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Pre-Father’s Day Fitness Formula For Freedom ;-).

Guess what dads (and moms as well), it’s impossible for you to do everything.

Your list of to-dos is way too long for you to reasonably get everything done in the time frame you set for yourself. I know because the same thing happens to me. And it just seems like the harder you try to do everything the more frustrated you end up becoming ;-(.

That is a hard pill to swallow! If you are like me you might even feel like you are letting your family down! There just doesn’t seem like there is enough time to get everything that you “need” to get done in.

Intrinsically, I think most of us even understand this. Regardless of what we intuitively know though, we still just chase our tails and try to get more and more done at the sake of being efficient…myself included :-).

The bad news is once we feel this “crunch” we start to let some things go…and generally the first thing that we let go is our health and our fitness…bad move by the way.

It is easy to justify, “I don’t have time to go to the gym every day, when I have eight weeks worth of work to do.” Hey, I totally get it, I’ve even thought like that at times in my life and it ended up costing me, but my health and checkbook.

Here’s the thing there is a way out! There is HOPE :-).

When you try to do everything, important tasks end up getting mixed together with unimportant tasks. The end result is you end up wasting your precious God-given time on things that are not going to move you closer to your goals. And here’s the thing, if you aren’t moving closer to your goals you’re actually going backwards! Think about that!  Which means you’re wasting more time, energy and becoming more frustrated…not Bueno.

You only have so much energy and so much time. So the “secret” is to make sure that you prioritize your list of tasks and make sure you get the most important things done first.

So the first action step I want you to do is set some goals.

Disclaimer: If all you do is read this and you never write down any goals this WILL NOT WORK! You need something concrete in front of you, staring you in the face. There’s mounds of research that show when you write down your goals and they are visually in front of you, repeatedly over an extended period of time it happens. Don’t pay the post lip service! Write down your stinkin goals so that we can make this happen :-)!

What are your goals? What are some things that you want to change? Where do you want to be in 3 months, a year from now, five years from now? What are your goals in relation to your family, your kids, your wife, your job? How is your health? Are you as fit and healthy as you want to be? Are you as fit and healthy as you should be?

Look yourself in the mirror. Are you being honest with what you’re writing down?

What you wrote down above should be your big top priorities and goals. Yes, you can have other goals but the ones that you listed above should take precedence over everything else that’s going on.

This next step is going to hurt, a lot!

You need to stop doing some things.

Yes, some things that you’re currently doing, that your giving lots of importance to are actually wasting your time and keeping you away from getting closer to your goals. The fact of the matter is each day you are probably using a lot of energy and time on things that don’t truly matter.

Where are you wasting your time, focus, and your energy? Assign every one of those tasks above with a value either of being high or low. Obviously, high tasks are those that are going to get you closer to your goals. Low task are those that are moving you away from your goals. It really is just that simple.

And as you might expect, in order to get closer to your goals you’re going to have to open up your schedule so that you can accomplish more high-value tasks that are moving you forward. This means you will likely have to eliminate some of those low-value tasks or things that waste time and energy.

I get it some of these it’s easier said than done. Some of those quote-unquote low-value tasks are important, but remind yourself! These are less important than the others. This is where you’re going to have to get a little fancy and dare I say it, “creative.”

These are three ways to get rid of the low tasks.

1. Can you just get rid of it? If you can, get rid of it. For example if you’re trying to lose some weight and you waste 30 to 40 minutes on Facebook get rid of Facebook and start moving around in the time that you normally check Facebook or watch Netflix :-).
2. Now what about efficiency? Can you create a system so that you can do things more efficiently? Almost everyone needs to check email and yes, checking email is important. But if you check it repeatedly, all the time, you waste time and energy. Choose two times in a day and let everyone know about your new efficiency habit. Check it once mid morning, after you completed your most important task and once in the evening or mid-afternoon. This way you’ll be able to free up more time to do other activities that get you closer to your goals. Yes, I know this is much easier said than done, but you’re going to have to be firm with it. Let those who it will affect know what’s going to happen and then implement it. Honestly, they’ll probably respect you more and secretly be jealous and they may even start to do the same thing ;-).
3. Can you delegate it? There are some things that you can stop doing and you can hand them off to someone else. The classic example is mowing the lawn. Chances are you have a son or you know somebody that you can pay to mow your yard for you. Yes, this is going to set you back but hey it’s way better than you wasting your time for 2 to 3 hours doing it on the weekend. And once again, this will get you closer to those big goals.

Lastly, go be awesome!

Now you are in a great position to be successful and to be awesome! Your goals are set you, have you now know what you need to stop doing, you have identified ways that you can free up your energy, time, and begin focusing on high value tasks. Which should enable you to become feel freer, more sane, and healthier :-).

Your to-do list should look doable now ;-), as opposed to some bottomless chasm with no hope in sight.

And the only way to become fit is to make it a top priority. You should feel a sense of urgency and it should be one of your top goals. If it’s not one of your top goals, it’s only a matter of time before it will become one. Don’t wait until you’re on medication, when you’re pre-diabetic, and when you have to watch your children play because you’re too tired and worn out too. So I want to challenge you to keep your health and fitness in one of your top slots.

Hoping you all have a great Father’s Day and you’re able to free yourself up a little bit.

Go be awesome!

KELLEN LAKE – BE AWESOME!