Balancing Bliss: Juggling The Pursuit of Joy in Life

Self-care isn’t just about pampering ourselves; it’s about digging deep into our everyday feelings and understanding how to navigate through the ups and downs. Self-care is a sense of confidence, drive, motivation, and overall happiness. It’s waking up in the morning feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to tackle the day ahead with a smile on our face.

If you don’t find yourself feeling this way often or not at all, it’s okay. What’s important is that you recognize the feeling and ask yourself is this how I want to feel; if the answer is no then what do I need to do to change this feeling.

We’re human and we’re going to feel all the emotions; the highs where we’re smiling from ear to ear and laughing so hard that our belly hurts, and the lows where there’s a constant strain in our chest and tears of sadness. I think we can all agree that the goal is to have more highs than lows. However, I do believe that the lows are a necessary part of life because they make us appreciate the highs so much more! The goal is to not get stuck in the lows for too long.

In my last blog post I wrote about listing out the things and activities that bring you joy, and looking at our schedules and deleting, minimizing, and/or delegating the tasks that don’t bring us joy. Start one day at a time and reflect on how you felt at the end of the day; was it a feeling of accomplishment, exhaustion, guilt, happiness, or all the above? Ask yourself why you have this feeling? Is it self-inflicted or because of what someone said or did? Write your answers down to help process this feeling and navigate through it the next day or week.

Giving yourself time to reflect is also a form of self-care. We are constantly going 100 miles per hour with our never-ending list of things to do, but my favorite motto I like to use from a former boss is “you have to slow down to speed up.” Most of us put the things we need to get done on a calendar – pencil in time for reflection and set a reminder on your phone. We should manifest our day in the morning, something I like to call “manifestation mornings,” and reflect in the evenings. Therefore, you should have two alerts on your calendar. Practice this for two weeks straight and I promise it will become a natural part of your day like showering.

Alright, so how do I juggle the things that bring me joy? Well, I have a lot of things that bring me joy and I feel like I’ve accomplished inserting many into my weekly calendar. There are still things that I’m working towards adding, but I know with time, patience, and practice I will get there. For now, I will list a few of the things that bring me joy (if I listed them all we would be here for awhile 😉)

1- Spending time with my son and husband.

2- Exercising (mentally and physically)

3- Watching movies (at the theater or at home)

4- Travel

5- Eating out with girlfriends and/or my husband

6- LYV.on

I start with how I can be the most present to truly enjoy all these things while also doing the day-to-day tasks of life. We hear it all the time, but sleep is the #1 thing I start with to help me be present. Knowing we only have 24 hours in a day by subtracting the number of hours you need of sleep to feel the most rested will set you up for the rest of the day. I need a minimum of 7 hours of sleep to feel the most rested – I would love 8 hours, but for my schedule I knew I needed to practice getting the same feeling of truly feeling like my best with 7 hours. So let me break this down for you:

I wake up between 5:10am-5:20am Monday through Friday.
I workout between 6:00am-7:15am (45 minutes workout)
- I listen to positive affirmations of some sort on my drive to the gym #morningmanifestation
I take my son to school at 7:30am
- I make sure I’m present when I take my son school to school. Instead of complaining about sitting in traffic, I now look at it as extra time I get to spend with him. (This is still a work in progress lol)
- My husband and I rotate dropping off my son.
My Mon-Fri job is from 8:30am-5:30pm (give or take)
- I love listening to music while I’m getting ready for my “9-5” job. It sets the tone for the day.
- My tasks for my job are realistically planned out to make sure I can accomplish everything during this set time. My commitment is to be 100% present at my job during these hours.
I pick up our son at 5:00pm
- My husband and I rotate picking up our son.
We eat dinner between 6pm-7:00pm
- I do food prep over the weekend (usually while my son is napping or before we get started for the day). This allows me more time and less stress during the week.
My son goes to bed at 7:30pm
- My husband and I rotate bedtime routine, i.e., bath, brushing teeth, and story time.
7:30pm-9:00pm is time together with my husband. We watch our favorite shows, a movie, or work next to each other.
- Two nights out of the week I substitute this time to work on LYV.on.
I prep for the next day at 9:00pm, i.e., get my son’s school things together, coffee prep, workout clothes pulled, review my calendar, etc.
- I have a reminder on my phone telling me it’s time to start getting ready for bed.
I’m in bed by 9:45pm: My time to read and reflect.
I’m asleep by 10:15pm.

This is my Monday-Friday routine. After many trials and errors figuring out my routine and navigating all the feels, I can finally say I feel the happiest when I accomplish all the above. Now, If I told you every day went this smoothly, it would be a lie. But the truth is I can quickly navigate what I need to change or communicate to find my feeling of happiness the next day.

My weekends are a bit more fluid, but I do prioritize time with my family, friends, time for rest (alone time), and time for LYV.on. I also carve out “financial health” time – this is time to look at my budget and adjust where necessary to ensure I’m saving for our planned trips. 😊

I hope this breakdown puts it all into perspective for you. Again, this works for me but might look different for you. What I really hope cuts through is that we have the power to make time what we want it to be. But it starts with having the confidence to say, “I CAN AND I WILL!” “I CAN do this, and I WILL find a way to be happy.”

Until next time, I hope you find joy in your everyday habits!

Live You. Love You

XX,

Maria