On The Personal Side (Patreon)

Have any of you been feeling this sense of... struggle? I know life isn't supposed to be easy, but DANG! 

While I am MUCH happier with the direction of life the last few months, it's not like it has come without its challenges. I'm a pretty resilient person and I'm healthy and happy, so it's tough for me to figure out why things feel so much harder than they used to. And you know what? I think it's largely because I deal with things in a healthier way now. 

In the past, I would keep myself so busy and neglect sleep often in order to work more, work out more, party, travel, etc. In a way, I had more time to do things this way and since I was younger, the lack of sleep wasn't too big of a deal. I also was much less aware emotionally, and inconsiderate of past partners who wanted more quality time. There is no doubt I prioritized my career. 

These days, it's self-care first! And that ties right in to maintaining all my relationships I care about most. I've been diligent about keeping myself in life coaching because I know when I start to justify not doing it, it's easy to go a month or two and something inevitably happens where I end up thinking that I should have kept up with it so I wouldn't be suffering so much. Of course I have the skill necessary to survive and stay mentally well by now, but getting that regular space to discuss the happenings of life has been a real game changer because things don't build up like they used to. For me, that is well worth the time and cost. In addition to this, I also have been pretty great at sticking to a sleep and gym schedule. I try to be in bed by 8-9 and wake up around 4:15-5 most of the time. Starting my day early and getting to the gym usually before sunrise feels wonderful and gives me the WHOLE day to get things done. I'm fortunate I'm a morning person and this isn't too hard. Though, I won't lie, lately it hasn't been quite as easy, but I'm still making myself do it. On top of all this, we've stopped eating out for the most part and I'm eating about 90% of my meals at home and they are pretty healthy and nutritious.  

As you can see, this all requires effort. Typing all this up makes me realize just how great I'm doing by my own standards. My gosh, I can be so hard on myself. I imagine many of you can relate. Why do we do this to ourselves? I also have to remember that I am basically doing a full time job of modeling/content creation, plus 4 part time jobs - makeup artist, reseller, photographer, editor. 

I have to say that I'm very happy I'm living in line with my values finally. For years I was living in a way that wasn't best for me, and I paid the price literally and figuratively for it. This year I decided it was going to be HEALTH FIRST, and I am sticking to it in all the ways - mental, physical, spiritual. Health across the board matters as they aren't independent from each other for me. While I'm paying the price of time and energy into my health now, that is an investment that is and will be paying off for the rest of my time on this earth as I intend on keeping up with it all. 

All these things are becoming more second nature (many already were), and the beautiful thing is that means they will have less of an energy cost soon and I'll have more energy to put toward work. Truth be told, I can accomplish A LOT in just a few hours because I have some pretty solid systems down, so all I really need to do is what I'm working on this week - scheduling office time and sticking to it. 

Some of the ways I'm doing this are:

1. Working in office 11-2 (at least) Mon-Fri, because I feel most alert mid-day and being in my office every day sounds awful. lol

2. Scheduling the rest of those day around that office time

3.Scheduling specific tasks each day and getting at least half done (less pressure while I figure out what my new work flow looks and feels like)

4. Turning my phone to Do Not Disturb so I am not distracted or bothered

Some things I intend to start doing:

1. Scheduling time to shoot content

2. Working with JD for his upcoming content

3. Keeping my shop area more organized

This might not be helpful to some, but I know at least a few enjoy knowing this side of things too. I support several people here and OF and even though I am a creator myself, as I enjoy their content I forget about just how much goes into making the things I get to enjoy. 

It's entirely possible to live a life you love, to do what you love, to be an entrepreneur, to be a content creator, to be an artist, etc., and I will never pretend it's easy. What I will say is that for me, it's always been worth it. Not listening to my heart is what gets me in trouble, and I learned that lesson the hard way. Life will always be hard in one way or another, and the cool thing is that we get to choose the kind of hard we want. :)

Photos by Chase Stevens