December Sanity Challenge

On Black Friday, I received an email from the indomitable Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness – remember her, we co-hosted a Self-Care Retreat back in July –  where she suggested a sanity challenge:

"The challenge—post on what you plan to do to make your holidays sane, happy and healthy.  Make it specific!  Not just “I’ll get more sleep," but “I’ll get at least 7 hours of sleep, 5 days a week”.  Not just “I won’t go crazy making desserts," but “I’ll make a maximum of XX desserts, and space them out over XX time”.  You know what you need to do to keep this doable, and writing it down will help you get there!"

It made complete sense, especially when December is traditionally a very intense month at my job, with long hours that leave little room for much beyond the routine. 

So, what am I doing for the December Sanity Challenge? 

I decided for my  main sanity challenge goal to be about movement, specifically working out 5-6 times a week, a minimum of 30 minutes a time, with a combination of vinyasa/flow yoga classes, the elliptical and lots of walking – Zumba too, but my schedule won’t allow me to get to a class until the last week of the month.  The 30 minute minimum is more for gym days, as the yoga classes I go to are either 60 or 75 minutes.  My second goal is to take a total of 4 restorative and/or yin yoga classes in December in addition to the flow yoga classes that are part of my routine. 

How am I doing? I am keeping up on the first challenge, but have only gotten in one restorative yoga class this month. Fortunately, there is still half the month left.  It has also made me think about how I feel about movement in my life – I used to resent days where the only me time would end up used at the gym or at yoga (as opposed to, say,  reading a magazine) but now I am more ok with it, which definitely helps in keeping up a movement routine.

My third goal was going to be meditation-related, but instead I actually picked something that a bit more immediate:

I decided to cut back on blogging this month.

Don’t get me wrong, blogging brings me tremendous happiness, but since October, the lunchbox posts have not come as easily, and so far, I have not found a way to restart them specifically or my near-daily blogging practice generally. So instead of feeling sad about it, I decided to embrace it.  There are close to 1200 posts on the blog, so there is plenty of content for you to discover (hint, look up at the drop-down menus), and I thought a lighter blogging month would be refreshing.

Honestly?  I miss writing as often as I did, so this exercise has made me think about how I want to go back to a daily blogging practice, and whether I want to use the lunchboxes for that, or a different framework. I loved writing the lunchbox posts for over a year – and I am not quite sure how they lost their charm.  I also picked this challenge because it meant I could focus more of my blogging time more on connecting with readers through email, comments and twitter. 

So yes, I picked three goals, and have had varying success in progress towards each.

You can participate in this December Sanity challenge too.  Write a post on what your goals are for this month and link back to this post (or any of the co-hosts listed below). Leave a comment with your link. Make yourself accountable by putting it in writing! Anyone who joins in on the December Sanity Challenge will be entered into a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to Nutsonline.com (they are not sponsoring, Cheryl is just that awesome).

See what the other Sanity Challengers goals are:
December 1: Cheryl of Gluten Free Goodness
Dec 8: Iris of Daily Dietribe 
Dec 22nd Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl