Chapters

New year, new me. Turning another page. Bye 2020. I scroll down the timeline on my phone and see the same phrases that graced my phone last year around this time. I wish everyone well, but I see an issue in waiting for January to hit the reset button.

My new year started March of 2020. I had been drinking too much, writing and creating content too little, and had a mental dialogue of disappointment all at the same time. On the bright side, I was starting to cut the ties of things that started to weigh me down. I was both thriving and drowning in the pandemic. The sudden closures of establishments gave me a different type of closure, I no longer had a reason to waste my time. It was at the very least, a selfish reason to stay away and untangle my thoughts, hopefully emerging better than ever.

A funny thing happens when you start to use your time more wisely. I found that I was able to remove myself from my own mind, and at times that brought new bursts of clarity. What if I just started doing everything in my head, and stopped giving in because I was stressed? What if my downtime was less focused on feeding my social needs and focused more on my fitness and mental relaxation? It's hard disappointing friends and missing those photo ops, but since when was that cycle of weekend pageantry such an obligation of mine? In other words, the world ending allowed me to catch myself digging a hole that I knew was getting too deep, and now it was time to act.

First of all, if you're not tired to some degree, are you even an adult? My first goal was to figure out what I was doing to make myself so tired all the time. I needed to figure out what my body needed as a base, and then what actions I had to take to start hitting goals. The first revelation was protein. I counted how much I was getting in a day, and I came out with about 30 grams. I was severely deficient, since at my height, weight, age and activity level, I needed at least 80-150 grams. This type of consciousness with food and supplements was very foreign to me, but I figured counting calories and protein was a great place to start. On top of that, I added water bottles to my list, as I never drank more than one a day.

Have you ever been really sick and then once you feel better you realize how good your body works? It's actually quite a funny realization, and once I was watching my food and getting better sleep for about 3 weeks, I suddenly noticed how "clean" I felt. I had the mental clarity and energy to be able to knock out the days tasks and not reach for an energy drink or take a nap. I didn't miss staying out till 11 at night and having to wake up at 6:30am for work. It made me wonder if all my friends felt as bad as I did, but they just haven't gotten to the breaking point yet. Another interesting event was finding that I was on my phone less, and if I was, I was usually looking at something that would benefit me. I used to just watch videos of women that I thought were more beautiful than I could ever be, or of people I thought had more talent. It's hard to have enough time to envy others when you are out there taking care of yourself, carving new pathways to greatness.

I'm not new yet. Taking the first steps on the road is all I can celebrate. Putting a time restraint or expectation on progress can sometimes be the beginning of the end. Here's to a new year, starting on any day of the year!