3 Things I Struggle With 8

Posted In Life

When you run a health, fitness, and lifestyle blog, you dish out a lot of advice. From writing workouts, to giving nutrition advice, to answering reader questions, us bloggers sure do act like we know everything and we have it all figured out.

Maybe that’s why I have gotten such amazing feedback over the last month or two as I’ve dished about a lot of my issues and struggles? Because it’s nice to see the “human” side of people.

In keeping with that theme, today I am dishing about 3 things I struggle with, and what I am doing to fix them (or not fix them).

1. Sleep

Getting proper sleep has been a struggle for me for as long as I can remember. I can recall tossing and turning in my bed for hours as a young child because I couldn’t fall asleep. Then I would wake up the next morning and be miserable because I was so exhausted.

I’ve always been a sleepyhead.

Unfortunately, this cycle hasn’t changed much, except since I don’t have a parent to force me to go to bed, I just stay up later working or reading until I am tired enough to go to sleep. It probably didn’t help that I worked as a cocktail waitress at a bar for 7 years through undergrad and grad school and would often go to bed at 5 or 6 am. Ugh.
What I Am Doing About This:

– Holding myself accountable – Recently I hired a woman to be my Life Coach/Accountability Partner/Organizer/Etc. At the time I hired her, I was routinely going to bed around 2 and 3 am. She gave me a bedtime, yes, a bedtime of 1 am, and a wake-up call of 8 am every day. (I get up most mornings between 7:30 and 9, but since my schedule has some flexibility, some mornings I would sleep until 10 or 11 if I had been up late working the night before).

In fact, I have to text her when I wake up, and if I don’t, she will drive to my house. She also routinely asks me what time I went to bed, to ensure that I stay accountable.

We are working towards a bedtime of 12 am (11 pm is the eventual goal).

– Trying to relax – I try to spend the last 30-60 minutes before bed reading, taking a bath, or just relaxing in bed. This calms me down, and allows my brain to chill out a bit as well.

2. Saying NO to projects

Over the last 2 years, my plate has (luckily!) become very full with my gym, Girls Gone Strong, my personal blog, and many others projects and tasks. One of the best parts about being busy, is that you get a lot of cool opportunities. One of the worst? They can be impossible to say no to.

Taking on too many projects prevents you from being able to focus appropriate time and energy on any one project, and prevents you from doing things really well.

What I Am Doing About This:

– Hiring a coach – I’ll be talking about this more in the future, but hiring a Life Coach was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. She has helped me get really organized and helped me prioritize my projects and tasks so that I can get more done in less time.

But even better, she has helped me recognize what projects will lead directly to my goals, and turn down or discard projects that won’t. She has also helped me learn that it’s OK to say, “No.”

– Therapy – So I didn’t start therapy to deal directly with this issue, but believe it or not, it’s helped. (Side note: I’ve been in therapy for 5 years now and I love it. I think every single person should go at least once a month.) What therapy has helped with is my tendency to be a people pleaser and not want people to be upset with me.

Whenever I struggle with saying, “no” to a project, I remember this quote (paraphrased):

“Say ‘no’ more often so that your ‘yes’ has more power and meaning.”

3. Diet Sunkist

Yes, you read that correctly. Diet Sunkist.

Anyone who knows me well knows that it’s my ultimate vice and obsession. I know that it’s horrible for me, and yet I cannot seem to shake the habit. On a “good” day, I’ll have two 12 oz. cans. On a “bad” day, I might have four or five. (O_o)

Granted, those are 12 oz. cans, not 20 oz. bottles, but still. That’s kinda gross.

And just to be clear, I still drink tons of water. At least a gallon a day. And I always drink water with my Diet Sunkist to neutralize the acid and save my teeth (which my dentist told me look awesome, so luckily, no worries there), and I am careful not to brush my teeth too soon after drinking one, as that can cause enamel to wear away as well.

I also love VitaminWater Zero, tea, coffee… you name it.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for flavored beverages.

Just a few of my favorite flavored beverages. But remember, I prefer CANS of diet sunkist. So if you're gonna get my a birthday present... well... you know, I'm just sayin...

Just a few of my favorite flavored beverages. But remember, I prefer CANS of diet sunkist. So if you’re gonna get me a birthday present… well… you know, I’m just sayin…

I’ve even received Diet Sunkist as a birthday present before. Yup. It’s that bad. I gave it up for 42 days last year, and when that 42 days was up, my taste buds rejoiced.

Everyone teases me because I am such a stickler about what I put in my body. I eat as much organic, local food as possible, and I do my best to avoid chemical cleaners and beauty products at all costs. But that sweet-bubbly-neurotoxic-orange-flavored gift from God?

YES PLEASE!

What I Am Doing About This:

– To be completely honest, not much. I absolutely love the stuff. No one can be absolutely perfect all the time (I’m not even close). And if they are, well… I don’t really want to hang with them because that’s just annoying.

– OK, so I guess it’s not entirely true that I’m doing “nothing” about it. Because I consume that junk, I am extremely diligent about almost everything else I put in or on my body. If I am going to minimize the amount of chemicals and crap I am willing to expose my body to, then I have to be diligent. It’s all a tradeoff, right?

What about you? What do you struggle with? What are you doing to change it, if anything?