So… it’s been a few day since I’ve blogged because life has been…well you know..life. You know exactly what I’m talking about,those times in life that are just monotonous, boring and bla. There were just so many new exciting things happening in my life ever since I began my journey.
First I started the journey and that was exciting. Then I moved to Utah and stayed with my brother and sister in law Steven and Erin. Then I went back to school at BYU I, started dating a guy, then I quit school all together, then I ran a half marathon and now I’m back at BYU I…that guy and I broke up, it’s FREEZING up here. Literally. It snowed here today. I ended up injuring my knee while dancing which how the heck that happened I have no Idea. lol So I went to the health center on campus and they said it sounded like torn cart ledge under my knee cap so they wanted me to rest it for a couple of weeks so running was out the window. I was devastated. All of that training I did and would have to rebuild somewhat after 2 weeks of not running? The thought of it just killed me. THEN Justin and Tara told me that we needed to change things up because I wasn’t progressing as quickly as I should have been so they decided that it would be best if I was more on my own. They said that they detached this chord that I had with my Mom and then kind of latched it onto them. They think the best way for me to really progress and grow is to have more freedom and be more independent. SO… they’ve decided to start cutting that cord as well.
Starting out on this journey I had requirements and a strict schedule that I had to live up to. Those were going to bed at a reasonable hour so that I could wake up at 6 am. I was required to run 4 days a week and run a marathon. I had to lay out my work schedule for Justin and Tara and let them know what I was doing and accomplishing through out the day. Now they have decided to back away and give me freedom, freedom to act for myself. They did this because they said they noticed that I was just going through the motions and wasn’t super excited about what I was doing and wasn’t super excited to wake up early anymore and run and listen to books and podcasts. They realized that I was doing all of this because I had to, not because I wanted to. And they were very right. They told me that I could now choose what time I wake up, if I run or not, if I sign up for the marathon or not, If I listen to educational books or not. Everything was now up to me. This thought excited me yet terrified me at the same time. Everything I did was all up to me now. I was so pumped about this whole change! Not because I could sleep in now and be more laxed. No… but because the fact that I was doing this for myself and not because I had to was that much more empowering for me. I wanted to show Justin and Tara that I would be fine with out all of those rules and that I would succeed even past their expectations and wake up at 5:30 am and run even farther and work even harder. THEN that’s when I injured my knee. I thought my Life was over. I was wanting to stretch myself and run even farther and then I was told that I shouldn’t run for 2 weeks. So I thought ok, even though I can’t run, I’m still going to stay in the habit of waking up at 6 and I’ll shower and have a good Miracle Morning. I’ll study the scriptures, write in my journal, do affirmations and visualizations and then I’ll be ready for work at 8. Lets just say that that didn’t happen. For some reason literally the day after they told me I didn’t have to wake up at 6 the temptation to sleep in was that much stronger. And the fact that I couldn’t run, and that it was snowy and freezing outside left me with very little motivation to get my butt out of bed.
This bad habit of sleeping in until 7:30 happened for about 3 days then I had had enough. I started waking up at 6:30 to do my Miracle morning. That lasted for about 2 days then I was back to my old ways of sleeping in right up until I had to wake up for work at 8. I had good intentions of waking up at 6 but whenever that alarm would go off I would hit snooze over and over and had no motivation to get up.
I noticed that while I was doing this I felt terrible about myself. I felt like a bum because I hadn’t worked out or showered yet. I was so much more tired throughout the day and felt like I needed a nap and my motivation to eat healthy went out the window. My self-confidence went down because I wasn’t sticking to things I said I was going to do. I felt like a failure. I felt like all of this time I spent creating these good habits just fell off of a cliff and I would never get it back.
The fourth day I got up at 6:15 and did my miracle morning and felt great. That lasted about 2 days then I just lost it again. Eventually a week and a half passed and my knee started feeling a lot better. I finally got to the point where I was so mad at myself and felt so lousy that I was finally more willing to get myself out of bed and go running than to continue feeling that way.
The morning I went running again for the first time felt SO good! My knee didn’t hurt at all anymore. I felt so empowered. I finally had control over my life again. I forgot how good it felt to get up and go running. This morning was still such a battle of getting up. I almost didn’t, but then I remembered how crappy I felt when I slept in and I couldn’t stand the thought of feeling that again. So I shot myself up, put on my boots and coat and went out in to the dark and turned on my car to defrost the ice off of my windows. I came back inside, changed and was off. As I arrived on campus I saw all of these students there cleaning the building I was in. They had already been there long before I had. Some of them probably don’t even have cars but they need to make a living while going to school so they figured out a way to make it happen. So they get up super early and clean the campus before they have class. So my realization was that anyone could do something as miserable as that if they wanted it bad enough. I finally got to the point where I wanted it bad enough.
Will tomorrow be just as much of a struggle getting up? Yes I’m sure it will be but I’ll remember how great I’ll feel later. That is what gets me out of bed. It took me a while to get there and I’m still working on it but I’m finally getting to the point where I’m doing this for myself now and not because I have to. I messed around with the other side just long enough to remember how terrible it was which is what makes it that much easier to get myself up and going. All of this applies to working hard and grinding things out as well even when I don’t want to. It’s still super hard to work these long hours but I’m still pushing myself to keep going even when I don’t want to. I need to learn how to hustle and get crap done if I’m ever going to become a millionaire.
I remember that episode where Tara taught about creating habits. She said that it takes about 2 to 8 months to create a habit depending on the person. She said that even if you mess up here and there that habit will still be there. Just because you mess up doesn’t mean that all is lost and that you can’t keep moving forward. If you fall off of the ban wagon you can dust yourself off and hop back on. This is how we hold our goals and have control over them. This is what I’ve done with running and staying motivated to grind stuff out even when I don’t want to. With running..I found that I can still run just as far as I did before. With work I’ve found that the harder I work the easier it is.
I got a little carried away with the writing today but I had some big break throughs this week and just had to share them! Here are some videos of my journey in the past couple weeks, Enjoy!