I am the definition of busy! I have a family, I have a full time job where I work 45-50 hours a week I am an online coach working 20 hours a week, I instruct a boot camp three days a week and I also train five to six days a week in the gym depending on my schedule. At least once or twice a week I get asked, “When do you sleep?” Let me go ahead and mention that I do sleep 7-8 hours a night during the week and 9-10 hours on the weekends. What is my secret? There is no secret. It’s called being determined and being organized.
Make yourself a schedule. Literally grab a planner and start planning out your week. What is important to you? Schedule a time and mark that item in your agenda for that day and do it all week. Being an online coach can be hectic sometimes. Clients don’t know when you are asleep, or watching a movie or outside playing with your kids, or mowing the grass and so they text and email you. When I first started being an online coach, I would respond that second. Literally stop the weed eater and respond to my clients. I thought “they need me!” Then I realized I will get to them when I have the chance so I started scheduling time in my day to respond to them and to answer emails.
I make sure and show my kids my faith throughout the week. We say night-night prayers together, we bless the food before each meal, we also talk about Jesus and God and heaven and topics such as that. It helps that my daughter goes to a private Christian school because often enough she leads the conversation. We will be driving down the road and she will say “Daddy, you have to stop at the stop sign or Jesus will be mad!” That is the perfect time to discuss Jesus and how much he loves her. So even if you aren’t one of those people that can attend Church regularly due to your schedule, you can do things with your family and children to exercise your faith.
I started a new job recently and I was no longer getting off at 4 PM and instead getting off at 5 PM. There was no way that I was going to go to the gym after work from 530 PM to 630 PM or 7 PM when my kids go to bed at 9. So I had to change my routine. Instead of working out and training at night, I got up at 430 AM and went to the gym before work. I used to do this for years and honestly forgot how much I loved it. My kids are asleep and I can get up and do my thing. Now I get off and devote all my time to my family.
The most important thing to think about if you don’t have time to go to the gym every day because maybe you are a single parent working two jobs is the nutrition aspect. As long as you eat clean, you should still be fine. Monitor your calories and make sure and eat non processed whole foods. A rule of thumb I like to look at is if it has more than two ingredients don’t eat it! Also stay on the outside of the grocery store. The aisles are what are normally full of processed foods. The meat, eggs, veggies etc are all on the outer walls of the store usually. You should still see some changes in your physique if you follow these guidelines.
Just remember, we all make time for what is important to us. If you want it bad enough, you will make some sort of effort to make it happen. How bad do you want it? Don’t use work as an excuse to neglect things or people that are important to you. We are all busy. None of us have time you have to make time!
