Day 15 - Balance

Halfway....woohoo!!

All in all, I am thoroughly surprised at how well I have done on this challenge. My largest concerns, yoga daily and waking at 5 am, have been very consistent. The waking up has definitely gotten easier, and the yoga is now becoming very patterned for me in the evenings. I am a person that runs most of my daily schedule in a set routine. Come home, feed cats, change, start dinner, ect. Now I just inserted 'yoga' between change and cook dinner. At first, difficult, now, becoming more of the mindset that I cannot touch dinner even if I am super hungry UNTIL yoga is done.

I was struggling on my work goals and getting those wrapped up. Post unplugged challenge, I find myself slipping into old habits, but really only at work. Distractions distractions. Over the weekend though, I spent some time working through the problem, and decided, as seems to always be the case, I needed a more detailed plan. I needed to break the problem down into smaller pieces. Its not 'I need to avoid distractions', but more, what causes the distractions, how do I avoid those distractions through each part of the day, how do I keep motivation and productivity up, and so on. Today I worked on implementing those pieces, and I will continue through the week. First day in, my layout looks promising, but going to be some discipline work initially as I implement these changes. New habits, new routines, not worried though, I will figure it out.

Day 15 results
Wake 5 am - Done
Meditate - Done (25 mins)
Work Goals - Done (still a couple holes, but implemented changes that felt promising)
Daily Blog Entry - Done
Yoga - Done (40 minutes)
Evening Prep - Done
Home work time - Done

Rarely do I get to say I am thoroughly happy with myself. Self confidence has always been a very tough item to come by in my head. The side effect of these challenges and their results, has been a large boost to my self esteem. Setting out goals and items that I need to achieve, and actually completing them for a change, is different for me. One thing that always frustrated me is that I was 'all talk'. I realize now that the act of setting a goal, laying out a plan, and finishing that goal is seriously a learned behavior, and that this was not something I was educated on growing up. I am now realizing I was angry at myself for something I truly did not know how to do. I was notorious for saying I was going to do this or that, in my life, at work, ect....but I never actually checked any of those items off my to do list. The progress I have made in just a few months, now I see that I can truly do ANYTHING.....seriously. Identify the area or problem or task, break it down into pieces, put a plan in place to tackle each piece. If I struggle, break it into smaller parts. Done.

Another side effect, is that I am also realizing that I have accomplished a lot prior to these challenges. It was not as obvious, but over time, I have truly made great strides. Maybe I was not as balanced or focused, but in the end, I can now see that I have done pretty well over time.

Suddenly I am in control, and my head is spinning with possibilities.