 I feel like my PM routines are really where I need the most discipline and follow-through. Honestly, I have the tendency to become incredibly reactive as stress levels rise and energy levels fall. My routines in the afternoon circle around closing down work in a way that I can be present with my family, caring for myself so that I can refill and show up as the mom and wife I want to be, and go to bed at an hour that I feel rested and replenished the next day.
We are going to work through the final parts of our routine and as we do, I want you to remember to give yourself grace and be realistic. Follow through is goal number one, so if you make your routines unrealistic for yourself and your family, you will not be able to execute them in a way that feels successful for you. In order to set up your routines, I have some questions for you to ask yourself followed by an example of what I do. The three routines we will look at are: prep to leave work, arrive at home, get ready for bed Prep to leave work: How do you need to feel when you end work so that you can be present at home and with your family? What communications do you need to check? What planning or calendar systems should you check? Are there any people you need to check in with before you leave? What needs to come home with you? I want to feel confident that everything got my attention and I am ready for the next day in my classroom. I check my emails one last time. I go over our calendar and write anything down in my planner that might need my attention. I also make a plan for the next day while I’m in the mindset of what needs to be prioritized. I finish up any grading or physical cleaning and organizing of the classroom. I grab my water bottle, coffee mug, and lunch box and turn off the lights. Arrive at Home: How do you and your family need to replenish? What tasks or chores need to get done and who should be responsible for them? What needs to be prepared for the following day? Okay, I begin with replenishment. At this point I’ve already driven home with the girls and reconnected with them so I set the girls up with some snacks and some music and then I do 15 minutes of intense exercise followed by five minutes of meditation. I would also like to add five minutes of journaling here. After that, the girls tackle homework. When homework is done we move one to household chores. I am going to make a checklist for Adela here, too. Then the girls have screen time while I cook and finish preparing items for the next day. Get Ready for Bed: How do you want to feel ending your day? How do you want to connect with your family? How many hours of sleep does your body need? How much sleep do your children need? What activities will help you decompress and help prepare your body, mind, heart, and soul for sleep? Bedtime begins with what my daughters’ needs. Micaela needs extra attention with medication and self-care. When we are all ready, we like to read together, pray together and sing our bedtime songs. I like feeling connected with them before I turn off their lights and walk away. Then I get ready for bed physically and when I am all cozy and in PJs, I read and go over how my plan for the day went and what tomorrow will look like. Then, honestly, I just go to bed. I might watch TV on the weekend with my husband, but, don’t laugh, most TV shows make me feel anxious or too full of thoughts to sleep so I just avoid them. My girls go to bed between 7:30pm and 8:00pm. I am usually in bed by 8:30 pm on the weekdays or 10:00pm on the weekends. So, there you go. Successful routines can be yours. One thing I should mention here is that while of course our routines look different on the weekends, some things stay the same. For example, I still like to do my self-care routine in the later afternoon even on the weekends. I also find that the girls bedtime routine is incredibly important to follow through on no matter what day it is. Lastly, my Bible Study and coffee happen no matter what, even if I’m still in PJs and the family all woke up together. I just know it is something I need. Okay, you’ve got this my dear. Our routines can create powerful change in our relationships and health. Let me know how it is going and, once again, don’t forget to download that routine toolkit. It’s on my website under free resources and it is linked in the show notes.
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 If you listened to the last episode then you should have done your homework, evaluating your current or past routines, writing down what is or has been happening. For example, I’m looking at the upcoming school year. I sat down and looked out routines we have used this summer and routines we had last year. My goal is to develop something that works for myself and my family during this upcoming year.
Our morning routines are essentially broken up into the areas: Wake Up, Before You Leave, and Land at Work. I want to break this down for you and give you some important questions for each area that you need to answer. I will also show you what this looks like for me. Wake up: How much time do you have to devote to coffee, devotional, journaling, planning, & getting dressed? Do you want to include some movement or exercise? What needs to happen to make sure you actually complete this routine? How do you want to feel after you do your wake up routine? My routine is simple. During the school year I grab coffee and get dressed, doing my hair and make up. Then I sit down, do my Bible Study, plan my day, and dig into some social media work and posts. I wake up at 4:30am in the morning to do this so that I have time alone before the girls wake up at 6:00am. That might seem extreme, but it is incredibly important and works very well in my life. Before You Leave: What does your family need from you to set them up for success? What can and should they do for themselves that you simply need to check in on? What do you need to make sure you take with you when you leave the home? What do you need to check on before you leave? How much time do you need to get this done? What do you need to do to make sure you follow through with this routine? My routine for this area leans heavily on that wipeable list. I have to make sure that Micaela is dressed with her leg braces and glasses. I have to give her a bolus of water through her G-tube and make sure she gets her meds. My dad usually gets them on the bus so he will make sure the girls eat and brush their teeth. Adela is ten, so this year I’m actually going to post her own checklist that I will check on before I leave. I have to make sure I have my water, coffee, and lunch before I exit the home. If there is anything special happening on that day, I actually leave space on the checklist to write it in for that day. You’ll see that in the example on the checklist, of the routine toolkit. Lastly, there is the “Land at Work” Routine: (home or work) What transition do you need to make in your brain as you switch from home to work? What would help you do this? What communications do you need to check? Are there people you need to check in with? What planning system or calendar should you look at to know what your day entails? My routine begins with prayer for myself, my coworkers, my children, and my students. Then I check emails and update my planner with any tasks or dates that need my attention. I go over my planner and my plan for the day then I get to work. Work might mean morning duty or it might simply be doing some lesson planning before the first bell. Okay, my love, be real with yourself as you plan out these routines. If you are a beginner who has never had routines or have gone through a serious life transition, give yourself very short routines with plenty of time. What you want to cultivate is follow through. Not some sort of grand and expansive routine. The three routine areas we looked at are Wake Up, Before You Leave, and Land at Work. Go ahead and get the free toolkit resource. It will lead you through the routine building process. I’ll see you here next week for the last part of this routine series.  People often ask me how I do it all and I have to say first of all that I don’t do everything. There are many things I ask for help with and there are many areas in my life that are simply not up to 100% perfection and that is perfectly okay. But, with a special needs child, a farm, a full time job as a teacher, a home to maintain, and my life coaching work, it is routine that keeps me centered and peaceful most of the time.
Routine also allows other people in my life to step in and help out. More on this later. Right, so I am finishing up my daily wipeable routine right now. I have a summer routine on the fridge but as soon as that first day of school comes around, I’ll be posting our school-time routine to the fridge and our routine will be ready to go. Some things won't be changing but other things will change drastically. Routines are simply habits that follow one another in a series. What is the benefit? The benefit is that you don’t have to think about them, they just happen. For reals. You save time and mental energy plus, if you are proactive, your routines can set you up for a more healthy and successful life. Everyone has routines. Think about it. You have things you do right now at certain times of the day without having to think about it. You might come home and put your purse or bag down at the same spot and then go straight to the refrigerator for a snack. In the evening you might go to the same chair and turn on the TV before you begin to scroll on your phone. In the morning you make your way to the coffee pot then check your phone again. See, you already have routines, but today we are talking about leveling up our routine game. To do this, I am breaking it up into beginners, intermediate, and advanced levels, because if you have never worked on your routines, then we need to start with an expectation that you can follow through on. However, some of you might have done work on your routines in the past and you simply need a fresh infusion of idea and a couple good tips to get you ready for the school year. Lets jump in. I like to divide my routines into six areas. Don’t worry, they’re not that complicated. Wake up, get ready to leave, land at work, prep to leave work, arrive at home, get ready for bed. Wake up: This is the very first part of your day. It might happen before the rest of the house wakes up or it might be you handling it all the moment your feet touch the ground. Either way, this is the order of events and what you do to set you and your family up at the beginning of the day. A key question you want to ask yourself is how you want to feel after your wake up routine. Get ready to leave: This part includes making sure you did chores and that you and your family have everything they need to leave your home and go to school and/or work. Land at work: For me this is checking my email and getting things out for my students before they come into my classroom. For you it will be anything you need to do to get yourself set up for the work tasks on your plate. This also helps you make a key mental shift from home to work. Prep to leave work: I like to leave work after checking my email one more time, taking anything home that needs to be done, and having a plan for what I need to tackle when I get to work the next day. This is also a mental shift time. I’m shutting my work brain down so that I can come home as a wife and mother without the niggling feeling that I might have forgot something. Arrive at home: This routine is key to my mental health and where I find I need to plug in my exercise and some decompression before we get started on homework, etc. Get ready for bed: In order to rest well, I know there are certain things that work really well for me. I do them here. Okay, don’t turn this off. Like I said, you already have a routine for each of these areas. I have a whole routine building toolkit that you can sign up for and it is entirely free. But, before you dig in, I want to talk about deciding first if you are a routine beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Beginner: You would know you are a beginner if you feel like you have no healthy routines at all. Perhaps you feel like your life is completely chaotic and utterly unpredictable. Intermediate: You are an intermediate routine enforcer if you feel like you have some healthy routines or habits in place in a couple areas I mentioned before but feel like those routines need some work and feel like you could use some routines in more areas of your life. Advanced: An advanced routine enforcer has routines built into most areas I mentioned. You will enjoy revisiting these routines and making changes as needed throughout the year. Okay. We’ll be spending the next three weeks on routines. For now, I want you to simply look at your routines. You can grab a notebook or use the resource from my website that I’ll link in the show notes. Think about what you do currently, or if you are like me, think about what you were doing during the school year last year. Write it all down. Decide if you feel like you are at the level of beginner, intermediate, or advanced. This is the first step and it is crucial. Evaluating current and past routines allows you to become curious about your life and what is working and what it isn’t. You can work through the routine toolkit from there. If you are a beginner, I will want you to only pick one or two habits in each area to put in place. More than this will overwhelm and you won’t follow through. Let’s recap today’s episode. Today we defined healthy routines as a series of habits that make you more efficient. I went over six areas that most ladies benefit from having proactive routines: Wake up, get ready to leave, land at work, prep to leave work, arrive at home, get ready for bed. Lastly, I left you a task of evaluating your current routines and deciding if you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Okay, now, I promised you a fun hack, right? Okay. Use a laminator or a document protector and start checking off your routine as you do it throughout the week. This will make things fun and also help you solidify your routines into place. After a while doing it will become automatic. No check marks required.  When the girls were little, I so wanted to become a runner. My sister and a couple friends were avid runners and they described how good they felt and how they loved the freedom the activity came with. However, I was so unsure of myself. I had so many questions and worries. Would I be able to consistently train? What if I did things wrong and hurt myself? What if I did things wrong and wasn’t ready to run a race? Would running be worth the investment of time? Finally, I signed up for a 10K and simply jumped in.
It was one of the absolute best things that I did that year. It was the same year that Micaela developed epilepsy, Adela began preschool, we started farming, and my husband started a new job that required a long commute. There was a lot going on in our lives, but the hours spent running and training were pivotal for my mental and physical health. The investment of time was worth every minute. What about your health goals? I work with women all the time who would like to lose weight, become more active, or handle their stress and anxiety better. However, we all have lives and women these days have so many responsibilities it makes our heads spin. The very idea of adding another complication to life feels completely ridiculous. So, I want you to consider three reasons why you should work on your health goals now and three reasons why it might be better to wait. Three Reasons Why You Should:
Three Reasons Why You Shouldn’t:
I look back on my life, and am so thankful to have went for the changes that have shaped me into the person I am today.  Let me throw confetti in the air and blow a horn and sing a song. You made it to do 42. And, honestly, that means for 42 days you were working on change. Guess what, it wasn’t until my third attempt to break my sugar habit that I was actually able to do it.
Okay, my dear, let's do this. Let's sit down and use the K.I.S.S. method that I learned from Michael Hyatt, to talk about what next steps are for you. To do this, I am going to honestly evaluate how I did as I worked to stop eating when I wasn’t hungry. Before we get started, I want to tell you that I have been successful 30 out of 40 days so far of this journey. That is 75% of the time. K.I.S.S. stands for what do you want to Keep, Improve, Start, and Stop. Keep: What I want to keep is the journaling at the end of the day. I started doing this in order to do the journal prompts from the challenge at a time when I was most tempted. This means I am doing 2 to 5 minutes of journaling twice a day now (morning and late afternoon during my witching hour). Improve: I still have trouble leaving food behind on my plate. I’ve gotten better at portion size, but I would like to be able to simply say I’ve had enough and I don’t need to eat it. I sometimes do this, but about half the time I did not follow through with my goal because I just had to finish those last few bites. Start: I would like to start sharing more of my journey with the community. It was fun the few times I did, but I think it would be powerful to share more consistently on social media and/or with an accountability partner. Stop: I am going to stop pushing through instead of stopping whenever I need a break. The other times I over ate was when I was so emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted that I ate even when my body didn’t need the food. I was either too tired to pause and consider my hunger levels or I was eating out of the need for comfort. Okay, my dear, it is your turn. I am ridiculously proud of your journey. I pray for your freedom as it is said in Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Grab that coffee or ice tea, your journal or computer and answer your journal prompt. Journal Prompt: Look back on your journey. What would you like to Keep, Improve, Start or Stop. Congratulations on all your learning and growing. I am so proud of you.  To date I’ve worked with many ladies with big goals about their life and health. The ones who make progress are the ones who are willing to do two things: try and learn. That's it. It isn’t that complicated and it doesn’t involve perfection. Just try and learn.
Perhaps this challenge you didn't complete 100%. We are one day away from the finish line and you feel both frustrated and thankful. That is so normal. Honestly, sweetheart, I would love to meet the person who did this 100% on their first time (or even their second). However, you were here and you worked hard. This journey isn’t over if you aren’t done. You get to decide. Are you done trying? Or, are you ready to keep learning? Guys, I’m still learning. I can do things now around food and alcohol that I thought were completely impossible, but I still feel like I have more growth to do in my health and habits. Every single follower of Christ will always feel this because until God calls us home, He is delighting in pruning and growing us. John 15:2, ESV, always makes me smile: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” You see, every single thing that God asks me to take away or improve, He is doing so that I might bear more of the fruits of the spirit here on Earth. Keep going, my dear. Today, your journal prompt is: What have you tried? What have you learned? What will you be doing when this challenge ends?  I am now very thankful for my testimony about alcohol. However, a few years ago all I felt was frustration and shame about my drinking habits. I kept waiting for the day that the desire to drink would just leave me. The best advice I got was from a kind pastor named Joel Horn who told me that some habits haven’t been around long and they are like turning a little row boat around. A couple maneuvers with your oars and you're headed back in the right direction. Other habits are so ingrained that it is like turning around The Queen Mary, a massive ship that requires three full days to get headed back in the right direction. My dears, for me, my drinking was ingrained from childhood and it took years to get headed back in the right direction. But, I did, and it helped so much to know my why and to also embrace that I was making room for better things.
For me, alcohol and sweets have often taken the place of the comfort I could find in my relationship with God. I chose those things over the peace that He would take care of me, the joy that He has great plans for me, and the rest He provides when I stop striving on my own. With every cup I turned down and every dessert I declined, I grasped on tighter to my faith. It helps so much to know what you are creating a void for. I don’t think I could have done this without knowing that I was creating a void to be filled with my faith. I firmly believed that if I could stop turning to food and alcohol to solve my problems, then God would show me how lovingly He cares for me. I was right. What are you purposefully creating a void for? When you lay down a habit, you will find that there is a void. Perhaps you are not spending as much money, or time, or energy on that old habit. What will you do with those resources now? 1 Timothy 6:6-7, NIV, says, But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. What are you gaining on this journey? Journal prompt: What resources do you have more of now that your habit is less prevalent in your life (time, money, energy)? What do you feel God leading you toward to fill this void with?  When I got COVID in the fall of 2020, I totally lost my sense of taste and smell. I was still early in my journey of sustainable weight loss and freedom around food. However, my reaction to this situation was completely hilarious. Most people I know said they stopped really caring about their food. I, on the other hand, gained weight. I was so desperate to taste something that for several days I ate everything, constantly. I was determined to get some sort of response from my taste and smell. It didn’t happen and eventually I gave up. It was literally almost six weeks before things started to come back to me.
It occurred to me this year as I was coaching ladies, that we should be truly squeezing the experience out of everything we do. Honestly, this is how we find ourselves joyful and content instead of desperate and determined to feel something. I can’t tell you how many evenings I have ended with a dessert in front of the TV because my dinner was eaten while I fed babies, cleaned messes, and tried to keep everyone in line. I would hardly taste my food. I’m still in that phase with Micaela, but now I slow down. I enjoy the conversation at the table and watching Micaela get better at eating. Instead of hurrying things up, I sit back and allow it all to take longer. I eat my food and think about the flavors. I laugh and talk instead of worrying about the chores that follow the dinner. When I leave the table, I am satisfied. No more pleasure is needed. What part of your life do you need to slow down and enjoy? Your food? Your relationships? Your work? What do you need to slow down and really experience so that you don’t desperately run to an unhealthy habit to give you the pleasure you crave? I have a theory that all of our life is made to fill our soul when we walk it out in the trust of our God. It is only when we run from thing to thing full of worry or bitterness, that we feel empty. I love what Hebrews 13:5, NIV, says about contentment. It feeds my soul: Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Journal Prompt: What part of your life are you rushing through instead of slowing down and enjoying? How does this affect how you show up in your growth and habit change? In what way do you need to trust God so that you can slow down more?  Last winter break, I surprisingly stayed in my maintenance range the whole time. It blew my mind. I am pretty certain that for the first time as an adult I had not packed on several pounds worth of holiday food and treats. It was amazing. However, I can tell you right now, that I set myself up for success for the 2022 holiday season. How? I got curious.
Curiosity is powerful. Curiosity is telling yourself that you don’t have all the answers but you are willing to learn. Curiosity is what takes a great deal of shame out of failures and instead allows us to approach it with a willingness to learn. Curiosity will also allow you to squeeze powerful lessons out of successes instead of simply celebrating and moving on. In order to guide some healthy curiosity, I used the thought model developed by Brook Castillo. The thought model shows that our circumstances create our thoughts, our thoughts create our emotions, our emotions guide our actions, and our actions create our results. During the Holidays my circumstances were that there were many treats and opportunities to eat food that was not part of my personal protocol. My thoughts were that this wasn’t a problem and I could plan to eat them or I could simply enjoy making memories (the food wasn’t important). This made me feel happy and content no matter what I was or was not eating. The action I ended up taking was planning for the treats I ate and then eating on plan. The result was that my body weight stayed within the 120-130lb range that I like. Now, this is the same approach we take when we are struggling. We ask ourselves, what are the circumstances (the raw facts), what are our thoughts, what emotions do they cause, what actions do we take out of those emotions, and what are the results of those actions. It is that information that guides our journey. Some thoughts empower growth and health, others take us off the path we want. We have to be willing to learn and change if we want to find success. Proverbs 12:1, NLT, says, To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction. Journal prompt: Pick the last time you had an obvious failure or success. Work through the thought model: What were the circumstances? What did you think about them? What did those thoughts make you feel? What actions did those emotions guide? What were the results of your actions? What will you do next time this circumstance is repeated?  I recently read a mind-blowing, heart stopping book by Jeanne Stevens called What’s Here Now. The book talks deeply about how we need to live more fully in the present. The chapter on how we treat our bodies made me tear-up. She explained that our bodies hold the power to bring us back to the present and that “Now is always where God is. The present is God’s zip code.” Woah! Okay, do a little experiment right now. I want you to stop and truly notice for 30 seconds what your body is feeling from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. Now, as you do that, you have brought yourself back to the present. Your body only feels in the here and now and you can only engage with it in the present.
A leader in women’s ministry named Chris Paulson, told me a few years ago that God’s love is like an umbrella, ready to shelter us at any given moment. However, when we deconstruct the past or worry about the future, we move out of the shelter of that umbrella. When we take a moment to ground ourselves back into our body, we find no lies there. If we are tired, we are tired. If our stomach is flopping with excitement, then we are excited. Our body holds the key to bringing us back to where God is. Jeanne Stevens also writes this amazing thank you note to her body. This was the part that made me cry. God gifted us with our bodies, but we proceed to ignore and abuse them. Today, I want you to do two things. First, I want you to practice sitting and noticing your body. When you do this, I hope that you notice that worry eases and peace seeps back in. Next, I want you to take some time to be grateful for how your body has shown up for you. This will help motivate you to keep moving forward on physical habit changes, and it will help you ease stress and anxiety. Journal Prompt: In one minute, what physical sensations do you feel in your body? As you dial in to the present, do you notice an ease in stress and anxiety? How are you grateful for your body? |
by Lora Armendariz
You Can Do It!Do you want to fall out of love with a destructive habit? The first 42 episodes of this podcast are a resource for anyone who wants encouragement and information as they take a six week break from a habit in order to fall out of love with it. Archives |
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