It is not a challenge anymore. It’s a lifestyle.

I wake up at 4:30 am on weekdays and at 5 am (max) in weekends.

I do this because I can’t afford not to do it. This is the time I feed my mind and spirit and take care of my body to be prepared for the day.

My current routine is as follows, I hope it helps you create your own:

1. Read one lesson from a course in miracles and a year of miracles by Marianne Williamson.
2. Do 3 sets of power breathing, 20 breaths each.
3. Do a 15-minute sitting meditation.
4. Do a 7-minute exercise of yoga stretching (still shy on this part as I believe it could use more focus from me) and jumping jacks if I’m still sleepy.
5. Have my coffee while starting my 20 minutes of journaling which consist of the below:
   1. Read one entry of the daily stoic by Ryan Holiday
   2. Write the morning gratitude entry in “The Five-Minute Journal“
   3. Write a one sentence entry about each of my 2 kids in the one-sentence journal for mothers by Grtechen Rubin (second year to do this, one journal for each kid).
   4. Write a one-page entry about my dominant thoughts and the happenings of the previous day in my Moleskine daily diary.
6. The next 20 minutes are dedicated for making progress in reading. I read one or two books at a time, 10 minutes each. I started recently to rely on number of pages to read per book, so If I want to finish a certain book within a month I need to read x pages a day.
7. The next and final 20 minutes in my routine are dedicated for learning by doing, so I aim at moving forward in some courses I subscribed to. Current focus is The Marketing Seminar by Seth Godin, so I watch the lessons’ videos and do the homework.

I sometimes use the last 20 minutes to read and update my goals and set reminders and the to-do list for the day. I love that I have a longer time during weekends which I usually use to read more and reflect on the past week’s entries and achievements (ideally).

After that I feel so energetic and satisfied and ready to wake up my family to start the routine of leaving the house and facing the day.

When does the morning routine fail?

• It fails if I check my email or social media, I get absorbed by them and minutes get stolen from one of the above steps. Solution? keep the mobile out of reach during all this. I use it to read the morning spiritual entries and to time my mediation and then leave it on the yoga mat usually.
•  It doesn’t feel as good to wake up if I sleep less than 6 hours the night before, therefore I need to prepare for it every night by respecting my bedtime.

 

When does it work best?

• If you have a 5 am club like the one I joined, a group of people who share the same interest and wake up at the same time, so we say good morning to each other through this club (group)  and go about our routine. It makes you feel less alone and less inclined to go back to bed.
• If you believe that all successful people have this in common: they wake up before the world does to work on their personal development goals.

 

 

​I’ve always been the kind of person who monitors one’s self. I’ve always paid attention to my habits and tracked some of them; especially  social media consumption. I’ve had rules when and what to check and for how long per day.

Lately, however, I’ve started to realize that being able to check social media is a kind of true luxury. It’ a sign that I did indeed have moments to catch my breath between various tasks. 

Not anymore. I hardly check my favorite social channels and I’m always feeling late to the party. This is not so bad. But again, it’s one of many signs that things have changed.

Getting back to work after my maternity leave this time was a routine shock that I’m still recovering from.  
I’m still navigating the waters of being a full time working mum with 2 kids now-one of which is a very strong-willed toddler who’s still potty training-and a home to look after that should feel like a sanctuary but far from it in the messy reality.
This post is not to complain. I fully realize how blessed I am. I’m especially grateful to the support we’re getting from both our families. It’s  beyond generous. I honestly can’t imagine what we would have done without them.  
I admit I’m also human, having all these mixed feelings is very normal and common. This is a new territory that needs time to settle in. If settling ever happens.
This post is in fact one way to accept and embrace the life I’ve already chosen for myself.
This rings true to what a wise person told me: “You need to let go of the old Bardees and find a way to love and make peace with the new one”.
And to all who share my experience in their own lives I say: Less reminiscence. More acceptance. This is how it is. So how will you handle it?  It’s up to you.  
Me?  I’ll find the best version of myself and remind myself that things change fast, and in the bigger picture, this is just a very temporary phase that I will for sure miss. 

One month into my maternity leave with my second baby and all I’m thinking about that this time is such a rare opportunity to do things I’ve been too busy to do before. I spent one month recovering from giving birth experience and adjusting to a totally new routine and new demands of a tiny creature who spent most of his first month on earth sleeping and waking up to eat. I now feel guilty for not doing more. It’s also easy to be negative when I have such “free” time in my hands, it’s physically exhausting indeed but my mind goes to all non-productive places generating ideas that suck the energy out of me and I need to snap out of this. I want to use my days to get some items off my checklist. I want to get a room in my house decorated right. I want to give cooking another shot and cook more than those five recipes I’ve been repeating. I want to enjoy being a homemaker and make my house a better home and not a place that reminds me of sad undone things like putting those photos in albums, decorating the walls with photos (photos are joyful and painful to me that way), clearing up my  the clutter in my closets and drawers, reading the parenting books I have on my audible and kindle (and I have all kinds of books on my to-read list, but it’s the best time to focus on family), writing more and so on.

This post is to hold myself accountable for the next few precious weeks I have as a stay at home mum. Checking-in again soon.

After I listened to the wonderful book “Essentialism” back in April, I got back to the habit of journaling after stopping for a long time.

I used to keep this habit when I was in school and university, then transferred to using software and applications like MS. Word and such to journal occasionally.

Feeling tensed and wanting to analyze what I was feeling was the driving force to journal in those times. However, Greg Mckeown in his book and in this article suggested a great piece of advice that helped me keep this habit for months now: “Write less than you feel like writing”

If journaling sounds too daunting a task for you, I suggest the following simple way to get started:

Write One Sentence Every Day. If you want to create this new Essentialist habit, use this counter- intuitive yet effective method: write less than you feel like writing. Typically, when people start to keep a journal they write pages the first day. Then by the second day the prospect of writing so much is daunting, and they procrastinate or abandon the exercise. So instead, even if you feel like writing more, force yourself to write no more than one sentence a day. Apply the disciplined pursuit of “less but better” to your journal.

So I got a small journal and lovely colored pens (I just love good pens!) and committed to writing one page a day right before bed, just one page. This really felt easy to do every day. I also could feel the benefits as I progressed like a clearer mind and thinking.

Sometimes I feel reluctant about handwritten journals VS. online journals that I can access anywhere, anytime I want. Nothing feels like handwriting feels, though. Nevertheless, I will go for online journaling when I want to write in depth about a certain topic I’m experiencing; not just going through key events in my day.So that way makes sense to me for the time being.

Sometimes I wake up really early or my family goes to be bed earlier than usual, I get the house to myself for a while. A chance that I really enjoy and try to take advantage of as much as possible. In this quiet, I chose to  sit and write here because it’s something I’ve been delaying for 7 months. that’s how old my last post was.

I’m currently reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and as I felt reading Your Turn by Seth Godin, these sort of books do get me going and thinking and acting on them. I’m enjoying Big Magic and the way Liz writes so much. and I like how she doesn’t make creativity a big of a deal.

I don’t even want to commit to writing here from now on, but that’s exactly what Liz and Seth have been saying: show up everyday no matter how bad your output might turn out, keep shipping, share your ideas with the world.

“Creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that-merely by being here- you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.”

I’m entitled, because I’m here.

I’m better when I wake up earlier.

I’m better when I do my morning routine of reading spiritual scriptures & meditating.

I’m better when my day meals were prepared the night before.

I’m better when I put makeup & feel good about how I look & dress.

I’m better when I arrive to work early.

I’m better when I write my daily gratitude journal.

I’m better when I start my work day by planning my tasks.

I’m better when I take the time to write an inspiring quote on the office’s whiteboard.

I’m better when I spread positive vibes around & don’t complain about mundane tasks that I need to do.

I’m better when I limit my social media consumption and choose to not be constantly available on demand through the different energy draining communication platforms.

I’m better when I have no meetings,  very productive and short ones if I must.

I’m better when I eat homemade meals for lunch.

I’m better when I have just one cup of coffee a day in the morning.

I’m better when I’m patient and not reactive to the traffic I can’t control on the way home.

I’m better when I spend quality time with my family.

I’m better when I get to do some reading for topics I love in the evening.

I’m better when I get some cleaning done around the house.

I’m better when I get to have a good talk with a friend.

I’m better when I read beautiful words during the day.

I’m better when I take the time to capture beautiful photos.

I’m better when I minimize social gatherings during the week and enjoy them in weekends.

I’m better when I go to bed early and properly set the stage for the next day.

I found out that I feel much better about my day when I get to do these things. There are a lot of them that I can absolutely control, and thus run my life in the best way possible. I also know that when I don’t do these things I’m not really OK and that’s a sign there could be so many things on my plate that I need to let go of some to become better. I should pause a bit, reflect, readjust, relax again and get back on track.

I was inspired to do this list by Brené Brown who once gave a nice and simple example in her Gifts of Imperfection ecourse. She said that when food starts to expire in her fridge, that’s her cue that things are not going well with her life. I just have to agree with this! This list is part of an ongoing experimentation and recurrent themes coming up in my gratitude journals. It’s a work in process that really took me a while to figure out and build my life around.

This is what works for me. I hope you find out what works for you.

It’s the end of the work day. I’m driving, feeling okay and a bit sleepy due to the monotony of the audio book I’m listening to and the long time I’ve been stuck in traffic. I choose to take a different route this one time hoping I’ll get lucky and find clearer roads only to find worse traffic there.

I’m home, much later than expected, only to be more irritated by news about the events of my baby’s day while I was away from her. Then, I make myself a quick meal and just when I’m ready to eat, I find no yogurt left, my favorite meal ingredient. I feel once again irritated and disappointed.

The course of the previous events set me off to a really bad mood. Few things out of my control controlled me and the lack of feeling in control itself really bothered me. There were expectations and none went as planned. So I reacted. I did not respond. I allowed small things to ruin my evening. I did not own my mood nor my reactions. I personalized these events and forgot they were not out to get me. I did not let them be.

I thought a lot about this, then wholeheartedly forgave myself for all the negativity I sent out to the world.

“Next time I will do better” I promised.