It's Friday. Let's go. Set the weekend up. Ready? Whether you're working this weekend, with your kids, traveling, visiting family, caring for someone, taking your partner out, picking up dog poop, sitting home and planning to stay in PJs all day binging Netflix, or whatever else, there are some things you can do to not only nourish YOU for the weekend (and up-level your positively contagious factor), but nourish and prepare for your upcoming week.
I'm often asked about daily routines, weekend schedules, how to "get in front of things," and simple ways to set ourselves up. What I notice is this: The big results happen in the little choices. (Click to Tweet.) It's often not the big things that create the greatest results, it's the little choices, made over and over again that create the true magic. With that, here are some littles...
Choose one, choose all, and apply as you please.
- Choose Water. Drink water my friends, hydrate that body. Before you even realize you're thirsty, you're dehydrated. Dehydration impacts EVERYTHING (energy, muscles, brain, response time, fatigue, weight, mood). Drink up.
- Choose Sleep. Go to be early. Let yourself wake up without an alarm clock. See how much sleep you actually need. Test this for a few days. (I know, I know, it's hard. I get it. Try forgoing late TV nights, social media binges, and alcohol for 5 days in service of early bedtime and seeing what you can actually create with your relationship with sleep.) Yes, I get this might be a BIG thing and not a little. But... ZZZZ.
- Choose to Journal. Two paragraphs, two pages, two chapters. Whatever feels good to check in with yourself. Get out of your head and onto the page.
- Choose to Get Real. Worrying? Stress? Make a worry sheet. Draw a line down the middle. Left side: "Everything I'm scared or worried about" -- let it rip. Full permission. No one will see it (you can even burn it afterwards). Right side: "What's actually true and what I can do about it." This is a powerful freaking exercise. Get out of your head and onto the page.
- Choose to up-level your environment. Anything counts. Clean a closet. Throw out that rug you hate. Clear off your desk. Donate books. Clean your fridge. Set up your gym bag so you can GO. Fix that broken light that's been broken for 2 years.
- Choose to fuel well. Prep food for your coming week. Set yourself up awesome so that clean eating is easy and pleasurable.
- Choose to move. Prep exercise for the week. What's your plan, Stan? Ten minute walk each day, 30 hours in the gym over the next week, or something in between? Plan it.
- Choose your intentions for the week so that you set the tone now and can intend what you're moving into. (This will free up more space to enjoy your weekend and the coming week mentally.) Do it overall for the whole week and then break it down day-by-day as it serves.
- Choose to love -- YOU. Write a "What I love about ME" list. Write the things you adore and appreciate about yourself. That is all.
- Choose growth. Write a "What I want to be better at" list. Write the things you'd love to learn, get better at, enhance, or master. Choose which feels most energizing for you. Give it a WHY. (Why is this important and what will it give you.) Give it a due date. And then do ONE little thing to make it real.
- Choose quiet. Take all day Saturday or Sunday or even a chunk of hours during the weekend to be QUIET. Phones off. Media, TV, all of it... OFF. Restore. You'll thank you later.
Have a great weekend.
X/Anese