Springtime is time is the arrival of warm weather, sunshine, and new life. Synonymous with it is typically spring-cleaning! After a long winter, spring provides us with an opportunity to clean up, declutter, organize and start fresh. It is time to thoroughly clean up all areas of our life and come out of our winter slumber. Some of these tasks may not be fun during the process (no one really likes smelling like bleach), but the reward after the fact is tremendous. Here’s a few easy suggestions to get started:
Clean It Up
Cleaning can be applied in many areas of our lives. Obviously it can start by scrubbing your house, car and other areas around you and often times, especially for me, a clean environment can spark a new attitude towards other aspects of your life. It can be applied to your diet! Spring brings us new opportunity to add more fruits and vegetables into our diet as much more variety comes back into season. As we start to shed our winter layers and show some skin (SUNS OUT, GUNS OUT!), this can reinvigorate your motivation to hit the gym again or start to hit it HARDER! Dust off the areas of your life that need some work and start pushing yourself towards the healthiest, sexiest (who doesn’t want to feel SEXY!) summer of your life.
Declutter
Often times, clutter builds up around us and we simply need to throw things away. Again, clutter can be anywhere. Maybe you have a toxic relationship with a friend, girlfriend, etc. and it’s time to reevaluate how that’s making you feel. Remember, they say, you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with, so if you’re not reaching your potential look at how your circle is influencing you. Get rid of the toxic foods in your life. Throw them away! Don’t keep things in your house or workplace that are going to tempt you. You are only going to set yourself up for failure. Be sure to replace them with better choices. In the spirit of April 15th, it’s tax time. Evaluate your financial situation over the last 12 months and see how you can improve. I would bet there are at least 1-2 areas where you are wasting money and you can remove the clutter and end up better off. So, once all the trash has been taking out, it’s time to create a plan for the upcoming spring and summer months!
Organize
Now that you’ve cleaned up and thrown away all the ‘garbage’, how are you going to move forward? Get all your ducks in a row and decide how you want to spend the rest of 2014. Do you have specific goals you’d like to achieve? Write them down. Organize your thoughts on paper and create strategies to support them. Organize a plan for your health and fitness goals, maybe there’s a local 5K coming up that you’d like to run or maybe you just want to get out and enjoy the great outdoors this summer; the fitter and better prepared you are, the more likely you will be able to achieve them!