When my kids went back to school in September I felt a wave of relief. I didn’t realize how heavy and hard the six months with them home had been.
With them being back, I felt like I finally had a chance to string more than 3 thoughts together without being interrupted and could finally begin to focus again on building my business. However, something felt a little broken inside of me. I felt sad, maybe even depressed, I lacked the confidence I once had and even lacked belief in myself. So, I decided that before I jumped back into my business I had to spend some time focusing on and rebuilding myself and my habits.
One thing I love about the business I’m in is that we stress the importance of personal development. We work on ourselves, building a solid mindset, a solid belief in self and understand there is an energy behind what we say and do. If our energy is off, we won’t be able to make the impact we intended to nor will we achieve the results. There were two things I decided to commit to first. My daily morning routine of journaling and Reading a personal development book for 30 minutes every day. I used to wonder how people had time to read. I would see others in my industry post on social media all of the books they’ve read so far in 2020 and I couldn’t figure out how they did it. Now I know, they MADE the time. It’s as simple as that. They scheduled the time into their day. What gets scheduled, gets done. For the first time in forever, I finished a book in 2 weeks. If I keep that pace, I can read 26 books in a year.
A week into doing these two things consistently I started to feel different. I was having more positive thoughts, a more positive outlook on myself and more belief in what I was doing.
I’m fortunate enough to have a group of friends and colleagues who find these habits important as well so we decided to meet online every morning, Monday to Friday at 6:15am for 15 minutes. We turn off our cameras, mute our microphones and do our morning routines. More importantly we show up for one another. This kind of accountability is so helpful. There could be mornings when I’m tired and want to hit snooze, but I don’t because I have some pretty awesome people I need to show up for.
After a few weeks into our 6:15am Club, this awesome group of women and I decided to take things a step further. (When you begin to create healthy habits you develop the ability and desire to levels up), We decided to do a Glow Up Challenge. With this challenge we commit that for 30 Days we will do these things:
Exercise a minimum of 5x per week.
Read a personal development book for 30 minutes a day.
Listen to a book/podcast for 30 minutes a day.
Stretch for 10 minutes a day.
Take a daily cold shower for 1 minute.
Practice Gratitude.
Do something that makes us feel good!
As of today, I’m 14 days into my challenge. I feel more confident about myself, I have more belief in myself than I’ve had all year, I am seeing how the universe/God (whatever it is you believe in) partners with me on my missions and I know with 100% certainty I wouldn’t be feeling this way if I wasn’t doing these daily habits.
You may ask who and how does this work? Let me simply say this, it works because instead of feeding my mind with negative news (Covid stats, politics, etc) I am feeding it information that serves me, I am learning new things daily, I am challenging my body, my mindset and my commitment to myself and by doing these things I am proving to myself what I am capable. I am seeing the results because of my habits:
I am thinking more positive thoughts
I feel more aligned with the universe
I see opportunities arising
I am more kind
I feel myself wanting to connect more with others
I am physically stronger in the gym
Waking up early is easier than ever
I am more flexible than I have been in years (that daily stretching works!)
I feel empowered and invigorated with my cold shower
I feel like a better human being
It’s so easy to feel lost, sad, depressed and even angry with all that is happening in our world these days. But if you’re reading this I want to encourage you (and even go as far as begging you) to take one action to help bring elevate your state, to work on your body or mind, to do something for you. It doesn’t have to be what I’ve done. Or it can be. You get to decided. If what I’ve done is too much, maybe do it to a lessor degree. Here are some suggestions of how to get yourself started.
Find a friend or friends, invite them to wake up 10 minutes earlier with you, create an online space to show up on (we create a room on Facebook), for those 10 minutes you decide what you will do. You can read, stretch, meditate, journal, listen to a podcast or even just sit with a cup of coffee and envision your day. Keep it simple. But do it. Over time, you and your routine WILL evolve, you will build yourself up to be ready for more.
I’m grateful that I made the decision in September to make some changes. I have been able to transform how I feel and think. Not every day is perfect and I don’t always feel like butterflies and roses but whatever comes my way I’m able to handle with more ease and recover from more quickly. And I know you can do the same. Together, let’s commit to finishing 2020 with a healthier mindset, healthier body, a stronger mind and an understanding that we get to choose how we think and feel. Small daily habits, done consistently over time will transform you and transform what has been an unprecedented year.
