This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 315. Do the best you can, dummy, by jaymoneyabudgesarsexy.com and I'm Justin Molick. Welcome to Optimal Living Daily, one of three podcasts where you read to you from amazing bloggers and authors who have given us permission to do so. And here I cover personal development, healthier living, minimalism, productivity, and more.
It's my way of trying to deal with performance-based anxiety while also helping both of us improve our lives, really simple premise really. And if you like the idea of the show, all I ask for today is just to listen to the end. So with that, let's jump right into today's post and start optimizing your life. Do the best you can, dummy, by jaymoneyabudgesarsexy.com.
I've been living under a new mantra these days and as obvious as it's going to sound, I'm still gonna share it with you anyways. Mainly because it's Friday and I want you to go into the weekend feeling good about yourselves than the opposite. Today's topic is about accomplishing your goals or rather not giving up on your goals. Tell me if this sounds familiar.
You get super excited to accomplish blank. You make it a priority and get all hardcore about it. You last an entire month without slipping up at all. Then one day you do slip up and you cry a little inside.
You make up for it the following day and now you're back on track again until you slip up again. Then one day becomes two, two days become three, and eventually you've given up entirely. But hey, you gave it a shot. If you set new year's resolutions, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
How are those going by the way? I call this the all or nothing mentality. The second you slip up's going to two-day territory, it all becomes a downhill spiral, making you feel more and more like a big fat dummy, wondering why everyone else has their sh- together but you. But here's a hint, they don't.
They only put the good stuff on Facebook. Now I've done this with my money, I've done this with my projects, and most recently I've done this, or almost done this with my health. While I'm here to tell you that there's been a new revolutionary strategy invented, it's called do the best you can, dummy, where you do the best you can and not give up. Because when you give up, you get zilch in return and anything is better than zilch.
Unless we're talking about SDDs and I'm pretty sure we're not talking about SDDs, are we? Am I accidentally posting on protectionistexy.com again? Here are the rules to the game. Number one, you genuinely do the best that you can.
Number two, you adapt to life's curve balls and only cry a little about it. Number three, you don't berate yourself for not accomplishing everything like a Mr. or Mrs. Perfect Goody two shoes.
Number four, and most importantly, you don't give up. I've been following this strategy for three months now, and I can assure you it's been a much more rewarding experience than simply going big or going home. It feels a little like winning a third place ribbon, if you will. It's not quite the best place to come in, but it's a whole lot better than getting honorable mention and your parents will still buy you an ice cream cone later.
If you recall, my personal resolutions for 2014 were to cut out sugar and salt and start exercising more to manage my blood pressure. So I set out to exercise every single day for at least 30 minutes. Check my blood pressure daily, worked for a good three months, stop eating stuff with massive amounts of salt in it, extremely hard, and then cut out my sugar intake, easier than salt, but still pretty hard. For two months, I was pretty solid, giving myself high fives every other second, but then the slippage started happening.
First, I missed a day or two because of workloads, then I skipped a week because I was feeling tough about it all and just wanted to give up. And then we had our second beautiful baby boy, and you can only guess what happened next. I gave up on everything entirely until one day I snapped out of it and realized I needed to jump back on the ship, if for nothing else but my family. Here's what I do the best you can dummy habits look like now.
Work out one to three times a week, whatever I can pull off. Stop obsessing about the sodium levels on every package of yummy food and just cut back. Also never eat a Taco Bellian, do you know how bad that place is for you? Stop wondering how many spoonfuls of sugar I should eat daily and instead limit my portions.
Though I have stopped putting it into my coffee every day and surprisingly don't miss it a bit. Enjoy a more stress-free semi-healthier lifestyle. Semi-healthier because I still have a long way to go in this area, but again, doing a few things every week versus nothing is much better in the long run. I think that's the part most of us miss.
We get so dang down on ourselves that doing just a little doesn't seem quite worth it. We want to win the whole freaking race and we want to be doing it now. Perhaps this new strategy comes off as being complacent. It could be, but again, when you compare it to the alternative of giving up, it seems like a world of difference.
Kind of like when some of y'all got mad at me for drinking bottled water a few years back, even though it was only method that got me to drink it. You told me to just drink tap water, it's free, and you're being bad to the environment, stop it. Which were all indeed valid points. However, after 30 years of trying all kinds of tricks and tips, it just wasn't happening.
So I had to ask myself if drinking zero glasses of water a day to save money was better than ultimately being healthy. And I bet you can guess which route I took. I'll have you know, however, that I did finally find a solution that solves all problems going forward. I'll be blogging about that soon and pretty psyched about it.
So, all this to say that it's okay to not be perfect with every single goal you set. If you're having trouble saving that $1,000 for your refund or a nixing or $3,000 of credit card debt, that's all fine and normal. Just don't entirely give up. Continue stashing $10 here and paying off $20 there when possible.
If you happen to cross a nice streak of fortune down the road, whether mentally or financially, you can tweak your plan from there. Just never ever give up. So please bring back those goals of yours in January and let's get this party started again. Only this time, try simply doing what you can, dummy.
Now we're going hardcore and burning out in the end. Doing something is better than nothing. End motivational speech and go to grab sugar-free coffee and check his blood pressure. You just listen to the post titled Do the Best You Can, dummy by jaymoneyabudgesarsexy.com.
Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors and misinformation fill the void and it gets harder to separate truths from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada.
Reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us. Because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News.
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Right now, it's just $199. And head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership. This is one of those articles where I started reading and I was like, yep, this one's for me, but that usually means it applies to you too. I do this big time with pretty much everything I do.
I'm one of those all or nothing guys. And when I start exercising, I get all pumped up and do those P90X discs like six days a week. And if I'm lucky, I last six months or a year, but that's maybe happened once before. Usually it's a lot sooner than that, that I stop because I miss one day and I think it's the end of the world.
Not the best mentality to have because it's pretty much guarantees failure. So this is something I need to hear every once in a while and hopefully it was helpful for you too. And before we go, if you like the show, I'd greatly appreciate it if you can check out the How To Help Page off set up at oldpodcast.com. There's a bunch of different ways you can show your support.
You can contribute financially, but that's not the only way. So please come by and I'd really appreciate it. You can find the How To Help Page at oldpodcast.com or you can just go directly to oldpodcast.com slash support. Thank you in advance for that.
And happy Friday. I'm supposed to be spending time with my family starting really early tomorrow. So I should get out of here. Have a great start to your weekend and I will catch you in tomorrow's show where your optimal life awaits.
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