BitterSuites

Okay, so let me preface this entire thing by saying that you will very, very rarely hear me talk about exercise/eating/etc on this blog. I mean that. But this also ties in to some of the other themes of life and writing and business.

My business partner (also a KR so I will call her KA here. Not to be confused with my other business partner JM.) and I committed to working through the Body By You system. This is a strength training program that does not require equipment beyond what you have around the house anyway. It also has a rather strict eating regime of multiple meals during the day.

This program appealed to me because it doesn’t require me to run around in circles or to buy a weight table or anything else. The eating program is pretty balanced with a heavy emphasis of getting a proper balance of foods down your throat and a reasonable amount of calories. (This also helps keep blood sugars even – which impacts mood and mental clarity. Especially for me — I’ve got Type II diabetes. That means I’m not insulin dependent, but I have insulin resistance.)

I even felt badly at the end of the week because I put off my Saturday session of exercise until Sunday. That is a good sign that this is becoming a habit and one that I somewhat enjoy. ish? I’ve done pretty well on the eating program. I made it almost an entire week eating properly. That is, until I took a trip down to Richmond and managed to not only get off-schedule I managed to gobble up some of the many things to which I am allergic. (Don’t even get me started on that list. Let’s just say, that I have some major restrictions.)

That was the downfall.

My eating patterns on Saturday and Sunday were execrable and my patterns on Monday and today haven’t been much better. In fact, I’d say they’ve been worse. I can change it, and I will, but it does take some significant planning. I always need to bring more food with me than I think I do. I will be doing my exercise tonight though, right on schedule.

So, how does this tie to business/life/writing? Humans only really have a certain amount of will-power during the day. When establishing a new habit (say an exercise plan) then it takes a large part of that will-power to go until it becomes something you don’t want to do without. With any venture then, that one wishes to turn into a habit, one must recognize what one has left in the tank. I have creativity in my tank — no problem — but do I have the stamina to work for an hour on a project tonight after food and exercise or do I take that time to do something else? Maybe I need to do 20 minutes not a full hour?

I have a website design that’s hanging out and waiting for me to finish it. I have listings waiting for photos on ebay. Hell, I have more than 81 Works In Progress (WiPs) waiting for my on my hard-drive. I only have enough to work on one of them.

So what do I choose? The business that is looking to go brick and mortar this year? The novel that’s under deadline for the end of September? Or one of the short stories that is begging for a few more scenes until it’s done?

What do you have sitting in your tank? What do you think you’ll get done tonight? Where do you find your internal motivation?