"Do The Right Thing!"

This is my new mantra!

At least it has been for the past week!

At the beginning of the year, I decided on the word BALANCE.

It seemed perfect at the time. I mean in all of our crazy lives it's what most of us seek. We try to balance our schedules, our time, our passions, our work, etc. And even as triathletes we must balance the training between 3 sports individually as well as working them together.

Well lately that word just hasn't been working for me. I guess because it leaves open too much room for ambiguity and wrong doing if you will! :)

We all have things that come easily to us and then we all have our issues we struggle with. Some of the issues I struggle with:

*Getting up early to go to Masters
*Eating healthfully
*Finding time to squeeze in work so that I'm not shoving it in on any given notice
*Pushing myself beyond my current limits
*Recovering properly
*Flossing every night and going to bed on time :) (I know this one sounds funny, but flossing is a BIG deal to me! And I know when things are off track when I skip it because I'm too tired to stand there for 2 min and get it done and chose to go CRASH into bed instead! :)

So I sat down the other day and was looking over a journal entry that I wrote at the beginning of the year about this whole balance concept. I was trying to figure out where it was going wrong. And then it occurred to me that it was because what I was doing was balancing meeting these goals and good habits with blowing it off.

See, for me it's like this vicious cycle!
1. I get totally FED UP with myself for slacking on these things and decide I MUST get back on track!
2. Things go well for awhile
3. Life happens, start juggling things to meet everyone's and everything's demands
4. Things get chaotic and crazy, and I get TIRED!
5. I start to let myself "slip" because.... Well we can't be perfect all of the time.
6. I continue to get off track as I excuse myself from hanging with my focused habits.
7. I enter into the well... it's too late now phase, I might as well have one more cookie! :)
8. Ultimately, I'm off the band wagon, I get fed up again, and the process repeats!

So see the problem in focusing on that word balance for me is that it's up for too much interpretation on my part! :)

Now, I'm not promoting a lifestyle of trying to be 100%... 100% of the time!

I'd like to think that there's no one out there like that! :)

But, I started listening to myself a little more lately... (read my last post!) and what I realized is I KNEW when I was bailing when I shouldn't be!

See, fortunately, most of us have been given that little voice inside our heads that tells us, "Ah, ah, ah... is this REALLY what would be best???"

And if you're me, you either A. Ignore it.... B. Tell it to shut up... or C. Explain to it WHY it should be ok!

Even though we all know deep down when we're just reasoning with ourselves in a dishonest way. Kind of goes along with Liz's post from yesterday about being honest with ourselves.

So ultimately I decided that I needed to REALLY start getting to know that little voice inside my head! And what does that little voice do for us? It helps us choose to "DO THE RIGHT THING!"

What's great is that right thing is different for us all, and different at different times.

For example: If you know me at all by now, you know my sweet tooth is OUT OF CONTROL!! :) And I would justify those extra treats because well, I had a super tough workout that day, or I was in a really bad mood and needed to make myself feel better, or well it was this special occasion or that special occasion. And I'm not just talking a special little treat, I'm talking all of the time!

And honestly, it's not like I eat it CRAZY often. It's really more about the fact that I eat stuff like that for the wrong reasons. You know... as a way to make me feel better or justify things or what not if that makes any sense.

So the other day I decided I wanted something sweet and asked that little voice in my head if that was the right thing to do, and it said YES! So, I decided to go through the drive-thru at Starbucks for a Grande Java Chip Light Frappacino!! Yummy!!

Well when I got there a piece of their cinnamon coffee cake sure sounded good too! And then came that little voice... "Ah... you don't really need that." And then I started to think, "Ah... it's only like 200 calories more and besides, I don't really worry about calories!" But the bottom line is I asked myself for this situation right now, what was the right thing to do? And it was to just stick with the frappacino. Because I didn't get it... I didn't really want it... And I didn't miss it after I made that decision!

So it worked... And it's not just food either. Last night... SUPER tired! Running 20 min late for bedtime and did NOT feel like flossing. But I knew that I'd be mad at myself in the morning for not doing it. And that little voice said, "Come on... it takes 2 min!"

So I made the decision, did it, and was glad for it!

This little trick of mine is working for helping me with the budget. Do I REALLY need to buy that?? And sometimes the answer is Yes... It's not about torturing myself!! :)

It's just really about digging down deep and really KNOWING what your inner self says you should do.

And for me.... For now... it's working!
K :)