Life is full of responsibilities; work, family, home, and health to name a few-
and I bet your list goes on and on. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed and struggle through your day-to-day life with the endless tasks
but what if I told you it could be easier?
You deserve to live a life that is filled with joy and happiness.
You deserve to live a life that’s simple and calm.
You deserve a life with less stress.
You deserve a life that is fulfilling.
And you can do that all while living the life you want.
My goal is to give you the tools and resources to live the life you want. That all starts below with my three steps to becoming more organized and living a more stress-free life.
HERE IS HOW TO START
Take advantage of more than motivation;
You know that burst of energy that you use to tackle your HUGE to-do list or clean your ENTIRE house- that motivation. It’s exhausting using every ounce of energy you have to complete these tasks, and I want you to be anything but exhausted. I want you to live that fulfilling life, accomplish all of your goals, and at the end of the day still have loads of motivation left.
Think back to the last time you were totally inspired, maybe you watched a documentary and decided that you were going to implement that concept into your life starting IMMEDIATELY! You’re hyped up, ready to go- but how long did this last before you forgot about it completely? A day? A week?
You see when an action is fueled by motivation, it doesn’t get completed on the days that are hard, the days that you’re tired, or busy, or just lacking the drive. And that’s why you have to stop depending on it like it’s there to support you.
Start creating lasting habits;
You know the things you do automatically. Habits happen with very little motivation, which means they are sustainable and you can easily do them for the rest of your life. The catch is, that they require a lot more effort and patience to form. The 3 step process of creating habits is what it takes to get it DONE.
And while one habit might not seem like much, they add up and work together to make your every day a bit easier. (This coming from a homemaking clean-freak that accomplishes more in a day than most people do in a week, all thanks to the habits I’ve created).
All right I’m in, how do I form a habit?
Habit Forming Process:
1. Before you get all excited about creating a habit tracker and adding in every habit you wish you had… wait. The first step in creating habits is to reflect on yourself and your goals and decide what you want in life. Here you can see an organizer that can help you break down your goals visually and refer back often.
Long story, short: taking the time to write down your goals makes them REAL. It sets up your path to success and gives you a visual of what you are working towards.
2. Create a list of habits. This is the part that you can get super excited about and carried away. Go ahead and write down EVERY SINGLE THING that you hope to one day do; workout daily, eat healthily, save money, stretch, read, meditate, walk, run, free time, writing time, pick up a new hobby, nighttime routine, morning routine, etc. The list can literally go ON AND ON AND ON AND ON. This is the time to write it all down because it’s the place that you will slowly pull from.
Make sure this habit is trackable and measurable. For example, rather than saying “stretch more”, indicate the length of time you wish to stretch.
3. Now go ahead and pick ONE habit. You can write this down on an organizer as I do, you can write it on a sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror, or you can post it on social media and share your goals with your friends. Any way you do it, this is that habit you are going to focus on and track until it becomes easy. The amount of time that it takes for the habit to form truly depends on you as a person and the difficulty of the habit itself- but before moving on ask yourself if the habit feels automatic? Do you feel like it’s become a part of your day that takes little effort? Compare it to brushing your teeth in the morning, easy enough?
Note: make sure this habit is small and broken down. It is important to make sure you are not taking on too much at once because then you are depending on motivation (which will only take you so far). For example; a nighttime routine should be broken down into smaller tasks that you can build upon. For me, I broke it down into a designated bedtime and worked on this for an entire month. Focusing only on going to bed at the same time every night. When that became easy I added in 30 minutes of device-free time, then added in stretching, etc.
Taking on too much at once will only make you think you’re succeeding. Yes you can plan to go from a terrible diet to a perfect diet all at once, but truly that’s going to be an immense amount of motivation that will either fade, or you’ll simply have a few ‘low motivation’ days and that habit will be the first to fly out the window.
Put in the necessary time to implement these habits
THE RIGHT WAY and they will be long lasting.
Personally, I have slowly built-in habits like my nighttime routine, my daily digital routine, my daily cleaning tasks, my monthly cleaning tasks, watering my plants, working out, eating healthy, grocery shopping/meal prepping, social media upkeep, my to-do list, and so much more.
You can create ANY habit you want. The key is breaking it down into small enough goals and being PATIENT with the process. Anything worth doing takes time.
Love Always, Jess
