When Life Gets in the Way of Climbing and Yoga
The last month has gotten away from me. I had a job lined up, quit, found a part-time job, and another part-time job. Family came to visit and life keeps getting turned around. Juggling life can be hard to do! Among all this busyness, I have found my yoga practice and rock climbing has been thrown to the side among other hobbies. I am working on giving myself some grace during this time because it is going to take a bit of time to figure out how things will actually work for me.
But… I found help and I want to share it with you!
I listened to a podcast episode recently called “Consistency’s Best Friend” from “The Average Climber Podcast”. There were suggestions on how to structure your training and your schedule on a regular week and when things get out of hand. Lauren, one of the podcast hosts, also did an Instagram post on this a few weeks ago. In the post and the episode, Lauren describes “Stop Light Planning”. A red light week is a busy, unusually hectic week, yellow is a standard week and green is a spacious week with plenty of free time. Check out the post and the episode; I found it extremely helpful, plus Lauren and Caitlin are relatable and fun to listen to!
As I am getting used to my new normal yellow weeks, I have started planning out what my week looks like. I have set up my multiple jobs on my calendar and begun scheduling strength training, climbing, yoga, and making pottery around my work schedule. I won’t lie…it is challenging, BUT I am confident with this extra planning I will have time to get what I want done. Work doesn’t equal life. Hobbies and social time are what’s important. At least to me.
Because of all this change, I am also restructuring my strength training program. Traditionally, I have been lifting twice a week. Since that no longer feels like an option, I am working with what I have available instead of adding to my stress and not getting anything I want done.
Maybe now is a good time to reflect… How are your weeks structured? Do you schedule in advance? Do you run around to make sure you have time to climb, lift and do other hobbies?
I want to live my life week to week feeling good about what I have accomplished. Even if that means I have a red light week and do the bare minimum. As I am typing this, I haven’t climbed in a week; this makes me sad! I did take some time to lay out my week today. I have everything on my calendar still with some flexibility because, as we know, life is unpredictable.
