So what exactly is this 90 day challenge thing?
Rachel Hollis (of Girl, Stop Apologizing and Girl, Wash Your Face fame) and her husband Dave have started this process as a way to finish the year strong. That way, you start out the New Year strong and focused, not atoning for your lackluster progress around the holidays.
They have a set of rules they call 5 to Thrive. They’re pretty simple but will still be challenging on the hard days:
1. Get up an hour earlier and do something for yourself.
-Not work or household related, but something that will improve yourself. Some people get up and work out since that crosses two items off this list, but I am sure as hell not getting up and sweating in the morning. I did that for eight years. Nope. Shout out to my mom waking me up before my 4:40am alarm so it didn’t go off and wake everyone else up too.
2. Work out at least 30 minutes.
-This is going to be the least challenging, since I’m already a gym rat. I have a great workout buddy too (hey court!). My workouts are mostly spinning though sometimes I’m convinced to lift. My joints don’t like lifting after my years trying to gain as much muscle as I could so I stick to (pathetically) low weights and moderate reps.
3. Drink half your body weight in ounces each day.
- This isn’t a “convert your bodyweight to ounces and drink half that amount” kind of bullshit, don’t worry. If you weigh 140 lbs, drink 70 oz. It’s math even your friendly liberal arts major can figure out.
4. Give up one food category you shouldn’t be eating.
-I’m not going to lie to you, this one has me feelin’ a little funky. I know the intention is for us to give up something like fast food, or ice cream, or alcohol, or anything fried, but it dances on the line of disordered eating. I’ve had friends who have gone into treatment for eating disorders and this is similar to how it started.
- The above reasoning is why I’m only choosing to give up one thing that is a huge detriment to my body and how good I feel. Since we’re counting down on the final hours of September I’m eating my last pieces of chocolate before 2020. Is there anything wrong with chocolate? No. it’s food. It’s not inherently bad just because we say it is- it just exists. When you have a severe form of acid reflux disease though, high-sugar foods like chocolate can cause severe heartburn and sometimes even migraines. I’ve been inhaling the stuff all weekend in preparation and fuckkk was that stupid. Chocolate is a wonderful, life-affirming, joy-giving food, just not for me. I will miss it greatly, especially Dove’s dark chocolate covered cherries.
5. Write down 10 things you’re greatful for each day.
-I’m going to be combining this with work I started doing in The Artist’s Way. If you’re a creative who is in a rut deeper than your ladder, I highly recommend looking it up and seeing if it’s of interest to you. I found a copy at my local library and was able to save the important activities without having to buy anything.
As a personal challenge I’ll also be limiting myself to one “unnatural” form of caffeine a day (Diet Pepsi, Monster) and as much tea as I want. If you know me IRL you know I can down a fridge case of pepsi in a day and may or may not have had six monsters in a day once upon a time maybe so this personal challenge is going to suckkkk. I’ve been slowly dialing back on how much caffeine I have overall so I won’t be going into October with withdrawal headaches and murderous attitudes!
My most important goal, however, is this: I will be writing 1,000 words a day in October and December, and 1,667 in November. National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days during November. I’ve tried and failed before, but I’ve also tried and won.
I’m most of the way through writing the first book in my trilogy and will use the #last90dayschallenge to finish it up and start book two! These blog posts won’t count toward my totals, either. I plan on posting on Tuesdays and Saturdays until the end of the year. If there’s any topics you want me to cover, shoot on over to the “contact me” page and let me know!
This whole challenge will be going on while I work full time (plus any possible overtime) and doing book reviews for Indie Reviewer. And being a wife. And dog mom. And some of my best friends are getting married. and job searching/looking for another job since mine is gonna be obsolete in a few months.
Like one of Rachel’s guests said in one podcast- Growth is uphill.
Let’s do this!
