Greetings!
Okay – I am sore!  My shoulders are sore, my back is sore, my hips are sore, my arms are sore and yes, my gums are sore.  Apparently, flossing twice a year wasn’t enough to prepare me for the 100 Day Challenge!  Never mind buns of steel – I will have gums of steel when this is over! 

This leads me to my entry from a few days ago when I talked about sorting out your challenge.  These first few days of the challenge are meant to help you try it out and adjust accordingly.  If things are too much of a challenge, that’s when you may want to throw in the towel.  At this point, we haven’t been doing it for long enough to get into the habit yet so this is a good time to see if you can shift things to help you stay with it. 

Yesterday I talked about setting up your environment to support you during these 100 days.  This is an important point – if you set up your environments (ie: physical, relationship, spiritual, financial, work, network, body, beliefs and nature environments) then you will have much more success than if you were trying to do this on will power alone.  Here are a few more examples of what I am talking about:

• I am creating a space in my house to do my yoga where my mat is always set out, the props that I need are there, and I have access to music.  I have specific clothes that I wear and I keep them nearby as well.  It makes it easy for me to just come to the mat and get started.
• If you are drinking more water –  have a waterbottle that you carry with you, fill up your bottle the night before, can you set out bottled water by the door so that you are reminded each time you leave the house to take one with you; when it warms up, you can keep several bottles in the vehicle; set a timer on your computer to ding every hour to remind you to drink; put up pictures of water where you see them all the time; get your kids to ask you at the end of each day how many glasses you have had…
• If you are writing – have a desk or a table or a chair that is comfortable; use different colored pens to stimulate your creativity (if you are writing by hand); have lots of paper, journals or computer space to keep everything in one place; keep books by your favorite authors nearby for inspiration; join or start a writing group so that you can get support and ideas; keep all of your materials in one place and the same place so you get used to going there everyday…
• If you are clearing clutter – set up boxes marked keep, toss, donate; find the phone numbers for the CDA or Salvation Army or Big Sisters/Big Brothers donation program and call them to schedule a pick up once a month for the next three months; set the same time everyday to sort; use a timer to help you do a little bit at a time so that you don’t get overwhelmed and end up doing nothing; ask family members to help you or do their own space everyday as well;  if you have young children, make it into a game (how many things can we get rid of in 10 minutes…)

Just a few ideas to get you thinking.  The idea is look around and create whatever you need to help you remember and make it easy to do your challenge everyday. 

Also, I will be away for the next little while and will have very limited access to the internet.  I may not be able to post my progess everyday but don’t worry – I will definitely be carrying on with my challenge where ever I am!  Feel free to still check in and let me know how you are doing! 

Have a great day!