Yesterday was one of those days that started off normally and within 5 minutes of sitting down at my desk, had turned sideways and then upside down, leaving me knocked on my butt. When I woke up today, I felt emotionally and physically hung over from the day before and considered staying in bed.
I’m all about taking a sick day or an emotional health day when you need one. But sometimes that voice in my head that says “stay in bed” has enabled me to avoid scary, big things I needed to do to move forward in business and in life.
So, I’m lying in bed, feeling like crap, and heard the voice, “self-care is important…yesterday was hard…just sleep a little more.”
Then something weird happened. Without any internal conflict, I did my 10-minute wake up meditation, put on my shoes and went on my morning walk. Half way into my walk I thought, “Wait…why am I here instead of in bed? How did that happen?”
Two things happened that empowered me to keep moving forward in spite of difficult circumstances.
1. I am clear on my Why and there is no Plan B
I have posted and gone live about the importance of knowing your why and I’ll risk repetitiveness and redundancy yet again, because it is that important.
I am clear on why I’m a coach, on why I’m a mompreneur and what I want for the future. I heard on a podcast recently that as soon as you create a plan B, it becomes plan A. That was a big a-ha moment for me and reaffirmed my decision to commit everything to my entrepreneurial pursuits and believe that I will find so much success that creating a plan B would be a complete waste of time.
So even though the voice in my head said “it’s okay stay in bed” my soul and my heart compelled me to continue toward my dreams.
2. Autopilot is my friend (AKA Routine + Structure)
You can read more about my story here, but when I hit bottom and decided to double-down on my coaching business instead of going back to a normal 9-5, I put a lot of structure into place to prevent avoidance and procrastination.
Every day, except Saturday, I wake up at the same time, complete the same routine. On work days, I start work at the same time and even do the same tasks to start my day. By the time I have to make any decisions about what to do, it’s already past 9 AM and I am solidly into my day. If I find myself lying in bed evaluating the options of how to spend my morning, you better believe I’m hitting that snooze button. But if I don’t get any choice until I’m wide-awake, alert, enthusiastic, then I don’t have to battle against my inner mean girl until I’m fully resourced to do so.
My Mind Was Blown...
It still took me until that afternoon to start feeling back in my groove again but I had a beautiful realization: my commitment and my morning routine have actually come to feel like self-care, instead of something I “should” do. Mind blown.
If you find yourself struggling to keep going and finding the motivation day after day, see what happens when you get crystal clear on your why and infuse your morning with structure so that you don’t really have to think until you’re already in a positive place.
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