Let’s discuss two scenarios,
#1: You are late all the time, You never know what day it is, you order in or rely on fast food more than you would like to admit, You constantly feel anxious, behind, and scrambled, you buy your coffee because you didn’t have time to make it, You don’t exercise because you don’t have time, You feel like your the only one constantly cleaning up after yourself and your family and the THOUGHT of adding a new exercise routine or nutrition plan is completely out of the question because there just isn’t ENOUGH TIME and you constantly feel tired and overstressed.
#2: Your family sets their clothes out the night before, school bags are packed for the morning lunches are made while clean up from supper is happening, You have scheduled the time to exercise, you meal plan for the week ahead to purchase the groceries you need, and you go through like happy.
Which option sounds better?? Routine can absolutely feel boring, so boring in fact I have actually been fired as a personal trainer because my client didn’t like having set appointments and wanted to live each day differently. Of all the OTHER clients I have helped hearing “once I got into routine things were so much easier”.
Somewhere between wanting to achieve our goals and wanting to live each day like our last we are in limbo. We struggle to find the balance of enjoyment and feeling like we live the same day each day. But the truth of the matter is your right we don’t know how many days we have left so we could have 1 or we could have 60 years, so let’s say you have 60 do you really want to go through the next 60 years feeling stressed and tired?? Do you really think that’s the best option for you, and better yet for your family?
Starting new habit can be difficult so I suggest starting small and even make yourself a checklist for example this week’s tasks: Set a reminder in your phone:
- Prepare coffee pot the night before
- Have kids and myself pick out our clothes while getting ready for bed
- Have your gym bag/back backs packed.
After a couple of weeks of successfully creating these routines set new ones
- Make lunches the night before
- Set time block to meal plan for the next week/or make your grocery list
- Check social media for 30 Minutes total
After a couple of weeks of successfully adding those to your plate you’re now creating a more organized feel to your day and your stress if going to drop. I find that having a routine also allows time and energy to be spent on things that “pop” up. Yesterday I had about 30 extra emails on top of an already busy day but by knowing how my day was laid out it was totally manageable and I got through without and major problems.
Creating routine allows you to walk through your days moving forward, you can feel more relaxed and less stressed, once you start feeling better now your sleeping better, once your sleeping better you have more energy, more energy makes you feel like you have more time, more time allows you to take care of YOU! While this all seems boring, I encourage you to choose “boring” for a while and see how much better you feel!