Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Another New Normal

I need to deal with an issue. 

I've not hidden the fact that I'm beyond busy. (Have I? Have you felt that I've been pretty honest with how things are going? Somewhat?)

The business has exploded in the last month because we launched our new site. Expecting this, we'd hired people to handle the volume. We also had a staff on board all summer helping us get everything ready.

Of course, now that we are live, there are little things that need adjusting. Those things fall onto my plate. Perfectly fine.

What I did not account for was how hard it would be to do my regular job along with all the fix it jobs. 

Perfectly ok.

The whole thing has been great. We become more efficient in *this* way which gives us more time *over here*. 

Some of those things take time to set up and test. They just do.

Perfectly ok.

I am running out of hours in the day. I know that I have to dedicate the time NOW to save time down the road. 

I have to admit that it is making me a little bit crazy. 

Even that is perfectly ok.

It's crunch time, so to speak. There is a lot of work to do. The holiday season is approaching fast. We have new fall inventory. New processes. 

Fortunately, we hired someone several weeks ago who is looking like she might actually be my helper. YES. Someone who I could hand off my stuff to and go on vacation without having to bring a laptop. 

Why am I going on about all of this?

Because I couldn't be happier that it is my off-season.

I am struggling to get my workouts in. As of this writing, I still haven't gotten my run done. Now, it's looking like it might be late or not at all (given the workouts that I have tomorrow).

I know that I have full responsibility to myself to get my workouts in.  I know this. I haven't really missed any (today's yet to be decided).

I have to figure out how to deal with this. It's kind of funny because I get to master's swim every tues and thursday with no hesitation. 

It's the OTHER workouts that I do alone. It's not as simple as putting it on my schedule. Trust me. I've done that.

I get up early to do it but some fire comes up and it needs my attention immediately I end up missing my *appointment* with myself then I get hungry, and I can't workout because I have to eat in order to work out but then it gets later and I've never really liked working out in the evenings so I don't know how to plan for it then it's time for dinner and it's some spicy Indian dish and I can't workout after doing that so it gets late then I can't workout because if I do it too late then I can't sleep.


DEEP BREATH

Sometimes I just think, maybe I should just aim for 1 workout a day (on the insane days). I can easily prioritize by the simple fact that I have a half marathon coming up. 

Running would be the priority.

There's something bigger here though. 

I have friends and family that assume it is easy for me to set the alarm at 4am every day and get my workouts in.

What they don't realize is that I'm no super-scheduling-super-mom-super-business-owner-type. No one can live up to that standard. The Super-woman of the 80's was bullsh!t. 

It takes work. It takes consistency. It takes knowing when you are at a breaking point. 

Only YOU know when you can push on and when you are simply looking for excuses to skip a workout. 

I'm not at my breaking point. I just need to figure out how to get the priorities done each day. 

I'm a list person. Each day, I am going to write my list of the the things that MUST get done. For the fires that pop up during the day? I have to be honest about what is TRULY an emergency and what is something that is merely *important*.

Here's my commitment to myself:
1.) I will get at LEAST one workout in per day.
2.) It will be the first thing I do every day after breakfast.
3.) I will not allow myself to be pulled into anyone else's stress. In fact, my stress level seems to determine everyone else's stress level. I will remain calm and accept that there will be days where not everything gets done. 
4.) I will not be baited into missing a workout for issues disguised as emergencies.
5.) I will set my alarm to ring at me to remind me to go do my workout.


I will accept my new normal.