Post by Shannon
Ok. Just so you know I'm going to get a little bit personal in this post...
To be honest, life has not been easy for me for the past year and a half. I won't go into too much detail, but my life has been out of balance. Way out of balance actually.
The picture of me above is when I was about 8 months pregnant. I had a difficult pregnancy with our last baby. I had INTENSE headaches every day. They got so bad sometimes I couldn't do anything except lay down. It was rough because I was working for three companies (about 30-40 hours a week) up until the day I had our baby. I am a public relations / marketing professional, and I need to be able to think to do my job. This is hard when you have intense headaches, and you can't take very many medications when you're pregnant.
Anyway, that was one struggle I faced for 9 months...
Since our baby was born, we've faced other struggles with Patrick's job, trying to get into MBA school, getting our baby to stop crying ALL day...
Like I said I won't go into too much detail.
So I've been on this quest to lose weight and get in shape. This journey has helped me handle my stress to be able to cope with these problems we've been facing and stay positive.
So I've lost a lot of weight, and I feel great! The problem is, my life still hasn't been in balance.
This past weekend I went to a meeting for Beachbody Coaches. The presenter said how she was so happy because her life was in balance, and her relationships were the best they've ever been.
I thought about that a lot this past weekend. I've had my life in balance most of my life until the past year and a half. I was always a go to bed early, wake up early, read motivational books, be involved in my community / church, do three jobs at a time, train for 1/2 marathons and marathons, always on the go type of person. I seemed to have it all figured out until the past year and a half.
On Monday I listened to the National Beachbody Coach call, and they talked about reading a motivational book each morning when you wake up to help you be a better person.
I've always read motivational books throughout my life, but not regularly lately. After this call, I realized what I need to do.
Until this morning when I was reading my book, I didn't know what to call it. Now I do, I'm putting my life on a diet!
I talked to Patrick last night and we decided to go to bed by 10 and wake up at 6. Our plan is to first, get our baby to sleep through the night, then get our lives in balance by waking up each morning, drinking our Shakeology while reading our scriptures and a motivational book for 30 min., then workout for 40-60 min. each morning.
We started today, and we were successful!! We went to bed by 10:15 last night. Our baby only woke up once (AWESOME!!), and we woke up at 6:30. We read for 30 min. while drinking our
Shakeology, and then I did a
Turbo Fire workout, and he did a
P90X2 workout all before 8:00 a.m.! Yay!!
I started reading this book,
PUSH by Chalene Jonson, over a month ago, but didn't get very far. I started over today, and I'm so excited to read it and finish it! I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who'd like to get their life in balance!
In the beginning it talks about putting your life on a diet. I love that! My life definitely needs to go on a diet! I agree with her when she says that you can't just do something quick to fix your life, it has to be a lasting change. That's what I'm going to do.
The thing is that happiness comes when your life is in balance. When it is centered around the things in your life that matter most whether it's your faith, your family, etc. That's when you are truly happy.
Getting married, becoming a millionaire, losing weight, having kids, etc. make your life better, but they don't MAKE you happy. Like I said, happiness comes when your life is in balance and centered around the things that matter most to you.
