OK So the past 2 days have been among the busiest since I became an entrepreneur. Because of this, I have once again decided to merge 2 days worth of "recap" into 1 post. Considering it is after 1:00am, I will let myself off the hook :)
Monday (day 22) was a great day in terms of productivity. I took my daily photo, ate a healthy breakfast, spent time with my wife and son and got a great start to my day bright and early. After a full day of development on the new version of IGNITE YOUR ESSENCE and putting the final touches on a goal setting workshop for a local university, I had all kinds of energy left for the "dreaded" monday workout.
I call it "dreaded" because it is my most challenging workout of the week. I do 6-8 heavy sets of chest and back weight lifting followed by high intensity cardio. I usually finish the session with a completely soaked T shirt!!
I want to jump ahead to TODAY which was Day 23. Instead of going forwards let me go backwards. About 2 hours ago, I went for a jog. That's right...a jog at almost 11:30pm. I was officially the latest workout of my life. But it was literally the first opportunity I had to workout and the thought of breaking my streak after 22 consecutive days was MORE PAINFUL than the fatigue I had to overcome to get my shoes and jogging pants on and go for it!!
It was actually an amazing experience to kind of "observe" my mind, and be able to ignore the voice trying to rationalize why I should take a day off and get back tomorrow. I did NOT WANT to give in to this voice because my goal has become so strong and the excitement of being almost 1/3 of the way through is awesome!
For my own purposes and for the readers of this blog, I want to document the activities of my day:
7am - Rise and Shine after a long night getting up with my son (I think he is teething
7am-8am - Family time, breakfast, morning prep
8am-9am - Email responding and some research
9am-10am - Work on the website
10am-11am - Final touches on my Workshop for the university students
11am-12:30 - Drive to university
12:30pm-2pm - Pre-workshop classroom prep and meet with coordinator
2pm-630pm - Delivered back 2 back 2 hour workshops (a TON of fun. great people in the course. very positive people too)
630pm-830pm - Drive home
830pm-1030pm - Work on website
1030pm-1130pm - Up with Thomas. he is still having problems with his teething :(
11:30pm-12am - Late night jog (23 straight days baby, woo hoo!!)
12am-2am - FINISHED WEBSITE...IT is up and running. check out igniteyouressence.com
So, the point is, it was a LOOOOOOOONG day but I had no problem sticking to my fitness committment EVEN though it was after 11pm, EVEN though I was exhausted from delivering 2 workshops and driving 3 hours. This is a great system of staying committed. Just by virtue of having this blog, it is keeping me committed because I don't want to have to admit to my readers that I was unable to stick with my plan!
SUGGESTED ACTIVITY - Get an ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER as soon as humanly possible. Work with this partner to hold you accountable for one of more of your goals. Why? Well, as you can tell from my 90 day program so far....IT WORKS. You will LOVE the results, I promise
After staying up extremely late last night in an attempt to make extra progress on my website, I got a very late start to my day and missed out on some fun outdoor time with Thomas.
Year 1 as an entrepreneur has called for constant persistence and some personal sacrifice in terms of free time. While my wife and I are both entrepreneurs working primarily out of our home, you would be surprised how difficult it is to schedule some time together to just hang out as a couple. We are both working through it to make sure we remember to balance but I think the key lies in personal productivity which has been a big topic for me lately.
When we were both employees, we never had the workload demand that we have now. It was good from the perspective of planning your day and having evenings off to relax...but not so good from the perspective of making the most out of life and going for our big dreams and aspirations.
With a never ending workload, I am constantly looking for opportunities to prioritize and cut non-critical tasks. I am trying my best to apply the 80/20 rule but our businesses are still so new that we often don't know which task fits in the 80 category and which one fits in the 20. We will keep plugging away and every little win we get in our business is another reminder of the happiness and freedom of following our dreams.
In terms of my challenge, I'm feeling great. Today being day 21, I find it interesting that this was the first day I did not even think about the challenge until it was time to go for a workout at 8pm. I have read in certain books that anew habit can form in as little as 21 days so that could be the reason why I didn't even think of it.
I might experiment with adding new, supportive habits after day 30 just to enhance the experience and accelerate my goal achieving process. Tomorrow I will do a weigh in and see where my personal bodyweight stands.
Got off to a great start today. Its amazing what a full night of sleep can do after a couple of really long and physically punishing days.
Jessica was off again first thing this morning for another Chocolate meeting with someone from our downline. This business is awesome and it is really taking off. Its also a ton of fun working together on such a great project with my wife. She is so determined and dedicated and really believes in the product.
Jess was gone until 12:30 then we all headed to her parents' new home which they will be moving into on Monday. They got the keys early so it was a busy day of cleaning and preparing. My main job was to take care of Thomas which was awesome as always,...but again, very demanding. He is honestly the most active 1.5 year old ever... I love it!
I was once again able to produce great quality work during Thomas' 2 naps today but it was not enough time to complete everything I needed to work on...more on that in a minute.
Jessica helped her parents for the rest of the day and got home around 8pm to help put Thomas down. Again, it was already 8pm and I had once again not had a workout. I did not want to settle for a short basement routine. I looked outside and it was raining pretty hard...but I decided OUT OF THE BLUE..to go for a run. I had not been out for a jog in about a year. I mostly do cardio at the gym or on the bball court. \
The run was AMAZING. Something about running in the rain with my hat and hood on seemed really cool. I felt like I was this prime time dedicated athlete. Which is cool because the 90 Day challenge pretty much mimics the schedule of a pro athlete. I ran for 45 minutes without stopping and I covered what I'm guessing was 5 kilometers...but I honestly can't say for sure. Maybe I will drive the route tomorrow and check for future reference.
After my run, I was PUMPED to get my night going. It is now 3:20am and I'm done for the night but that run really gave me the boost I needed. I have hardly felt any fatigue (until this minute lol) which usually kicks in around 1:30am on the nights when I work late. My legs and knees are pretty sore so I'll have to do a spot check in the morning and see how I feel. Either way, one thing is for sure... I WILL keep going and Day 21 is as good as "in the books".
YEAH BABY, I just put an X through day 20 :=)