Back to Workouts

The bridal bootcamp has been underway for weeks now, but unfortunately I haven't been as on my game as I should have been... I'm going to blame the long hours at my new job.  

Well, two weeks ago I emailed my personal trainer, the wonderful Amanda, and let her know what my pain points are as far as not having a regular work schedule.  I told her that I'm going to make fitness a much bigger priority and focus on a manageable work life balance.  And she helped me out with some awesome workouts to help get me back into shape.  

First up on the list?  I started getting my act together for spin class on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:45 p.m.  I cannot even begin to give Sam enough credit for how much he's enabled me to focus on myself.  Sam's on a really easy rotation (think reliably short hours) at Kaiser so he's been able to get home to let Hunter out on the nights I head to the gym directly from work.  

Additionally, Amanda has given me some really handy workouts that involve walking the dog - which is a win win for us because it gives us a chance to do something as a family (Sam joins us) and we also get to involve Hunter.  He has been sleeping through the night A LOT better with all this exercise.  

The best news of all is that I've gotten more than 10,000 steps and more than 30 minutes of intense activity for the last five days in a row counting today.  I know it's not going to happen over night, but this is the second week in a row that I've made it to two spin classes.  Let me tell you, my legs are BURNING, which is a good thing because in the simplest of explanations: the muscles in your legs are the largest, most powerful muscles in your body thus they are capable of burning the most energy aka fat.  

I'm also working my upper body so that my arms and shoulders are as sculpted as possible when I don my beautiful strapless wedding dress in less than five months!  I can't believe how quickly the months are ticking down...

I'm not sure if it's partly because of the Lexapro, but I don't have quite the same level of agitation and stress at work these days.  Not to say I'm not committed, but I don't feel the need to push and give my job all 110% of my energy.  And it's been making me really happy to spend some time on myself, improving my fitness and getting back into shape. 

Failure

It's very difficult for me to accept failure, especially when its my own.

On Thursday I was given a major project to work on that was due to our client on Monday midmorning.  I felt really good about the direction I was going in, and the other two people on my team seemed to be on the same page as I was - which made me even more confident.

Unfortunately, our agency director did not share our enthusiasm for my work.  She tore apart the action plan I spent hours drafting, had major revisions for one of my press releases and hated the other.

It was quite a blow to my confidence.

To make matters worse, the account director and agency director stayed at the office with me until 7:00 on Friday evening while we reworked the action plan.

It was bad enough that I had to stay late but I felt terrible about making them stay late as well.

I made sure to apologize and thank them profusely for their help and their patience and I'm sure it won't be the end of my career, but it was definitely an experience I hope to avoid in the future.

I ended up spending an hour and a half polishing up the action plan and rewriting the press release over the weekend.  I made sure that was alright with the agency director and she said as long as I made sure to track my time for billing purposes, that was absolutely okay.  Apparently she was going to be headed into the office today to catch up on some of her own projects.

I knew that starting a new job was going to require some additional hours on my behalf, but I forgot how much of a learning curve I was going to face and how resilient I was going to have to be.

Here's to another day, another dollar and another chance to improve.  Wish me luck tomorrow!