This election season was a doozy. One of the things that I didn’t realize until recently was that the vitriol, uncertainty, and sheer insanity of this cycle’s process triggered both extra eating and spending.
Fat and Broke
After the election. It happened gradually. I’ve been at a plateau with my weight for awhile and I had begun to make some progress with getting into the habit of walking more, getting to the gym, and focusing on what I needed to do to manage my health.
Then, a commercial would come on every 20 seconds. An ad would be redirected to me on Facebook, tweets began to get more and more poisonous. And, I began to eat more: steak, bacon, cashews, chocolate, and cups of coffee. I began to suffer from interrupted sleep throughout the night and just a general sense of anxiety.
Broke
It began gradually, I began shopping again. Little things to pick me up. Dresses that I’ve recently discovered don’t fit. Shoes that are a little too tight, and then I began finding myself at the grocery store again.
Buying food. Delicious food. Real butter, shitake mushrooms for homemade soups, delicious lamb steaks, and bars and bars of chocolate.
It’s hard to admit that the election was a huge trigger for me. Then, I weighed myself and admitted what I had begun to notice all along. This election had gotten to me. My pants hadn’t shrunk, I had grown.
Ashamed
I felt a little ashamed. I had done all of this hard work to relearn my financial habits, had noticed that I spent too much on groceries and then felt like I had lost all of the progress that I had made. But, that wasn’t the case:
In retrospect, it took the last 6 months of an 18-month election to drive me batsh$t crazy. I had managed to keep the wolves at bay for 12-months! And, yes, the last 6 months got to me, but I wasn’t the only one. I realized that I’m only human and that I should give myself a break. The past 6 months had gotten on all of our nerves.
Today
I am beginning my financial and fitness journey again. I am re-energized, focused, and ready to go. I acknowledge that part of a financial and fitness journey is accepting that there will be moments when you drop the ball. When outside forces distract you and when you lose momentum you have to decide how you will respond to adversity.
Ironically, I am the most motivated that I have been in a long time to complete my debt-free journey. I admit it, I had gotten complacent. I enjoyed the freedom of working for myself, but truth be told, I wasn’t hustling like I used to. I was chilling out.
No longer.
I will say that I’m pessimistic about the next 4 years and that pessimism has given me the kick in the pants that I needed to finish my financial journey. There are two huge motivators for me this year: I’m having a big birthday! And, fear.
Fear and getting older will light a fire under any person who truly cares about the direction that their life is going. If you are on a money journey and you stumble don’t be too hard on yourself. Pick yourself up and try again. I know you (and I) can get it done.
So, I’m spending this Thanksgiving holiday weekend preparing for 2017. I’m planting the seeds for my success.
I’m asking myself the following question:
- How do I imagine my life moving forward? In fact, I’m very close to how I want it to be. I love my work flexibility. I love working on my different web based projects. I love the communities that I’m a part of and connecting with. I love the time that I now have to share with my loved ones. And, I love the amount of time I have to travel if I chose to.
- What’s not working-The debt, the weight, being single. I’m still in debt. No bueno. Recently I did pay off a credit card but I still have debt that needs to be kicked to the curb. The weight is DRIVING ME CRAZY. Seriously. I am purchasing a gym membership for the year for $230 on Cyber Monday. Every time I have this membership I use it….because the gym is 5 blocks from my house. I’ve also begun attending dance classes and they give me life.
- Dating actually has slowly and steadily improved. Interesting enough, dating has improved because of my Colorado website and podcast. I’m meeting a lot more awesome people doing cool stuff that we have in common. They do call Denver “Menver” for a reason. But, since I hate online dating I was struggling with figuring out how to meet guys when you don’t online date. Well…crazy as it seems, doing stuff that you enjoy and getting outside of your home works. Really.
Life is a series of ups and downs. Recognizing when you’re in a down moment is just as important as acknowledging you’re rocking it! It is the yin and the yang of life.
On a Side-Note
For regular readers you may have noticed during this time that I seemed to have checked out a little bit from posting regularly on the blog and podcast this Fall. You’re right.
I’m not the first person to lose momentum during a long career in blogging. Especially, when I haven’t met the goals that I had hoped to meet by this time. I think that I needed a break and didn’t know it. I’m feeling re-energized and ready to rock ou the rest of my personal finance journey. Failure is not an option.
I’m also pleased to say that I have been in the process of recording a ton of podcast episodes and rocking out a lot of content for the beginning of 2017.
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We all hit stumbling blocks from time to time. It’s good that you realized that. I’m glad that you’re getting back on track. I know you will knock more debt off next year.
There is a fire under my butt and I’m a crazy motivated.
Good luck on the podcast. I am so excited to read these content you’re preparing Michelle.
Thanks James! I’m having a great time working on it.