{"id":13495,"date":"2011-05-02T10:21:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T14:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/?p=13495"},"modified":"2011-05-02T10:21:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T14:21:40","slug":"new-month-and-new-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2011\/05\/new-month-and-new-beginnings\/","title":{"rendered":"New Month and New Beginnings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/OHC-07-14-10_morning.jpg\" data-rel=\"attachment-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-11563\" title=\" Morning Sky \" src=\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/OHC-07-14-10_morning-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/OHC-07-14-10_morning-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/OHC-07-14-10_morning.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Happy May! We&#8217;re almost halfway through the year of 2011, can you believe that?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a brand new month and I&#8217;m starting a brand new schedule.\u00a0 Well, it&#8217;s not really <em>new,<\/em> I just haven&#8217;t seen it for a while.\u00a0 I fell into a slump and it took me quite a while to realize I was in a slump and to know that I needed to make some changes.<\/p>\n<p>Then once I fully realized I was in the slump, I needed to whine about it for a bit (poor Scott!) before I put my foot down to turn it around.<\/p>\n<p><em>What is a slump? A slump is when you feel like you&#8217;re in a rut.\u00a0 You&#8217;re not happy. You&#8217;re not satisfied with life and you tend to feel cranky and crabby about the situation.\u00a0 It starts to take over your life. Maybe you&#8217;ve experienced some of these symptoms:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>You get bored with working out. <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>You get more annoyed with your coworkers. <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>You get frustrated easily and maybe you&#8217;re fidgety. <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>You can&#8217;t sit still yet you don&#8217;t want to do anything because nothing sounds appealing.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This is a slump and it happens to all of us!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My slump probably started last winter?\u00a0 Goodness I hope it wasn&#8217;t longer than that or else I&#8217;ve really been dragging!\u00a0 I was coming off a blah summer running season and winter didn&#8217;t shape up to be any better. The weather was a little ridiculous keeping me inside most of the time.\u00a0 I thought spring would turn things around but so far the spring has been the same way!<\/p>\n<p>It was messing with me a lot.\u00a0 I stopped getting up early in the mornings.\u00a0 Since I couldn&#8217;t run, what was the point? I could just do my workout later in the day.<\/p>\n<p>For me this was a huge mistake.<\/p>\n<p>I hate doing workouts later in the day.\u00a0 Hate it.\u00a0 However, I will do a workout later if that&#8217;s the only time I have to get it done, I just prefer to get my workout finished in the mornings.\u00a0 It makes my day go a lot smoother.\u00a0 I get up early in the morning, workout, have a steamy shower and then relax with breakfast and coffee.<\/p>\n<p>If I don&#8217;t do that, I feel like my morning is rushed and cramped.<\/p>\n<p>Adding on that I have school work, school meetings, and business related meetings my days were not only feeling rushed but disjointed because I didn&#8217;t start off with a mind clearing workout.<\/p>\n<p>A morning workout gets me ready for the rest of the day.\u00a0 It sets me up to be productive!\u00a0 Why? Because if I just got a great workout in before 7am, I can handle anything the day wants to throw at me.<\/p>\n<p>I also feel secure in knowing that the workout is done and I can focus on other things.\u00a0 If I don&#8217;t do it in the morning, then my entire day is consumed by me trying to plan to fit it in.<\/p>\n<p>That does not make for a productive day!<\/p>\n<p>I was getting cranky and I was getting whiny.<\/p>\n<p>These are not traits I like in a person, most especially myself.\u00a0 Once I realized what was going on, it was time to make a change! Only I can change things, there&#8217;s no sitting around waiting for someone to tell me to make the change.\u00a0 I had to acknowledge that action needed taken and then I had to make a pledge to myself to make it happen.<\/p>\n<p>Last week I decided that with this new month I was going to get back on track.\u00a0 I have a lot going on right now and the best way to tackle them is to have a plan.\u00a0 Three areas I need to focus on right now are: Working Out, School, and Building A Business.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s how I&#8217;m going to get back on track:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting up early in the mornings again.\u00a0 Even if I&#8217;m super tired! I can&#8217;t use that as an excuse any longer.\u00a0 Stuff needs to get done.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t do them if I&#8217;m sleeping away.\u00a0 Realizing how much sleeping-in caused my day to feel unproductive, I know I have to do the exact opposite.\u00a0 Back to setting the alarm and making sure I&#8217;m in bed by 9pm each night.<\/li>\n<li>Working out first thing (unless I absolutely cannot because of a schedule conflict. It must be unavoidable though!) in the morning. Getting that done so I can feel productive right off the bat.\u00a0 Getting my running routine back in shape and start building up those miles again!<\/li>\n<li>Reading is crucial for me. Making sure that I get at least a half hour of reading in before going to sleep. This is &#8220;me time&#8221; and helps to relax me and get me ready for bed.\u00a0 No more reading when super tired. It doesn&#8217;t help me relax and then I can&#8217;t remember what I read!<\/li>\n<li>Planning out my week to get work accomplished.\u00a0 Labeling each day either a school day or a work day.\u00a0 School days are for completing that week&#8217;s classes and homework.\u00a0 Work days are for working on blog posts, getting things done for the new business, and possible work meetings. Some days may be a mixture but I will stay focused.<\/li>\n<li>Taking a day to focus on the house and getting housework done.\u00a0 Laundry, cleaning, and prepping for meals.<\/li>\n<li>Keeping a current To-Do List. This way I don&#8217;t forget things and know exactly what I have to do for each day.<\/li>\n<li>Keeping a &#8220;Did It&#8221; list. Where I write down everything I did as I complete it. This helps me know how much I&#8217;ve accomplished in a day. It also keeps me organized in knowing on what day something got done. Handy if you need to keep an account of something!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Right now these are the steps I&#8217;m going to take to get out of my slump and get back on track! So far things are looking good. I got up this morning even though I didn&#8217;t have a very good night sleep and felt super tired. I also worked out right away and I was able to enjoy my breakfast and morning coffee a lot more. I&#8217;ve gotten some things accomplished already and checked off my to-do list.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>How about you, have you ever been in a slump or rut before? How did you cope with it?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy May! We&#8217;re almost halfway through the year of 2011, can you believe that? It&#8217;s a brand new month and I&#8217;m starting a brand new schedule.\u00a0 Well, it&#8217;s not really new, I just haven&#8217;t seen it for a while.\u00a0 I fell into a slump and it took me quite a while to realize I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KYWa-3vF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}