Why & How I Want To Be Wonder Woman

The bloggers credo: slow and steady wins the race. One of my most asked questions lately is a lengthly one: how do you continuously blog, cook fresh food from scratch, update social media, exercise, work a full time job, have a life and hug your cat?

Ok, so I slipped the last bit in for giggles. I do hug him. Lots. 

The enigmatic question actually holds a few key but simple answers I want to share with you because I'm learning we all have the ability to push ourselves to do it all.

You must forgo evenings of tardiness, dreaming of doing things but never actually doing them and ultimately wishing I could grab life more by my two barehands: that's what I told myself.

I'm not wonder woman, nor am I perfect. In fact I probably push myself a little too hard, but when I started to treat my blog more like a creative platform that allowed me to try and spread genuine joy, my heartfelt views on life whilst expressing my creativity, that's when I noticed things shifting. 

The big question is - how do we do it all? Can we do it all?

I'm sure you're thinking: what is all? Good question. 

It's the sum of everything you want to achieve in your weekly routine. Whether it's taking more time off social media, spending an hour outdoors each day, picking up the phone more often to call someone special or simply finding the minutes or hours to pick up a long-lost but cherished hobby.

For me, I seriously want to live a life of happiness. I know I routinely harp on about this, but I genuinely want to bounce around with a smile on my face. When the bad times come knocking, I want to embrace them and choose to learn from it all rather than revel in misery. My personal focuses each week are on:

- Blogging. I want to create, write and share in a way that encourages and uplifts people. This is something I'm so passionate about so spending Mon-Tues and Thurs, Friday and Sunday's prepping, editing and preparing is something I wholeheartedly love to do. 

- Cooking. Food is something you know I cherish and consider really important in my life. Without nourishing my body with the right wholesome foods each day I can't mentally or physically give everything my 100%. Cooking with fresh plant-based produce is something I do everyday.

- Exercising. I used to run 3-4 times a week for well over a year until fell off the bandwagon, became addicted to sugar and started making woeful excuses. Now I understand the power of planning, I've started running again 3 times a week. It is genuinely SO awesome: not only does it clear my mind, the endorphins after running are an instant mood lifter. 

- Work. Right now, I work full-time and whilst I actually don't mind my job at all I still need to do it and want to give it my all while I'm there. It might not be my long-term goal, but choosing to work hard in whatever role you're in is something I've learnt is really important and moulds a good work ethos for future opportunities. 

So the question now is, what do you want to focus on?

You had me at focus. 

Let's get to the nitty gritty, for without that, we won't get anywhere!

1. Doing less = doing more

A bit of a paradox, but interestingly profound. In order to sort my life out, I had to take a step back and simply say: okay, what do I want to do? What do I not want to do?

So often we're greeted with age old excuses and sayings, a particularly powerful one is 'there aren't enough hours in the day'. Uhm. Wrong! There are genuinely a surprising amount of hours in the day, it's up to us to choose what we devote them to. I bet my bottom dollar we all spend a ridiculous amount of time faffing, moving in a blur from task to task yet feeling like we've accomplished little to nothing.

Or is that just me?

A few steps:

1. Figure out what is an essential in your routine i.e. work, travelling to work, cooking for your other half/family, driving your kids to school each morning, university, housework etc. 

2. Now, work out what isn't essential i.e. watching hours of Netflix (aka entering the blackhole of procrastination), spending a crazy amount of time throughout your day on social media, going to-and-fro your cupboards and fridge before cooking and wondering what the actual chuff you'll cook for dinner etc.

3. What makes you happy? Write it down. This is the list of seriously important things. Not 'oh if I had the time you know I would run a marathon, or maybe learn to cut my own hair, or what about learning French? That would be cool'. As much as I would like to learn Italian again, it's a phase meaning it isn't a priority, it is more so trivial. The important things are the things you would genuinely kill to find the time for. For me personally it's the ones I listed above, those are: eating good fresh wholesome foods daily, exercising routinely, doing my job well and blogging continuously and passionately each week. 

Well, now what do we do? Write the list. Figure out what's important. Cut what isn't important. Slot in what you want to do each week. 

Do it. 

A good friend yesterday poignantly said to me 'commitment changes everything'. Trust me, that nugget of truth packs a real punch. The more I choose to say yes to doing what I want in life and saying no to what I don't need, the more I realise how powerful our minds are. 

Life truly is a constant battle between what we deeply crave that requires work vs what we want right now. For example, you've finished a day of work and your mind begins to tell you how wonderful a week of relaxing would be. It spins a tale of wonder, it sells you a ticket to laziness and before you know it you haven't gone to your favourite spin class, or you haven't taken your dog on that long walk that you know in your heart you really ought to do because you love it. 

Moral of the story? Choose to build upon your willpower. Dang, you have got it and it is so so incredibly powerful. Most of the time it's you vs your mind, which means only you can pick the battle but equally only you can fight it and win it. 

Trust me, if someone as scatty as me can do it I know you can too. We all can and I wholeheartedly believe that! 

Tip:

- Don't sell yourself short. You can do it, you seriously just need to believe in yourself.

- I live by the mantra of choosing to seriously believe you'll succeed and I mean this in the context of succeeding to commit. I always say, if you believe you'll fail by the weekend then you will fail. If you choose to focus your efforts on committing, succeeding and still be doing it at the weekend with a smile on your face, then you're on to a winner.

2. Fuel for energy. Food for thought.

I'll keep this short, but food seems to be the biggest killer of time. Another most asked question by anyone, to anyone, is: how can I eat well but not spend my entire life in the kitchen?

Is there an answer to this? Dang tootin' straight there is! 

1. Prepare. 

As a coeliac I know I can't slip off the bandwagon on that front, but as someone that lives on plants I still can be lazy with my food choices. For example, I've noticed lately I am consuming way too many nuts, fruit, rice and grains and nowhere near enough veggies. 

How come? Because I've been lazy. 

How do you beat the laziness? Firstly, I always keep fruit in my freezer. I like to buy it fresh and freeze it or alternatively buy it frozen (if it's good). Make sure you always have the bare essentials, for me that's porridge oats, nuts, agave, chia seeds, peanut butter, rice cakes, coconut/almond milk and green tea.

As for meals, I'm a quick throw it together kinda gal. I'm home from work, exercise (if I am that evening), try to eat before 6pm (or 7pm at the latest) and then get into my blogging, writing or editing. 

Secondly, I want good food, but I also want it quickly. In order to do this I shop for 2-3 days ahead and plan my meals so when I wake in the morning I know what I am having for dinner. My favourite meal right now is courgette noodles with fresh basil, slow cooked tomatoes, sautéed kidney beans and pine nuts. It literally takes about 30mins to prep it, cook it and have it on the table. 

2. Isn't it all so expensive?

You know what, you're so right - it is but that doesn't mean we should say no to good nutrient dense food and pick up that ready meal. I'm paid weekly, so each week I'm paid I order a few cupboard essentials from Amazon to build my stock of things like cacao nibs, raw cashew nuts, almond butter, gluten free soy sauce, tamari, matcha powder, medjool dates etc. 

It is expensive so I totally sympathise but the good thing is the majority of the pernickety ingredients are long-life meaning you can buy little and often as you're paid, thus spreading the cost and making it a little less painful on your budget.

Tips:

- Bento boxes FTW. If you do cook, why not cook double the portion and box the rest for the next night? 

- Life sells us the lie that we need to look to a cookbook each night in order to concoct something for dinner. For some bizarre reason we seem to follow this rule even more so when we're choosing to eat healthier. Don't listen to it! Use what you have in your fridge first before splurging on more food that'll only go off. Get your creative juices going and you'll be surprised at what you can invent. Some of my favourite dishes have actually been created this way, believe it or not!

- Breakfast is a huge struggle for a lot of us. When the alarm sounds and it's the age old food vs sleep battle, most of us choose the latter. Consciously commit to waking 15 minutes earlier, or checking your social media as you cook your breakfast, that way you are nourishing your body as soon as you wake up whilst not skipping on your routinely morning browse. 

Finally, we are what we believe we are. We also will commit to things, plan, prepare and do them if we believe in what we are doing and believe in the reason behind why we are doing them. 

Sometimes the journey is long, but a lot of the time it's short if we just start now and choose to say no to weeks of hoping for change but never seeking the change. 

Only you can do it, so why not start today?