Just a few days ago, I wrote about taking time to pause and then I wrote about the Whole Life Challenge and how one of the components is a LifeStyle challenge that changes each week.

As if they read my blog, the challenge team picked the best LifeStyle challenge for me this week. It’s called 123 ToDo:

Every day of week 2, you will start the day by making a list of ONE thing that you must get done, TWO things that you’d like to get done, and THREE things that would be nice to get done. By the end of the day, you must have completed the ONE thing that you said you must get done.

You get your point if you make the list and cross of the one item that must get done.

This has been the push I needed to get back to my productive space. Since Saturday, when this challenge began, I’ve been able to knock off at least 3 of the 6 items in my list each day. Some days I do them all but as long as #1 gets done, I feel awesome. This meant that I finally got my blood tests done (after putting it off for 4 years, and it turns out it was a good thing since my vitamin d levels are too low!) and I sent emails I’d been putting off for weeks, and got back on track for my daily sketching, and scheduled David’s orthodontist appointment and I could go on and on, in only four days!

Sometimes, all we need is an excuse to get back on track and once we are, the momentum keeps us going. (Just like inertia has its own momentum and keeps you in the space of inertia.)

As I often say when people ask me for advice on how to create more art or get better: you need to just start. Get up and sit at your desk and push paint around if you need to. Once you start, the universe works with you to make it all happen.

You just need to do your part and show up.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the last week worrying about a decision I might have to make.

You read that right: I don’t even know if I will have to make the decision or not yet. And yet I am still worrying.

So much so that I’ve dreamt about it and had a hard time falling asleep.

The reason the decision is tough is because it will change my day to day life and if things don’t work out (which is always a possibility) I might be very sad I made the change. I feel like the unknown seems so overwhelming that I’d rather not change anything just not to risk the unknown.

Which can’t possibly be a good idea, can it?

I’ve been thinking about taking leaps in general. Walking into the unknown more often. Being braver.

And then the little voice inside my head says “but what if it all goes wrong and you regret it forever?”

Indeed. what if?

The threat of regret is so daunting.

But here’s what I do know. Life changes constantly. There’s no guarantee things will stay as they are now. There’s no way to know how the paths I didn’t take would have turned out. And most importantly: everything is always ok in the end. Sometimes it’s not about doing all your homework or thinking really hard. It’s definitely not about worrying for hours on end.

Sometimes it’s just about making the leap.

And having faith that it will all work out.

Or simply just having faith.

And taking the leap.

On a side note, as I was writing this, one of my colleagues found out his dad had a heart-attack and had to be airlifted to the hospital. A reminder that life is so fragile and I need to just stop wasting mine by worrying. period. Instead, I need to remember to be grateful for each and every day.

I’ve been thinking a lot about rules lately. About two months ago, I took a wonderful Sketching class at Sketchbook Skool (in fact, I am taking all their classes now) and I really loved it. I immediately started sketching more regularly.

But just as immediately, I noticed myself making up random rules. Or maybe not random but just rules.

First it was that I couldn’t sketch from a photo, it had to be from real-life or nothing.

Then I decided I couldn’t use pencil and had to do it straight from pen.

Then I made up new rules about type of sketch, time of sketch, duration of sketch….on and on.

By this time, I had constructed so many rules in my head that some of them were even conflicting with each other. One part of my head said sketch quickly and the other one screamed for me to seriously slow down and pay attention to detail. There was so much going on in my head that I wasn’t sure I enjoyed the sketching anymore.

This has happened to me a lot in different hobbies I’ve taken up. I’ve heard people say things like

“If you don’t use Manual mode on your camera it’s cheating”

“If you scrap the same photo multiple times, it’s cheating”

“If you don’t journal, it’s cheating.”

“If you use pencil first, it’s cheating.”

on and on.

Doesn’t matter what the hobby is, apparently there are rules and judgements even on something we do to spend our free time.

As soon as I realized the pressure I was adding to my life, I decided to step back and take it all off the table. I decided to wipe the slate clean and say “there are no rules.” Let’s start fresh.

I decided the only rules I wanted to create were around a specific area of growth I was planning to tackle. If I specifically decided it was important to learn to sketch without pencil, then, fine, no pencil could be the rule but I wasn’t going to then add 4 more rules to that. If my goal is to work on perspective, who cares if my camera is on manual?

Instead of adding arbitrary rules that others have created, I decided I wanted to get very clear on my own goals and then make my own rules to meet my own goals. If my only goal is to practice sketching as much as possible, then all the other stuff goes out the window so I can just sketch, sketch, sketch.

Are you also creating rules to restrict your joy without realizing it or am I the only one driving myself crazy?

About a month ago, I was reading Stephanie Howell’s blog and I saw her mention The Whole Life Challenge. I hadn’t heard of this site or concept at all and I was looking for an excuse to get myself back into track from all the Nutella and Starbucks I’d gotten in the habit of overdoing.

I emailed Steph to ask more questions and she very kindly and enthusiastically encouraged me to do it.

Sometimes, the universe comes together at the right time and this was one of those cases. I saw it, I decided I wanted to do it, and I signed up. All within a matter of hours.

I knew it was starting the day after I turned 40 so I thought that, too, was maybe a sign. But it also meant that I wasn’t prepared at all. At all. And if you’ve been here for any length of time, you know that I definitely lean on the organized side, so this was quite unusual. I think maybe I just didn’t want to think about it until I had to. Instead I had more lattes and more Nutella.

So Saturday came and I immediately went into panic mode. The only food I’d bought was oatmeal that was 100% oats to ensure I had some breakfast. I ate my breakfast and then went shopping for food. I also went through the house and threw away everything I knew I could no longer eat. (There wasn’t much left at this point because I hadn’t been buying much and I’d been eating whatever I bought.)

The way this challenge works is that there are 7 aspects: nutrition, 10min workout, 10min stretching, supplement, water, lifestyle(changes each week), reflections (journaling). I spent some time deciding what all these mean for me and how they will manifest in my life.

Last night, I finally decided it was time to get organized. So I sat down to list all the different parts of this process:

1. Water – Drink 3 containers full of water – this is sized to work for me
2. Supplement – I’ve decided to take Omega-3 for now but seeing the doctor tomorrow so we’ll see
3. Stretch – The WLC site has different daily stretches they recommend and for now I am just doing those each day for 10 mins.
4. Exercise – Exercise component is a bit involved for me partly because I wanted to do different things:
1. Walk 10,000 steps each day
2. Walk up 10 floors of stairs each day
3. Do the NYTimes Scientific 7-min workout daily (I use this YouTube video)
5. Nutrition – There are three different levels you can choose in the game, I’ve decided to go with LifeStyle which is the medium level. (PDF of Levels)
6. LifeStyle – This week this is about no technology during Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
7. Reflection – This is just a small amount of journaling I have to do each night. Not hard 🙂

And to ensure I don’t forget about some part, I’ve made a printable I glue to my notebook each week:

This way I can track it all day long and feel good about my progress. (you can ignore the sketching bit, that’s a different daily goal.)

So far, the biggest challenge has been the 7-minute exercise which apparently is working out muscles I didn’t even know I had. So I am sore everywhere. And, I mean: everywhere.

But, other than that, I have been doing fine with no bread or lattes or nutella. At least for three days.

My hope is that this 56-day challenge will fundamentally shift the way I eat food so that I can move my diet to a more plant and protein based one. Here’s to giving it an honest try.