Intentional End Of The Year

Eearlier this year I started seeing friends post on their social media about this girl, Rachel Hollis.  I had never heard of Rachel Hollis but when I saw the quotes my friends were posting they spoke to me.  It felt like what she was saying was what I had been struggling to find the words to say out loud, to explain how I felt.

― Rachel Hollis, Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be

Being the inquisitive person that I am, and loving a good quote, I went to find out more about this lady.  Mrs. Hollis is the founder and maverick behind the The Hollis Company a PR and event guru, an author, a huge community builder and the creator of #thelast90days.

The Last 90 Days was a challenge Mrs. Hollis set for the Chic Tribe for the first time in 2017.  A challenge to be intentional about each of us spent our last 90 days of the year instead of just letting it slide out into the new year.  Life happens, especially in the last part of the year.  School restarts, holiday parties, holiday food, the nights get darker and longer and the weather gets more gloomy and wet.  So it’s easy to see why we get distracted and slide out of the year.

Instead of allowing ourselves to waste the last 3 months of the year, Rachel set everyone a challenge to finish the year ramping up, so that we hit the ground running in the new year.  The challenge was pretty simple but required some serious intention setting and a change in mindset.  It takes 21 days to create a habit and 90 days to change your life.

#TheLast90Days

• Get up an hour earlier or go to bed earlier
• Exercise for 30 minutes a day
• Drink the equivalent of half of your body weight in ounces of water each day
• Give up one food item you know you shouldn’t eat
• Write down 10 things you are grateful for each day

At the start of this challenge in October this looked like an unenviable and uphill task.  Now here I am 73 days into the challenge.  I haven’t achieved all 5 of these items each day, if I’m honest I failed most days.

Now this could have put me down, but instead I decided to look at this challenge in the same way that Mrs. Hollis suggested this, for me to be more intentional and aware of what I am doing.  Even if I don’t drink all of the recommended amount of water, I am drinking more water than before.  I gave up pop, and I actually did give it up for 70 of the last 73 days.  The 3 days I did drink pop it was instead of having alcohol, so the lesser of two items I know I should consume less of, #winning

I never did write down 10 things I’m grateful for.  It’s not my thing and felt very forced and fake.  So instead I decided to modify this task.  Each morning when I woke up I used one of Mel Robbins 5 Second Rule techniques.  In Mel’s TedTalk and book she recommends we wake up half an hour earlier and take 5 minutes to think of two things you need to do today.  Then spend that extra 30 minutes actioning those two things.  For someone like me who spends most of my time attempting to multitask and keep the plates spinning and balls in the air, this seemed like a great way to stop procrastinating.  I don’t always have things to do each day, but those days when I think of two things to do, I now get them done so much quicker rather than saying “I’ll do it later” and a week goes past. #Winning

Conclusion

I now have 17 days to go and can’t wait to see what I achieve during this time.  I plan to finish the year on an upward trajectory and am putting into action my plan as I type.  How are you making your time intentional rather than letting it run away from you?