Struggles

Today has not been the best day so far. I have definitely been struggling with my focus. Days like today are exactly why I created this blog. It seems like I will get very excited about something and be very productive for several days, and then the excitement starts to wear off and I revert back to my old lazy habits that have landed me in the situation I find myself in now. Today I don't feel like doing anything but kicking back with a big bowl of ice cream and watching t.v. all day. I have given into that urge for way too long, and I need to learn how to keep myself motivated. Let me start at the beginning....

Yesterday I decided to stay home with Cooper since I was gone for a week and really missed him. Even though I didn't "work," I had one of the most productive days I have had in a long time. I got a lot of house cleaning done, and I did a lot of thinking about all of my "list of 6" long-term goals, and decided on a plan of action for them. One of the hardest parts of trying to achieve these goals is that I feel that all of these goals are equally important, and I feel like I am going to spread myself very thin trying to put as much time into each of them that will be necessary to achieve them. So, yesterday I came up with a plan to try to maximize my productivity each day and put some time into each of my six goals.

1. Create my own successful internet business

-As we learned at the conference, for people just starting out the most important thing is to just get started: build some content on your website and practice using Xsitepro, the software we are using. You may not even know exactly what your product is, just get started and that is the most important step; the rest will come later. So I have decided that the weekdays that I work at the hospital or at Kramer's Collision, I will spend no less than an hour each night after Cooper goes to sleep building content on my website.

2. Lose 65 lbs and embrace healthier eating habits and get more exercise.

-Because of D.R.'s very erratic schedule which often keeps him at the shop until all hours of the night, and my past experience with lack of motivation to skip my lunch hour and go to the gym instead, I have decided to get up at 5:45 on weekdays and go to the gym then. Let me assure you, I am NOT a morning person and this will be no easy change for me. But since D.R. is not always around in the evenings to watch Cooper so I can workout and since I already feel guilty for taking him to daycare all day (Elsie's great, but I hate missing out on all those hours with my son), I believe this will work out the best for me in the long run if I can just get used to getting up that early. I also have found that I get a lot more done in the morning when I get to the shop by 8:00; since it doesn't open until 9 I have peace and quiet for a couple of hours.

Since I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), it is even more important for me to start improving my diet. I read an article last night that said that 40-50% of women who have PCOS develop type 2 diabetes by the time they are 40 years old, and since my sugars were somewhat high while I was pregnant, I know that I am at risk. There is also research that has shown that women with PCOS who eat a lower-glycemic diet have better control over their symptoms. I have tried the South Beach Diet in the past and had some success with it, but as with any diet I have a hard time sticking with it. This time I am going to use the South Beach Diet as a guideline for my eating, but I am not going to have a "dieting" mentality, I'm going to try to think of it as a lifestyle change. Instead of thinking I went "off" the diet when I eat something bad, I am just going to do better next time. This has been my main issue with my eating habits, I'm always either "on" or "off" a diet.

3. Help D.R. build his business, get into a new building.

-I knew going into this that this would probably be the hardest one for me, especially since I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get that office organized for the last five years. Without going into too much detail since this is D.R.'s business not mine, I am extremely frustrated. It is very hard to work with your significant other because you don't like to have them bossing you around. It's also hard to determine how much work you put in versus how much they help with bills, etc, when you're not getting paid by the hour. I really want his business to be successful because it will enhance both of our lives as well as the life of our son, but sometimes I just feel like a hamster in a wheel when I go out there.

The first problem is that the office is too small, and it is connected to the shop so it gets very dirty and dusty. I always feel like I should be doing important paperwork instead of cleaning when I'm out there, so it looks very dirty and unprofessional. My first goal is to get the office clean and organized so that I don't feel so frustrated and panicky when I'm working, and so we can FIND things in there!! Secondly, we have very high overhead in that shop; the utilities are over $600 a month in the winter, and in 6 years of renting that building, we have paid the owner of that building twice what he bought it for!! We should be putting that money into equity into our own building!! Plus that shop is soooo small that D.R. and Jim spend several hours a week moving vehicles in and out and rearranging so they have room to work and still park the customers' vehicles inside at night. I could go on and on, and I'm kind of getting off on a tangent, so I'll get to my plan for the shop. My first priority is to get that office clean and organized so I will be more productive in the hours I am working there. My second goal is to get all the paperwork caught up and the files more organized. Thirdly, I want to start focusing on marketing - D.R. usually has enough work without advertising, but sometimes he runs into slow times and really struggles to maintain his overhead. If we could make the shop more efficient and have the staff to handle it, I think we could increase the traffic through the shop by 30-40%, but we have to make sure we will get vehicles in and out in a timely manner.

Most importantly, I want to work on finding another building, one that we can buy that is still in a good location and without borrowing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Then we can expand into other markets - custom truck accessories, building rebuilders and selling them on a car lot, having a larger tow yard, tinting windows, detailing, anything that will add to the stream of income during slower times of the year. I could go on all day, so I better move on to the next topic, after I note that I plan to work at the shop on weekdays that I don't work at the hospital, and try to focus on being more productive while I'm there. I will also make a list of goals each night before I work there so that I have a plan and know exactly what I need to work on. I really do feel like I sometimes spend 8 hours there and get NOTHING done.

4. Make enough money at the shop and my business to quit the hospital.

-I have been sooo unhappy working the long hours, nights, weekends and holidays at that place and not having anywhere to move up in the company. I don't have a specific plan for this other than work really hard at my other endeavors, but today I have almost been reconsidering this goal. This might be a good time to discuss why I have been struggling today.

Last night I made my list of goals to work on at the shop so I could be more productive and not run around like a chicken with my head chopped off. I got up at 5:40 and went to my weightlifting class at the gym and even ran for a few minutes afterwards. I came home and showered, and Cooper was still sleeping, and I was sore and tired, so I decided to lay back down for a few minutes. I didn't wake up until 9:15 when the UPS guy woke Starsky and Cooper up. So I didn't get to the shop until almost 10:00, which seems to be the busiest time of day out there. I couldn't get to the desk for a few minutes, and by the time I did, D.R. had several things he wanted me to do, and we had an appointment with an insurance agent at 11, so I didn't get anything done at all before noon. This put me in a bad mood.

Also, I got a quote on health insurance that was the cheapest I've found so far, but I still can't possibly pay the premium by myself every month, which caused another argument. I am getting very nervous about not having any health insurance, especially since I've had a few health issues in the past couple of years and I also still have my appendix and gall bladder. Even though I have been miserable working at the hospital, they do have very good benefits, one of which is free health insurance for employees who work at least 24 hours per week. Since Cooper was born, I promised myself I would not be a nurse's aide anymore, and they only have a prn wardclerk position available. I often do work 24 hours a week, but I am not guaranteed those hours, so I am not eligible for health insurance. So I started thinking that I really ought to go back to the hospital as an aide so that I can have the benefits back, even though that's about the last thing on earth I want to do.

So I was in a bad mood already and then D.R. and I got in an argument, so I came home to cool off for awhile. I didn't intend to take another nap, but I ended up doing just that - which is something I need to improve on (I love to sleep wayyy tooo much).
Then he came home and yelled at me about not having any drive or ambition and not wanting to be at the shop, and though he partially has a point, this was not a good time. So I went and picked Cooper up and came home, and have been feeling very low and like a failure for the rest of the afternoon. Writing on this blog has actually helped me focus on my goals again, and I feel a little better other than the health insurance conundrum. I seem to have bad days once in awhile, and having some time to myself to get back into a positive frame of mind sometimes works the best. I'm sorry for arguing with you, D.R., but I hope you can be understanding when I sometimes have bad days. Now for my last two long-term goals...

5. Pay off $10,000 of my debt.

Once again, this mostly depends on my ability to make our businesses successful, but I do have somewhat of a plan formulated, including paying extra on the account with the lowest balance first so I can have one whole account paid off, then moving to the next account.

6. Get my house cleaned and organized and finish some household projects

-Any of you who have seen my house know that I am not the best housekeeper, but we all need a place to go to relax and unwind, and it's only stressful to sit in a disaster. My goal here is to at the very least maintain the amount of cleaning I have done the day before, and if possible do 30-45 minutes of additional cleaning or organizing each day until I get it all done. I know from experience that I will just burn out if I try to clean and organize the entire house in one day, so I am just going to discipline myself to spend at least a few minutes a day cleaning and picking up so it's not any messier than the day before, and if I have any energy left, I will do some extra.

Well, this has ended up turning into more of a book than a blog, but writing my goals and my plan to reach them has helped me start to come out of my bad mood, so I guess it was worth it. I am very impressed if any of you managed to read this whole thing, it really felt more like I was writing in a journal. I probably better cut down on the length of these blogs and spend the time working toward some of my goals ;)