Sometimes, Nothing Is Harder Than Just Starting

- thecolorcodedlife@gmail.com

Well, it’s been a week of good and bad in terms of following my challenges.

The Good:

  • Got up and went to yoga on Wednesday and felt amazing for it
  • Meditated Monday – Wednesday
  • Did planks Monday & Tuesday
  • Got up earlier than normal all week long (minus today)

As you can see, it’s the after Wednesday portion where I cracked like a woman on a Target spree.

 

The Bad:

  • Stayed up WAY too late reading on Wednesday night and skipped meditating and planks on Thursday
  • Ditto Thursday night (plus used the excuse of a dentist’s appointment on Friday to avoid it)

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Willpower Fail

Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of research that shows that as the week goes on, we basically suck at willpower. We deplete ourselves with the 9383948184 decisions we make throughout the day, and by the end of the week, we are just exhausted.

The same actually goes for each day, too. That’s why you’re more likely to binge late at night and/or later in the week – your willpower has been used up.

That’s also why I HAVE to go to yoga in the morning. Otherwise, I can talk myself out of it.

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So, how do I get back on track?

That’s a good question. And it’s partly why I’m recording my failures here.

I need your help. Please push me (even if I get annoyed) and remind me of my commitment! Text me, post on my Instagram, tweet me, post on my Facebook page, comment here.

I don’t care how you do it, but I could use some help in motivating myself! And let’s be honest, we feel a lot worse (usually) letting someone else down who is expecting something from us, than letting ourselves down.

So expect more from me so I can expect more from myself!

THIS WEEKEND’S CHALLENGES

In addition to continuing to work on the above challenges, I will be taking on new challenges as I go.

 

(1) The “send a card to someone (as many different someones) every day” challenge.

With all of the craziness of work and life and the commitment to the challenges above, I don’t think it’s feasible to write one every day.

BUT, I am going to modify this challenge to be, “write at least 7 cards a week to as many different someones as you can.”

That way, whether I do them all at once each week, or one each day, I am still embodying the spirit of the challenge 🙂

And if you would like for me to write you a card, I’ve made a handy little Google Form to do so! Just click here and I will happily write you a letter!

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(Obviously, butterflies land as I write my letters using an old fashioned pen.)

 

(2) The “try one brand new (to you) food item from a different country per month” challenge.

This one, I can’t wait to do! Randomly, (in the sense that I didn’t know this when we moved here) we ended up in a heavily Brazilian area of our town.

Which means there are some awesomely authentic Brazilian restaurants within walking distance of our place.

Thus, since I’ve never had Brazilian food, I figured tonight is the time to try it! I will absolutely update you on how it goes.

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So there you have it, folks! My honest assessment of this first week of challenges, and the two I plan on completing this weekend.

Let me know any thoughts or comments on all  of this in the comments below!

Until next time!

 

Always,

Amanda

Yoga To Be Kidding Me

- thecolorcodedlife@gmail.com

I know, I know. I’m just so punny.

Today’s challenge was bestowed upon me by my former yoga instructor back in Alabama. This woman changed my life over a year ago by showing me that I was not too ADHD, Type-A, unflexible enough to do yoga.

  • Attend yoga classes for a month. Being consistent with your practice. Feel the difference. Post postures in your FB feed – PL

For almost a year, I was a solid devotee to the yoga lifestyle. Then my life crashed in around me, and going to yoga slipped to the bottom of the list.

So to honor and thank my former yoga instructor and to bring myself back to where I was in my yoga journey, I’m jumping back on the bandwagon!

There’s a 6am class that I have decided to commit to attending at least three days a week to start. If I can handle that for awhile, I will move to doing it every day.

And to keep with what I have been challenged, I will also post pictures on my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So you are welcome to follow along there if you would like.

 

UPDATE ON PREVIOUS CHALLENGES:

Well, Tuesday’s challenges seem to be off to a pretty decent start.

I can definitely tell you the planks have left me feeling sore, but I kind of enjoy that in a weird way. It makes me feel stronger and that helps boost my self-confidence.

I’m only on my second day of meditating, so I can’t tell you if it’s made me more zen yet, but I’m trying!

 

See all ya’ll tomorrow!

Always,

Amanda

 

 

Rise & Shine, It’s Butt Whooping Time

- thecolorcodedlife@gmail.com

If you don’t recognize this from Cool Runnings, go right now and watch the movie.

Anyways, I figured that to really jump into The Challenges, I had to work on some hard ones first.

Many of these I can combine together, so I decided I would start with the following:

  • Get up earlier and use that time to focus on something you love – DBQ
  • Learn to meditate – KI-S
  • Do 5 minutes of planks a day in some combination of straight arm, forearm, all fours and side planks. – KBQ

I normally get up around 6:30am, so to get up earlier, I moved it up to 6:00am.

That way, I could use the time first to meditate, then to do the series of planks that was KBQ’s challenge.

I have a meditation app that I got for free from one of those Starbucks free app downloads (thanks, Starbucks!). It has a 7-minute one called Morning Practice and another called Gratitude and Reflection, which is 9 minutes.

I know it probably seems overly ambitious to do 16 minutes of meditating on the first day, but I am nothing if not the Type A, oldest child and some habits are hard to break.

I have been wanting to try meditation for awhile. Ever since I read Dan Harris’ book 10% Happier, it’s been a part of my to-do list. [Sidenote, I HIGHLY recommend his book if you think meditation is just for the woo-woo, hippie, spiritual types like I did.]

I did a whole post on getting more Zen and its benefits on my original blog, but I haven’t been able to focus myself enough to meditate regularly.

So here goes nothing! I’ll be back on Wednesday to let you know how it goes.

FYI – Even as I add on additional challenges, I plan to keep up the meditating and planks for at least the next month.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Always,

Amanda

 

 

The Answer To Why The Eff I’m Doing This

- thecolorcodedlife@gmail.com 6 Comments

Whenever I am sitting down to start writing at work, I always start with a simple question:

Why?

Why would a busy CEO or CMO want to take the time to read this article or ebook?

Why should it matter to them?

Why does it matter to us?

This same question made perfect sense as the basis for this first blog post for the new journey I’m embarking on.

[Yes, that sounds cheesy as shit, but it can’t be helped!]

So why am I doing this?

Well last year, I had the year from hell. Before you think I’m being overdramatic, let me assure you that it was likely worse than you might think.

In the span of about 6 months, I lost my grandfather, my husband was hospitalized for three weeks, my work situation soured drastically, and our only car died.

We blew through our savings paying off the medical bills, so times were tight.

Things got so bad after my work situation ended (which is too long and sordid to go into now), and since my husband was unable to work, that we went onto food stamps.

Yeah. I said it.

This law school graduate, married to a master’s graduate, ended up needing food stamps to get by.

And you know what? It was probably one of the best things that could have ever happened to me.

Why?

Because I hit bottom. Actually, I crashed into the bottom.

Not only was the life I had planned with my husband changing (long story short – he withdrew from medical school to pursue a different path), but I was hustling to try and make ends meet and applying to jobs for 6-8 hours a day.

After applying to almost 2000 jobs, going on close to 200 interviews, I finally landed my dream position.

We moved to the Boston area and are seriously loving our lives right now.

But we never would have ended up here if I hadn’t hit bottom.

It was failing completely (at least that’s how I saw it) and being forced to go on public assistance that made me realize – it’s actually ok to fail.

The world doesn’t end. Life doesn’t stop. And there are actually a lot of people like me who need food stamps to make ends meet. And that’s all ok.

I grew so much from that moment, that I am positive that it helped me land my current job.

It gave me the confidence to go after positions that I loved, regardless of whether I met all of their qualifications. (Case in point? The position I have now that said it required a minimum of 5 years agency experience in PR or marketing. . . which I did not possess.)

It gave me the confidence to present myself as MYSELF. Not who I thought I should be. Not the overachiever and perfectionist who I had been trying to live up to my entire life. Just me.

So if being pushed so completely out of my comfort zone landed me my dream job at an amazing company, I wondered what would happen if I kept doing it.

That is what led me to ask friends and family to give me challenges to complete before my 30th birthday.

A vast number of women look at turning 30 as this thing to be dreaded. We all expect to have our shit together by 30, and none of us do.

I wanted a reason to take on a wide variety of challenges to force myself to get out there and try everything I hadn’t done before.

And there you have it. That’s the why behind this entire blog.

I hope you’ll join me as I tackle these challenges and share in the craziness.

Always,
Amanda

P.S. You can check out all of the challenges here.