A few weeks back when I was blog reading about “changing my path in life” – well let’s be honest more like reading about depression and self-worth… I started thinking more about the HOW part.

• HOW did I lose 30lbs doing the Body for Life program 12 years ago?
• HOW did I go to the gym EVERY day?
• HOW did I develop RTech into a sustainable business that would PAY ME?

I’ve been drowning in the “final product” and ALL THE WORK I know it took to get to those points.

With weight loss… I was going to the gym almost two years pushing myself 5-6 times a week – some days going twice and some days taking my kids to a sitter just to go to the gym.

With RTech… I was working all crazy hours of the night trying to build my business – WITH toddler TWINS no less. It took me 4 years of working RTech HARD to get to the point of paying myself a decent salary. 4 years of crazy hours. 4 years of working on vacations while my family went to do something without me. And after 4 years of building the business and creating a good infrastructure, I had enough of the 24/7/365 stress and sold the damn business.

Do I really want to do all that again? I’m still not sure and that’s the hang up.

I’ve had an idea for a new product running around in my head for about two months now. I think it could be successful. I can’t seem to push the pedal down to start moving forward with it, yet I can’t seem to pull the plug on it either as I think about it a lot.

But all I seem to be able to see is the amount of work I know it’ll take to get there. My ideas are running away with themselves and creating more and more work and the project hasn’t even started yet.

When I created RTech or even started losing weight, I was NAIVE. Very naive. And honestly… that HELPED… A LOT.

When you’re naive about something, it’s a hell of a lot easier to take that first step. You don’t know what you are really getting into. And by naive I don’t mean ignorant about the topic or not confident in your own abilities which is something entirely different.

I’m specifically talking about being naive of the work involved to get you from point A to point B to point E to point M… etc.

My naivety allowed my vision to develop over time – as my business grew and developed, my naivety went away. But by then my business was on the right track and had momentum behind it.

THIS TIME… I am fully aware of the work that it will take.

And that knowledge or lack of naivety has paralyzed me. 

My momentum has stopped.

So HOW did I do it before? And why can’t I do that now?

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve come to the decision that it was all about habit building. My schedule was different back then. I was more on a schedule – even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

When I was first starting out, I worked a lot during the day (even with the kids around), made dinner, crashed on the couch from 7pm-10pm, got up at 10pm and worked until 2am, went to bed and got up at 8am with the girls and got them breakfast. They watched TV at the end of my bed while I kinda of slept until 10am. Fed them lunch around noon and worked during the afternoon – sometimes taking the girls out if it was nice.

Once the girls went to preschool, my schedule became less crazy. I dropped the kids off at school then went right to the gym then came home and checked on business things. Picked them up. Worked in the afternoon. After 5pm unless there was a server crisis I turned the computer off. This was my first attempt at developing a “normal” schedule.

Over the past year or so, my life has turned into couch sitting and ipad game playing. It got really bad over this past summer. So bad that I seriously thought I was going through a depression. Maybe I was.

I think my ankle break played a big part into the downward spiral I was going through. But even though my HEAD was telling me it was just my ankle, I couldn’t get my BODY to get up and move or do anything productive to break the cycle.

Enough!

A few weeks ago when the kids went back to school, I decided I needed a big change. I had read somewhere (can’t remember which blog) about asking yourself what REALLY is important to you and making sure you form those habits.

Sounds simple, right?

My problem is I would give things like “I want to lose weight” verbal weight but I would not give it mental weight. 

I would tell myself it was a priority but would not treat it as a priority.

So what’s important to me? What’s REALLY important?

I made a mental list of what is really important to me at this time in my life and then planned a daily schedule around those things.

Priority 1 – My health. Being able to go into my closet and put something on and not feel like a bloated overweight fat cow. I am not obese but I’m also not thin. Being “thin” is NOT what I’m after either. It’s more about my mental state of FEELING good about my body. Feeling good about the way I look in the mirror. Feeling good about the way my clothes fit me.

Reality – If health REALLY ranks 1st on my list then I HAVE TO EXERCISE and EAT BETTER. No excuses.

Priority 2 – My house. I have a tendency to BINGE/PURGE with my house. I will let the house get so out of control – and I don’t mean just clutter. I mean CLEAN. It’s a horrible feeling to look around the house and get totally depressed about the state of things and all the work that is required to clean it. I am not a house cleaning nut by any stretch of the imagination nor are my kids. I am not the mom that is barking at them on Saturdays to spend the day cleaning house. I lived through that as a kid and I don’t want to do that to my kids. On the other hand, it’s too easy for me to say “I’m not your maid” and not do anything. I do believe in regular chores which my kids do every day. They just aren’t CLEANING chores.

Reality – While I’m not anyone’s maid, I also can’t stand toothpaste in the bathroom sink ALL THE TIME and no one else doing anything about it. If the house brings out a funk in me then I HAVE TO MAINTAIN IT EVERY DAY. No excuses.

Priority 3 – My mental state. If I keep up with #1 and #2, I think my mental state will certainly be better. But I also want to be able to “live in the moment” more too. I think practicing Yoga really helps that.

Reality – I need to go back to doing yoga and meditation EVERY DAY. No excuses.

Farther down on the priority list – for this moment in time – is developing a business to make some extra money. It’s there on the list but it absolutely isn’t at the top anymore.

Newly added to the list of things I want to do is writing. I want to get in the habit of writing every day. Even if no one is listening.

Where to start?

With both my previous weight loss and my business success, the same thing got me started. Small EVERY DAY momentum pushes.

Not balls to the wall, I’m so happy to start this and I’m so damn focused that I’m going mach 5 with my hair on fire only to burn out in 3 weeks when I don’t see immediate results or even worse see the scale move the wrong way.

When I was 30, I could go balls to the wall more. Sure I’d have cycles where I’d have to have some serious downtime. But I could handle big binge/purge swings. I can’t handle those anymore without getting sucked down the rabbit hole.

I just have to face that I’m older and living like that is not my reality anymore.

So… small EVERY DAY momentum pushes…

With the Body for Life program, it was go to the gym for ONLY 20 MINUTES and push yourself hard for those 20 minutes. When the time was up WALK OUT OF THE GYM. I really did follow the program that way when I first started. And 13 years later, I’ve learned that my weight loss back then was more about the HABIT building than it was about what I was doing at the gym. As my habit got stronger, my time and intensity picked up.

By then the habit of going to the gym was already formed (12+ weeks) so it could withstand the intensity change of my workouts. That’s the step I believe I’ve been missing. I’ve been trying to change the intensity levels before the habit is truly formed.

With RTech, I was doing a lot of free design for WAHMs in the beginning. A LOT. I wasn’t focused on making money. My attitude at the time was to help people as I learned more about web design and built my portfolio. In reality what I was creating was a tribe – although at the time it was not called that. Chris Brogan wasn’t Chris Brogan yet. But all those people I helped (or a good chunk of them) became RTech hosting clients 2 years later. Web hosting became my primary business as RTech evolved.

I need to get back to my roots. But I need some help this time. I came up with a daily schedule for myself. I’m not locking myself into this schedule BUT it is posted on my fridge and I see it every day. It helps a lot.

For house projects, I take the other 30 minutes of that house cleaning hour to do the following.

On Thursday’s is my grocery shopping day so on that day I don’t go to the gym. I’ve also been keeping to a better laundry schedule and am able to wash the kids bed clothes way more regularly now.

I’m not totally regimented but I try to make sure things are happening every day. I go to the gym or go out for a walk EVERY DAY. I straighten up the house EVERY DAY – only 30 minutes. House projects vary – cleaned refrigerator one day, cleaned the freezer the next, organize the bath closet, organize the pantry, etc. Things that for the most part will take under 30 minutes if I concentrate on my effort.

The one thing I haven’t been able to really pick up is momentum for “designing / working”. I’m hoping it’ll come soon or maybe I just need to find a different path.

Good Habits

I highly recommend the app Good Habits. I have been keeping daily track of my habit building. I like this app because I can go through and check off quickly if I’ve done the habit today. It also shows my streak vs total.

But what I really like about this habit app is the ability to select specific days for each habit. This is useful when you won’t do a habit on Sat/Sun or if you have something you do once a week. Then you keep an unbroken streak for your habit. Love that!  I don’t have gym checked for Thursdays since I use that time to go Grocery shopping.

The app also comes with a reminder setting but I haven’t used that. This app is more about helping my mental focus.

Wow did this post turn into craziness. And I don’t call myself a writer… sheesh…