It ain't easy

I was so pumped last week after my wellness coaching session. Then, after blogging about it, I put my goal sheet to the side and pretty much ignored it for the entire week. I half-heartedly attempted to meet my goals. An outsider would have possibly thought I was sabotaging my progress. I admitted my internal struggle with my goals last week to my wellness coach and we determined that it was probably because the next few weeks are certainly going to be a struggle. It is time to put the pedal to the metal, to throw away the word "excuse" and tackle the barriers (real and perceived) I have formed within my head. Who wants to change? Who wants to break bad habits and adopt new ones? Who REALLY wants to actively take life by the reigns and say "I need to do things differently and this is going to take WORK!"?  If it were easy to change, obesity would not be an epidemic, no one would die of smoking induced emphysema & lung cancer, and my ass would certainly not be sitting in his office every week. I digress.

A goal of mine last week was to create a deck of cards for each day of my life. Background: life as a shift nurse who works 5 out of every 14 days lacks in routine. No two weeks look alike. There is a smattering of day shifts, night shifts, post night shifts, days at home, weekends away at work, etc. It is hard to have a set routine as life is never looking the same twice. So, I created a "card" with what each day could look like. I literally cut out small pieces of "cards" from a big piece of paper and wrote things like:

*Work 7A - 7P (Leyton to day care; work is all I do)
*Day at home with Leyton
*Day at home with Leyton in which I run errands
*Work 7P - 7A

Etc. etc. etc.

It is with these cards (I made multiple cards for each type of day) that I will tackle my new goal this week. Instead of looking at just one week, I am going to map out my entire February. Built into my February I am going to have a goal for how many times I go to the gym for the month instead of trying to make it each of my days off in a week. I am going to have certain days that are errand days, etc. etc. If I am able to semi-plan what each day will be structured like (structured being a loose term as I don't want to give up all spontaneity here), I can then not feel badly about oh, not hitting the gym today b/c I felt I needed to run errands or clean. That's cool - it was never supposed to be a gym day according to my map of the month. So, as you can see, it is a hard concept to write - I'll letcha know how it goes. The kicker is that I am one step closer to having to make changes, stop making excuses, and, (gasp!) make a few plans for each week. Otherwise, this lady is spiraling out of control with things to do and "no time" to do them b/c she never had a plan of attack. 

I end with my goals for this week:

1. Refine my cards and map out the month of February.
2. Make a 12 week swimming plan using the workouts I found last week AND swim at least once this week.
3. Journal at least 3 times this week about my wellness (to be done in a journal I was given at the session.)