with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
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I declared this the year of good health . I acknowledged that taking care of myself was better not only for my personal health and happiness, but for my business. I decided to start with small changes, like getting up and doing yoga every morning.
I made it five days in a row.
I don’t even know what happened. I have continued to go to bed at a decent time and get up early, but instead of doing a bit of stretching, I opened my computer and went to work right away one morning. By the time I realized what I’d done, I was pretty solidly into the flow and couldn’t tear myself away for 30 minutes of deep breathing and stretching. Before I knew it, a week and had gone by and I hadn’t so much as touched my toes.
I have all the data. I know why I need to exercise. I made a plan. The only thing standing in my way is me.
Me and my lack of self discipline, it seems.
It’s so frustrating to not be able to stick to the commitments I make to myself, especially because I pride myself on being able to meet my obligations professionally. I never miss a deadline. I may push it to the last minute, but I always do what I’ve told others I’d do. It ticks me off to know I’m not showing myself the same respect.
I know I’m worthy; I’ve read all the mantras and even written articles for clients about how exercise and self care is a reflection of self love. And still I struggle with making the tiny daily sacrifice in order to have the long term results of better health and more energy.
I’m getting stuck somewhere and I can’t figure out where. I need a pill that improves self discipline; I suppose that would defeat the point.
Zen Habits would recommend one small change at time. You’re getting up earlier, so that’s a good change. For me, that’s the challenge - just getting my butt out of bed early enough to get a workout in. The way I look at it you’ve gotten over the first hurdle. Now you just have to force yourself to do something else (anything else, really) for an hour before you’re allowed to touch the computer. Once that’s a habit, get that yoga in.
In the meantime, take walks with the kids or alone after dinner or when you’re bored, etc.
Megan | January 18th, 2012 at 11:55 am
Hello, read your blog post and am wondering why you are being so hard on yourself? In your post you indicate you meet all your business obligations and deadlines. That sounds like discipline to me. You get the job done.
Maybe the goal isn’t making your heart sing in the format you have designed to date?
If you want health for you and your business what does that really look like?
That will give you the details for an outcome that will make your heart sing and be heatlhy all year long!
In Health, Wendy
Wendy | January 20th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
I suffer from the same malady. I’m pretty darn self-disciplined about some things, but just about anything that has to do with self-care gets pushed out of the way. Do we feel we don’t deserve it? If so, where is that coming from? It seems there are thousands upon thousands of books about this issue, so we know we’re not alone, but that doesn’t really help assuage the guilt, does it?
MrsJennyK | January 24th, 2012 at 4:55 pm