Where do I find the TIME?

I recently recevied an email in my inbox with the subject line in all caps "STRUGGLING," the last thing I want to see from someone I'm helping. In the email, one of my newest clients was expressing the age-old dilemma of exercise - how do I find the time do get all of my weekly workouts in? She stated, "I feel like I'm falling behind."

I always repeat the dictum that the worst vice there is, is AD-vice, unless of course someone is asking for it. And she was indeed asking, so I'd like to take this opportunity to pass it along to anyone out there actually reading my blogs.

The first thing to remember - show yourself some grace. If you're managing to get in three workouts a week, you're way ahead of the average person out there who gets zero workouts in a week. There's no grand schedule or calendar in the sky, no one in your gym or your basement handing out trophies. It's you and your training journal.

That said, she was asking for real advice - where do I find the TIME to follow the program?

The real answer here isn't "time management" because such a thing doesn't exist in reality. Time moves on with or without us. There is no "management" of this element of our temporal reality. Sorry! It's not a "thing." But what we can manage are events.

If you need to get certain things accomplished in your day, you need to create a checklist, and as you do them, cross them off. Therefore, your workouts need to be on the checklist.

YOU need to schedule YOU into your day. If you say you want exercise to be a part of your life, then make it a priority by putting yourself in your schedule. During that time period of the day, your workout time is sacrosanct. Put it on your to-do list, do it, and then check it off as "done."

"But the kids" "but work" "but..." but but but. "But's" will always be there. I say, "but" if you do this over time, you will have more energy, patience and will to attend to all of those things that follow your "but." Stop sacrificing yourself in the moment to moments, and attend to yourself. If you don't, there will be nothing left to give.

So where do you find time? YOU schedule it. Either it's a priority, or it's not. If you came to me for my help, then you want it to be a priority. Only you can make it one. Schedule you into YOUR schedule.