Just One Thing

Last Monday I started off my day and week with a tummy full of Superbowl Sunday food, which means I ate my body weight in potato chips while sitting on the couch watching the Seattle Seahawks tromp the Denver Broncos.

Humor me for one minute. Potato chips are perfect. I can pronounce every ingredient (potatoes, oil, salt) and count every ingredient with the fingers of one hand. That my lovely reader is perfection, and it can be found in the crunchy salty goodness of a fried piece of potato. It's lovely.

So I'm sitting on my bed with a potato chip hangover, pen in hand, journal in lap, mouth hanging open, and mind fuzzy because I'm barely awake, I'm bloated, not feeling the best and I'm ticked off at myself. As the day progresses I start bemoaning my middle aged malaise. I start freaking myself out. I'm getting lazy! I'm unmotivated! What is happening to me?!

I decide it's time for change.

I google it - "How to change."

Google pulls up a list of things and my eyes find this article - Just Change One Thing. One thing. Maybe that's a good place to start. I don't want to go crazy or anything and I'm not giving up my chips.

I read the article.The author offered some simple advice which I decided to try out.

The author suggests that trying to make a lot of changes at once is self defeating. Instead, find the one keystone thing you can change that might naturally lead to more change.

Okay. I can do that. She didn't say I had to hand over my bag of Kettle Cooked.

I decided to change my bedtime. I've gotten in the habit of staying up after everyone else has gone to bed. I like the quiet time and the chance to have the TV all to myself. However for me, going to bed at 10:30 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. and trying to get up at 5:00 a.m. doesn't work. I need my sleep. I was falling asleep while I was trying to write in my journal and pray. I was too drowsy to get to the gym on time to get a good workout in. Praying, writing, and working out are vital for me. It was time to put the shine on them again, time to rub of the drowsiness that had dulled them down.

For a week now I've been going to bed before 10:00 p.m. I've been waking up easier and getting to the gym by 5:30 a.m. to get at least an hour workout in. I've been sitting at the breakfast table after the kids leave for school with my journal, my Bible and my pen and I'm actually awake.

I'm hopeful. So far so good. I feel a little more peppy, more calm, and not so sluggish. That feels good.

I've still eaten some chips this week, but I've managed to maintain my chip sobriety.

We'll see where else this one thing may lead. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime - GO TEAM CANADA!