Stepping up!

While I've had a Fitbit since April or so, I hadn't participated in any sort of Challenge until two weeks ago because I didn't know any friends who also had a Fitbit. Then my roommate got one and we learned a mutual friend of ours also had one. Our mutual friend invited us to a "Work Week Hustle" where you compete to have the most steps Mon-Fri. I didn't do so well last week because I was on a difficult and long work week.

However, this past "work week" I totally won! Not only that, but I almost got 10,000 steps every day! My step totals were 10,629; 10,708; 12,936; 6,552; and 11,972! I'm so proud of myself! Granted, two of those days were achieved through basic things like hula-hooping for 2hrs or bouncing on a medicine ball to work on my core, but it's still something. None of it was intense, hard workouts but something is better than nothing. It got me going which is all that matters.

It's my goal to reach at least 10,000 every day (with the exception of Sundays on my work week). That means I'm out and about, and once I've gotten in the habit then I can work my way up to strenuous exercises instead of simple walks and the like.

While I don't consider myself a competitive person, participating in Challenges like this with other people makes me accountable. If I'm aware that others will see my step count it motivates me to not skimp. "Beating" others isn't my goal, but in a small way it's an even greater sense of accomplishment. I'm excited to see how this next week turns out!

Shop Run-through

I had the wonderful opportunity to gain some first-hand experience selling items in a "booth." It was at a secondhand sale where I was essentially just selling things to get rid of them and free up some space. It wasn't too serious of an event and I was able to do it with my roommate who also had some items to sell.

An interesting thing to note is that since I had to pay an entrance fee, I actually "lost" about $4 since I wasn't able to sell everything I brought. However, I don't consider this a poor business move because the experience I gained was worth it. Plus I'll have the opportunity to sell the leftover items at a later date (with no entrance fee) so I'll easily earn back those $4 and then some.

But as I said, the experience was worth it. The secondhand sale was minor and I hadn't invested anything into the items I was selling. Attending some sort of craft fair with the items I plan to sell in my Etsy shop, now THAT will be a different story. I'll have to be extremely organized, and this run-through was the perfect way for me to see what I need to do.

So here's the list of what I learned: 

Funk

I'm not entirely sure why, but I've been in a bit of a funk lately. There are just too many things to do in a day and I'm struggling to find the best way to accomplish it all. I've also been suffering from a feeling of constant nausea for the past three days. Tums don't help, it's not food poisoning, and I can't seem to find a way to alleviate the mild discomfort/pain. It's not debilitating, but it's certainly a mild handicap in trying to function throughout the day. I talked about it to a coworker and she said she experienced the same thing last week so perhaps there's something going around.

Although I suppose part of it could be caused by stress. I did suffer from acid reflux during high school so I know I'm capable of making myself ill that way. There's certainly been enough stressful matters happening, but it's mainly because of me. I'm trying to do too much at once so I end up not doing anything because it's like an information overload and my brain/abilities shut down.

What's more frustrating is that I'm aware that my window of opportunity for being single is dwindling to the end, and I'll no longer be responsible for just myself. I won't be able to devote all my time to my endeavors so I need to utilize my time perfectly. Of course, that just exacerbates my stress.

What I need to do is calm down, then spend a number of hours creating "business plans" to achieve all I want to and break it down to manageable pieces. I also need to do this at a library or somewhere NOT at home. Thinking about it, I've been spending all my time at home or at work, with a handful of trips to the grocery store and the like. I'm either working or at home, where I'm doing everything else. When it's my home, I'm doing EVERYTHING there and I think it's killing my motivation and creativity. It's causing me to feel trapped and it's causing me to fall into the same pointless routines.

I need a change of scenery. My mind isn't being stimulated. It's seeing the same thing over and over and over again. That's got to be it. I've been confused as to why I feel like I'm struggling more in this way now than I did in college, but it's because things were constantly changing. I lived somewhere different each year. I had multiple spots around campus that I enjoyed studying in. I had routine but it was still varied, and I'm not getting that now.

Can't wait to try this out! What's even better is that even through this I have something to blog about in my other future blog!