Take Care of Business

Yesterday I was getting on Isabelle for doing a chore the first time I asked and not half assing it. She has a habit of half assing a chore so that she can get done faster. I keep telling to take care of business so that she can get it done the first time around and not have to keep coming back to redo it. I asked on Twitter if your family had a motto, what would it be? Mine is "take care of business" since I say it a lot.

It works for a ton of different things, and it's something I've really started to take to heart in the last year or so. For me, it was when I started trying to lose weight. One day I was looking in the mirror and doing the "ugh, I hate how I look..." routine and I just thought well, no one is going to be able to do this for me, I have to do it myself. It's that simple. No one can change what you don't like in your life. It's up to you.

You want to lose weight? Take care of business.

You haven't gone through your closet like you keep meaning to? Take care of business.

You want to tone up? Take care of business.

You miss a friend you haven't talked to in a while? Take care of business.

You haven't gotten the kid's clothes organized and ready for the donation bin/garbage/sell? Take care of business.

The big kahuna: You don't like how your life is going? Take care of business.

Nobody can fix your problems. You have to. If you're going into debt, ask yourself what can you do stop it. Can you get a new job? Move to a cheaper place? Sell some things that you really don't need?

Grant and I did this many years ago, and it's finally paying off. We are finally to the point where we could go out and find a babysitter (paid or not) for the night, but we still choose to put our money towards bills. We are finishing the basement and that's going to entail a lot. We have to replace the furnace and also move it. If you had asked us 10 years ago if we could do this, we would have laughed in your face. There's no way. We started our relationship with me really in debt. Part of that was handling my money really badly, part of it was because of my marriage/divorce from my ex.

It took us having to sit down and do a literal spreadsheet of all of our finances and figure out what we were going to do. We had to take care of our own business. No one else was going to do it for us. We buckled down and did what had to be done.

With my weight, I finally got to a point where I just looked at myself and decided enough was enough. There's a lot of diets and teas and powders and stuff like that that damn near guarantees results. But for me, I decided to go simple. I asked myself one question: "Do I really need to eat basically 2 helpings for every meal?". The answer was also simple: No. I eat too much. For the amount of food I was eating, I was not doing near enough activity to warrant it. I was eating like I was climbing mountains and running marathons. Instead of going full force, I figured smaller was better. I started eating smaller portions and only one helping of food. It sounds so simple, but for me it's so hard. I love to eat. I love food. When I eat something that I really enjoy, I will keep eating it until I'm so stuffed I want to vomit. That's not an exaggeration either. I'd eat super fast so I could eat more before I realized I was full. By then, it was too late. So I started with that. It has helped TREMENDOUSLY! Once I started getting better at that, I started going for walks more. It helps that the kids LOVE going for walks. I started getting more active. Starting is the easy part, it's continuing that's the hard part. But I want it bad enough. I love that I look in the mirror and don't see muffin tops around my waist. I see a smoother waist. I'm by no means perfect, and my body isn't model ready, let me tell you. But I'm happier with myself than I have been in a long time and I want to keep that feeling!

My advice to anyone trying to change anything about themselves or their lives is this: Start small, but start. Every journey begins with a single step, and you can't get to where you wan to be without some legwork.