January 2023

If you usually have a “case of the Monday’s” this challenge is for you. If you just feel overwhelmed all the time this challenge is for you. If you feel like you are getting no where with your goals this challenge is for you.

Here are your 3 levels:

Easy: Stop using Sunday as another day to rush around getting all the stuff done. Use Sunday as a day to refresh your body and mind. Your body needs a break. For me, I do a yoga workout before church to relax my body and get it ready for the upcoming week. I TRY to avoid stressful situations and just spend time with the family.

Medium: Easy challenge + Take time each Sunday to look at your week ahead. What do you have going on? Who is taking the kids to each activity? Plan out your meals and do some meal prep. Think about what will stress you out this week and what can you do to minimize that stress. Remember you control your emotions and attitude. How can you show up as your best self this week?

Hard: This is for my goal getters out there. I want you to think about that goal and what you can do this month to get closer to that goal. What things do you need to do to meet the timeline you gave yourself? Now break it down into what you need to do each week to reach that goal. Final step is to put it on your calendar as an appointment or meeting. Something that is non-negotiable. You will be amazed at how much easier it is to make progress towards your goals with adding intentional action each week.

Our challenge this week is putting our thoughts on paper. You don’t need some fancy inspiration cover notebook or fancy app to do this. Any notebook or even word document will work. If you are like me, you have probably started this multiple times for a few days and just stop. I challenge you to go for the hard level as you will see trends in what you are writing (if you are being honest with yourself.). It will give you insight into who you are, who you want to become, or what keeps going around and around in your head.

Easy Level: Set a timer for 5 minutes and write everything that pops in your head. Don’t stop writing until the timer goes off. If you don’t know what to write, start writing about why you don’t know what to write down or why you think this is stupid. We all have an internal monologue going on constantly in our heads. This exercise is just writing down what it is.

Medium Level: Do the easy level exercise 3 days this week.

Hard Level: Do the easy level EVERY DAY for an entire month. This will start to create the habit plus you will have more to look back on to understand what’s going through your head.

It’s 5 minutes!! It’s only 2.5 hours out of your entire month that will give you a place to vent, dream, analyze, etc.

Try to find a consistent time of day. Maybe when you sit down with your morning coffee instead of scrolling social media? Or right before you go to bed where you can get all those thoughts out of your head so you can sleep better.

This week is an absolute MUST for me. Do you feel overwhelmed with everything and like you are going in a thousand different directions? Or are you in the procrastinator club? Do you have these small tasks that would take 5 minutes but you put off and take priceless mental energy thinking that you should do it?

Here are your 3 levels of challenge:
Easy: Do the small task that you have been putting off right now. When you see something that needs done that would take less than 5 minutes, do it instead of take more time thinking about than doing it.

Medium: Don’t break the chain. It gets A LOT easier when you don’t start and stop everyday. Each day do the small things to allow your mental energy to focus on the big things. TIP: track it with a calendar. This has been my key to success for not giving up. Give yourself a check mark or even a sticker. Find something that works for you. (See comment section to see my trackers I use.)

Hard: This is my go to each week & month and IT WORKS! You will feel like you are in control of your time instead of time controlling you.
Step 1: Brain Dump. Get out a piece of paper and write down all the tasks that are swirling around your head. Just the act of getting them down on paper takes a little load off you. Then prioritize the list giving things a A,B,C ranking. A- must be done this week. B- needs to be done this month, and C- nice to have/wish list/not urgent.
Step 2: Use a hourly planner or just write the days and time periods that make sense for you. Start with your must haves (or big rocks). These are your appointments, meetings, kids events. See all the gaps left? Now fill in the gaps with your A items(medium rocks). If you don’t have enough time for all your A’s, look at your list again and prioritize it. More than likely you will still have time or gaps left. Fill those in with the B’s (small rocks) and even maybe a C (sand).
(Think of your life like a jar: first you fill it with big rocks, then medium, then small. Finally fill it with sand to fill in all those small cracks.)
Step 3: Treat this plan like a commitment to yourself. Make sure to plan downtime so you don’t stress out. Give yourself a ton a grace. I guarantee that you will not follow it 100%, but I can also guarantee that you will achieve more than if you didn’t. This focuses your mind on what’s important and shows you that you can do get it done!

Would love to hear from you if you tried this & your success or even what you learned through failure. Remember failing forward isn’t failing. Learning from failure = success

“I’m not a morning person” people this one is for you. Even if you are already a morning person, keep reading because there are some good ideas that you could make your mornings even better.
This book has 3 levels of challenge to pick from. I’ll put more info in the comments section.

Easy Challenge: Wake up 15 minutes earlier than normal. How? Bribe yourself. Reward yourself with being able to hit the coffee shop before work or pick something that would motivate you. Tip: Make sure you have to get out of bed to turn off your alarm. Taking to first steps will get you moving.

Medium Challenge: Wake up 30 minutes earlier for a WEEK. This will give you a window of me time to do the thing(s) that you want to get done, but never seem to have the time. You can start the day knowing you did something for yourself today.

Hard Challenge: Wake up early for an entire MONTH. It can be the 30 minutes or more depending on how much you want to accomplish before the rest of the house gets up. The key to this is consistency and creating the habit.

Write down what you got accomplished during that extra time that would still be sitting in your to do list if you hit the snooze. You will be amazed at how quickly your body adjusts.

Remember your body still needs 7-8 hours of sleep which means you may need to adjust your bedtime. If you feel like you can’t fall asleep earlier, try turning off electronics earlier, stretching, reading a book, or listening to a sleep meditation.