Get It Together September

Summer is not over.  It is September, yes, but the first day of fall is not until September 23rd this year.  Which means we still have a few days left until it is officially fall.  If you have followed the blog at all or know me on even just an Instagram deep level you know I love summer, like LOVE summer.  So I will be enjoying every single moment left in summer!  However, I am also a big fan of the reset.  I love any occasion to reset my life and get back on track.  September lends itself so well to a reset.  School has started, Labor Day is over, the weather is already starting to change, and we are going to be in fall for real before the end of September.  For me, and I think so many other people, September is a good reset moment.

Summer is fun.  Too fun.  I, perhaps, have too much fun and get off track in pretty much every area of life.  From Memorial Day, through my birthday at the end of August, and until the last day of summer I have a really good time.  I am in vacation mode the whole summer.  That basically means more parties, cookouts, pool days, wine nights, and general merriment.  Which also means, I eat and drink too much.  I try to see everyone I know at least once, which means I do not invest in my closest friendships or family as much as I would like due to spreading myself pretty thin.  Workouts are not as hard core consistent like they are through our brutal Chicago winters.  Those strolls down the river walk and on the Mag mile do not really count as high intensity intervals.  I am not very good about getting blogs written and posted…as you may have noticed.  Side note:  I know it has been too long since the last blog when people start asking me, “Are you still doing the blog?”  Yes.  Mind your business.  I am doing the blog, but I am also doing summer.  I know I do not do enough what I need to be doing in the summer.  I just want to be at the pool.  Maybe it would be better if I lived somewhere that summer lasted longer than two months (insert eye roll, please).  But I digress, back to the reset.

“Get It Together September” – that is my current motto!!!  I just started with that within the last week so or.  Which if you are a math wiz you have calculated that I started my reset over a week into September.  Mind your business.  Stop showing off with those fancy addition and subtraction math skills.  Listen.  I was busy.  I had a lot going on.  Then I hit that wall you get after you have been going 100 miles an hour for a couple months and you realize…crap…I really need to get my life together.  A couple years ago I decided to do “Get It Together November.”  It was my antidote to get ahead of the epic calorie intake game that is the holiday season.  I decided that I was going to be super strict on my eating and working out life from November 1st to Thanksgiving Day (well maybe the night before Thanksgiving because Lord knows we all need a glass of wine as we prep for Thanksgiving Day).  What I realized (and honestly already knew) was that I have the ability to be super strict and disciplined for a short period of time when I know that I need to get ready for something that is on the horizon.  So this year I am moving up my timeline a couple months because I need to get it together in a lot of ways, not just with food and exercise before the holidays. 

2019 has been a big year for me.  As you may recall, I dubbed it the year of the breakthrough.  There has already been so many things…I will not take up space with it here because that sounds like material for an anniversary blog at the end of the year!  A lot has happened, but we still have four months left!!!  Well, three months and a couple weeks as our math savants have already calculated.  There is so much to do!  As we roll up onto the final quarter of the year I want to be READY.  In order to do that I need to check in and work some things out.

What am I actually doing to get it together?  That is great that you want to get your life together Holly, but do you actually have a plan?  A solid plan?  Yes!  That is what we need.  Here is the plan (broken down into categories because there are so many freakin’ things).  I originally had a ton that I wanted to work on for each of these.  I am a binger and I have an addictive personality.  That means that I tend to go all in hard.  For some things that is really great…for some that is really destructive.  Here that may actually set me up for failure since rehabbing your whole life in a few weeks is not super realistic.  So I am putting this out there for accountability, but also to show you what I do because some of you may be wondering (and still reading)!  If you are wondering and reading, here you go.

Health:

-        Food journaling.  I know, I know.  Yawn.  Everyone hates food journaling.  I am not saying you have to do it.  I just said I am doing it.  I started about a week ago again and I am already noticing a difference.   Funny how when you do something that worked so well in the past that it works again now.  Crazy.  Truly, throughout my weight loss and healthy lifestyle shift, food journaling has worked for me every time.  If I am really doing it with honesty and integrity it keeps me on track.  Even when I am not eating like I should, if I track it all then I can look back the next morning and say, ok…need to counter balance that with a new day today.

-        Weigh-in and measurements.  I generally weigh myself once a week because I just need to make sure I am going all the way off the rails.  The number on the scale does not control my life, as it may have at one time, but there is still significance to the number on the scale.  I use it as a check point.  Again, I know not everyone loves getting on the scale.  I do not love paying bills and doing my budget every month, but I still do it.  I only take my measurements though every few months or so because it takes some time to see the difference in those inches.  The good news is that I did both of these this week and they are about the same as they were at the beginning of summer.  Praise that I did not go too far down the rabbit hole this summer!  Just need to get tighter and righter before I buy new jeans and get into end of year holiday mode.  Preemptive holiday strike, get healthier the months before and the holidays will not take you out like you think they will!

-        Workout 5-6 times a week.  I cannot tell you how many side eyes people give me for this one.  Look, if you want to side eye me I am 100 percent ok with that.  The truth is in my normal state of being I do actually work out 4-6 times a week - that is always my goal.  Yet again, I am not saying you have to work out that frequently.  I am just saying that for me to actually lose weight and maintain this is actually how much my body has to work out.  My full time gig was crazy busy the last couple weeks and one of those weeks I did so much overtime that I did not work out one time in seven days.  Not one time.  For me, that is an eternity and my body really hates me as a result.  So I am getting back into workout mode.  Even if I am having a day where my body cannot train as hard as I would like, I still need to go and do my best.  That will be better than doing nothing.

Relationships:

-        Adapt or move on.  I have had a lot of relationships that have changed over the last few years.  Not for the worse necessarily, just changed.  When relationships change, you have to adapt and either move forward with them in a new way or move on from them.  You (and by you, I mean me) cannot live in what a relationship once was.  Be it friendship, family, acquaintance, or romantic relationship I have learned that all relationships are all in a constant state of change.  Recognizing that the other person has changed and moved into a new stage of life, but also recognizing that I have too.  Some of the changes will be more drastic and dramatic than others of course, but they all change.  If any relationship stays exactly the same for years on end, there might be some unhealthiness going on there.  When a relationship is comfortable and beneficial for both people it is so easy to just want to stay in that spot forever.  That of course is not possible because time moves forward.  Trying to keep something in motion from moving will result in getting run over.  This area is a little more difficult because it is more abstract.  The quantifiable in these instances may not be practical.  So let us just say I have to adapt in some relationships that I have been trying to keep where they were.  I have some honest and loving conversations.  I have to accept what each relationship was, currently is, and be ok if I cannot predict what is going to be.  There is internal reflection and inner dialogue that I need to do with myself.  Those relationships that I want to thrive need to be a priority and those that need some space need some set boundaries.

Career and Writing:

-        Keep going.  One of the perks of my job is that my employer and I have an open and honest dialogue about my career path.  It is a really healthy aspect of my job that I appreciate.  You cannot tell every supervisor that your job is not what you want for your life.  Fortunately, they give me space to pursue my career aspirations.  In case you were wondering, my career aspirations are in writing.  A blogger that wants to write full time???  Earth shattering.  Trust and believe - I would be blogging all day, every day if it meant I could pay my full time bills with full time money from blogging, but alas I am not there yet.  YET is the operative word.  It may not be full time blogging that is my path, but full time writing for sure.  The job applications, interviewing, and networking have been a real struggle the last few years.  I have had seasons of full force, no distraction, and all the energy going into my career.  There have also been times of for real discouragement, like deep and dark discouragement.  When you are in this mode of full force and discouragement for literally years it is tough.  Not seeing the results you want is hard in all areas of life.  God has used it ALL though.  Right now I need to laser focus in on the positions I want and apply for those, narrow the search.  I need to do a better job of keeping up my networking circle.  Then also, just write.  It is challenging when you have a full time job, a part time job, and you are trying to get your life together.  I need to remember that I have done it and I can do it.  Just need to focus back in.

Jesus:

-        Guess this could have gone under relationships, but he needs his own category in my life.  Going to need to spend some more time with him.  Started a bible study on forgetting God…well that will punch you in the gut and get you back in check in a hurry.  Thanks Israelite’s for beating me to it in the book of Judges.  At least I am not the only one that has those moments of forgetting how great God is and what ALL he has done for me.  I am so thankful I still serve a gracious God that has freed me from trying to reach perfection in my faith.  I need to make him a priority first, but I am so glad he is there every time I neglect or forget to do that.

Well, that is about a thousand words more than I was aiming to have to work on in September (she says as she actual laughs out loud at herself in Starbucks).  I promise I am working on my word count guys!  Guess I better stop writing and get it together, but hey – at least I got the writing done for today.  Anybody else need to get it together in September?  Maybe we do “Get It Together September” and then a “Keep It Together October/November/December”.  Thank you guys for listening to all my issues.  Speaking of issues…back to my series on all of my issues next time…stay tuned…

Scriptures:

“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.  He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit.  You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me - and I in him - bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.”  John 15:1-5 (NET)

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.  So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (HCSB)

“And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baal’s.”  Judges 2:11 (ESV) & again all through the book of Judges