Personal Development, Exercise, Eating Healthy, How to Fit It All in???

A day in the life of me… let’s see if I can remember everything.

Monday: 

4:45 get up and get workout clothes on.

5:00 workout

5:30 make Shakeology

5:45-6 work on coaching

6:00 shower, get ready for the day

6:40 wake kids, get them ready, get my daughter her chocolate milk (it's routine and required)

7:35 out the door, get kids in the car! 

8:00 get youngest to her school

8:15 next child to his school

8:35 last child to her school.

Then a few minutes of breathing, to catch up on housework, coaching and calls.

10:20 out the door to pick up youngest

11:30 dropping her off at therapy.

A couple hours of breathing time...zen.

2:00 picking her up. 

2:20 picking up son.

Run home!

3:40 picking up oldest daughter

4:15 Martial Arts

7:00 home, dinner yum!

8:00 kids in bed reading, me in bed, feet up, tired.

So yeah, this is my typical Monday. Most of my other days are similar, with other stuff thrown in such as clubs or Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, ABA Therapy for the kids, or even my own doctor appointments for my vocal chords or physical therapy for my hips. Oh yeah, and my husband is deployed. It’s not easy, it’s very time consuming. Here’s what I’m telling you though, even with all that stuff going on, even when some days I’m so exhausted that I’m dragging, I make time for three things, exercise, eating right, and personal development. 

Exercise and eating right give me the physical strength to do all that stuff. They keep my mind clear, and give clarity when all seems overwhelming. They give me focus, drive, and all that jazz. 

And I fit personal development in there too. Personal development is going to help me attain the dreams I had as a child. Have you attained those dreams? I'm sure it's like me, those dreams have been pushed aside, due to kids or a need to provide for yourself, a spouse, a relative or something else. My dreams have also developed and changed over the years. My dream as a child was to help people with disabilities. This dream has evolved so I just want to help people, no matter what may be standing in their way. To do this, I have to become educated, not only with college, but also a true in depth study of areas to help others and to help myself get to that goal. To get personal development accomplished, I have to be healthy, so I can focus on it. 

Have you ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? So this is a pyramid that is split into sections. If you cannot satisfy one part of the chart, then you cannot move up. So for example, my life is super busy, if I don't eat well, then I probably won't have the mental focus to drive safe, and thus safety for myself and anyone in my car has been compromised. If I eat, but I eat all junk food, I might not sleep well, or I'll feel sick, or I won't have motivation to get things done, I might make it past safety on the Maslow chart, but will my children feel love from me if I forget them at school? Or will I make to a high self esteem, when I'm feeling fat or bloated because of that junk food? If I cannot satisfy the bottom needs of that chart, I probably won't have good self-esteem, making personal development hard to concentrate on, so reaching self-actualization next to impossible. 

This all stresses one important part, YOU!! YOU are important. YOU are worth putting time and effort into. YOU are a beautiful human being with a purpose! If you don't put effort into becoming a beautiful YOU, then consequences occur: depression, pounds, mistrust from loved ones, disappointment, feeling like you are just going in circles, exhaustion, low self-esteem, becoming sick...the list goes on and on! 

Practically, how is this done? You saw my day, everything is scheduled out. How is it possible to take care of yourself through a busy schedule? So I'm going to give some tips that are practical and attainable. If you know some great ideas, please say so in the comments! I am always open to new ideas!!

• Audiobooks. With my schedule, I have a hard time doing what I love, reading, but I'm always on the road. So I hook up my phone to my stereo, and play audiobooks through it. I also use Overdrive that I can download books from my library for free.
• Podcasts. This is also free for iPhones. Podcasts are great for me, because I can also listen to them in the car, or on earphones while cleaning or laundry. There are some great motivational speakers, ones about organization and getting stuff done. Some I like are: Get-It-Done Guy, Magic Lessons (all about finding your creativity), Nutrition Diva, The Chalene Show (my all time favorite). I've also heard that Joyce Meyer is excellent, but I haven't tried it. This is also a great way to learn something new, for example, when I was trying to learn how to blog, I did a search on it and came up with some goodies.
• For finding time to exercise, the first thing to do is to schedule it. You are just as important as your child's basketball practice. Make time for yourself.
• Try to rise early. Yeah, yeah, the early bird gets the worm. I hate that saying and sometimes I want to be Fiona from Shrek. The problem is, it's is true. I get up early, and when I do, I get more stuff done, including exercise. I now wake at 5 to exercise, then I have my shake and read some before getting up the kids. By the way, I did it as a process. Started getting up 30 mins early, then another 30, and another 30 until I could do 5.
• Set two alarms. I set my first alarm to go off at 4:45. Then I lay in bed, and tell myself I can do this, maybe read through Facebook, then when my alarm goes off 5-10 mins later, I'm more awake and ready to face the day.
• Know where your exercise clothes are! I keep my on a hook by my door, and have a place designated to them in my drawer.
• If you have to dress your children, designate a special place for their school clothes. Sometimes I'm even put together enough that I lay it out the night before.
• Schedule out your house chores. So on certain days, I designate time for cleaning things. Such as bathrooms. I give myself 30 mins to clean two bathrooms, every Tuesday. On Saturday mornings, is straightening and vacuuming. On Sunday, I give myself 2 hours to work on a deep clean area, like a counter I had called the Mount Doom because it was covered in papers I needed to file. I scheduled the time, and dug out the mountain.
• Chore charts! If you have children, they can do chores!!! My children have phased out the chart, but when I need to, I bring it back. I used a big marker board and graphed out lines to separate out the chores. Then they could check it off that day.
• Food. So I'm still a work in progress on this, but I recommend a menu. Schedule out a week or two of dinners, then add snacks, lunch and breakfast. You should eat at least 5 meals a day (some of the meals are healthy, yummy snacks). This keeps your metabolism working better.
• Also on food, grocery shop for that menu. Helps the budget immensely. And if you don't buy those snacks (chips, ice cream, candy, crackers...) then they won't be in your house and you will be less tempted.
• If you are on the 21 Day Fix, get this app called, "21 Day Fitness Tracker." It is an iPhone app, but I think there are similar ones for other types only phones. It allows be to keep track of what I've eaten that day.
• Planners. I use Cozi. It works to sync up with my kids tablets, phones for me and my mother-in-law (she lives with me! She's awesome), and it is really easy to use. I also keep a calendar on the wall and write important dates. I put into Cozi everything we have going on, from taking kids to school, to hair appointments.
• To do lists. There are two of these. One is a list of everything I can think of that needs to get done. From Mount Doom to finding a lost shoe for my daughter. The other list only consists of three things, the three most important things I need to get done that day, or it's gonna be really, really bad. (By the way, I learned that from The Chalene Show Podcast).

For now, I'm gonna end with that. It's a lot to take in, and I'd love to know if you are going to implement any of these ideas to make your life easier. One last note, make time to spend with your kids, loved ones, or anyone else. Plan a game night, or a movie night. Life is way too short to become so involved with scheduled life, that you forget what's important. Those who walk the scheduled life with you.