your top goals. I guarantee you’d feel more fulfilled, get more accomplished, and have a better direction for your career. All of this can be possible when you focus on small actions that relate to your important goals.

These habits don’t require much effort. In fact, most only take five minutes or less to complete. But they have a powerful compounding effect if you repeat them often enough.

2. Understand that Success is a Process, Not an Event

Success isn’t something that just “happens” to people. Take this blog, for instance. I blogged everyday for years, from 2008-2011, before I finally had significant numbers of people visiting me. And then all of a sudden my traffic went up 20 times in one month, and kept growing from there. It’s easy to look at the blog in 2011 and say, “Oh, wow, look what happened to her!” But really, it was also all about the discipline and small things I put into practice from 2008-2011.

Like Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more luck I have.”

Motivation alone can’t help you change – the power of habit can.

(Click here to tweet this quote)

3. Give yourself a break–Motivation alone doesn’t work.

You can want to lose weight all you want, and you can be determined to lose weight. But that doesn’t mean you will lose weight.

Why? Doing new things is hard, and we tend to shy away from things that require extra brain power or feel uncomfortable. Here’s a great study that the book shared that I found fascinating (and encouraging!):

Baumeister and his colleagues have tested ego depletion in a variety of scenarios. One was called the radish experiment. Here, they brought three groups of people into a room and offered a selection of food (before working on a puzzle): pieces of chocolate, warm cookies, and radishes.

One group could eat anything they wanted.
Another group could only eat the radishes.
The final group wasn’t given any food options.

After that, each group was moved into a separate room, where they had to work on a challenging puzzle.

The groups that didn’t previously exert willpower (i.e., they ate whatever they wanted or weren’t given a food option) worked on the puzzle for an average of twenty minutes. The group that had to exert willpower and resist the tasty treats worked on the puzzle for an average of eight minutes.

What does the experiment show?

It’s simple: most people can resist temptations, but this effort leaves us in a “weakened” condition where it becomes harder to tap into that pool of willpower. People don’t achieve peak results with a task because of motivation. Instead, the number of decisions and completed tasks ultimately determine their level of success with a new task. This leads to two important lessons that will ultimately determine your success at forming habits:

You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it.
You use the same stock of willpower for all manner of tasks.

Why is that encouraging? Because if you don’t get things done that you want to get done, it’s only natural!

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t change. Only that motivation alone can’t do it.

That’s where the power of habit comes in. When you make something more automatic so you don’t have to think about it, then it’s more likely to happen.

4. Understand WHY it’s hard to do the things we want to do (nothing’s making us do them!).

The reason you don’t do all those things you want to do is because there’s no reminder, and no real consequence to not having them done. That’s why habit stacking works–it gives you built-in reminders to do the things you want to do, and, if done correctly, it can also give you consequences for not doing them.

When you make something more automatic so you don’t have to think about it, then it’s more likely to happen.

(Click here to tweet this quote)

5. When small things are anchored to something bigger, you tend to do them more.

Brushing your teeth is important. Tracking your expenditures and budgeting is important. But most of us (I sure hope!) don’t have a problem remembering to brush our teeth. Few of us track our expenditures. Why is that?

Because brushing you teeth tends to be anchored to big routines, like getting up in the morning or going to bed at night. When small things are anchored to something bigger, they get done.

6. That’s why you need to try habit stacking

Here’s what habit stacking essentially is:

1. Identify those small important actions (like writing a loving message to the important people in your life).

2. Group them together into a routine with equally important actions.

3. Schedule a specific time each day to complete this routine.

4. Use a trigger as a reminder to complete this stack.

5. Make it super easy to get started.

This year I’ve created a new habit stack that is taking care of a lot of my issues. I’ve been finding it hard to fit in when I want to do my devotions. I’ve been really bogged down by negativity and depression because every morning I wake up to a ton of heartbreaking comments on the blog and heartbreaking emails. I haven’t been exercising enough.

So I’ve created a new morning habit stack!

Instead of heading to the computer first thing to finish up the post for today and check comments, I schedule the post the day before. And I start my day with 40 minutes of stretching and exercise with Amazon Prime videos (they have great yoga and pilates videos for free!); I do a morning liturgical meditation through the Northumbria Community online; I have my shower and get dressed and make my bed; I read a few chapters of the gospels; I make my breakfast. And only THEN do I get on the computer.

Those are all things I was trying to fit in around work, and I realized I was never going to. So instead, I created a habit stack at the beginning of the day.

7. Identify your goals and break them up into small steps

Let’s say that you want to cook healthy meals at night. What’s stopping you from doing that? Is it that you don’t know what to cook at 5:30 at night? Is it that the groceries aren’t there? Is it that you’re always rushing from the thing right before, and you don’t have time to cook? So what can make these things easier? Some ideas might be:

Create a meal plan
Make a grocery list
Plan slow cooker meals
Read about healthy cooking

None of those things needs to take very long (all take less than 5 minutes a day, or even a week), but when they’re done, it will be so much easier to reach your goal!

Similarly, let’s say that you want to save money this year, and one of your major expenditures is eating lunches out at work. What is keeping you from packing a lunch? You don’t have time in the morning? You don’t have any food you’d like to take for lunch?

Then you could create habits like:

Make a grocery list with lunch foods
Pack the lunch the night before

Struggling with figuring out your goals?

There are so many products in the Ultimate Productivity Bundle to help you do just that!

Learn how to make your goals specific, achievable, and measurable. And remember–there are tons of products on getting organized and overcoming obstacles, too!

Let me see them all!

8. Create your stack

Make a list of small habits that would help you reach some of your bigger goals, like spending more time with your kids, saving money, losing weight, etc. Now you can create the stack.

Here’s the thing about the stack: it doesn’t all have to be about the same goals. They’re just tasks that naturally go together. I exercise and do my devotions at the same time, even though those are different goals. You may choose an evening stack like: do the dishes; make my lunch for tomorrow; review my to-do list for the next day; answer 5 emails; read one chapter of a nonfiction book. That may be your evening stack that you do every night–things that are easy to do together and that can naturally flow.

9. Anchor it to an existing routine

My daughter Katie has a simple habit that she’s anchored to something: Before she’s allowed to go up her stairs, she has to complete one chin up in the doorway to her kitchen (which is right by her stairs). She started off in September not being able to do any chin-ups at all, and she’s now up to 4! That’s how you can anchor one small thing.

But this works for stacks of habits as well. I choose to do my new morning stack as soon as I wake up. Your stack may start “as soon as I get back from driving the kids to school” or “as soon as my lunch break begins at work” or “as soon as the kids go to bed.”

Keith and I have developed a new habit that I’ll tell you about in a few weeks of choosing something fun that doesn’t involve a screen to do every night. We anchor it this way: Before we watch netflix, we have to choose something to do from a list of 8 possibilities. It’s worked so well and we’re enjoying ourselves so much more!

The book then goes on to help you figure out your goals, figure out rewards and accountability, break big goals down into tiny steps, and more. He even has 127 ideas for small habits that you can build in 7 different areas of your life (career, family, spirituality, health, etc.) to start growing where you want to grow.

I love this concept, and I’ve been using it for a while, and I know it will help you, too. You don’t have to feel guilty for not having enough motivation! And you don’t have to aim for the moon right off the bat. You just have to try small habits.

10. Start with tiny habits and then grow them

Let’s say that you want to read several nonfiction books this year, but you’re totally out of the habit of reading. Then you say to yourself, “today, I will read one page.” That’s it. Just one page. Or if you want to start writing, then you can say, “today, I will write one paragraph.” The point is not how much you’re doing; it’s that you’re doing it. Breaking that barrier from doing nothing to doing something is huge. And once it’s broken, it’s easy to scale up your habits and start doing more!

That’s just one book in the Ultimate Productivity Bundle, but it’s one of my favourites. But there are so many more, including books that help you map your life and figure out what your career goals and personal goals should be; that help you review and reflect on the previous year; that help you overcome obstacles, including anxiety and comparison; that help you manage your time, including your housework schedule and schedules with kids, and so many more.

Here’s what I recommend: Get the bundle, and then spend some time reading through different books and taking different courses that appeal to you.

Your brain will start firing at a million miles a minute and you’ll get so excited about the possibilities! Then choose one – three resources that you’re not just going to read–you’re actually going to do, completely. I’d suggest choosing one set of planning workbooks and worksheets; one item on time management, organization, or new habits, and one item on setting goals, shifting your mindset, or reviewing and reflecting (but you can choose whatever you’d like!).

Decide which one you’ll start with, and do that one. Then, after it’s done, move to the next. Do that, and I guarantee that 2020 will look very different from 2019!

Take a look at all of the resources in the bundle, and see which ones fit you best.

Have you ever tried habit stacking? Or what’s the biggest obstacle for you in reaching your goals? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

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Published on January 07, 2020 04:06

It’s Going, Going, Gone!

31 Days to Great Sex is almost gone.

Well, it will resurrect in the summer. But it’s gone until then.

Let me explain.

I’ve been selling 31 Days to Great Sex on my own since 2012. I created it originally in ebook form, and then I paid for it to be published in paperback as well. I’ve sold a ton of them when I speak, and a ton online, and I’ve always kept the cost really, really low–it’s only $4.99 in ebook form–so that lots of couples can get it. I know that people don’t think much about spending $5, and they’ll take a chance on it, and I wanted it to help as many people as possible. So I didn’t charge much.

But lately I’ve wanted to start focusing on other things, including creating more courses and writing different books, and so I can’t keep promoting 31 Days to Great Sex anymore in the same way. So Zondervan (a Christian publisher) made me an offer, and I accepted. I sold them the book, and the new version will be coming out in August. I beefed up the book quite a bit, creating more of a “magazine” feel, so you’ll get the 31 Day challenge, but also a ton of extra information and dares and quick lists to help boost your sex life.

But because that will be coming out in August, I need to stop selling it on my site.

So tomorrow we’ll be removing it from the store and from Amazon. (I meant to do this on December 31, but I forgot that all of my staff would be on holiday, so I didn’t have a chance. So that means that everybody got an extra week to buy it!).

If you’ve been thinking about getting 31 Days to Great Sex, and you never have, today is the day if you want to get it for $4.99! The August edition is honestly a better book (because I did add great stuff to it), but I wanted to give everybody one last chance to get this edition, with the full 31 day challenge, before it’s gone!

Buy directly from me!

Buy from Amazon!

So what is 31 Days to Great Sex?

It’s 31 Days TO great sex, not OF great sex. I’m not saying that you have to have sex for 31 days straight! You can take as long as you need to do the challenges (though doing it quickly will keep the momentum going). But also, not every challenge is about intercourse. Some are about dealing with baggage and the lies you’ve believed about sex; some are about learning to flirt or being more affectionate; some are just about learning what feels good.

Here’s what one reader wrote to me about the book:

“I’ll be honest, I was very skeptical. I was not looking forward to another self help book that would tell me how bad my sex life is. I know it is.

My husband and I have been married a year. We didn’t take the time to figure out sex before marriage, but we had it! I used it to impress and please him. And once we tied the knot, I pretended to enjoy it on our wedding night, and then we stopped having sex. I relented a few times when his libido demanded it, but I never had any kind of bond with my husband in that way.

Day 15 changed that. We re-did Day 5, after discussing my immediate issues at hand that were stressing me during dinner. I went and found my husband after we’d parted for “me time” and asked him if he wanted to try it (I hadn’t done the reading though!).

I had an orgasm with my husband for the first time without feeling like I had to, or to put on a show. And it was easy. For the first time it was easy!

This is a whole new world to me. I’ve only ever had sex when I’ve had to, or I was expected to. To be honest, the whole thing has kind of freaked me out in the past. But now I think I can start to actually enjoy it. And my husband and I can learn to enjoy it together. Thank you.”

Blog Reader

That’s so awesome, and that’s what I want for you, too. So take a look–before it’s gone!

Buy directly from me!

Buy from Amazon!

Speaking of being gone, our Bare Marriage Survey is now closed–and we have a few things we can finally share.

First, we can tell you what we were specifically looking for. We wanted to know how various teachings and beliefs in the church, about sex, marriage, gender roles, and more, impacted women’s ability to orgasm, women’s rates of sexual pain, and women’s marital satisfaction. Because of that, we had to ask a LOT of questions, so that we could be sure we were teasing out the right stuff. So it was a really loooooooong survey (thank you so much to everyone who filled it out!). We had over 22,000 women take it, which is just incredible. It’s given us so much data.

But in the meantime, we did get a lot of questions from people concerned about some aspects of it. We couldn’t answer all of those questions while it was live, because we couldn’t “prime” our survey takers. But we can answer them now! So I’m going to let Joanna, the data expert for our survey, answer those.

Hi folks!

We’ve had a blast running the survey and it was a really humbling experience, seeing so many, many women take the time to answer some really hard questions so thoughtfully. I really feel like a custodian of all the data we have and I’m doing my level best to tell the stories included in the responses well. The draft of the first book is due in a few months and until then I’ll be most likely found playing with my toddler or at my laptop, running more statistics.

1. Why weren’t there more open ended questions?

First of all, we love the heart behind this question! Lots of folks wanted to add nuance to answers or explain things more fully.

What we decided to do was a two-part study: first, the survey, and second, the focus groups (which are still coming) to add our nuance. With the survey, we have to be able to “code” it (assign numerical values to things) in order to find trends. Given that we were hoping for a huge number of respondents (which we got), we just couldn’t do all the questions as open-ended ones. But don’t worry–if you filled out the survey and you also left your email to be contacted about a focus group, you’ll likely get your chance (provided you match the criteria for a bunch of different things that we’ll be studying). We are really glad we’ll have the opportunity to ask more detailed questions in focus groups and interviews coming up soon. Thanks SO much to everyone who volunteered to be a part of our future research.

2. Why weren’t men included in the survey?

For every study, you have to have a research question and be guided by it. For this study, we were really interested in the effects of the church’s teachings about sex and marriage on women’s sexual and marital satisfaction. We hope to do studies including men someday, but that just wasn’t the focus of this research.

3. Why weren’t single people who have not been married included in the survey?

Our questions were really focused on issues pertaining to marriage and not on the specific issues that are faced in extended singleness. We’d LOVE to do another study someday about singleness and how single folks are treated in the church, but that just isn’t the focus of the current research project.

4. Why are you doing this survey?

This is the one we had to steer clear of announcing beforehand because we didn’t want people to know specifically what we wanted to hear from them. But as Sheila said, what we were really looking at is how the purity culture type of teachings and teachings prevalent about men always battling with lust, sex being primarily about men’s physical release, and women being obligated to have sex with their husbands affect marriages. We were especially interested in whether teachings that contribute to shame in women are associated with higher rates of vaginismus. (We’ll have more on that at a later date!)

5. Why was the survey so LONG?

It really was, wasn’t it? Most people spent about 22 minutes taking the survey, and most answered at least 140 questions (some answered more, depending on their answers. If you answered certain ways, you opened up extra questions). We had to make it long so that we would be able to figure out how the teachings we were asking about affected women’s sexuality, but also how other things may have played a part, so that we could control afterwards for specific things

Thanks, Joanna!

By the way, speaking of priming the audience, I’m thrilled to tell you that the majority of our survey takers didn’t come from the blog!

I was worried that most of the women who answered our survey would be from the blog and my email list. Because you all have heard how upset I’ve been about Love & Respect and different teachings in the church, you’re kind of “primed” already, and that could have distorted the results. That’s why we went out of our way to get other speakers/influencers sending the link to their people, and to encourage you readers yourselves to share the link (we even had a contest going, and Catie from Guelph, Ontario, sent over 350 referrals to our survey! She won Keith and me coming to her church to do a marriage event for free!). It ended up that people that I knew were actually the minority, and that’s awesome.

When can you hear our survey results?

Well, the majority of them will be published in some upcoming books, including The Great Sex Rescue with Baker, coming out spring 2021. But we will be sharing some stats before that, especially on our email list. So if you’re not part of that yet, please sign up!

So that’s our news for now! Thanks again to everyone who filled out our survey, and especially to our amazing recruiters who sent us thousands of women we could never have reached on our own.

Coming up this year, I’m going to move the series posts to Mondays instead of Wednesdays, but we’ll be starting this month’s this Wednesday, because I had to give you this heads up today. But podcasts will still be on Thursdays as usual.

Looking forward to 2020! I have a lot of books to write….

What about you? What stat are you most interested in seeing from our survey? Let me know in the comments!

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Published on January 06, 2020 04:06

2019: The Year that The Emperor Had No Clothes

In my life, I have had several pivotal years that set me on a different trajectory–defining years that changed everything.

Obviously I could say 1995 and 1997 were such years, when my daughters were born. But I want more to talk about years when my goals and thinking did radical shifts.

So there was 1984, when I figured out what it meant to love Jesus and to dedicate my life to following Him (though I had been a Christian before that; in my early teens I really decided to go all-out).

There was 1987, when I struggled with what I thought God believed about women, and had to work through to see that Jesus did love and elevate women.

There was 1996, when our son died, and Keith and I changed our marriage patterns and clung to each other, despite the grief.

There was 2000, when I decided to homeschool our daughters, and changed our family’s trajectory forever.

There was 2010, when I decided to press forward with speaking and writing, even though I was getting discouraged, and when I found a new agent who steered me to write more about sex, and less about parenting.

And then there was 2019–the year that my eyes were truly opened.

In many ways this year was probably the most significant change in my faith. I would say that before this last year I was very naive. I’m not anymore. But I’m also on fire like I never have been.

If you had asked me on January 1, 2019, if I would ever write another book with a royalty publisher, I likely would have hemmed and hawed and said no. I enjoy blogging and creating courses, and it’s a lot less stressful.

Today, as we start 2020, I have contracts for five books.

So what changed?

Well, let me use this post to tell you my story of 2019–the behind-the-scenes things I haven’t shared publicly before.

Sometime last January, while perusing Twitter, I ran across a tweet from a woman complaining that the “men need respect, and women need love” didn’t apply to her, and she found it hurtful. I agreed with her, and on a whim, I tweeted out something similar.

It went completely viral.

Because of that response, I started thinking about the book Love & Respect, and realized I had never actually read it. I had glanced at it, sure. I had found quotes from it when I needed them for posts. We had recommended it at marriage conferences, because we were told it was a great book. But I thought to myself, “I wonder what it actually says, because I’m definitely a woman who needs respect.”

On Wednesday, January 9 I was having a bit of a lower-stress day. Rebecca wrote the post that went up on the blog that day (It was a good one about taking responsibility for our choices). I had finished recording our first podcast, which was ready to go live the next day. And I had a bit of a headache and was rather low energy. So I decided that instead of doing a ton of work, I’d just get out the book and read it.

Now, I’m an ENTJ in MBTI personality language, and the “N” there means that I’m big picture, not detail oriented. That’s why I have trouble doing things in a logical order; I tend to jump all over the place to the stuff that interests me first. So when I picked up the book, rather than start with the first chapter, I decided to start with the sex chapter.

That was when a nuclear bomb went off in my living room.

The chapter was terrible. It made sex all about a man’s sexual release, and didn’t mention women getting pleasure from sex at all. And it went downhill from there. (You can read what I eventually wrote about Love & Respect and sex here). I started texting Joanna (a young woman who works for me) and Rebecca, and we were all Face-Timing together, and I was so incensed I was almost crying.

I have spent so long on this blog trying to help people with their sex problems, and to help women understand that sex is supposed to feel good for them, too, and that it’s okay to want it, and then I read this best-selling Christian marriage book which teaches the exact opposite-–that women’s duty in marriage is to give men sexual pleasure, with no corresponding expectation for men. What a toxic message!

But what bothered me even more was this question:

Did people not see how bad this was?

I’ll tell more about my journey with this in a post next week, but what I realized then was that I couldn’t help people with their marriages until we dealt with the root of a lot of the problems: The toxic teaching that is all too prevalent in the Christian church today.

But I was really scared. There’s a sort of unwritten rule in Christian publishing that you never, ever criticize another published author. It’s a small world, and we all want to get invited to the same conferences, and we need to network, so you never, ever bring anyone down. If you disagree, you just don’t say anything.

Should I just ignore this, then?

I talked to my agent. I talked to friends. I prayed. And then I wrote that epic post on Love & Respect and sex. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to run it. In some ways, writing it was simply a cathartic way to get the anger and grief off of my chest. I even had a back up post scheduled to go up for Monday, January 14, and on Friday afternoon, when I stopped working for the weekend, I didn’t know what post would actually go live on Monday. I hadn’t decided yet.

I walked into church on Sunday, January 13 very agitated and a little bit teary. I had been praying all weekend,

“God, let me know what I should do about the post for Monday. Do I take this on? Do I start fighting? Or do I just let it go?”

Those were the exact words I asked God as I got up that Sunday morning. “What do I do about the post tomorrow? Do I start fighting? Do I take on the battle tomorrow? Or do I just let it go?”

As I settled into my chair, I tried to quiet myself and listen.

And then the pastor invited us all to open our Bibles to 2 Chronicles 20. Here’s the background for that story: the Israelites were being surrounded by the Ammonites and Moabites, who were preparing to invade. The Israelites were vastly outnumbered. And so the people gathered around King Jehoshophat to figure out what to do. While standing in the courtyard of the temple, Jehoshaphat prayed for deliverance from God. And then a prophet, filled with the Spirit, stands up and says:

“Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow march down against them. … You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’”
2 Chronicles 20:17

There, in the church service, I started to weep quietly. And I texted Rebecca:

And so, on the next day, we ran the post.

The response was instantaneous and huge. That post was my biggest in 2019. People were asking what I thought about the rest of the book, so I wrote up two other large posts. I recorded a podcast on Love & Respect problems. And then we capped off the week sharing comments and stories that had flooded in. In total, I wrote over 11,000 words that week (that’s 1/4 of the average book).

See what else we’ve written on Love and Respect:

The Fundamental Flaw in the Book Love & Respect

Our Love & Respect Podcast

How Love & Respect Gets Sex Horribly Wrong

Why Unconditional Respect Doesn’t Work

But more importantly, that week opened the floodgates where women (and men) had a safe place to say, “This book really hurt me and hurt my marriage.”

We had so many comments and emails that we had to do something with them. Joanna, who is experienced with statistics in her postgraduate programs, put together a report for us to send to Focus on the Family, whose logo was on my copy of the book and who heavily promotes it. I’ll be sharing with you later this month what their response was, but it did not go well. The powers that be were continuing to ignore us.

But people weren’t. People were speaking up.

At around the same time, I had decided to sell my self-published book 31 Days to Great Sex to Zondervan. I had taken it as far as it could go on its own; it was time for a big publisher to get a hold of it (a new, expanded version with lots of extras will be coming out this August!). So in March, I had a phone call scheduled at 12:30 pm with one of the main editors at Zondervan, to talk about how the book would look.

That morning, as I was doing dishes, Joanna FaceTimed me. Her little one year old was toddling around in the background, and we were discussing the finishing touches on the report about Love & Respect that she was drawing up. She said to me, “I wonder if I should go back to get my Ph.D. in public health, because this is a public health issue. Bad Christian teaching is actually affecting women’s sexual satisfaction and level of sexual pain. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do a really big study on it? Maybe I should go back to school.”

I put down the dish I was drying and I said to Joanna,

You don’t have to go to school to do a big study. We could just do one ourselves. A huge one. The largest one that’s ever been done. I’m sure a publisher would take it.

She got excited. I got excited. And two hours later, while I was talking to the editor from Zondervan, I pitched the idea. She liked it. I wrote up a proposal. And to make a long story short, we ended up selling a two-book deal for our survey to Baker Books, while I’m doing two more books for Zondervan which will also draw on the research.

And so we decided to do our huge “Bare Marriage” survey. We ended up with over 20,000 women filling it out. It’s such a huge survey we crashed Survey Monkey’s servers several times. We have so much data we could be writing about this for years. But we needed it to be a long one because we needed to look at all the possible factors that affect women’s sexual satisfaction. And we think we’ve found some really interesting things, which I’m excited to share with you over the next few months (and even years). We wanted it to be so big that people couldn’t question us; that the data would speak for itself. And it does.

And thank you to so many who participated!

I’ve shared several times, on the podcast and on the blog, about how my eyes were opened this year. But I wanted to tell you the whole story.

I believe that God is in this. I believe that God is shaking the church, and that God is putting pieces in place so that both women and men will be free from toxic messages that can hurt marriage and hurt sex, and so that all of us will learn what real passion and real intimacy look like. I believe that we are going to see a real outpouring of the Spirit in the next few years on the church. People aren’t going to put up with teaching that ensnares anymore. We want Christ in the centre. We want intimacy. We want real love, authenticity, and servanthood, not people clamouring for power.

When I woke up on January 13, 2019, I was scared. I thought I was alone. I thought no one else saw what I did.

Today, on January 3, 2020, I know that I’m not alone. I know that so many of you are excited for something new, too.

Ironically, and I hope this isn’t TMI, but my grandson was conceived the week that the Love & Respect series ran.

His whole life he will signify this new thing that God is doing, and I think that’s lovely. His first name, Alexander, means “defender of men”. His middle name, Christopher (named after his uncle who passed away as a baby), means “bearer of Christ.” Our prayer, as a family, is that little Alex ends up doing just that–defending and protecting others while living out his calling as a Christ-bearer. He was born into a time when his family was in the midst of the battle. And I hope that we shone Christ’s light into it.

Me and my very pudgy grandson when he was 5 weeks old!

Let’s revisit the story of the Emperor and His New Clothes.

Do you remember the children’s fable? The emperor is vain and pompous. One day a famous tailor visits from a distant land, and tells the emperor that he will make him the most beautiful clothes, with the finest materials, but only those who are really discerning and smart will be able to see the clothes. The emperor can’t see them, but doesn’t want to let on, so he raves about how amazing they are. And then all the people in the land are invited to see a parade of the emperor in his new clothes.

The excited peasants start to cheer. And then the emperor struts into the crowd, chin held high. Buck naked.

Everyone applauds and continues cheering, until one little boy cries out, “Hey, the emperor has no clothes!”

The clapping stops. And then, one by one, everyone starts laughing and pointing. Indeed, the emperor has no clothes! They had all thought the emperor was naked, too, but because everyone else was clapping and cheering, they thought they were the only ones. They thought they were alone.

When the little boy spoke the truth, the floodgates opened.

I am praying that I can be that little boy–and that this blog, and all of you readers as well, can play the role of that little boy, telling the world, “The emperor has no clothes.” The way we’re talking about sex and marriage isn’t working. It isn’t working in the secular world, and it isn’t working in the Christian world. And we can do better. And over the next little while, I’ll start sharing with you some of the things that we’ve found. I hope I can point to a way that we can do better.

In just 11 days, on January 13, the year after our initial series ran, we’ll be running a few posts ending off our Love & Respect critique.

We have some more things to share, and we’ve been holding off while people have been doing the survey, so as not to prime our audience. But now that the survey is done, there are some more things that need to be made public before I lay it to rest and move on to the new–which is what I’m really excited about. But I do want to create a repository of information for what is problematic about the book, so that people have a central place to go. It just needs to be finished off, which will then be a great relief. Because I’m excited about what’s coming next!

What is our response when God does something new?

As the Israelites were thanking God for what He was about to do to save them from defeat, we read this:

2 Chronicles 20:21
After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:

“Give thanks to the Lord,

for his love endures forever.”

I think that’s a good ending to 2019. It has been a rough year for me personally. I have had to grapple with being very disappointed in the fact that so many leaders in the Christian church have ignored how dangerous much of this teaching is. I have found this very difficult.

And yet, as I look back, God’s hand is so apparent. And so I am also excited for what this next year brings.

“Give thanks to the Lord,
for his love endures forever.”

Make sure you keep up with what’s happening on the blog this year!

Don’t miss our survey results, as we start to publish them, as well as so much more I have planned. Sign up for my emails to get special discount coupons, behind-the-scenes look at our team, and the best of the blog:

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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.

Find Sheila Here:

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Sheila's Favorite Posts on To Love, Honor and Vacuum:

10 ways to initiate sex
10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Marriage, & Sex Life
Why So Much Marriage Advice is So Trite
How can Sex be Hot and Holy at the Same Time?

Check out some of Sheila's Books:

The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
31 Days to Great Sex
9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage
To Love, Honor, and Vacuum

Check out Sheila's Courses:

The Boost Your Libido Course
The Whole Story: Talking to Your Daughter about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up
The FREE Emotional Intimacy E-Course

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Published on January 03, 2020 04:06

PODCAST EXTRAS: How 2019 Changed Me–and How Growth is the Word for 2020!

2019 was a watershed year for me.

I’m talking about it more in tomorrow’s post, when I share the behind-the-scenes look at how my goals and mission changed in 2019 when I finally got woken up to how much destructive teaching about sex is swirling around the church.

But today, Rebecca and I talked about it, as we shared some of the top posts from 2019, and where I hope to head in 2020.

But first, here’s the podcast.

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

Our Top Posts

This week I spent some time looking back over the last year, to see what posts and podcasts resonated the most for people. Listen in to Rebecca and me analyzing some of them, but check out these round-up posts for all of the top ones!

Top 10 Posts Written in 2019

Top 10 Posts of 2019–with the most popular podcasts

What People Are Learning on To Love, Honor and Vacuum

I highlighted a great comment left this week by Nathan, who talked about what he was learning by reading the blog. He said:

If you ever want to start a list of “top things that people have learned on your site”, here are the two biggest things I’ve learned…

1. Despite the stereotype, Porn is NOT just consumed only by single men or men whose wives have lost interest in sex. That last one in fact is extremely rare. Often, especially among married couples, porn use predates the marriage and continues afterward. In fact, it’s fare more common that porn leads to a sexless marriage than the other way around.

2. Extensive porn use actually rewires your brain so that you PREFER to watch a screen than be with a real live woman, and in fact this site has many posts from wives who will literally BEG their husbands to have sex with them but are refused as he would rather watch porn.

Absolutely. But while these are really heavy and sad, I think being aware of the impact of porn is actually empowering, because now we’re equipped to fight it! To learn more about these things, check out:

How Porn Use Before Marriage Affects the Marriage
Podcast: How Porn Use Affects the Marriage
Top 10 Effects of Porn on your Marriage, Brain, and Sex Life

And check out these resources, too!

Covenant Eyes Parenting 300x300 - Covenant Eyes Screen Accountability

Covenant Eyes Screen Accountability

Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr 300x300 - Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr.

Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr.

Good Pictures Bad Pictures 300x300 - Good Pictures, Bad Pictures

Good Pictures, Bad Pictures

COMMENT: Thank you for being a voice for domestic violence victims!

I shared an email that came in from a woman who has now escaped an abusive marriage (her husband is in jail for child abuse). But through it all, the church told her she had to stay and it was a sin to leave. This breaks my heart.

And so in the podcast I share my heart for the body of Christ. It’s real. It’s healing. But not every church is actually the body of Christ. Here are ten signs you may be in a legalistic church:

Reader Question: How Can I Turn My Marriage Around?

I want to end with this one, because it summarizes where a lot of couples find themselves. A woman writes:

My husband and I have been married for a decade and have several young children. To be blunt, I believe we have fallen out of love. I have told myself for a while that if we just survive these years with the kids, we will be OK. 1. I realized lately that my marriage shouldn’t be surviving kids but thriving. 2. I’m not sure how much of marriage will be left to salvage. To make it all worse, I don’t believe we are attracted to each other anymore. I can only speaking for myself in saying that is the case. Intimacy has become a once a week check mark off my list. We need help and I don’t know where to even start.

I think a lot of people are there–wondering how the marriage got so distant.

To be blunt, I’ll sum up with this: If your marriage isn’t going well, it’s not going to suddenly turn around unless you start doing things differently.

If what you’re doing isn’t working, then you’ve got to find a new way of doing things.

It’s the new year, and that’s a great time to start new habits and get into new routines! And there’s an awesome resource available right now that can help you do just that. The Ultimate Productivity Bundle is filled with ebooks, ecourses, membership sites, and printables to help you build routines, get organized, manage your time, set realistic goals, map your life, overcome obstacles, review and reflect, and shift your mindset to build the life you know God wants for you–a life where you ARE thriving and not just surviving, because you’re emphasizing your priorities.

I love these bundles and am eager to start working through this one this weekend, especially the section on mapping your life. The bundle is filled with $2800 in resources, but it’s for sale for just $47–but only until next Wednesday. Get it today for the early bird deal, and you’ll also receive the #goalcrushers mastermind course–for free.

Check it out now!

Often when we get the rest of our life more manageable, it’s so much easier to work on our marriage.

And what about your marriage? Build your friendship first.

79 Hobbies to Do as a Couple (pick one for 2020!)
50 Conversation Starters

But my best advice is to take an emotional needs inventory together. I’ve got free printables to help you with that!

That’s it for the podcast today!

Let me ask you the question that Nathan answered: Have you learned anything surprising from the blog? Let’s talk in the comments!

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Published on January 02, 2020 05:00

Emmanuel–God with Us. Merry Christmas!

The presents need wrapping (and one needs buying).

A few gifts still need to be finished off. The bedrooms that will soon be filled by my kids who are returning home need some tidying.

And I’m very excited!

I’ll be signing off for a week now to take a Christmas break with my kids. When we come back on December 30, I’ve got a bunch of important posts that we’ll be launching right into, and the beginning of 2020 will be big. But before all of that happens, I need a break and to just enjoy my kids, and have some time to reflect on Emmanuel, God with us.

One of our Christmas traditions as a family was that we would often read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever out loud on Christmas Eve. We haven’t done that in a few years, and so my son-in-law David has never heard it. I think we’re going to revisit that tradition this year. (If you’ve never read it, it’s worth it. It’s wonderful. And kids love listening to it, too! It’s an amazing read aloud for all ages. But be careful, because the person reading it will likely be laughing so hard it’s difficult to get through it in places.)

Best of all, my grandson will be joining us this Christmas! When I reflect back on 2019, it’s been a very, very busy year. And so much of it was taken up by Rebecca’s pregnancy and then the birth of our little (now quite chubby) baby boy.

My mom and Keith and I have all also been sick for a few weeks, so we never did manage to get our Christmas decorations up. They’ve all been sitting in the living room for a few weeks waiting until we had energy. But we’re better now (before the baby arrives, thankfully!), and I’ve got to get that done later today.

Tomorrow is also my 28th anniversary.

I’m so glad I’ve got the amazing husband that I do, and we’re going to make a lovely dinner together and just stay home. (I’ve been disappointed in some restaurant meals I’ve had recently, and I decided I’d rather buy something super expensive to make myself, because that’s still cheaper than a restaurant and at least I know it will be good! Plus I like to cook!).

So I’ve got family and marriage and Christmas and lots of things to celebrate, and I hope that you do, too.

What I’d like for Christmas

Before I sign off, though, can I do a shameless plug? If you’ve enjoyed the blog this year, and if you like what I’ve been writing, AND if you’re a woman who is married, then I really need a favour.

We are working on what I hope will be the largest and most comprehensive study of Christian women’s sexual and marital satisfaction. We really need as many people to take the survey as possible, in order to make our results unassailable. We’re currently 63 responses short of my first stretch goal of 20,000 (although I have a new stretch goal that’s higher than that!). The survey closes on December 31, to give us time to analyze the results and write our book, The Great Sex Rescue, by its due date.

So many marriage books are based on what people THINK should work. I want to base this on data. So we need data!

If you have not taken the survey yet, please take it! It would make my day to hit 20,000 today.

Take the Survey!

And if you HAVE taken the survey, please send this link to 3 of your friends and ask them to take it, too? Please spread the word, because we’d love to get even more people taking it!

Share this link:

https://www.research.net/r/tolovehonorandvacuum

Merry Christmas, everyone!

May the season be peaceful. May you be able to take time to reflect on “Emmanuel, God with us.” That Jesus came to live among us, to show us what God is like, to live a perfect life and be our model. And then He gave up that life so that He could make a way for full reconciliation with God. Jesus is with us now. We are not alone.

Emmanuel! Merry Christmas.

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Published on December 20, 2019 05:11

Start Your Engines Podcast: Why Great Sex Needs Us to Be Giving

What if great sex means that guys kind of have to be, well, super generous?

Keith joined me for another podcast today aimed mostly (but not entirely) at the men! Every month, on the last week of the month, I like to do a “Start Your Engines” podcast for guys. And since I’m not recording next week with Christmas, we thought we’d record it this week. And that’s what we were looking at–the dynamics of making sex great.

Have listen!

Listen to the Podcast Here

Browse all the Different Podcasts

See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast

Main Segment: Great sex is really just math.

As Keith shared, on average, men take 6 minutes to reach climax through intercourse. Women take more than 20.

So that means that if you’re both going to have great sex, he’s going to have to be doing a lot of foreplay to get her aroused beforehand. And that’s exactly how God designed it.

Too often we think that women need to “catch up” to men, and figure out how to enjoy it like men do. But really, the way that God made our bodies, with the clitoris OUTSIDE the vagina, means that God intended foreplay to be a big part of the encounter. He intended that she would be the focus of attention. So Keith and I talked about that for a while, and I mentioned these posts:

Read the Do Not Deprive Series:

Do Not Deprive: Are Women the Ones More Likely to Be Deprived?

Godly Sex is Mutual Sex!

Why We Need a New Definition of Sex

The Theology of the Clitoris

Reader Question: But what if my wife doesn’t WANT that attention?

That’s the rub, isn’t it? Sometimes the reason sex isn’t great in marriage is because the guy isn’t being as generous as he should. But I know that it’s likely that just as often women themselves don’t want that attention, because they’re uncomfortable with sex. We answered this question from a man who listened to the last Start Your Engines podcast:

I love your work on helping couples achieve a fulfilling sex life. I am right now listening to your Oct 31 podcast on the above subject. Your suggestion is good on framing a guy’s initiation around I want US to have a great sex life, and I want you to experience everything God has in store for us as a couple. The problem comes when she replies something to the effect of, “But I DO enjoy our sex together”, and she doesn’t really see that there CAN be more.

From my perspective, we have had a tremendously boring sex life for many many years. She is just happy with “the basics”. ..kissing, caressing, me get on top, and we go for the finish line. There’s no sense of naughty teasing and pleasing and exploring together. I introduce new things to arouse her, and she enjoys them, but she somehow doesn’t connect that SHE can do those things too, to spice things up. Bottom line, she is a “vanilla” type of woman, sexually. She has said in the past that, for instance, she doesn’t like doing oral sex because it is sinful and dirty.

Your podcast assumes that women are open to exploring new avenues together, if it is approached in the right way. That can sometimes just not be the case. Any ideas?

We tackled this one, and explained why so many women grow up feeling as if sex is yucky or else something that they can’t really surrender to (and why God made us to surrender).

I’d also suggest trying either 31 Days to Great Sex (which helps you target some of people’s hesitations about sex and helps her be the center of attention) and my Sexy Dares.

Are you ready to spice things up?

Check out my 31 Day challenge that you do with your spouse. Super easy--just read a few pages a night and do what it says. Learn to talk more, flirt more, be more affectionate, spice things up, deal with baggage, and so much more!

No blaming. Just solutions--and a whole lot of fun!

Let's try it!

Reader Question: My Spouse is Jealous of Past Relationships

Finally, we answered this question from a woman (although I hear similar problems from men, too):

I am wondering if you can write a post on getting over your spouse’ sexual past. My hubby is amazing but the last year he has been battling retroactive jealousy ocd . It has really taken a toll on our 20-year marriage. Something triggered it, my looking up old boyfriends on Facebook. Not to converse with them, but just to see what their life was like now. Now, he is having a really hard time getting over my past and just dwells on things that aren’t even accurate about my past. We are both Christians. I don’t know how to help him. It’s like he needs validation from me constantly, and is so up and down leaving me not knowing if he is okay or not.

Great question. Listen in to our answer, and chime in in the comments, too!

And, of course, I gave away some prizes, too, for two new people who signed up to the email list since the last podcast. You can sign up, too!

So what do you think? Why did God make us with that 6 minute vs. 20 minute difference? And why is it that some women don’t want to be the focus of attention? Let’s talk!

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Published on December 19, 2019 04:59

22 Sexy Stocking Stuffers for Your Husband

Maybe all he wants for Christmas…is YOU!

Get him some sexy stocking stuffers you know he’ll love (and that don’t have to cost very much, either!).

After all, it’s the thought that counts–especially if your thoughts go in a certain direction.

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Published on December 18, 2019 04:16

20 Awesome Family Board Games To Play Together

Every December 26, our family has a Christmas tradition: we play family board games.

Usually I buy us a special game each year–a newer game that maybe many people have never heard of, but we try it out and play it and have a great time!

One of the most popular posts on this blog is my post on two-player board games. I wrote it originally a few years ago, and then I kept replacing some games with other great ones that people recommended, so it’s been constantly updated. Some are old staples, but some are newer games that are really fun!

Today I thought I’d chime in with 20 of our board games to play as a family.

This post contains affiliate links that help offset the costs of this blog.

When I was younger, we only had a few basic board games that everybody played: Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Clue, Risk, Scrabble, Boggle. Remember all those? With Life & Sorry, the big drawback that I always found is that it wasn’t really about strategy; it was just about the die rolls. Then Monopoly can be a dangerous game, because it tends to be quite vicious and cut-throat. I know many people who got turned off of board games because of how brutal Monopoly games were! And Risk just takes FOREVER, and can get vicious, too.

Nevertheless, when our kids were younger, we were determined to find games that we could play, the second they were old enough, because it gave us something to do as a family. And right around the time the girls got old enough to play, there was an explosion of new board games. We’ve kept up with quite a few of them, adding to our collection constantly (and Keith and I even do date nights at a local board game cafe!).

So I’d like to share here some family board games you can play with younger kids, and then branch out into board games that you can play once they get older.

Great Family Board Games for Families with Younger Children

1. Bohnanza

This inexpensive game was our family’s staple for years! Basically each player is growing their own beans. Yes, beans. (Bohn is German for “bean”.) There are a whole variety of beans in the game–blue beans and green beans are really common, but cocoa beans are worth a lot (the game makers are very smart). And the stink beans make everyone laugh!

You can only plant one type of bean in each field, and you start with two fields, which you can expand over time. And you have to plant the beans that are in your hand in order. So if you have a bean that you can’t plant, you have to trade it for something you do want. It’s the trading that’s the fun part, and kids have to be old enough to understand that a cocoa bean for a green bean is a really bad trade, no matter how much their sister tries to con them into it. But it’s really easy to learn and kids love the pictures!

See it on Amazon!

2. Blokus

I always liked this game because it taught such great spatial skills! Basically, each person gets their own colour (you can only play with 4 players, or you can play with two and each get to do the other colour). And each of your pieces has a different shape. You have to play all of your pieces to win (or the game is over when no one else can place a piece). But your pieces can only be placed corner to corner–no two sides can ever be against each other. So it takes some thinking! But even young children can conceptualize it.

See it on Amazon!

3. Guillotine

Okay, this card game sounds really gruesome–but it’s seriously fun! When our kids were little, all of their friends coming over for play dates always wanted to play Guillotine.

Basically, you’re a French executioner and you have to cut off people’s heads (they get cut off just by being at the front of the line when it’s your turn). And each person is worth a different number of points. The king is worth a ton. But the martyr is worth NEGATIVE points if you kill him! You have action cards in your hands which can shuffle the deck or move people around so that they come up for execution when it’s your turn.

It’s really, really easy to learn, and even younger children can get the hang of it. And it’s not as gruesome as it sounds (plus you can teach a lot of history!)

See it on Amazon!

4. Set

Here’s a card game where it’s all about matching–or not matching.

The cards have different colours, different shapes, different fills, and different numbers. A “set” is something with three cards where each element is either ALL the same, or ALL different. So you could have a set where they’re all purple, they’re all ovals, and they’re all fully shaded–but the numbers are all different. Or you could have a set where one is orange, one is purple, and one is green, and three different shapes, and three different fills, and three different numbers.

The neat thing about this game is that there’s NO advantage to being older. So kids can win as often as adults do (and our kids often beat us!) And it’s great at teaching patterning.

See it on Amazon!

5. Apples to Apples

A must-have as soon as kids can read!

Everybody gets a bunch of nouns in their hands–from your teacher to a banana to John F. Kennedy Jr. Then an adjective is turned up, and everyone has to decide what in their hand best fits! One person judges, and hilarity ensues.

There’s a junior version for kids who aren’t as adept at reading as well!

See it on Amazon!

6. Arboretum

One of Joanna’s favourites (Joanna works with me on the blog!). She says:

“Arboretum is a game about building a beautiful park composed of different tree varieties in numbered cards in front of you. But there’s a catch: everyone else is building one too. Each player creates a path of trees moving from the lowest value tree of that type to the highest. Your path can have a mixture of tree species, but you’ll get bonus points if you go all maple all the time (or jacaranda, or whatever.) The catch is that tree species can only be scored by one person and the determination of scoring isn’t the cards you’ve played… it’s the cards in your hand! This is a really fun puzzle that’s quintessentially easy to learn but hard to master. It’s fast and the art is beautiful and somehow my sister-in-law always beats me.”

See it on Amazon!

Strategy Family Board Games for Age 8 and up

7. Carcassone

Honestly, this is one of my favourite’s (and Katie and David’s favourites, too!). Plus it’s likely one of the easiest to master when you’re young.

This is a cool game where you build the city and you add tiles every turn, while placing your people to “claim” points. You get points for farming, or for a road, or for cities. It isn’t hard to learn and it doesn’t take very long, and every game is different because you build it! Plus there are a myriad of super fun expansions that add more variety to the game. (In fact, if you’re an expansion person, I highly recommend the Big Box version that comes with multiple expansions. This is the one Katie & David have and we love playing it!).

I think Carcassone is an easier one for younger children to master–but there’s also a junior version.

See it on Amazon!

8. Photosynthesis

This is one of our new ones for 2019!

Can be played with 2-4 players. Basically, you build a forest. But there’s only one problem: your trees need sunlight to grow. And the sun moves around the board–and bigger trees end up shading the smaller ones. It’s a great game because it teaches kids what forests are actually like. The trees end up seeding and intermingling with each other; there’s a constant race to the top; and forests do better when the bigger trees die and rejuvenate.

It doesn’t take that long, either. I think younger children can learn this one pretty easily. Plus it’s just really, really pretty.

See it on Amazon!

9. Planet

Done by the same people who did Photosynthesis–and we love Photosynthesis!

I have to admit I haven’t played this one, but it looks so interesting and it has such great reviews that I had to mention it. Here’s how it’s described:

“In this very unique game, each player’s board is a 12-sided 3-dimensional planet core. Throughout 12 turns, select landscape tiles representing oceans, deserts, mountains or frozen lands, and arrange them on your planet to create the best ecosystems. Win Animal Cards while fulfilling your own ‘’Natural Habitat’’ objective and create the most populated planet in the universe!”

See it on Amazon!

Strategy Family Board Games for Ages 10 and Up

I’m using the age of 10 here a little arbitrarily–so much depends upon your kids and how mature they are and how they’re able to understand rules.

Here are some of the awesome new (or new-ish) board games that we’ve been enjoying over the last few years (and for several of them, I’ve left the link in for the junior version of the game, too, if you have kids around ages 7-9).

10. Ticket to Ride

Every time we have people over for dinner we play Ticket to Ride. It’s fairly easy to explain, and lots of fun to play! You start the game with three “routes”–routes that you have to build joining two cities. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your routes overlap. (Like Toronto-Miami and Chicago-Miami). Sometimes, if you’re unlucky, they don’t. (Toronto-Miami and Seattle-Las Vegas). But you build your routes with your trains, and sometimes you even block other people in!

(Although it’s different each time you play because you have different routes, the strategy doesn’t really change, so I’m putting it in this category). And I think this is one that children on the younger end can master!

And check out the junior version for even younger children as well.

See it on Amazon!

11. Catan

A family board game staple! You build your initial settlements on resources–grain, iron, brick, sheep, or wood–and then each resource space has a number associated with it. Every time someone rolls that number on dice, you collect the resources for that square. And with those resources you build things–roads, settlements, cities. And that gets you points. But you can also block people in (that’s mean!) or try to get a monopoly on a resource. It’s really fun! And if you have more than four people, there’s also an expansion set for 5 or 6 players (we’ve used that; it works well).

This game will be to the next generation what Risk was to us.

We love the Seafarer’s Expansion–makes it so much more interesting!

And Catan has a junior version, too, so that younger children can master it.

See it on Amazon!

12. Pandemic

Here’s a different kind of game because you’re not in competition with each other–you actually cooperate! Four diseases have broken out in the world, and your team of specialists has to cure them before they infect the populace too much. So you have to work to your strengths as characters.

We’ve really enjoyed this one over the last few years, and each of my girls has bought it as well.

See it on Amazon!

13. Quacks of Quidlenburg

Another of Joanna’s family’s favourites!

What if you and your family were a bunch of medieval quack doctors trying to brew the best potion during a 9 day potion-brewing tournament? Then you’d be playing Quacks of Quedlinberg. We love this game since it’s silly and has a lot of variability – making it fun to teach since you never *quite* know how to put the ingredients together into your bag to make the perfect cauldron concoction. It’s also great to play with kids or those who aren’t familiar with board games. Pull too many cherry bombs out of your bag and you’ll explode your brew, causing catastrophe. But never fear, the next day’s tournament is always approaching, with new horizons and opportunities.

(As a note – this game has a nice event deck included that has a fortune teller on it as art. This doesn’t have anything to do with the cards and psychics aren’t a feature of the game, but I wanted to let you all know just in case. If you’re uncomfortable with it, you can always play without the random event at the start of each round.)

See it on Amazon!

14. Commissioned

Can you work together to spread the gospel–and write the New Testament? In this Bible based game, you all play different apostles, with different gifts and strengths. And you need everybody’s gifts to get the gospel around the known world, and get the New Testament written, despite trials and persecutions.

We played this a ton last spring, and won about 50/50. What really surprised me was how accurate it was–you really do need the apostles’ gifts to actually get everything done.

I wrote a longer review of Commissioned in this family board games post.

See it on Amazon!

15. History of the World

This is an epic game. Last summer, this game was what our family played, over and over again. It’s a longer one, but it’s really fun and you learn a lot of history. Each era, 7 empires are available for play (but the game can only be played by a maximum of 6 players, so each turn at least one empire is buried). You each choose an empire, and play that out. What happens when the Romans arrive? They take over everything! But within one empire they’re almost eradicated. And what do the Mongols do? Sweep through Asia. You’ll find that the empires tend to expand exactly how historically they did, which is really interesting.

We were playing the older version, and they’ve created a new streamlined version now with easier battles, so it likely doesn’t take as long!

See it on Amazon!

Strategy Family Board Games for Age 10 and up

Okay, 10 is a bit of an arbitrary age. Some kids may have the concentration and staying power to play when they’re younger, and some may need to be older. But these are all ones that we’ve enjoyed either recently or since the girls were teens. These are staples of our family board game nights!

(and often games have junior versions for younger kids, and I’ve linked to them as well).

16. Dominion

We LOVE Dominion. Each Dominion game comes with 24 or 25 different cards which all do different things, but you actually only play with 10. So each game you can switch it up and something new will happen and the strategy will change! It’s super fast to learn and super fun. This was our family game back in 2012, and it’s become a staple. The next year I added an expansion to it–Dominion Intrigue, which adds more cards that you can potentially play, with a bunch of other suggested strategies.

We’ve played it with our own kids, but also with friends away at a cabin, and with people just over for dinner!

Just look at how many expansions Joanna’s family has! Now, the original game is great on its own. But if you’re like us, you may want some expansions because it changes the game and it’s always new!

See it on Amazon!

17. Seven Wonders

For some reason, this is one of the few games that I ever actually win. I’m not sure why–but I think it’s because your strategy has to constantly change depending upon what resources you get. You choose a different era of the ancient world, and then you have tasks that you have to complete. Each era has 7 turns, and you get to choose cards and try to amass the most wealth, while also trading with those around you. I really enjoy this one, and it’s not that hard to explain. It takes about half an hour for each era.

There’s also a wonderful 2-person version of this one that Keith and I played twice this weekend (and I won both times!).

See it on Amazon!

18. Tiny Towns

This is a new one that Keith and I recently discovered at our board game cafe (and which is one of the hottest sellers this year!). It’s a spatial game, where you have to build different buildings on your grid, but each time you build a building, you use up space that could be used for more buildings. So you have to plan ahead.

But what makes this one awesome is that every game is a different combination of things that need to be built, so no one can “coast”. You have to adopt a new strategy each time!

It’s great for spatial skills, too, plus it’s really pretty.

See it on Amazon!

Great Family Board Games Teenagers Will Love

Want some games that are more geared towards making you laugh? Here are some more geared towards teenagers (although most teens will love the strategy ones, too!)

19. Exploding Kittens

This card game exploded onto the scene last year with all of its exploding kittens and laser beams and sometimes goats. It’s just plain funny–and the cards and action cards are funny, too (if you like that kind of humour). You draw cards and play until someone explodes, so the goal is to get points before the other person happens to explode. We gave this one to our kids who live out of town last year, and they really like it, too!

See it on Amazon!

20. Gloom

If exploding kittens and guillotine weren’t gruesome enough for you, here’s the Gloom game! Each person has their own unfortunate family. Your goal is to kill off every member of your family in as gruesome a way as possible, and to have bad things happen to them. They may be “mocked by midgets” or “pursued by poodles”. And you can play happy things on your opponents (which will aggrieve them to no end). And it makes the game even more fun if, when you play the card, you make up a story to explain what happened.

When we were first getting to know our now son-in-law, Connor, we played this game. He was remarkably good at coming up with sad, unfortunate stories and circumstances. Not sure what that said to us.

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Published on December 17, 2019 04:30