So you actually managed to get a routine or at least a rhythm of some sort going and it was working and you liked it and then you know life whatever it was that threw you off course here you stand trying to figure out how to get back on the horse and I want to explore why it is such a struggle and what we can do to actually jump back on and have that kind of progress you were seeing when it was working.
Welcome or welcome back to the Joy Loving Home podcast. Today, we're going to talk about tips for getting back on your horse. A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb It will live its whole life believing that it's stupid. Wellfish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys. It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow fish brain. If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement, and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks, then I'm glad you're here. Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique. Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
While you're listening to today's episode, I want you to think about house routines and things that you've been trying to do to keep your house up. But I'm actually going to illustrate based on an exercise routine because I think we can maybe sort of, I don't know, at least probably because I have a story to tell. And it just seems like the illustrations to me always go hand in hand. I have always said, having an organizer or a housekeeper is like hiring sort of personal trainers for your home.
The nice thing is you can see results pretty quickly with an organizer or, you know, cleaning people that you don't necessarily see without a whole lot of work on the exercise front. But you'll get my point. I do think the illustrations combine well. So in my particular case, I have been working diligently to try and improve my health since I turned 50. And...
Lots of trials and errors, but recently I had a routine going that was actually working and I felt really good about it, mostly from just like an energy perspective and just started feeling healthier. I just felt healthier and it was going really well. And then I went on vacation and then I got sick and then we moved kids into college and then we had family in and here I stand trying trying to figure out how to get back on that horse.
And I don't know if y'all noticed, but in the midst of all of this, the other thing that has been suffering is the timeliness of when I have been putting podcast episodes out, because all of the routines of my life have been suffering, not just this exercise one. But I can break down the exercise one, and then knowing how to break that one down. I know it applies to the others. So I am basically in this sort of get inception situation.
I am recording this podcast about how to get back on a horse as a way to get back on my horse to get back into podcasting and a lot of other things in my life. So I am literally preaching to myself in hopes that you will also find some nuggets that work. and then I just need to get myself to follow my own advice. That is the real hard part. But maybe you'll have better luck than I have had. So I'm going to explore it today.
So just to give you a picture, I had decided at some point that the easiest thing to do was to just pay attention to if I could get to 10,000 steps a day and realizing woefully how sedentary I had become. And so I started adding just a two mile walk in the mornings and then that would get my steps rolling. And then if I wasn't going to hit it in the evenings, I would walk my dogs every evening as a way to like push myself over that number.
And that was a great way to start because I would listen to podcasts or I would listen to new music or I actually enjoyed incorporating that into my life. Once I got that going, I started with my doctor talking about all the ways to eat. And she's like, just ignore everything except for try to up your protein grams. I just need you to get more protein. So I ignored all of the other complicated
stuff that my brain wouldn't do. and I started doing three very simple things that would make me get at least 90 grams of protein a day and then the rest was just gravy. So I was having success with that. And then she was like, you need more muscle. The way you'll age better is more muscle. You need more muscle. So I found this lady online on YouTube who has phenomenal, I should attach it. I don't know why I'm keeping her secret.
Her name, I believe if I'm pronouncing it correctly, is Caroline Gervais. And she, I don't think it's put anything out new for two years. I don't know where she is or what has happened to her. But she has phenomenal series of exercises that she has, like, I do the iron series, which is 30 exercises, 30 totally different 30 minute routines that you're supposed to do over the course of six weeks, because you're supposed to give yourself two days off.
She doesn't tell you when to do the two days off. That kind of flexibility has worked well with me. I've gone through that now nearly twice. So I'm almost like 12 weeks into it when it all fell apart. That has been fantastic. So that was working. Then I learned all this stuff about rucking, which is basically walking with a weighted vest or a weighted backpack and all the like osteoporosis help and all these other things it does.
And so I started adding that to just the walking that already existed three days a week. And things were just humming, like it was working and I felt really, really good.
And then all of those things I talked about happened. happened so since I have been dabbling at trying to get any one of those back I was like what is happening here what is happening and so I want to walk you through in case you're like yes I had stuff happen and then summer was here but summer's about to end and I need to figure out how to get back to something so let's talk about steps to get back on the horse so step one we're going to step back. Step one is to step back and let's evaluate.
First of all, you're saying to yourself, okay, I had this once. I was doing this once. So the good news is I am capable. Sometimes when we start something that seems like a reach, we're not even sure if we're capable of. Sometimes blind hope is really lovely. And sometimes you get a lot of quick self-doubts. So knowing that you are are capable is a step ahead of where you were last time. So that's really, really good. For those of us with ADHD issues, the bad news is...
Your brain might be bored. And we're going to touch how to deal with the brain being bored in step, I think it's four. So let's just, step one is just, okay, we have done this before and we have seen what it was like and we know the steps that were involved. So knowledge is power and we're just going to know, all right, we've got some information and that's step one. You have information of something you've done before.
Step two, I want you before you try to jump back on a horse to evaluate your footing. And what I mean by evaluating your footing is you cannot climb on a horse if you are in quicksand or on a rocky ledge or whatever the case may be. And what I mean by that is, are you trying to jump back on a horse when you have no business jumping on yet? Because you are still sitting in the midst of what you know is chaos.
So if school hasn't started back yet, and you know you still have a trip yet, and you know there's kids around that aren't going to be around, and you know that you're about to travel again, or you haven't, you know, done X, Y, or Z yet, maybe just saying, oh, I need to get back on this. I need to get back on the horse. I'm going to jump back on this horse. But your footing is lousy because life is just not there right now.
Be honest with yourself. Check your footing. And if you're like, I see up ahead, there's smoother ground. Maybe I just need to wait for the smoother ground. Now, double-edged sword here, because we can turn looking for smoother ground into an excuse. And what I mean by that is, for instance, I have one more kid yet to head off to college. That's coming in two weeks. But I know two weeks after that, they're all coming here for Labor Day.
And then I know the week after that, we have them all coming in for like a Steelers game because they're actually playing in Atlanta for once. And I don't know if you know this, but we're Steelers fans, Pittsburgh area originally. And then... There's like, I have to, I need, I want to, let's get my terminology right. I really want to go see my mom. It's been a while. I'd like to just visit and check in and all of those things.
So do I keep pushing the start date off because it's actually logical and it makes sense and I need the secure footing or am I going to keep making excuses because there's always going to be something. thing. So in this sort of step back and evaluate your footing, be real with yourself about there isn't ever going to be a perfect time. But if there's a realistic, slightly better time, then maybe you wait for that. All right, step three, ask yourself if the saddle is on tightly.
Because if you jump on a horse with a loose saddle, you're just going to slide right off the other side. What I mean by this is, is your attitude right? Is your attitude right? Are you jumping back on the horse because somebody is complaining that you were doing this well and what has happened? Why can't you get yourself back on this horse? What are you waiting for? What is the problem? What is your excuse now? If your attitude is lousy, don't even try.
Because all you're doing is setting yourself up to feel like you failed again and somehow this is your fault. Not saying Saying things are never your fault. I'm just saying we have a real ability to self-sabotage and beat ourselves up. And if you can tell you're already setting yourself up for that, step back and let's tighten the saddle. Let's say to ourselves, the fact that we fell off in the first place was not a fault. Nobody was at fault.
I am happy I went on the vacation. I couldn't help that I got sick. I'm thrilled that my kids are around on the summer. I also know realistically how much effort it takes to get things back to some semblance of normal when I get them back off to school again. There's realities that are not excuses, but they do need to be evaluated. And I don't want you jumping back on if your attitude is just, well, because I need to, because I just need to get back on the horse.
So let's evaluate if the saddle is loose and let's wait until we can tighten it back up one of the things I want you to think about when you're trying to figure out how to get the saddle tight again is to ask yourself were there parts of that routine I loved were there parts of that routine, I absolutely hated but I made myself do were there parts of that routine that were super effective, were there parts of that routine that I think I was just doing because I thought
I should So evaluate what works. About the routine, was the smart things, was the necessary, were the necessary things, were the smart things, my verb tense is correctly. And just examine exactly what's going on before you try and just jump back on for the sake of jumping on. Okay, now we're at step four, which I mentioned would play into your ADHD tendencies. Do you need to wait for a new horse? horse, maybe the horse you were on, that ride was great, but that ride has moved along.
That horse is three states over now. We need to wait for a new horse because sometimes our brain just needs something new. Maybe it's not even a horse. Maybe a camel pops by. Maybe it's an elephant. Maybe it's a chaotic ostrich. Whatever the case may be, you might need to climb on something different than what you were doing before. So if you cannot get any excitement or interest in yourself.
About going back to something you were doing, then look at it as a shiny, awesome opportunity to start something new, something different, something that doesn't mean the last one failed, doesn't mean like, well, that worked, why would you not? Because once something worked once, it doesn't mean it's going to work twice. It just doesn't. So give yourself the grace to go, So maybe this is just an opportunity to take a sharp left and do something totally different.
And if you're like, Joy, I don't even know what that different is. I don't know what that different is. Maybe you need some support or some energy of like, for instance, tooting my own horn. I have a membership community that is 10 bucks a month. And every single month we do a brand new challenge.
We do a brand new. they're not necessarily routines but it's something for our brains to get excited about and it changes every single month we are not out here trying to go this is the way one way and we're here to help keep you doing this one thing all the time it is totally new totally exciting some people latch on to one and are loving it some people are like i tried to do that one with you joy and i just couldn't and i'm excited for when the next month starts it's all Okay,
like it's all something to be exposed to. And just FYI, I have a free group that I've admittedly been very quiet in, but it is you to get to it, you go to bit.ly slash joy loving home community, and I'll add the links in the show notes. But I am about to go in there Monday the 19th. And I am actually going to give you all a sneak peek of what this month was like in the membership group. And in the membership group, there's a lot of stuff that I'm going to be talking about.
In honor of the Olympics, we've been doing a declutter decathlon. There are 10 different events, 10 different ways you can get medals. There's a way you can be an overall decathlete, but it's just something fun to do that's different to get ourselves to get some things out the door. September, I'm excited about my plans for then. Totally different, something else, and that's when the new membership opens. So I'm going to be in there Monday the 19th for free in the free membership.
I'm going to give you a taste of what that was like. And then And if you want to join when the doors open again, I'm going to open them August 30th through September 2nd, because we're starting a new theme September 3rd, and we're rolling with it in there if that would be something you'd want to join. Meanwhile, on the website, there is a waitlist so that you can be alerted the minute the membership opens.
If you want to jump over there, it's joylovinghome.com slash membership, and that will get you on the waitlist so that you know the minute that that community opens again. Okay, so I've digressed. But let's talk about step four. Now that we know we need a new horse or a new ride or a new something, part of what we want to do is to be willing to just be on the lookout for it. And it doesn't have to be coming from me. It can be coming from just what do I want to do differently?
How do I want to totally shake up what I was doing and try something completely new this next time? So that's okay. Or maybe you want to take your favorite pieces of an old routine and add something new that you thought you might try, but you never got around to last time. So be open to the novelty of some new things.
All right. And then finally, step five is once you've decided either you're going to get back on the horse you already were with, or you found a new horse and you're excited to get started again, let's not forget that that whole routine I described to you was something I built up slowly over time. And so instead of trying to jump right on the saddle of this new horse you're with or this old horse you're with, maybe you walk alongside it for a while. Walk alongside and find your rhythm with it.
And what I mean by finding your rhythm with it is take one baby step of whatever it is. If it's my exercise routine, maybe I just start with the walking again. And maybe last time it took me a month to get the walking set before I was willing to to add something new. But now that I know I've done it well before, maybe I give myself a week, a week of just doing the walking alongside. Then the next week, I put one foot in the stirrup, and I hop alongside.
Because then I go, well, I'm going to add the weighted vest back three times a week. So it's still just a baby step. But it's a baby step that came so much faster, because I've already known I can do this before and I can do this again. So just.
Ease yourself in it's not starting over it's not starting from scratch it's not because we now are new people with new knowledge and new skills that we didn't have the first time we jumped on a horse, so don't always think of it as like a failure that i have to start from scratch it is it is an experienced rider riding a different horse you know more now and that's all okay so for your house maybe before you had gotten into this
rhythm where you were making your bed and you were getting the the dishes done each day, and you actually, you know, made sure the countertops were clear before you went to bed every night, whatever, pick one, just one of those things and start back again and give yourself a week to get used to this new pace before you jump all in. So thanks for putting up with my analogies. Thanks for putting up with my roundabout way to say things.
But I just think sometimes we need to kind of step back and literally look at not this life we're in and the chaos we're in and but just like okay what's happening like let's literally evaluate what's happening and what's going on with my brain and what's going on with my body and what's going on with my home and my activities of life so that I can approach it with the right attitude and the the right energy to get going again.
So I'd love for you to join me. If that means that I am actually the boost that helps hit you up into the saddle, I'm here for you. I'd love to be that person for you. Again, all the links will be in the show notes. You can reach out to me anytime, joy at joylovinghome.com. Or you can DM me on Instagram over there. I'm at joylovinghome. I do not do a lot on Instagram, but I do pay attention to my DMs. So I'm more than happy to respond back at any of those places.
And I hope until next time, you continue to choose joy.