Maybe you know the feeling? You get paid your salary. Breath a sigh of relief, and head out to the grocery store. It is time to replenish the supplies. Your pantry is sad and bare. Picked clean. Empty.
But all of that is about to change. You see, you have a full bank balance and the power is now in your hands. You feel like a king and as you parade around the isles of the store, you certainly shop like one. Trolley filled to the brim, you proceed to the teller. Everything is going great. That is until you see the blinking green light indicating an amount that is ever on the increase.
It feels like your anxiety levels are matching that of the number of the little LCD screen. You swipe your card and tell yourself that using up more than half of the month’s food budget was necessary while you nervously leave the store.
We’ve All Been There.
I didn’t like living like this. For the first two weeks of the month is a feast, while the last part of the month is a famine. It was stressful. It was disheartening. We were over it.
It was time to try something new, but what? Wasn’t this way of life just the way it is? Or was it?
Reduce Budget Stress
I have already gone through a bit of a story on how I got here. Thanks for reading it 🙂
I am not going to go into too much detail of how we got to this strategy, I won’t torture you any longer. It is time to get right into it. This is my active budget stress-reducing strategy. Are you ready? Here it is:
Budget Stress-Reducing Strategy
Write up a budget – There is no way around it. You need to plan where your money is going. Otherwise, your money seeks to rid itself of you by any means necessary.
Divide it up – Once you have the amount you want to spend, it is time to see how many weeks are in the month ahead. If there are 4 weeks in the month, divide your budget by 4, etc.
Take a calculator – This may seem quite restricting, but I have found it to be rather freeing. Take a calculator with you and punch in any amount of an item that you add to your shopping basket.
Bonus Tips
Shop online.
Make a list of what you need.
Think about the meals you plan to prepare for the week before you go to the store.
Buy more than a week’s worth of essentials when they are on special.
You may recognize the title of this post. You may not. I was reminded of this when I came across a young couple sitting at a table nearby. The young lady was crying. I don’t know for sure but it looked like they were in the middle of a break-up.
As I saw this young person clearly going through a difficult time, I thought of the start of a bible verse I knew. The verse starts off with the sentence: “Once I was young, but now I am old”. While I sat there and thought about this verse, I thought about my own life. I thought about a time when I was younger. I thought about the problems that I had back then, and how small they seemed now. Even though back then they were monumental.
There was a time when I thought that being cool, or liked by my classmates meant everything to me. An end to a young-love relationship was the end of the world. Struggling to consistently land a kickflip meant catastrophic failure.
Don’t Sweat the Small Things
I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that everything would be okay. That in the end, those things that I was so obsessed with wouldn’t matter in the end. I would tell myself to do my best and to not sweat the small things. Everything was going to be okay.
Growing up.
It was at that moment where I thought about a video I watched. This video was an interview with a 90-something-year-old person who lived a full life. The man was asked to share some words of wisdom for the upcoming generation. What would you like to tell the young people of the world?
The man thought for a minute and said:
“Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine. Try to do your best. Don’t work so hard. Spend time with your loved ones. Do things that really matter. Everything is going to be okay.”
– Unknown
The Realisation
It was at that moment that I started thinking about the present. I thought about my own challenges, and the troubles I was facing. About the young person and their challenges and I thought about the old man and his words of wisdom.
I realized that my problems are relative. When I was young, not landing a skateboard trick was huge. Now I am older and my midlife challenges are far more important and serious — or are they? To someone who is 90 years old. My problems might seem trivial. As you approach the end of your life, the things I am currently facing just seem a lot smaller.
The Trick
As I sat there, waiting for my order to arrive. I thought about a possible trick. If we could learn from others, and look to our past experiences, maybe, just maybe, we could live the best version of our lives today.
What if instead of pounding worries around in my mind, I tried my best. What if I chose not to worry. Dared to believe that everything would work out, some way or another? If I could choose to believe that this moment, this situation, this challenge too shall pass. Everything was going to be okay.
What would my life look like if I took the advice from that 90-year-old man? Just knowing that perhaps one day, I would look back at this time and think, that wasn’t so bad. I wish I didn’t worry so much. I wish I enjoyed life a little bit more. Spent time with my family.
Once I was young, now I am old.
Worrying, obsessing, and agony is part of the human condition. We have so many words of wisdom from those who went before us. But at the same time, we still need to go through life and experience it for ourselves.
But what if. What if we could take that advice now? Live as though we already went through life. Live in the present moment. Be thankful. Trust and have faith that everything was going to be okay.
I don’t know about you, but this gave me hope. Life is not easy, but we really only have one shot at it. Let us live now while we are young. So that we don’t look back when we are old and regret all the things we wish we did or didn’t do.
Don’t worry. Enjoy life. Try your best.Do what matters. Spend time with your loved ones.
Progress is not about getting lucky and striking the big one. Although things can happen like that, it often doesn’t. Progress is about sticking to something. Moving slow and steady. Building momentum, by simply moving forward. Bit by bit.
I am reading the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. A fantastic book that talks about how small consistent changes to your habits can yield very big results over time.
Make Progress Slowly
I have found this to be true with life and almost everything that you might want to develop. Want to read a 300-page book? Instead of trying to do it in one sitting, why not ready 10 pages each day for 30 days? Tackling 10 pages seems a lot more reasonable than climbing a 300 pager mountain in one feat.
Just like investing over time. Our efforts can compound over time too. This means that if we consistently make small increments each day, we will reap major results if we are patient enough. James Clear writes, “Imagine if you could make 1% progress each day”.
That is what it means to make progress slowly. To play the long game. Keep at it. Don’t give up.
This next venture sure is going to be exciting. I have decided to start executing some of my ideas that I have been having over the years. I would like to introduce Quest to you. A free dark theme for Slack.
Launch Fast. Fail Fast.
I came across the idea for Quest, like many of my other unactioned ideas. While browsing Twitter one day, I saw a tweet that inspired it all.
However, Quest, unlike any of my other ideas is different. How? Well, Quest was the first project that I decided to execute on. And it feels pretty good.
The main idea is to execute. Quickly and effectively. This usually means a sacrifice of quality for sure. But, I don’t think I could stand another idea going cold on me. No. It’s time to try things out and learn by doing.
Quest – A free dark theme for Slack.
Quest – A Free Dark Slack Theme
So what is this product? Quest is a dark Slack theme that is available for anyone to download and use. It was designed specifically for digital nomads, designers, and developers alike. Many of these online professionals communicate with their clients and team members for hours each day on Slack.
Quest was designed to be easy on the eye and to offer its users a delightful yet unintrusive experience. The ultimate dark Slack theme.
10 Life-Changing Lessons I Learned from Toxic Twitter.
Maybe you’ve experienced ‘Toxic Twitter.’ Maybe you haven’t. Up until recently, I hadn’t known what everyone was going on about. That is until I decided to leave the comfort of my scrolling through feeds, and decided to let the world know about an opinion I had.
I am not going to get into the details here. Because quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. But to give you a little context, I will tell you this.
I agreed with a particular person’s tweet. I responded with my own life experiences. A band of users who didn’t agree with me or the author of the tweet decided to let us know how they feel — in great detail. Words were said, personal character attacks were made. Overall, a pretty average day as far as social media goes.
As I stood in my living room, reading the replies. I was surprised. How was it possible for one person to openly say these insults to another stranger?
A Storm is Brewing
I started to compile my reply. I wanted to make the other person understand my point of view a little better — it failed. It made it worse. The person on the other end of this string of data somewhere on the opposite end of the planet got even more fired up.
When this happened, I was on the brink of declaring war. The situation felt sorely misunderstood and their tweet left a small but sharp sting, right in my mid-section.
I felt hurt, misunderstood, and wronged. This needed to be corrected.
As I was about to hit the reply button, a thought popped into my head. Is it worth engaging with this person? What do you hope to gain? An apology? From someone who openly and intentionally through hurtful comments, hoping for a reaction? No chance. Toxic Twitter is real.
10 Tips on Dealing with Toxic Twitter
I deleted my reply and decided to let everything sink in and think about the situation. After much thought, I went against my humanistic nature and decided not to reply to this person. I even took it one step further and deleted my initial response to the original thread.
On the surface, it would appear that I lost this online battle. I didn’t. And here’s why. Below are my 10 life-changing lessons that I learned from dealing with toxic twitter.
1) Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Just like I chose to have my say about the matter. Anyone is allowed to add their opinion to the conversation. Even if it is (viciously) in disagreement with your thoughts.
2) People don’t always follow the same rules. This is a hard fact to come to terms with. But in the example above, both I and this Twitter user were right — in our own eyes. This leads me to my next point.
Be better.
3) Don’t engage with someone maliciously. Imagine that we were having a conversation and you share an opinion with me. Instead of talking it through, I immediately respond by jabbing you in the nose. You would feel, well, hurt. Probably in more ways than one.
But if you look at point number two, remember that in our own eyes, we are both ‘correct’. The only difference here is that I am not playing by your moral rules.
If someone is openly malicious, there is an extremely small chance that you can reason with them, or come to some sort of resolution. Trolls are not playing by your moral code. They threw that job to get a reaction. They want to hurt and tear down. Engaging with someone who has an agenda like this is impossible. You won’t win, because you are probably not willing to stoop down to that level to win. This is a good thing by the way. Otherwise, there would be anarchy.
4) If a troll’s mission is to tear down and destroy, there is only one way to come out on top. Let this situation make you better. I decided to delete my tweet and walk away. Not because I was weak, but because I decided not to let this situation define me. I wanted to grow from it. If a troll hopes to destroy a part of you, and you develop and improve because of the situation — who wins? You do. Because you achieved the exact opposite of what they were hoping for.
Make the world a better place.
5) Do the opposite. I read an article about a person who made it their mission to engage with aggressive online users. They went out to show them who’s boss. Set them straight. The more they engaged the more enraged they become. Unfortunately what ended up happening was the exact opposite of what they initially intended. They started to become a troll and would seek out ‘stupid’ people on social media and start verbally abusing them.
It turns out, two wrongs don’t make a right. I went out to my Twitter feed and started to reply to people. I focused on leaving genuine, positive, and inspiring replies on other people’s tweets. Do the opposite of what a troll would do — make Twitter a better place instead.
6) Two sides to a tale. There are always two sides to a tale. We will never know what another person has been through. Perhaps, they feel justified in their behavior. Maybe, something tragic happened to them that lead them down this path of pain and aggression. Does this give a free pass to do what they want regardless of anyone else but themselves — certainly not? But it always helps to try and put yourself in the shoes of the other person, even just for a moment.
7) Walking away was freeing. The quicker I could walk away from the start of this conflict, the better. While a storm was brewing on my phone. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Putting my phone down, walking outside, and moving on with my life was truly the better option.
8) Choose words wisely. Looking back, I could have probably worded my tweet better. Changing a word or two can change your tone of voice and still deliver the message effectively.
9) Engage with people who make you happy. Life’s too short. If you’re going to spend it on social media then engage with people who are worth your time and bring value to your life.
10) Live more in the real world. Not toxic Twitter.
A friend wrote this to me after I told him that I failed three times at a particular event. I was impressed, mainly because he used baseball to illustrate his point. Thanks, friend. You know who you are.
You entered the ballpark, stepped down from the pavilion into the ballpark.
It is comfortable in the pavilion, amongst the opinionated crowd, but you dared to step onto the field, pick up a bat and take a swing. Stepping onto the plate means facing highspeed baseballs, and with each pitch comes with it, uncertain opportunity.
You will swing the bat. Some you will nick, on others you will walk, but all of us will probably miss more than we’d like to admit. But it is only by standing there and facing every pitch, bursting with opportunity, rife with uncertainty, that you will be ready to hit that one baseball. Right on the sweet spot. Past the fielders, over the crowd, and out of the ballpark.
Home run.
But until then, keep facing those pitches. Adjust your feet. Correct your grip. Anticipate the pitch. Loosen up. Focus. Swing that bat with all you have.
You are in the field, and it only happens on the field. Swing away.
Working from home can be a dream. It can also be very challenging. Since the world seems to be adopting a work from home mindset, I wanted to share some tips on how to stay productive while working from home that I have found helpful over the years.
Take Time to Prepare
When working from home, you must prepare for the day ahead. You don’t want to be caught like a deer in headlights when your alarm clock rings. Think about it. You are working from ‘home.’ Your home is a place of rest, relaxation, and distractions. Generally speaking, a home is not a place designed for maximum deep work and productivity – it’s a jungle.
Now that we have established that our homes are a minefield of personal and professional obstacles, it is easy to see why having a plan going into your day is so important.
Start planning a day in advance
Take some time at the end of your workday. Look through the tasks of the day and check off everything that you have accomplished. Now it’s time to make a new list. Write down a list of everything that you would like to do tomorrow. Make sure to include any tasks that you didn’t get around to during the day.
With your list more or less completed, take a moment and think about what your day is going to looks like tomorrow. If you’d like, you can stack this process with another good habit of cleaning your desk (more on this in the next step). While thinking about the next day, you may find you need to consult with a team lead or partner. Check-in with them to see if there is anything that they might require you to do. Maybe you need to run an errand for a spouse, meet with a potential client, or start dinner a little earlier. You should have a compiled list of tasks at this point, and already a clearer picture of what the next day would look like.
Grab the Calender
Take your list and sit down with your calendar. At this point, you want to try to visualize your day as best as possible. This process is not supposed to be perfect, but rather a rough outline of your day. Try to be realistic with the time it takes to complete tasks. Give yourself some leeway, and don’t expect a robot-like performance from yourself. Again, be realistic.
Develop a Routine
Similar to planning your day, a routine is there to help define boundaries for your home and office. Do you remember a time when you worked a job at an office? Chances are you had to be out of bed at a specific time; you performed a particular set of tasks to get ready and have some commute before arriving to work. While those things may have seemed like a drag at the time, they were helping you to get available for work.
Once we get into the flow of a routine, often, it may seem like we are in auto-pilot mode. Slowly drifting along until arriving at our destination. A routine helps prime your brain and body for the next event. Once a set of tasks are completed, like waking up, brushing your teeth, and driving to work, your brain is ready to do the next event – usually, work.
Because we work from home, you might find it a bit difficult to have a set routine. Each day is different because we are privileged (and cursed) enough to have flexibility. If you just roll out of bed and open your laptop on Monday, but only start working in the afternoon on Tuesday, you might have a difficult time trying to focus or getting in the zone when it’s time to work.
Start-Up Routine
Try to set up a simple start-up routine to get into the swing of things. You have the freedom to set this routine and start at any time that best suits you. A start-up routine doesn’t have to be time-consuming, complex, and cumbersome.
I am currently trying a simple routine. When I am ready to start work (which is usually more or less the same time every morning), I head out the front door for a quick 10-minute walk around my neighborhood. When I get back home, I put on some coffee and wait for it to brew while casually browsing my phone. After the coffee is ready, I pour a cup for myself and my wife and head to the office. As you can see, this is almost mimicking a commute along with grabbing a coffee before sitting down to work. I find that a 10-minute break to be alone and outside helps re-align my thoughts. It also adds some distance from myself and my home. It allows me to refresh my brain, ready to take on the workday ahead.
Shutdown Routine
Similar to the start-up routine, the shutdown routine happens at the end of your day. When you’re ready to “Pack up” and go home, I’ll admit, some days, I rush out my home office and into the kitchen. But ideally, I like to first close all my browser tabs and apps on my computer. Start making a list of to-do’s for the next day, and clean my desk. If I am feeling like a groggy-zombie, I like heading outside to get some fresh air or take a quick walk around the block to clear my head.
When I get back home, my brain has been reset and I am ready to spend time with my family.
Take a Breather
Have you ever had a friend jealously ask you about your workday? Maybe they begrudgingly scuff at the thought of you doing an hour of work while the rest of your day is spent lounging around?
This could not be farther from the truth, at least in my experience. As a remote worker, I find it incredibly easy to sit in front of my computer for a copious amount of hours at a time – not a good idea.
Try taking regular breaks. While this may sound easy, it is pretty tricky to put into practice. Frequent breaks are essential to staying productive while working at home. Your body needs it, and you might find that you perform better by taking these small but frequent breathers—bonus points for having your break outside.
Work to Your Strengths.
The beauty of working from home is that you have the power of flexibility at your disposal. Mostly, as long as you can get your work done promptly, companies don’t mind when and how you get your job done.
If you’re an early bird, go ahead and get started nice and early. Prefer to take on your tasks like a cape crusader in the night? Why not? You might need to clarify this with your team leader, but if they say it’s all good, you’re ready to roll – whatever time suits you best.
I prefer to work later in the day or even at night. My family dynamics, however, have me working closer to a standard 9 to 5 office hours kind of deal.
Work to your strengths. You have the power to leverage your natural productive abilities when you feel most productive.
Try Journaling
I would love to be more consistent in this regard, but I find journalling a great tool to stay productive while working from home. Journaling no matter how simple is fantastic at developing one’s self-awareness muscles. This self-awareness comes in handy when you need to realign a routine. Speak up in a meeting or know when to take a break (or push a little bit harder).
Bullet Journal
I use a simple Bullet Journal method that helps me record my day’s tasks, organize my thoughts, and take note of new ideas. My bullet journal is also my anchor. If I am working, it is right by my side, ready to be flipped through and scribbled in at a moment’s notice.
There are a lot of different journaling methods that can boost productivity, creativity, and personal development. I use the Bullet Journal system, but I’d encourage you to find a journaling method that best suits you.
Here are some tips to help you get started journalling:
Don’t think you need to write pages of words a day. A simple sentence can be considered a journal entry.
Analog systems are incredibly satisfying to use, but your journal can be digital. There are loads of apps out there to try. If you use Mac or IOS, why not give Apple Notes a go?
Start simple or get creative. It’s your notebook. Do with it as you will.
Watch some Youtube tutorials on journalling. There are loads of ideas out there, and don’t be ashamed to copy someone else’s system. Chances are you will develop your system over time. I use the ‘Perfect Day’ system that I created myself. Let me know if you’d like me to write more about it.
No matter how small, go ahead, and start. You can stop anytime you want if you feel that after a few days or weeks that it’s not for you.
Give Yourself a Break.
To end this article, I want to leave you with one last piece of advice. When times get tough, don’t be too hard on yourself. You will have the best intentions of making the most out of your day but it will fail. Life happens. and seemingly more so when you work from home.
When this happens, try your best to recover your day as best as you can. Don’t beat yourself up. Dust yourself off and try again tomorrow. It’s going to happen, and it happens to us all who already work from home. Staying productive while working from home is tough – but you’re tougher. Get it done.
There are a variety of resources out there providing help for freelancers on how to get freelance work. When I was a freelancer, I would often visit these blogs and watch these videos. And while I did find some helpful hints, I was often left feeling unsure of what to do next. While there are certainly a lot of things you can try to get more freelance work, I want to give you a tip that I used to get my freelance career rolling.
How to Get Freelance Work
Seek Out Low Hanging Fruit
When starting, new work is tough to come by. Converting someone who hardly knows about you into a paying client is a lot of hard work. You have to win their trust, provide evidence of your competency, and convince them to hand you their hard-earned cash.
Many freelancers get stuck on seeking out work through cold calling and other lead generation technics. It is enough to send any freelancer who is just starting, running for the hills.
Look a little closer.
You don’t have to go to the ends of the Earth to find your first client. Instead, reach out to the people closest to you. See if there is anyone who would benefit from your services.
Try reaching out to these people to start with:
Friends
Family
Work Colleagues
Your community
Businesses
Make a List
Go ahead and make a list of all the people you know. Do any of them own a business? Does anyone work for a non-profit organization? Lead a community? Even if none come to mind. Make a list of everyone. You might be surprised at the number of people who could benefit from your services.
It might be a good idea to write to anyone else that might come to mind during this process even if you do not know them personally. Do you have a friend who is a friend with a business owner? Ask her to introduce her friend to you. Let them know upfront if you plan to talk to them. You can also ask to join any activities where you might naturally meet with this person. Keep things natural, and don’t try to force your way on anybody. Be genuine. People can sense when someone has an alter motive.
Transparency and authenticity go a long way.
Reach out
Now that you have your list of potential customers. It is time to reach out to them. Since you already know these people, you should be able to quickly get in touch with them and let them know about your new freelance business.
The beautiful thing about communicating with people that you already know is that they will be a lot more willing to listen to what you have to say.
Offer Your Services
Once you have made contact, it is time to offer the person your services. You can provide a service to them for free or charge an affordable fee. Keep in mind; you want to give them value. It is not the time to make ‘big bucks’ off of your dear old pal.
Do good work.
Hopefully, an opportunity will arise for you to do some work for a person you care about or a project that resonates with you. Put everything you can into the project but don’t go into significant debt or become bankrupt in the process. Just try hard to do a good job.
If you have done your best, your associate might love their new website or logo and tell their friends. Hopefully, their friends will ask for your services too. Perhaps, they have even more friends who could benefit from your excellent skills.
And so the word of mouth marketing campaign goes. Let someone know what you’re doing. Offer your customers an incredible amount of value. Repeat.
Caution
Offering value, helping friends and family are great. But be careful not to allow others to take advantage of you. You are a person — a professional. You can’t work for free all the time. There are bills to be paid and a life that needs living. ‘Exposure’ can only get you so far. Don’t let anyone deceive you by getting services out of you for ‘exposure.’
Here are some tips to help ensure that you protect yourself, your relationship, and your client:
Ensure that everyone knows and agrees on the scope of the work — see point #1
Request a 50% deposit upfront.
The customer must pay the remaining 50% before the project completion.
Avoid the job if you sense the project will put a strain on the relationship.
Stay in Touch
I hope you found this article on how to get freelance work useful. Let me know if there is anything that I missed by commenting down below. More resources are coming soon. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more freelancer tips.
“We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit” – Some book. Read by some guy on YouTube.
In order to do things, to live life to the full, to move forward. We need to do just that, move forward. Little by little, day by day. “We are what we do.”, “Repeatedly.”, these are some of the simplest and most thought-provoking words I have ever read.
Whatever you want to do with your life. Break down the biggest part of it into little, habit-like tasks that you can do daily. Here are some that I am currently doing.
Learn Norwegian – 1 or 2 Duolingo lessons per day.
Run like a champ – Aside from my cycling and weight training every now and then, I run pretty much every day. Even if it is just one kilometer.
Read more books – A couple of pages each day, either in the morning or just before bed.
Learn to Code – I aim to do a couple of lessons per day with FreeCodeCamp (working my way towards becoming a Frontend Developer).
Blog more – aside from this last four weeks I usually aim to push out a blog at least once a week, why? I want to practice writing, sharing and communicating and you should too! Start your blog today.
Design – this one is a new one. I plan to design or create something daily. No need to spend hours doing so, just find something simple online and recreate it. Will start this tomorrow. I think I will start practicing my illustration techniques 🙂
It doesn’t help if we climb halfway up the mountain in a day and remain there. It is far better to climb it one step at a time daily but reach the top.
Side note, if you can sprint up the mountain and stay there, well, then.. Well done!
Believe it or not. It does not come naturally to want to wake up early, get dressed and go for a run in the early hours of the morning. Especially weekends. For fun. I know…
As an adult, there comes a point in your life where you want to improve your overall health. Maybe you want to lose a couple of pounds or just stop getting winded climbing a few stairs. Whatever the case, here are a couple of tips that helped me become one of those early rising, active types. Trust me, this was not always the case.
Start small – not that long ago a victory for me, consisted of waking up and going to the gym. Even if it meant walking at a snail pace for 10 minutes on the treadmill or even just sitting, reading a book in the gym lobby waiting for my friend to finish training.As time goes on, increase the intensity, speed, weight or length of the activity you have chosen. If you are like me (a millennial) you have to fight the urge to want to become a triathlete, overnight, just because you thought it would be or look cool. One training session will not result in your looking like The Rock or taking on the Tour de France.
Be consistent – Slow and steady wins the race. Walking every single morning for 20 minutes for a month is better than running a 5km once a month.
You cannot out-train poor nutrition – Surprise, surprise. No matter what activity you are doing. Try running a car on mud and it will break down.
Find a gym buddy or running partner – find someone who you enjoy being around, someone who is in better shape than you and can help push you past the point of what you think is possible. Remember, we become like those we associate ourselves with. Unless you are really self-driven and disciplined, I would say having a gym buddy is vital. I would often throw myself out of bed in a spin at 5 am running out the door to go train. Just because I knew my training partner was downstairs in the car waiting for me.
Find a diet, eating plan, lifestyle (eating method) that works for you– Keep trying until you find something that works for you, you can keep it up long-term and it doesn’t make miserable. Slow and Steady. We in this thing for the long haul. What worked for me was intermittent fasting – OMAD (one meal a day)
Do something that you like – try to find an activity that you like. I hated going to the gym and running. So I would cycle, walk and play squash because I found those to be a lot of fun. After 45 minutes of any of those activities, I would be dead tired, sweaty but had a smile on my face.Now that I am fitter, I actually like running (and gym), I feel better about myself, and can run for more than 2 minutes (not kidding) before it feels like my legs were going to break right under me.
Doing something (even the tiniest amount) is FAR BETTER than NOTHING – I know this is basically point #1 coming up again but it is true. You might be tempted to think that if you can’t get out of bed and run for 20km, there is no point. This is false (thanks Dwight). Keep at it. Waking up turns into walking. Walking to jogging. Jogging to running. Before you know it, you are finishing races and waking up early on a Saturday to go running and there is nothing else you would rather be doing. Not even sleeping.
Travis Lima 