Tag: #resolutions

March 26, 2023. Find your productive time.

Tiny actions work well for me-hence the book I wrote. However, even tiny actions cant always fight against my “down time.”

I have the majority of my energy in the morning. By the end of the school day, I am kind of like a wet noodle with not much energy. So tiny actions I accomplish in the morning now are

  1. Washing/putting away any dishes from the night before.
  2. Hanging up clothes from the night before.
  3. Tidying up the house/bathroom/bedroom.
  4. Grading papers.
  5. Practicing French.
  6. Cleaning out my car (before I pick up the carpool)
  7. Folding any laundry that I washed.

This may seem like a lot but I usually get ready in the morning and then have about 20 minutes left until I have to be out the door. Before implementing tiny actions, I would simply leave a lot of these tasks for after school/evening. Then, I would get home and be tired and not get anything done. Therefore I learned to maximize my energy in the morning and give myself a break in the afternoon/evening.

Do you know when your “peak energy” occurs? Can you maximize what you do during that time and cut yourself some slack for the rest of the time?

To my 110 subscribers and 336 followers-THANK YOU!

1/1/23. Happy New Year! Easing into Keto in a tiny action way.

I feel better when I dont eat a lot of carbohydrates. I just do. I also know that my “health numbers” are better when I eat a lower carbohydrate diet. Sooooooo…back to Keto I go. However, instead of jumping in with both feet (which is a real burst that burns out quickly), I am easing into it this time. Here are the steps I have taken or will be taking.

  1. From Dec 10-28 I drank more water and got more steps in. That is all. Very tiny.
  2. On Dec 27 I bought a magazine with a lot of good looking keto recipes.
  3. On Dec 28, I went to the grocery store and bought eggs, cheese, meat, avocados, vegetables, nuts and seeds, etc…
  4. On Dec 29 and 30, I made egg burritos with low carb tortilla shells in my sister’s air fryer (it is on loan from her to see if I want to purchase my own) and cut out the chips and cookies I had been eating a few days prior. I still ate some popcorn.
  5. On Dec 31 I ordered a steak and asparagus for dinner. I had a glass of red wine and about 3 bites of peanut butter pie.

Today is Jan 1, 2023 and I KNOW that a ton of people start diets today and a ton of people burn out by February. I had an omelette for breakfast (no toast or potato) and am heading to the treadmill after writing this post. We are eating chicken for dinner. I have already had 3 glasses of water on top of my morning coffee. As you can see, I have been “starting this diet” for about 21 days now. Little tiny actions. I am ready for the next step of cutting out carbs.

I challenge you today to try something new-DONT start the new diet today. Start the tiny steps that will prepare you to start the new diet in a few weeks. Get yourself ready. Think of it like an adventure. Take the pressure off of today and of trying to be perfect. What are all the little itty bitty things you can do to get you ready for the better eating plan? I believe it will help you to not burn out and to stay the course. You cant go from 0 to 100 in 24 hours which is what almost everyone tries to do. You will flame out. Make this year different! Make this year a “tiny action year” and keep chugging along slowly.

To my 98 followers-THANK YOU! I hope you have a restful and inspiring start to the new year! Stay tiny!

February 6,2022-“we don’t wake up and say today is the day to destroy my life”

I just heard a YouTube interview with Mel Robbins and she said this almost word for word. She then went on to explain what she meant and it really resonated with me. We make hundreds of decisions every day. TINY DECISIONS. And when those add up, it creates a life we like or a life we don’t.

For example, lets say that I use a different coffee cup every day and instead of washing it, I leave it in the sink. Then I put my lunch and dinner dishes in the sink. Then the sink fills up so I stack them on the counter. Then the counter fills up so I use paper plates. Then the garbage fills up because of all the trash. Then the trash fills up but its cold outside, so I simply put one bag of trash in the garage and start filling a second. Then that starts filling up. Then the bathroom trash can fills up but I have no where to dump that so I start just filling small grocery bags full of trash and placing them around the bathroom. It seems silly but I didn’t “wake up and decide to trash my house-it just kind of happened” and I would be telling the truth. It did just kind of happen. THEN I have to spend HOURS cleaning and tidying and I get into a bad mood. Then I snap at m husband. Then, then then…

It is JUST like that book, “If you give a mouse a cookie”. If you don’t know the book, I highly recommend it. The premise behind it is that if you give a mouse a cookie, he is going to want a glass of milk and then the whole book is what he needs after that-a napkin, a plate, etc…

The two stories above may seem like silly examples but I want to ask you…Do you have a pile of unopened mail somewhere? Do you have a pile of laundry somewhere? Do you have a sink full of dishes? Do you have boxes stacked up in the garage or basement that haven’t been looked at in a while? Do you have items in one part of the house that belong in another part of the house? Do you have things sitting out in your bathroom that need to be put away? Do you have a desk at work that needs to be organized? Do you have bills to pay or accounts to look at to budget your money for the week/month?

If you spend 4.50 a day on coffee/pop/cigarettes/beer/etc… and have it each day Mon-Fri, you spend 90.00 a month. You didn’t MEAN to spend 90 dollars a month, it just kind of happened. Then at the end of the year, you either have 1080 dollars in your bank account or you don’t. you have 1080 paid toward a debt or in a retirement account or you don’t. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a fancy coffee as much as the next guy, I am simply pointing out these small decisions that affect us long term and when we try to just “survive the day” we sometimes lose sight of how that will affect us in the future.

Another example is my sophomore year in college. I needed to lose the THIRTY pounds I had put on from freshman year. I read an article that said very simply if you cut out 250 calories a day and burn an extra 250 calories a day, you could lose 1 pound per week. In my 19 year old brain, this sounded easy. I left cheese and mayo off my sandwiches and drank water instead of juice. I also biked to my classes (uphill) instead of taking the student bus. I managed to lose about 25 pounds that year. And I felt great! Nothing I did was super drastic, it was merely a couple of tiny steps that changed my entire body.

So here is my challenge to myself and my question to my readers. What tiny decisions are you making each day that are “destroying your life?” I know that one of mine is eating a small piece of candy each day. It doesn’t seem like much and in the grand scheme of life, it isn’t much. However, that little piece of chocolate MIGHT be destroying all the weight loss efforts that I have been putting into place. Its worth a try to see if that helps. We all owe it to ourselves to examine what we are doing and change it in a tiny way if we want. I don’t want pants that don’t fit, so this is the small change I have to make this week.

THANK YOU to my 69 readers and followers! You keep me inspired!

Jan 30, 2022-some days (or weeks) will just be bad ones

This week, I fell. We got almost a foot of snow on Monday while I was at school and as I was walking to my car, I fell. I am fine, but that one small thing basically threw off the rest of the week. How you may ask?

Well, for starters, I was sore. I fell onto my left side and it kind of jostled everything in my body. Each day when I woke up, I could feel a different part of my body reacting to the fall. Everything was just jostled. So I thought I should not do the elliptical until my body felt better. Today is finally that day (6 days later)

Then, Tuesday-Friday nights were busy with appointments, classes, basketball games after school. Every single day after school. My husband and I like to call this the “night shift” of our jobs. No disrespect to actual night shift workers but when you are at school from 6:45am until 3:45 pm and then you start another part of your job that goes from 4-10…it feels like 2nd shift.

On top of all that, my husband ran a 12 hour wrestling tournament yesterday and I spent the day studying for a French exam that I am taking 6 days from now. So we didn’t really have a Saturday either. And because of these things, even “tiny tips” weren’t helping-laundry and dishes weren’t done. Working out wasn’t done. Eating out happened instead of cooking at home.

It has been kind of a “just survive week” and you know what-its ok. At first I was super frustrated that we had dishes in the sink , bills to pay on the table, laundry in the hamper. I kept thinking to myself-just do a little and even that seemed overwhelming, so I just left everything. But then, something magical happened…I washed the coffee cups while my coffee was brewing. I threw in a load of laundry while I took a study break. I paid a bill while I was waiting for my husband to bring home takeout. And slowly but surely, things started to get done.

So embrace the bad days (or weeks). Call them what they are (survival) and start again. Start small. Henry David Thoreau says “One is enough” and I always thought he meant that owning one of something was enough. Now I am thinking that he also meant that doing one thing is enough. Just do one. Wash one cup. Pay one bill. Do one load of laundry. Wipe down one sink. Just one. Until you can do ANOTHER “one.”

Here’s to a great week for me and a great week for my 69 subscribers! KEEP GOING ONE TINY STEP AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!

Dec 30, 2021 Get rid of New Year’s Resolutions

If they work for you, then keep going with them. However, in a 2016 study of the 41 percent of Americans that make resolutions, only 9 percent felt like they had accomplished them at the end of the year.

Top resolutions every year are to workout/improve fitness/get fit, lose weight, save money, improve diet. So that tells me something. We all WANT to be better and we start out with a bang and then something happens and we stop working toward the goals for whatever reason (I think it is because we go too big too soon and too many-hence the purpose of this blog)

I don’t know about you, but I have made resolutions for a majority of the New Year’s and I seem to always fail at them just like most people do. So I am taking a different approach in keeping in line with this website.

I started working out on the elliptical for one minute on Monday. One minute, that was it. Then 2 minutes on Tuesday, 3 on Wednesday, and I completed 4 minutes today. Going VERY tiny. It has been hard to get motivated since I had Covid. I am still very tired. My goal is to increase one minute each day until I get up to a good 30ish minutes of Cardio. But that might take a while. It might take until summer. It might take until next December. I don’t know but I do know one thing. One minute on the elliptical is better than no minutes on the elliptical.

I am not worrying about my diet at this moment. I am not worrying about losing weight or saving money or any of the other goals that I put on my resolution list. I am going tiny. Just exercise. Just one minute increases. Just that. Thats it. OBVIOUSLY, my long term plans would be to accomplish all those other resolutions but if I can get one under my belt, I know that I will feel better. I will keep you posted on this progress.

THANK YOU to my 65 followers! Keep on keeping on!

March 7-a week of failure. I must have tried to do too much.

This was a bad week. I’m actually amazed at how bad it was. It was as if all my tiny habits didn’t matter and I didn’t care. Usually, I can analyze what happened and pinpoint where I went wrong. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible this week.

Elliptical-I did 15 minutes one day and didn’t do any the rest of the week. I was either too tired or didn’t feel like it or ??? Maybe I pushed too hard too fast? This week I will go back to what is attainable. I’m not sure what that number will be. I will let you know next Sunday.

Health-I did part far away in the parking lot but that is about it.

Diet-I ate terribly. It was a keto fail. I can’t even call it keto. It was simply “eating whatever I wanted with no regard for anything else.” I wonder if it had something to do with changing up my breakfast.

Money-I did a great job with this. I was able to transfer some unspent money into my Las Vegas account for our upcoming trip. Im actually really happy about how I did with this.

Home-my bedroom was a mess all week

Mental-I struggled to read anything or care about trying to improve myself.

Other-I did compliment a person. But it didn’t feel like much.

Bursts-NONE

Missteps-THE ENTIRE WEEK as you saw above

Next steps. So here is the important part and here is where I feel like every article/blog post/book I ever read leaves me hanging. They don’t talk about this part. I understand why. It feels like failure. I feel like a failure. And yet, I have a choice. I can keep falling down this hole of self pity, apathy, and failure or I can start again. I choose to start again. Slow and tiny even though my heart wishes it could be fast and big. Slow and tiny is how I will get there.

So…next steps will be…

Elliptical-I will start with 1 minute and increase where I can

Health-I will go back to eating my cheese sticks for breakfast, salads for lunch and almonds for a snack. Dinner will be a challenge as always and I am working on that.

Money-I will save whatever amount (be it small or large) and transfer it to my Vegas account

Home-I actually am doing a load of laundry right now and I threw away some papers. I also put away a pile of clothes that had been sitting out for a while.

Mental-I am going to read for pleasure. If I stumble across a self help book that seems interesting, I will consider it.

Other-I am not sure what to put in this category. I did write a St Patricks Day card to my grandma and I am going home to see my parents next weekend.

February 14-Valentines Day weekend

Feb 14

Valentines Day

So last week little steps

8:30 to 10 min of elliptical

Money-credit cards are still paid off.  Put 50.00 into my savings for Vegas as a reward (that’s what post is going to be about today)

Health-parked farther away in parking lot again-did elliptical 5 times this week (one was today but I still feel like counting it)

Work-Wrote for blog before work today as well as worked on fiction book this week.

Home-pulled comforter up on bed, washed dishes out from lunch at school, did laundry

Rewards.  When I think of a reward, I think of finding someone’s dog and getting a monetary reward or potty training a kid and giving them a piece of candy for “going potty.” It is hard to imagine “rewarding an adult.” And yet, there are some goals that I am struggling with, so I thought I would reward myself if I could work on them consistently.  There is some bath soap I would like, and it is kind of expensive.  I have determined that every day I work on my novel, I will transfer 1.00 to my bath soap fund.  As soon as I hit the price of the bath soap (24.00) then I can go purchase it.  It may seem silly but I have 6.00 in the fund now and have been working diligently on my book.  Also, for every day that I don’t eat sugar, I transfer 10.00 to my vacation account. Or 15.00 if I go completely carb free. Last week I transferred 50.00.  So it seems to be working. I will do both of these again this week.

Mental- read articles about rewards-couldnt really find what I was looking for

Other– Wrote a letter to Grandma

Bursts-had a huge burst day and got a ton of stuff done.  Then, in true burst fashion, the next day I was super tired and didn’t accomplish much but that is ok! You have to take advantage of the bursts when they happen and then settle back into your regular routine when the burst is over. 

Missteps

Valentines weekend.  Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning I ate some cookies and some very rich food.  But it was a holiday and I will be back at my low carb lifestyle again tomorrow.  

Next steps

Try for 11 min on elliptical (trying to prepare for Vegas and tennis season so I am pushing a little harder)

Move money for “no sugar days” into a separate account (going to be Vegas account now that we have booked that)

Health-9000 steps a day, ONE day of no sugar and be proud if I do that

Work-notes each day for the blog and at least 4 days of writing my novel. Also asked to shadow some other teachers at school so I can work on becoming a better teacher.

Home-keep dishes done each night and dresser cleaned off.  Home is pretty clean right now so will maintain this week.

Others: compliment 2 people this week.