To The High-Achiever Who Gets Tired, Sometimes

  When I started this blog, I started it off with one of two intentions:

  1. To document the decade that makes up the space between twenty-years-old and thirty-years-old-- some of the hardest and most crucial times that will fill-up my young adulthood, develop my mind, and carry me into the rest of my adult life,

  and, 2. To try and help the ones who may read my blog to simply know that they aren't alone in life and its many difficult situations that we find ourselves in.

  Let it be known that I've spent the majority of my weekend off of work self-wallowing, eating my feelings in entire cheese pizzas, candy, and alcohol-- leaving all of the chores that needed to get done to be taken care of on Sunday, (today). I've been laid-up in bed pretty much all weekend, sad about all of the things that I didn't get done that I definitely could have done.
  Sometimes, I think it's good to have weekends spent at the house, resting after a long week of work, but it's probably not the best when seemingly every weekend is spent indulging in heavy amounts junk food and self-pity, but it's a lot easier to resort to that than productivity.
  To clarify, we need rest. You are human, I am human-- we need rest after a long week. It's healthy, normal, and necessary to rest. However, there is a fine line between getting the rest that we need to regain energy and an over-indulgent amount where it can suddenly become all-encompassing, hard to escape, and can ultimately become a trap that we fall into every single weekend, (or whenever we have time-off).
  The fact that I'm even saying all of this is purely ironic. I am the queen of over-indulging when I've had a stressful week. As a matter of fact, I just told Joey last night, "The second that I get off of work, I want to use every last second of my time-off filling it with anything and everything that can or will distract me from work until I have to go back." Thus birthing: my over-indulgent and self-wallowing habits.
  If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that in-order to have structure and balance, we need to make, follow, and stick-with a routine. Having our own morning routines and nightly routines help to bring a sense of peace and predictability and comfort to our lives.
  Finding a new routine and sticking to it is what I realized I needed to do for myself after taking a few days off of work this past week. Instead of sleeping-in until the last minute, I started running again, (which I missed more than anything), started eating healthier meals, rather than eating-out, and kept-up with my blogging/podcasting schedules.
  Everyone always seems to say, "life is all about balance", and it's so true-- it really is all about finding the balance that you need in-order to function on a day-to-day basis without feeling burnt-out every single week. We can figure out our own balance by figuring out our own daily routines.
  Finding your own routine can seem overwhelming, but I've narrowed it down to one, general point; (how you interpret it and how you figure out your own routine based-off of what works for you is up to yourself):

•   Figure out what goals you're wanting to accomplish. When you think of yourself and your personal growth, think about yourself a year from now to the day; of course, some minor things may change, but overall.. would you be okay if things were pretty-much the same, or would you want something to change? (i.e. your living situation, your job, your health, etc.) If you want a certain thing to change, what are the small steps that you need to take in-order to get those goals accomplished? (i.e. to get healthier: carving out time to exercise, saving money: setting aside ten dollars a day, etc.) Add these small steps that you've decided for yourself into your routine, and slowly but surely, you will see a change.

  If you're reading this on Monday, (the day that this blog goes live), here's to a new week of fresh starts, new goals, and how we'll choose to accomplish them. You are capable of more than you think you are and you are worth every of last ounce of energy and time that you place into yourself and the person that you are becoming.

  Life is rough; we all have things that we're going through. It's okay to want to give-up. I find that when I'm wanting to throw in the towel, rather than giving-up: sometimes it's better to take a break, reassess my day-to-day life choices, tweaking some things in my own routine, and then coming back to real-life with a new plan of how I will accomplish my goals.

  kati