Day 1: Find your Why #Roxys7DayChallenge

Hopefully you got yourself a notebook. You didn't? I'm not taking excuses, so grab yourself some paper. I don't care if it's the back side of that insanely boring handout you forgot to throw away from yesterday's work meeting. You have paper and something to write with. Grab it. I'll wait.

Today is Day 1 of my morning routine challenge. I dragged my own ass out of bed at 5. Okay, so maybe it was 5:05, but it's a fuck ton better than it has been, and since I didn't have as many dishes to do, so I'm still at my computer before 6am. Boom.

This challenge is going to be two fold. So pay attention.

FIRST...You are going to find an hour to set aside for the next 7 days. Nope, I don't care if it's at the same time. I don't care if it's in the morning or at night after everyone has gone to bed. But I want you to find an hour to spend on yourself for the next 7 days (including today) when you're not going to be interrupted. This will be one hour when you turn off your phone, turn off your computer, and grab grandma's old kitchen timer to set for 60 minutes. 

Using your phone as your timer? I highly recommend doing a "Do Not Disturb" setting on your phone for that hour. You can pre-program your phone to go into this mode for your scheduled hour. And while you're in there, set yourself a reminder for thirty minutes before your self-development time, so you know to wrap up what you're working on. Go do this now. I'll wait.

No. Seriously. Go do it now.

My hour is going to be 6am-7am for the next five days and 9am-10am on the last two days, because I have an early morning commitment on Wednesday and Thursday. I wrote them in my planner, so those times are set in stone. They are happening. 

Now...is this shit going to take an hour? I dunno. I don't know how you work. But if you set aside an hour and tell your family you are doing something really important and they can't disturb you, no one is saying you can't finish the work in thirty minutes and spend the next thirty eating from your secret snack stash and watching YouTube.

Second task of the day...Get out your journal and commit to writing at least 3 pages in there every day. I'm a huge fan of "Morning Pages" as you can tell if you've been following my blog at all for the past months. So I'm going to make you do it too. If you're looking at the journal you picked and the pages look awfully big, I won't tattle if you grab a smaller journal. But I can tell you, after incorporating this into my own morning routine for the last month, I'm getting a bigger journal next time. 

I'll even give you a prompt for today. 

Find your "Why?" 

I want you to journal today and figure out why you want to change your routines. What are you working toward that you need to make time for? What in your life would be better if you could commit one hour a day to it? If you're looking at this and saying, "An hour's not enough time to get done what I need to get done, Roxy. I need way more time than that!"...well, how much time are you spending on your goals right now?

If you're here and in need of a kick in the ass, my money is on the fact that there are days where your time spend working toward your goals is a big fat zilch. So even if you take just an hour...every day...think about how much you could have accomplished during those zilch days.

I have a post-it note addiction, so I'm going to slap a bright yellow post-it right over my computer with my "Why". At eye-level. 

Why do I need a kick in the ass? Because I want my writing to be a career, not just a hobby. And if it's a career, it should be treated like a job, and I need to show the fuck up.

But my main goal is not the only thing I want to incorporate into my morning routine, because I am the queen of excuses and procrastination. If there is a dirty dish in the sink, I'm probably not going to get my writing done. And we won't talk about how much I clean when dealing with edits. 

So during your 3 page minimum, if you know exactly why you want to do this like me, brainstorm about what you would like to incorporate into your daily or weekly routines. What are some of the things you wish were getting done around your house that are falling by the wayside? What do you wish you could do daily? Is it adding in affirmations? Or *shudder* exercise? Is it making a breakfast for yourself? Or maybe it's doing the laundry more regularly, or taking your dog on a walk. I don't know your life, or what you wish you did more often. That's between you and your journal. And I'm not saying in the slightest that I'm going to make you do all the things in there. This day is for you to figure out what you want to get done, and why the fuck it matters to you. 

That's your challenge for today.

1. Block off an hour without interruptions for yourself for the next 7 days. And let everyone know they interrupt you at their own peril.

2. Start the first part of your new habit with 3 pages of journaling to find your "Why".

Feel like writing more? Do it. But you need to put in at least 3 pages, and you need a reason you want to change your current habits. If you don't have a reason, it won't work. Trust me.

Did you do the work? When you're done come back and tell me when you're taking your hour. Come back and show me your "Why" on a post-it where you can see it daily. 

I'm off to do my journaling. Let's make shit happen this week.

~Roxy