I'm a House of Fucking Lies!

This month’s theme makes me laugh. I swear on all things, I never have my shit together. When we came up with the theme, I took it sarcastically, like “Oh, look at you and your badass self, thinking you got your shit together.” Then life rolls in with her big bad self and says, “Hold my beer, bro.” Am I right?

The pile of work, tasks, chores, obligations, friends, family, you name it. Managing the monstrosity of a to-do list can take a gal down. Everybody’s approach is different but here’s one way I have learned to keep myself in control when it all seems like “too much.”

In my previous life I was really into CrossFit. No, I’m not going to go into all the craziness of it, but let's put it this way, I drank the kool-aid. Anyhow, there’s one workout that taught me how to deal with life’s to-do list. It's called a chipper. It’s aggressive, it's a lot of reps, it takes forever, and yet for some reason I enjoyed it. But I had to learn how to tackle it before the joy was apparent. Here’s an example of a good old chipper:

· 100 Double unders
· 50 Pull ups
· 100 Lunges holding slam ball (30/20)
· 50 Weighted crunches (45/25)
· 100 Slam balls (30/20)
· 50 Weighted crunches
· 100 Lunges holding slam ball
· 50 Pull ups
· 100 Double unders

Overwhelming right? Here’s where the lesson comes in. You bet your sweet ass it’s too much—if you let yourself get overwhelmed by the WHOLE workout. So... I taught myself to only focus on the one movement I was doing in that moment. Finish the movement and move onto the next one. I also learned that I had to pace myself. If you go balls to the wall right of the gate, toward the end you will lose your shit and failure is knocking on the door.

Sound familiar? Each day is a long-ass chipper. You have to teach yourself to focus on the task at hand and pace yourself. We have to figure out ways to pull it together or we’ll lose our minds.

This is where “house of lies” starts barking at me. I don’t have it all figured out, nor do I have my shit “together.” I’ve just learned how to not go completely crazy. (Oh, and I am the queen of losing my shit, just ask the rest of the S&S team. LOL) But I quickly remind myself that I need to pull it together and to chip away at whatever’s weighing me down.