Topics Covered This Week
Midlife is a time of change quite often, even without lockdowns and COVID and job changes and all the rest of it, sometimes you can just feel a little bit out of control.
I talk about implementing a new routine, instead of accepting the one that you feel is forced on you, you take control back and get your own balance by adapting it to your own routine.
You’ve obviously got to accept that some responsibilities, you just can’t change.
You’ve got to pay the bills, keep the roof over your head. It’s pointless fighting that, but we’re going to look at restructuring your day and making a mindset shift as well.
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Hi, Christie here. Episode 10 for the 20th of October, it’s going out and I’m actually recording this couple of days early to get organised on Sunday, the 18th.
It’s been a lovely day and I’ve just been planning out what I want to go through with you today, because I think it’s really important at the moment.
It’s about restoring balance by creating your own routine because at the moment, I think there are quite a few people who are feeling that change is being forced on them.
Midlife is a time of change anyway, quite often, but with lockdowns and COVID and job changes and all the rest of it that I won’t go on about, sometimes you can just feel a little bit out of control.
And even if there weren’t all the things that are going on in the media and politics and everything else, midlife is a time where sometimes you can just feel like everything’s running away from you a little bit and that you’re not in control anymore.
So if you’re in trouble, reach out, I always say that in these episodes, but that is so true.
I want it to show that, you know, you don’t have to put up with the situation as it is, and you can restore the balance. It’s not hopeless at all, don’t think you’ve just got to accept everything as it is.
I’ll just go through a few ideas with you, and hopefully these will set you up.
Go get a pen and paper and scribble them down or make a note in your phone.
I’m going to talk about implementing a new routine, instead of accepting the one that you feel is forced on you, you take control back and get your own balance by adapting it to your own routine.
You’ve obviously got to accept that some responsibilities, you just can’t change.
You’ve got to pay the bills, keep the roof over your head. Everything else. I know that I’m not going to say, just walk away from your job.
I can definitely help work out a pivot and you can change your job. But at this stage, accept that there are certain responsibilities you can’t change.
Just accept it. It’s pointless fighting that, but we’re going to look at restructuring your day and making a mindset shift as well because it doesn’t matter how much you restructure, how much you change things if your mindset is constantly feeling that you’re being forced in situations, you’re not going to enjoy the day.
You have to sometimes just make a mindset decision that you are going to enjoy your day. That, yeah, it is a pain having to do all those work hours, but it’ll pay the bills.
It keeps a roof over your head.
It might pay for holidays. It’s sort of a trade off.
You have to accept that the Instagram world of work two hours a day and earn a million dollars, you know, there are false expectations put in front of you now. And sometimes you just have to suck it up and do certain tasks that you might not like very much.
Even if you work for yourself, you do your perfect life work balance. You still going to have some things that you think,
‘Oh, I’ve got to do that today.’
So just take that mindset and shift that you actually accept that. And it’s fine.
I want you to get a piece of paper and work out sort of a timetable. If you like going back to old school, you know, school timetables, or it might be even at work you have a timetable actually in your schedule.
I want you to write down the ‘absolutes’ as I’ve called them, the things that you can’t change.
It might be the school run.
It might be that even if you’re working at home, you have set contracted hours that you’ve got to do. If you are going to work, there might be certain hours that are just immovable. So write those down.
It might be that you decide you’ve got some voluntary ‘absolutes.’
You are absolutely determined to have a meal time with your family or with your children or with your other half, whatever that might be an immovable object in your mind. And that’s fine.
So write down all the ‘absolutes’ and then look at your bedtime, and your waking up time. Be honest. It’s pointless to say, no, I always get eight hours sleep. I always go to bed at 10 and get up at 6. If you don’t, it’s pointless saying that you do so write down your average, going to bedtime and wake up time.
Look at time that you do for anything creative, whether you may not have any time to do anything creative.
It may be that you spend all day doing something creative, but I’m a firm believer that you should have some creativity each day. So write down anytime that you do creativity tasks.
Look at self-development, whether that be physical or mental, whether it be gym time, yoga, time, reading, studying, whatever it may be, but write that down as well.
This is all that you’re doing at the moment.
And then what you’re going to do is rejig it all.
Obviously the ‘absolutes’ have to stay where they are. You can’t change those.
So what I need you to do is work around those absolutes, because like I say, we’re going to take that mind shift and decide that that’s the price we pay. Yeah. We have to do the work.
Yeah. We have to do the school run.
Yeah. We have to make meals. That’s just it, accept it. Move on.
So build your schedule around those things, but on your terms.
It might be that actually you go to bed at 10, but you know that you never go to sleep straight away because your stressed, you’re worried, whatever.
It might be that by shifting your mindset and your bedtime to half an hour later to relax, you can have the extra 30 minutes where you can wind down. Might be that you can read. If you read it on a tablet, I would suggest that you get blue light glasses because they definitely make a difference before bedtime.
It might be that you use the time to do your yoga. Don’t do physical exercise that energises you because obviously you want to go to sleep.
Or it might be that you shift your wake up time that you do get apart for an hour late.
And that is your time.
I know so many parents who get up an hour or half an hour earlier than the children, just so that they have some ‘me time’ in the morning. And whether that’s to have your coffee or whatever else, try and structure your day around what you choose.
Obviously there’d be limitations. We know that, but by deciding yourself on what your routine will be, you’ll just feel a lot more in control.
The other thing as well is look at tasks that you’re doing, that you might be able to delegate or share like the school run. It might be that you’ve got people. It is difficult with the COVID situation, I know that, but it might be that you can share that a rota. And it might be that as your children are getting older, that you might have to take them halfway there.
They might be able to run the rest of the way and you keep an eye on him.
So look at how you can adjust things and how you can change things. It might be, if you do the school room in the car, it might be a half hour car journey. I don’t know. But if it is, is this something that you can do in the car where it’s a podcast or something that you can learn with your kids alongside you.
Just try and adjust your life around what you want.
Not what’s forced upon you.
So it’s very much a shift to you doing what you choose in the time that you can.
The other thing as well is make sure you get lots of sleep.
Make sure you drink water, dilute juice in it if you have to get the water down,
to avoid the caffeine and get some fresh air.
And again, it’s all difficult. I’m not going to preach to you about that, but the whole thing is to plan your day and feel in control and getting good sleep patterns.
We all know that at night, everything seems worse than when you get up fresh in the morning, and it’s like another day.
‘I’m going to crack on and do what I want.’
So make sure you get your sleep, make sure you eat and drink healthy and make sure you take control of the things that you’ve got to do.
Build in 10 or 15 minutes to do something creative. Are you the one that always does the cocaine? How about having one night where someone else has to do the cooking, maybe have the whole week where you get a week off the cooking and you can go and do something else.
So very definitely take back control of your time table.
Instead of feeling that everything you’re doing is for somebody else’s benefit, somebody else’s back.
You know that, okay, you might’ve got to put those five hours in for your boss, but then you’ve got half an hour where you can do your yoga or you can do wood carving, whatever it happens to be.
You know that those ‘absolutes’ are just the price you pay to live, the life that you choose.
I hope this has been helpful.
The last little bit, I want to mention as well, it’s not really about a routine, but it is something that helps you with your mindset is to do a daily affirmation.
It sounds really woo woo. And you’ve probably heard me mention it before, but each morning I’ve actually got it in my phone as an alarm.
And each morning I read out my personal affirmation.
It’s like a vision board in writing if you like. It’s the things that I know are going to happen.
It’s manifesting / law of attraction if you’ve read upon that, but I do it each morning and it’s always worth doing it again in the evening.
I’m not a religious person, if you are, it might be a prayer.
If you’re spiritual, it might be a gratefulness / thankfulness routine, but each evening just sort of be grateful or be thankful or just sit down and work out.
Write… I’ve achieved some things today… and write down what you’ve achieved. Maybe get a journal and do that because often stress and lack of balance is where you just feel out of control and that you don’t feel like you’re achieving anything.
Some days, the busiest days, are often the days where you feel like you haven’t achieved anything.
I’ve never understood that.
It’s a bit of a, I can’t think of the right word at the moment, but it’s always a bit of a mismatch that you’ve been busy all day, but still feel that you haven’t achieved anything.
If you sit down quietly for five minutes and just think about it, you will have achieved a great deal.
By writing it down, it just like a little pat on the back really.
It’s also being thankful for being able to do those tasks.
So give it a go, see if he can get your timetable written out, if you can.
Always put it in your schedule if you can as well. I use Gmail, the one attached to my email, that’s in my phone and everything. I can access it wherever I am, but I put some tasks for the day.
It might be the beginning of each week you have to readjust it because it might be that you’re on different shift patterns or something.
It might be half term week or whatever, but don’t be afraid of that, but just feel empowered by having your own routine.
If you do need any help and you just want a conversation about it with an outsider to just go through things with you and get it clear, there is an offer on at the moment on my coaching and it’s four weeks of one-to-one coaching and I’ve given a reduction of that.
If you contact me and quote, ‘Podcast 10’ because we’re in episode 10 a full month of coaching will cost you just £250*.
If you want to go through this personally with me in Zoom or Skype calls DMs etc.
Okay. So thank you for joining me again. Catch you later. Bye.
* NOTE: DISCOUNT OFFER EXPIRES 31/12/2020