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