Tag Archives: challenge

Strength and Savings (or Picking A New Monthly Challenge I Know I Need To Do)

Posted on April 4, 2023 | Comments Off on Strength and Savings (or Picking A New Monthly Challenge I Know I Need To Do)

Happy April! I feel like March both flew by and took a long time and it also felt like more than one month with many things happening in my life. It wasn’t the craziest month of my life but the craziest month I feel like I’ve had in a long time.  While it wasn’t all good things, it was nice that a lot of them were positive and reminded me more of what my life used to be like. And I’m proud of myself for not letting a bit of craziness get in the way of my monthly challenge.

I think I really needed the challenge I set for last month, which was to try to make some improvements in my workouts. I know that I have been wanting to do that for a while, but it’s not the easiest thing to do. But wanting to do it and needing to do it finally came together in March and I really think I found a way to try to get this done. I didn’t make all the improvements that I had hoped to, but I found ways to test myself and to try to see what I could do. I didn’t focus as much on improving on the bike, but I think I was able to get more comfortable with my new resistance levels. On the rower, I focused on things other than how fast I could row and I know I saw a lot of improvements doing that, including having faster rowing times. I think I’m going to continue focusing on things that aren’t how long it will take me to row a distance and I should hopefully continue to see results that include faster rows. And on the floor, I didn’t really get to use heavier weights like I wanted to, but I tried. I know that as I continue to try, eventually I’ll be ready for those heavier weights. But it will take me a bit longer than a month to get that accomplished.

Considering that I had a month, I feel pretty good about what I was able to accomplish but even more proud that I have decided to continue with some of the plans I created in March to see more progress moving forward. I know that I might not see the results in the next month or two and it could take longer, but at least I know I’ll be working toward them.

And for my April challenge, I’ve thought of something that combines a few different things that I know I’ve been trying to work on. My challenge this month is to significantly reduce my food waste. When I go to the grocery store, I always have the best intentions with the things I buy. But far too often, I don’t use up what I get or they expire before I use them. I hate when I’m cleaning my fridge and discover things I forgot about or that have spoiled. And it’s frustrating to have to throw out things because I hate wasting money as well as food.

Reducing my food waste will require me to be much more aware when I go grocery shopping. I also think I might need to get back to how I was shopping before the pandemic when I usually went to the store to get things only for the next few days instead of trying to get everything for the week at one time. I might buy something on Sunday thinking I want it but by Friday I really don’t want to have to make it. So if I’m shopping more often, then I can focus on what I want for that day or the next and not what I might want a week away.

I also will need to make sure that I’m eating at home or from things I made more. I’ve been getting much better about this and don’t order in that often anymore, but I also know I can be better. This might mean I need more easy meals as options, so when I went to the store most recently I made sure that I got more frozen meals as options so I could make a quick dinner if I don’t feel like cooking. I also want to get back into using my food saver to freeze things so I can make things on my own and have them as frozen meals, but that’s not something I want to do in bulk and just do it as I have things to save.

There are some things I’m allowing myself to not feel too guilty about with this challenge. There are some things I buy that I just can’t use up fast enough before it expires. For example, I don’t use mayonnaise that often, but I do use it sometimes. So I bought the smallest container of it months ago and I’m only about halfway through the container and it expired last week. I also won’t be forcing myself to eat everything on my plate if I make something and realize I don’t have the ability to finish it. That will mainly be something to worry about if I’m making a frozen meal since something I cook myself will be my own portion sizes and I normally serve myself less than I think I’ll want and get more if I’m still hungry.

I don’t have a goal of being zero waste or eliminating all my food waste, but I also know that there is a lot of improvement I can see in this aspect of my life. And I hope that by the end of this month, I feel like I’m not wasting as much food or money so I can know I’ve made a difference.

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Working On Feeling Better Mentally and Physically (or Picking A Workout Challenge For March)

Posted on March 1, 2023 | Comments Off on Working On Feeling Better Mentally and Physically (or Picking A Workout Challenge For March)

When I set my monthly challenge for February, I had no idea I’d basically be forced into sleeping better in order to get over the cold I caught. I was going to bed earlier and could sleep in because I wasn’t going to my workouts. I think the last time I got that much sleep was when I was out of work and was not getting up too early to work out in the morning.

And getting that much sleep that week proved how much I really needed to work on my sleep schedule. I’m back to getting up as early as I normally do since I’m back to my workouts, so my focus has to be on what time I get to bed. There are some nights when I’m getting to bed a lot earlier than I used to and there are other nights when I’m noticing I’m staying up too late. But even those later nights are still not as bad as they used to be. I’m averaging about an hour more sleep a night, which is a start. I want to get it up a bit higher, but that will take some time. But at least I’ve made a start that I can build off of. This is a work in progress, but it’s the most progress I’ve made on this goal that I’ve had for myself for a long time.

And for this month, I’m doing another health-related challenge and it’s inspired a bit by the time when I was sick. After I took a week off from my workouts, I did notice that I had gotten a bit weaker. This was expected since I had to take time off, but it was frustrating. And since I’ve been back, I’ve been really wanting to build my strength back up. But as I’ve been doing that, I also have wondered if I’ve been stagnant with what I have been doing. So this month, I want to challenge myself to find where I can be stronger and work harder in my workouts.

I know that there are some parts of my workouts that might be easier to build upon than others. I think it will be hardest to have improvements with my rowing, but I know I can still try. But because of some physical restrictions, there is only so much I can do. I’ll see what can happen when I try, but I’m not setting any crazy expectations. But I think I can make some good improvements on the bike and with the floor work. I want to see if I can increase the resistance level on the bike a bit more for some of the workouts and also see if I can pedal faster when I’m using the levels I’ve been using for a while. And on the floor, I know it’s not just as easy as using heavier weights, but I should be more comfortable with testing out the heavier weights to see if it’s possible or if I could do some of the reps with the heavy weights before using my normal ones. This isn’t the most straightforward progress, but they are steps toward improvement and that’s what I need to be ok with doing.

As much as I’d love to see super fast progress and immediately have improvements in my workouts, I think seeing how my sleep improvement went made me remember that any steps of progress are good. So even if I end March with marginal improvements, that will still put me ahead of where I am now. And if I can make small improvements every month or every other month, that will add up over time. All I can do is try and see what happens over the course of this month and hopefully, there will be some changes that I can continue over time so I see some big improvements and changes at the end of the year.

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Another Challenge About My Schedule (or Hopefully This Month Goes Better)

Posted on February 1, 2023 | Comments Off on Another Challenge About My Schedule (or Hopefully This Month Goes Better)

As I wrote about halfway through January, I think I might have picked the wrong monthly challenge for my first one in 2023. I had so many good intentions to work on planning out a schedule and so many things happened that made that a lot more difficult than it should have been. I really did try to figure out at least something to have regularity in my week, but it was limited to only a few things.

I have a much better idea of when I can try to cook a meal since it’s really limited with my schedule. I want to try to figure out some faster things to make so I can cook after work and not feel overwhelmed or eat too late. And I’m working on prepping ingredients so they are easy to grab throughout the week. For example, I make my own pickled onions to add to salads and sandwiches on the weekend so I have them all week.

I also had a few small ideas about my cleaning schedule. There’s a lot more to work on with this, but I am trying to use my robot vacuum more so I don’t feel as much pressure to do vacuuming after work to keep up with things. I’m looking into other shortcuts to tricks I can use for other cleaning tasks, but I think I really should think more seriously about having a cleaning service come in once a month or so to do a big cleaning. I think that will help keep things in order so my weekly cleanings aren’t as big. I have to do some budgeting work to figure out if that’s feasible, but I’m making it a higher priority for me than some other things I was thinking of saving for.

Even though my January challenge about scheduling didn’t go that well, I have another scheduling challenge for February. This is a part of my big annual goals for the year, but this month I want to really focus on my sleeping schedule and making sure I get more sleep each night.

This has been something I have known I needed to do for a long time, but it really hit me hard this week. Last week, I was doing really well with getting to bed on time and getting an hour or more sleep each night than I have been getting. I know I still need more than that, but I did feel a difference and I was feeling a lot better. But this week, I’ve been getting back into my usual habits and I’m not getting enough sleep again. I’m actually getting a bit more sleep this week than I did a few weeks ago, but it’s still less than last week. And it’s making me more tired than I have been before. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a huge change, but I guess this is a sign that I really do need to focus more on sleep.

And that’s exactly what I plan to do this month. I know it’s tempting to stay up late to read to catch up on tv or other things, but I just need to remember that I can do that another time. Unless there is something urgent that has to be done, I want to really try hard to stick to a better sleep schedule even if I want to stay up later. I know this won’t always be possible, especially if I am meeting up with friends in the evening or going to dinner. But I can make an effort for all the evenings I’m not out and don’t have a good excuse to stay up late.

I’m curious if I’ll be able to do this since this is something I’ve been struggling with for a while. But I’m also curious to see how this makes me feel if I’m able to do it for most of the month. I want to see how it affects my physical and mental health. I know it will only have positive effects, but I don’t know how much of a difference it will make yet. But hopefully, but the end of this month I will be able to update you with the results!

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I Might Have Picked The Wrong Monthly Challenge (or I Guess I Still Have Half Of The Month To Go)

Posted on January 19, 2023 | 1 comment

I try to really think about the monthly challenges that I set for myself before I decide which one to do that month. I usually have a few ideas that are very different and then I think about what I will get out of each one and try to pick the best option. For a while, I think I was doing a lot of challenges that would better myself in some way. But lately, I’ve been focused more on things that will better my environment or living situation.

That’s why when I picked my challenge for this month, I really thought it would be a good plan for feeling more settled in my place and just having a better routine and schedule. I know that things for me can feel like I’m in a rush to get them done or that I’m putting things off until the last minute without intending to do so. So if I could have an idea of what days are best to do certain things, I might feel a bit more stable when I’m trying to plan ahead.

But what I didn’t plan for were things that are out of my control and would affect what I could do and what I wanted to do. For example, with all the rain lately, I haven’t been wanting to run errands if I could avoid it because I don’t like to be out in the rain. Even if I had planned to go to the grocery store if the rain was coming down too hard I didn’t want to do it. I also don’t love driving in the rain and many other drivers seem to not be great at it either, so being off of the road seems like a smart choice. I wasn’t expecting to work extra hours this past week, so when I had things planned to do after work, that was affected by my later hours. And if I’m working until 8pm, I just don’t feel like going out to do other things after work. I’m ready to settle down for the evening.

On top of all this, I haven’t been feeling well and have been working through nausea for the first half of the month. Maybe if I was feeling ok, I would have been up for doing some of the things I had been putting off. But with all of that together, I just haven’t wanted to do a lot of anything. I know that if I had to go out and do something, I would. I had some errands I couldn’t avoid or do another way, so I went out and did them. I wasn’t always happy about it, but I got them done.

Maybe I’m just making excuses for myself because if there were things I had to do, I probably would have done them. But it’s easy to not go to the store and get groceries delivered or put off cleaning because nobody is going to see that my house is a little messy. And I’m aware that how I was feeling affected my mental state and that had a lot to do with things. I really set this challenge this month with the best intentions of getting it done and I’m wondering if I picked the right one. But I also think that maybe because of this struggle, this was exactly the challenge I needed to do and I need to step up my game.

I have used up half the month really not doing anything for this month’s challenge. Maybe I’ll be able to turn things around for these last 2 weeks and end the month feeling successful about what I got done. Or maybe the end of the month will come and I’ll be feeling down about what I picked for this month and wishing I did something different. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

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I’m So Glad I Pushed Hard This Past Week (or Having A Good Day In A Bad Week)

Posted on December 19, 2022 | Comments Off on I’m So Glad I Pushed Hard This Past Week (or Having A Good Day In A Bad Week)

I knew this past week of workouts was going to be a struggle for me with pain and nausea. But as I had written last week, I just had a lot of different issues that made my week extra difficult. I was getting really frustrated with how I was feeling and what that meant for my workouts. But as always, I pushed through and I was able to end this past week on a really good note.

Monday’s workout was the last workout for the 12 Days Of Fitness, and it was the day that I earned my swag. I was feeling pretty bad that day, but I was hoping that I could do some good work because I knew there was a good chance this would be my best day of the week. But it was a tough day as each section of the room felt like one long block.

For cardio, everything was 90-second intervals. Every 90 seconds, we were supposed to increase either the speed or incline/resistance level. I really tried my best to pedal faster when we were supposed to increase our speed, but that’s something that is hard for me normally and extra hard for me when I was having a bad hip day. But I did my best with it.

On the rower, we did have challenge distance goals but I didn’t focus on those since I knew I’d be struggling on the rower. We also had 90-second intervals just like we did for cardio. But this time we started every 90 seconds off of the rower and did either overhead or front presses with a medicine ball for 15 reps. And then whatever time was left we had for rowing. I usually had about 30 seconds on the rower each time after I was done with the exercise and getting strapped back in, so I didn’t get a lot of rowing done toward the distance.

And on the floor, again everything was in 90-second intervals. We alternated between two groups of exercises. The first group was lateral lunges, single-arm high rows with weights, and then jumping jacks. And the second group was regular lunges, single-arm shoulder presses with weights, and butt kicks. It felt like there was no time to catch your breath and it was a really tough workout. But I wouldn’t expect anything different for the last day of a challenge.

Tuesday was a particularly rough day for me. When things are this bad, sometimes I just have to do my own thing a bit for the workout because that’s all I can manage. And that’s how some of Tuesday went.

For cardio, we focused on a lot of incline work, but I was just doing my regular base, push, and all-out resistance levels and trying to follow along with the intervals with everyone else. I know I wasn’t doing exactly what the workout was supposed to be, but it was better than doing nothing. And I knew that the combination of all the issues I was going through made things a lot harder than I’m used to overcoming.

On the rower, both blocks were focused on 150-meter rows. We rowed that distance and then had an exercise and went back and forth for the entire block. In the first block, we had squats as our exercise and I did do those between each row. In the second block, we were supposed to do front and back steps between each row, but I was more focused on just breathing through my nausea so I just did my rows without the exercise. I didn’t always do the full row without a break, so it was more like I did short bursts of rowing with rest when necessary for that entire block.

I feel like I did a bit better on the floor for this workout, but that’s probably only because the rest was so bad. In the first block, we had deadlifts, upright rows, good mornings, and single-arm shoulder presses. And in the second block, we had front raises, lateral lunges, and regular lunges. I felt so defeated after this workout because of what I couldn’t do, and I know that didn’t help how I was feeling overall and probably made my physical pain worse with mental stress. As much as I tried to remind myself that at least I tried, it’s hard to believe that at times.

Wednesday was still bad, but I felt like I had a bit less nausea that day and my hip pain was significantly better so that helped to make my mood better too. So I knew I could do a bit more and pushed myself to do just that.

For cardio, the first two blocks had the same pattern. We had a push pace, a 90-second base, an all-out, a 1-minute recovery, a push pace, and an all-out. In the first block, the pushes and all-outs were 45 seconds long. And in the second block, the pushes and all-outs were 30 seconds long. And for the last block, we had rounds of 30-second all-outs and 30-second recoveries. This went so much better than earlier in the week went. I think the short intervals and all the recovery time helped me so much.

On the rower, we started with a 3-minute row followed by squats. Then we had 2 rounds of a 90-second row with lunges between each row. The goal for each 90-second row was to do at least half of what we did in the 3-minute row. And the rowing work ended with 3 rounds of a 1-minute row with squats to calf raises between each row. I only made it to one of the 1-minute rows, but I’m glad that I did pretty well with each row and was able to beat the goal distance each time.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was a bit tough for me because it was supposed to be regular lunges and then jump lunges, but I can’t do jump lunges. So I just combined the number of reps and did regular lunges for both. And we were supposed to do bridge rows on the straps, but I had to do just regular low rows on the straps. In the second block, we had bicycle presses, push-ups, and hip bridges. I didn’t go quite as heavy as I would have liked for the hip bridges, but that’s something that I know I need to work back up to because I’ve lost a bit of my strength.

Thursday was a day I was nervous about. It was the 2000-meter row benchmark, which is one of the hardest benchmarks for me. Not only is it one of the hardest ones for me, but I was also dealing with the pain and nausea so I knew that would be an additional challenge. I knew I would just try and see what would happen.

Because we had a small class, we all started on the rower to do the benchmark first. I knew that I wouldn’t get a PR since my PR was from when I was a lot better at rowing. So I set other goals for myself. I wanted to see if I could get a faster time than my last benchmark, which was very slow. And I wanted to try to take as few breaks in the row as possible. In the past, I’ve tried to only take a break after every 500 meters, which was a good goal, and I decided to try to do it again this time.

We are always told to start the benchmark with about 10 hard pulls on the rower before settling into a pace and intensity that we could ideally continue at for the entire time. I did that and then watched the 500-meter split time to see if I could keep that consistent. I was able to keep it within about 10 seconds for the entire row and I knew that split time would get me to my goal. And by some miracle, I didn’t really have to take any breaks. I did have to stop a few times to tighten my foot straps, but that is different from a break. And at the end for the last 200 meters, I just went as hard as I could knowing I was almost done. I knew it wasn’t a PR, but it was a huge improvement over last time and closer to my PR than I’ve been in a while!

I was shocked that I was under 11 minutes and that I didn’t really take breaks. Neither of those were things I thought would be possible. Maybe I found the perfect pace to row so I didn’t need breaks like I normally do. Or maybe I was just being stubborn and that pushed me through the row. Whatever it was, I was so proud of myself. But I know I overdid it quite a bit on the rower and that affected the rest of my workout.

On the floor, I was exhausted from the row and was a little lightheaded, so I had to go slowly and rest a lot more than I thought I would. The floor had hip hinge swings, woodchoppers, chest presses with straps, plank taps, and superheroes on the floor. I was going a bit lighter with the weights because of how I was feeling, but I still think even with the breaks I had to take and the lighter weights, it was worth it because I knew how well I did on the row.

And we ended with cardio where we did things at our own pace. We had distance challenges and then 1 minute to recover after each distance. For the distance, it was .25-miles for the treadmills which was 1 mile for me. And just like on the floor, I had to take more breaks than I would have liked because I was still recovering from the row. But again like on the floor, I was ok with that because I was still proud of my row time.

I wasn’t expecting to end last week with a workout highlight between how I was feeling and knowing how little I was looking forward to the benchmark. But I’m so happy that I surprised myself so much with how my last workout of the week went. It was nice to end a bad week with a good workout so I could go into my weekend feeling strong. And hopefully, the pain and nausea continue to get better through the beginning of this week so I can have a better workout week and end my year of workouts on some more positive notes!

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A Tough Week And A New Challenge (or Starting Off The Last Month Of Workouts For 2022)

Posted on December 5, 2022 | Comments Off on A Tough Week And A New Challenge (or Starting Off The Last Month Of Workouts For 2022)

This past week of workouts was another mixed bag. I was feeling much better at the start of the week, but then I dealt with the side effects of my medication for the rest of the week which really affected me more than I expected. But I ended the week starting a new workout challenge and I think that really motivated me to keep going.

Monday was the day I was feeling my best. I don’t take my medication until after my workout, so I wasn’t dealing with any side effects at that point. I was a bit off because I was nervous about doing my shot again, but that’s not that bad compared to how I can feel from other issues.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks had the same things, but the second block reversed the order. In the first block, we started with a 4-minute distance challenge followed by a 1-minute recovery. Then we had 30-second intervals of a base, push, and all-out. The second block started with the 30-second intervals and ended with the 4-minute challenge.

On the rower, we had similar blocks to cardio. The first block started with a 4-minute crew row where we had to match the speed and cadence of everyone else on the rower and then ended that block with the 30-second intervals. And in the second block, we reversed the order so we ended with the crew row. I don’t love crew rows, but I tried my best to keep up with everyone.

And on the floor, we had one block. We had shoulder presses, single-leg deadlifts, bicep curls, and bird dogs. Nothing was too crazy on the floor, so I was able to go a bit heavier than normal and also focus on my form which was nice compared to trying to get everything in.

Tuesday was probably the worst day for me with side effects, so I just tried to manage it the same way I manage nausea. However, I also had to deal with some lightheadedness, so that was a bit more of a challenge. But just like I’ve been doing before, I just took breaks when I needed to.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. Both blocks had push paces with inclines followed by recoveries. In the first block, we had 45-second push paces and 1-minute recoveries and in the second block we had 1-minute push paces and 45-second recoveries. And the incline/resistance levels were higher in the first block than in the second. This wasn’t too bad for me since there was always recovery coming up, but I did have some moments when I was really feeling off.

The rower matched up with cardio. So in the first block we had 45-second of work and 1-minute of recovery and in the second block we had 1-minute of work and 45-seconds of recovery. And the goal was to try to get at least the same distance each time within a block and not start off strong and then get too tired. I’m glad that I was pretty consistent with my distances each time.

On the floor, we focused on cluster sets so we did 12-16 reps of an exercise, took 10 seconds to rest, and then did the exercise again as many times as possible. In the first block the cluster sets were with chest presses and in the second block they were with squats. And after doing 2 rounds of the cluster sets, we had sit-ups and plank reaches for the rest of the block. It was a little tough to do the chest presses because I was feeling weak, but I just did what I could each time.

I was feeling a bit more like myself by Wednesday, but I still had to take it a bit easy from time to time.

For cardio, we had the same block each time with the goal to try to go a bit faster each block. We had 1-minute intervals with a base to push pace, a push pace, a push pace to all-out, and an all-out. I used the same resistance levels each time, but I did try my best to pedal faster each block. I wasn’t always successful, but at least I tried.

On the rower, we did the same block each time and it was a real challenge for me. For each 1-minute interval, we had an exercise with a medicine ball first and then finished the minute with rowing until we had to get up again. But because getting on and off the rower takes time for me, I really didn’t have much rowing time. I did modify the exercises and did them over the rower so I didn’t have to do much more than just unstrap and stand up. In the first block, we had front presses before each row. In the second block, we had squat to presses before each row. And in the last block, we had front presses to overhead presses before each block.

On the floor, the first two blocks had 2 exercises for each block for the first 3 minutes and then a variation on a burpee for the last minute. I did regular burpees using the bench for each block since I couldn’t do the different variations. And the exercises we had were upper cuts and deadlifts for the first block and chest presses and goblet squats for the second block. And in the last block, we had all 4 exercises.

And on Thursday, it was the first day of the 12 Days of Fitness. This is a challenge that requires attending a specific number of classes in order to win swag. It’s similar to Hell Week, but the workouts aren’t quite as hard. This year, we have to make it to 6 classes in the first 12 days of the month to win socks and shoelaces. And since I will do that just having my regular schedule, I knew I needed to sign up.

For cardio, we started with a 2-minute push pace followed by a 1-minute recovery. Then we had a 90-second push pace to all-out followed by a 1-minute recovery. And then we had a 1-minute all-out to end that block. And we repeated that again for the second block.

On the rower, we started with 3 rounds of a 200-meter row. Between each row, we could recovery as long as we needed. After completing all 3 rows, we had squats to shoulder presses with a medicine ball before doing 3 rounds of a 150-meter row. We did the exercises again and then had 3 rounds of a 100-meter row. I was feeling better on the rower so I challenged myself to try to improve each round and I was able to do that!

And on the floor, we had 1 block with 3 mini-blocks. And we did each mini-block twice before moving on. We had low rows with weights and tricep extensions on the straps, lunges and rollouts on the straps, and shoulder presses and lateral leg lifts with the straps. I don’t know why I ended up going so slowly, but I never made it to the last exercise in the last mini-block. But I do know I was doing heavy weights so that might have been it.

I’m glad I ended my week on a good note. This pattern might repeat this week with taking my next injection after my workout on Monday. But maybe my body will be more used to it so it won’t be as bad. I’ll just have to wait and see. But at least I’ll get more of my workouts done for 12 Days of Fitness so I can make sure I earn my swag!

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Getting Ready For The New Year (or Trying To Set Myself Up For Good Things)

Posted on December 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Getting Ready For The New Year (or Trying To Set Myself Up For Good Things)

Happy December! Again, I feel like last month flew by. I don’t know how November is over when it feels like it was just Halloween. Maybe doing Fake Thanksgiving threw things off a bit for me? But it still feels like November was a month that wasn’t there. And I’m ready to have one last monthly challenge for 2022.

For November, I challenged myself to be more efficient and to be more open to asking for help. When I set that challenge, I really thought it would be more about my work than about my personal life. And of course, I didn’t have too many things going on with work that would have required help or that were different from what I had done before. But I did try to be more efficient in my workflow each day. I tried to do some planning with which tasks need to be done immediately and which tasks could wait so I could do them in batches. And I think I’ve gotten off to a good start with this because I have noticed that I’m not struggling as much to get through my work each day.

But I did have the chance to ask for help with a non-work thing. I’m pretty short and sometimes things at the grocery store are either on the tallest shelves or they are at the back of the shelf so I can’t reach them. I’m used to standing on the lowest shelves to reach things because they normally aren’t that out of my reach. But a few weeks ago, I couldn’t reach something I wanted and instead of climbing to reach it, I asked someone who was also in that aisle to help me. I don’t love asking for help because I feel like I need to prove to myself that I can do things on my own. But it was nice not having to worry about my balance or struggling to grab the things I wanted. And the person who helped me didn’t seem to be too bothered to help and they even asked if there was anything else on that aisle I couldn’t reach. I still think that I won’t always ask for help because I can usually do things on my own, but it was a good reminder that it’s not a huge task to ask for help.

And for my December challenge, I want to do things that will help me make 2023 another successful year. I have some things on my list that I haven’t done since the move that I need to stop putting off. I want to start next year off feeling organized and settled. I also want to get things ready like my new planner so I need to spend time planning out my goals for the year and maybe also making a list of potential monthly challenges. And I want to do some of the usual things people do when getting ready for a new year like going through my clothes again to see what I don’t need and making sure that I don’t have any expired food (I recently found expired spices so I’ve been working on going through those). I know everything won’t be perfect, but I know it will be nice to kick off a new year feeling like I have a clean slate and I’m ready for whatever the year will bring.

I have a feeling that December is going to fly by faster than other months this year and I don’t want the end of the year to be here before I’m ready for it! So hopefully what I can accomplish this month will really help me get set up and I can start 2023 feeling ready for whatever the year will bring my way!

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Working On Being More Efficient (or Learning Not To Do Everything Myself)

Posted on November 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Working On Being More Efficient (or Learning Not To Do Everything Myself)

Happy November! It’s so crazy that we are almost at the end of this year, but as always the months are flying by! I feel like October was even faster than most months, but I think I say that every month. But this time, I felt like the month was just getting started as the month ended. But even though the month felt like it went by too fast, I still made an effort to get as much as I could with my monthly challenge.

I challenged myself in October to get out of the rut that I’ve been in and to try to say yes to doing more stuff. I did try to say yes to things that fit into my schedule. I couldn’t say yes to everything because I had plans or other things I had to get done, but I tried. I hung out with friends when I could, but it wasn’t as often as I would like. I said yes to dates even if I wasn’t totally sure about the guy (I never agreed to a date if I felt like it would be unsafe, but if I felt like I would be safe I gave guys a chance). When I saw things come into my inbox, I tried to see if I could make plans to do something. It wasn’t as successful as I would have liked it to be, but I think that was because I was dependent on other people inviting me to things and I didn’t do enough outreach on my own.

I’m hoping to be a bit better about reaching out to friends to go do things moving forward. I do know how important it is to continue to try to be social because it’s so easy to not do that. And just considering going to my workouts isn’t enough to really have a social life. For a while, that was all I did and I know I need to do more than that. So I hope that I can continue to work on making plans and not just be lazy every day after work or spend the weekends recovering from my week.

For this month, my challenge might be more related to my work than anything else but I also might find ways to incorporate it into my regular life. I want to find more ways to be more efficient in my work and to be ok with asking for help more often. I have realized with some recent work tasks that there are things that I didn’t have to spend as much time doing if I had asked someone if there was a better way to do them. I haven’t had a lot of tasks I couldn’t do, but there’s no need for me to spend days working on something if someone else can help me do them in minutes or hours.

A good example is how we tag our clients in our database. I was working on updating and adding specific tags which were taking me a lot of time. It wasn’t something that was difficult, but it was time-consuming. Someone mentioned that there might be a way to do mass tagging in our system, so I set up a meeting to talk to a member of the executive team to ask about it and they were able to get all the work done for me in minutes. I also learned how to do what they were doing, but there were some tasks that they needed to do since I don’t have full editing permissions in our database. But it was so great to see something that I was expecting to work on all week be done in a single meeting.

A lot of the work I’ve been doing lately are things that take up time and are very repetitive. And I know that for some of this work, there isn’t a shortcut or easier way to do them. They just have to be done one at a time and there’s no way around that. But it never hurts to ask if there is a better way even if I feel sure that there isn’t because I might be surprised. So I want to focus this month on asking for this type of help so I can make sure I’m using my time the best way I can.

It’s hard for me to ask for help because I don’t want people to think I can’t do my work. But I also know that asking for help doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it just means I’m making sure I’m not missing something that might make my life easier. And this could be applied to other areas of my life such as hiring someone to clean my place every so often. I can clean my house on my own, but it’s nice to have someone else to do it too if I’m too busy. Of course, things like hiring cleaners also involve money, so it’s not as simple as asking for help at work.

But I hope that even if it’s just about my work stuff, I can make sure I’m asking to check that I’m doing things as efficiently as possible so I’m maximizing my time each day. And hopefully doing this during November will help me find better ways to organize my work day and really get the most out of my time so I’m not worried about what I didn’t finish when I step away from my computer at the end of the day.

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Resets And New Adventures (or Always Working To Improve My Life)

Posted on October 4, 2022 | Comments Off on Resets And New Adventures (or Always Working To Improve My Life)

Happy October! I feel like I say this every month, but it seems like time is flying by so quickly! I feel like we just started September and now it’s over. And I know before I know it, it will be the new year. I think having this feeling is one of the reasons I’m glad I set monthly challenges for myself. It gives me something to focus on accomplishing so the time just doesn’t slip by.

For September, my challenge was to do daily resets of my home. I had noticed that I was putting things off and saying to myself that I could just do it in the morning. But of course, I never did it the next day and some tasks were just not getting done in a timely manner. And because my condo is much bigger than my last place, it was easier to not see the mess that might have been left. For example, I could leave things in the sink and not see them compared to before when if I left something in the sink it basically made the sink unusable. And it was easy to use the excuse that I was still figuring out where I want things to be to not put away something I might have used. So I wanted to try to reset my home as much as I could each day so I felt like I started fresh in the morning.

I wasn’t perfect at all and there were still plenty of days when I wasn’t putting away all my dishes or leaving things for the next day. But I did make a much more conscious effort to be better about this. I also worked harder on finding places for some of my things. I’m still working on a list of things I need to get more organized, like ways I can organize under my kitchen and bathroom sink. And I know once I get those things it will be a little easier. But even without being perfect, I did notice a difference in how I felt in the morning when things weren’t still needing to be done and it felt like I was starting from neutral in the morning.

After working last month on getting a good reset system down in my home so I could feel like each day was a new day, for October I want to mix things up a bit more in my life. This month, I want to make an effort to try to do some new things or get out of the rut that I’m currently dealing with. I have a pretty set routine for weekdays. I go to the gym in the morning, work all day, and then after work I’m usually just sitting at home and trying to relax from my day. I feel like I’m a bit stuck since each week goes by and I don’t have a lot of variety in my life. I try to do things on weekends, but I work on Saturdays and on Sundays, I’m normally getting ready for the next week.

I feel like before the pandemic, I wasn’t in quite as bad of a rut. I know I was not doing as much as I could, but there is a big difference between being done with work at 3pm versus 5 or 6pm. When I was done at 3, I felt like I still had my afternoon and evening ahead of me and I could go out and do something. There were plenty of times I went to Disneyland after work since I had the afternoon free. But now, once I’m done with work I want to get dinner figured out and before I know it, it’s time to go to bed since I get up so early. There are a few wasted hours in my evening when I’m not doing much that I could take advantage of. And even though I try to go to bed early, I usually don’t. So I might as well go out with friends or something that keeps me out a bit later than to be up too late because I was scrolling on social media.

This goal is easier said than done. So many of my friends have moved away so I am working on rebuilding friendships that may have become acquaintanceships. I’m trying to ask more friends about meeting up for dinner or something simple like that to just get out of the house. But I’m hoping if I ask my friends if they want to go out and do something specific versus just asking if they are free and then trying to figure out something to do, hopefully, I will be able to make more plans and I’ll find things I like to do that I haven’t done in a while. Maybe I’ll find a new routine that adds a bit more social time to my week.

Having a routine isn’t bad, as long as it’s something you are having fun with. But now, I’m not having as much fun with my weekly routine and it feels like a rut, so I want to work on getting out of it and start enjoying my life again.

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Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

Posted on August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Trying To Refocus On Goals (or Doing Another Reset This Month)

It’s August, which means it’s almost my birthday! I am excited about my birthday coming up and even though I don’t know if I’ll be doing much to celebrate, I still have fun with my birthday each month. And since it’s the beginning of a new month, that also means it’s time to switch my monthly challenge.

In July, I wanted to refocus on my goals for 2022. I realized that I had been losing focus on those goals and wanted to see if I could get back on track to successfully end this year. And there were 3 main goals that I think I needed to refocus on. First, I wanted to be more mindful of my time. This one I did do a bit better with because of some changes in my job. Because I don’t have to switch back and forth as much, I was more mindful of my work time and made sure that I was focused on specific things each day. My time outside of work wasn’t as mindful, but I tried. I did make efforts to see about going out and doing things, but that just didn’t happen much in July. That’s not necessarily my fault, but I know there were more people I could reach out to and see if they wanted to go do things. So there is some work to do with that. And as far as restarting my budget, I did make a fresh start in the budgeting app I’ve been using, but I’m really torn about using it. I don’t find it as intuitive as it used to be for me. Things have changed about it and I don’t know if it makes as much sense as it used to. So I’m looking into new apps and systems to use that might be better for me. But I am getting back on track with being aware of my spending and financial situation, which is the biggest goal for me with budgeting.

And for August, I decided to do another challenge that feels like a bit of a refocus for me. My eating habits have been off for too long. I think ever since I started my move in April, things haven’t been great. They haven’t been horrible, but I know I’m not doing everything I should be doing. I especially am not eating as many fruits and vegetables as I should. I have been buying things and then not eating them. I have a burst of feeling motivated and then when things are in my fridge they aren’t what I want to eat. And I know that I’m getting in some fruits and vegetables each day, but it’s not what it should be.

So I want to set my challenge this month to be about putting the focus on fruits and vegetables in my diet. I want to make sure that I eat what I buy and stop having food waste the way that I’ve had before. I know that I will need to prep the things I get as soon as I get them so they are easy to eat and don’t involve extra work. And if I need to eat something slightly less healthy to go along with fruits and vegetables, that’s ok. I know that eating veggies with a dip that I like is better than not eating veggies at all. And maybe I just need to meal plan a bit with just breakfast or snacks and make those fruit and vegetable heavy and get them in that way. I’m going to see what works for me and go with that since that’s the most important thing for me.

I don’t think adding fruits and vegetables will make me lose weight or change my health immediately, but it’s something that I know I need to do for my long-term health. And I want to get back to eating healthier things and having more food prepared in my home so I don’t make the choice to order food (which is more of a budget concern for me than a health one). And if I do have other results because of eating this way, that will just be an added bonus.

I know I won’t be perfect this month and there will still be days where I don’t do my best, but I’m going to at least try this month and see what happens. That’s all I can do and I’ll report back in a month about how it goes!

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