Prioritizing

I used to be one of those people who waited for the start of the week or my birthday or the start of a new month/year to start something new. It took me a while to realize if I wanted something, I had to start working towards it from that moment. If I knew my goal/desire/objective wasn't going to change, then why wait? What was I achieving by stalling? Even though I do believe that having a plan is essential to helping you achieve your goals, I came to realize (the hard way) that I was often using the planning stage as a way to procrastinate. I'd tell myself, first I've got to do X, then Y, then Z ... and then something else would come up and I'd get distracted and tell myself - ok, I'll restart on the 1st of the month. The cycle would continue.

Though I firmly believe in starting to work towards your goals immediately, I still find the start of a new month to be a time to reevaluate how the past month has gone. Reevaluation is important, because the last thing I want to do is waste time doing something that is not helping me reach my goals. Too often I have found myself sticking to my plan - a plan which looked good on paper, but was either difficult to implement or sustain or just wasn't helping me get the results I wanted. Taking a moment to take stock is important. Sometimes I find my plan is working just fine and I can continue on the track I've been on. Other times, revamping is necessary.

So today, on March 1st, I'm taking a bit of time to regroup and set new plans in motion. With all the travel and chaos of the 1st two months of year, I feel it's necessary. After returning from Bangladesh, I hit the ground running - and that was a great way to start. However, I felt like I lacked a bit of structure. It's time to get some structure back. There's a lot I want to achieve between now and July -- I have to make sure that I'm 100% on task (leaving room for some flexibility of course, as I wrote about yesterday).

In order to do this, however, I have to figure out exactly what I want.

Funnily enough, the basic components of living a healthy lifestyle are easy now. I mean, I've been trying to lose weight and get healthy for a few years now. I don't need a book to tell me what's healthy to eat and what's not. Same thing with exercise. I know I need to be efficient with my workouts and choose exercises that are effective (weight lifting + HIIT = magical combo for me).

That's the easy, basic stuff. Now I'm ready to start looking deeper. More on that tomorrow ...