Invest in your health and fitness. You’ve heard it before, you’ll hear it again. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make. For writers, it’s even more important. When you’re stuck butt in chair all day it’s easy to forget exercise and reach for the chocolate box. That’s no way to build a sustainable and healthy writing career.
Health and fitness have been important to me for most of my life, I envision they will continue to be so. I’ve always enjoyed healthy food over junk food, an active lifestyle over a sedentary one. My biggest weaknesses are wine, cheese and chocolate. In excess they can cause a problem, in moderation, I’m free to enjoy them.
Getting old is inevitable, feeling old is preventable.
Now that I’m on higher end of 30, even with healthy eating and regular exercise, I’m noticing the little niggles here and there that at first were easily ignored but are now become more nagging, and because I’m so conscious of how my body and mind operate I can’t help but be concerned that age is starting to show its face.
I might be fit but I’m still edging closer to the fourth decade of my life and health and fitness are becoming even more important. When I’m in my forties, fifties and beyond, I still want the energy to do triathlons and run a marathon if I so wish to.
I want to wake up in the morning with the stamina to go for a bike ride or run around on the beach with my kid and sit at my desk and write a book without working about carpal tunnel, back pain or pulling a trapezius because I moved the mouse a little too aggressively during a writing stint.
Nowadays, it’s easier to pull a muscle. Getting up in the morning requires a little more stretching. Planting my feet on the ground first thing out of bed means a little tightness and soreness in my legs. Sometimes when I type the joints in my hands start to ache. I don’t like it.
My body is telling me something is up. It’s the little niggles that are waking me up. I’m healthy for the most part but there is always room for improvement.
I always thought these little concerns wouldn’t start until the 50s but I guess this is one way my body is warning me that if I want to maintain health and fitness, it’s a long term investment that starts now.
The problem
As my days are spent behind a computer for the most part – I’ve got my butt to chair for around 10-12 hours per day. Crazy!!!
Then there’s my love of wine, pasta, cheese and chocolate.
Over time the body is going to protest. The little niggles will become major concerns. I don’t want that. Whilst we can’t prevent every ailment that might threaten us, there are a number of preventative measures we can take. And prevention is always better (and easier) than a cure.
It’s the start of the year and it’s a good time as any, even if you haven’t started on the 1st of the month, to start today. Invest in your health and fitness, invest in your future and your ability to write, work, function, and perform at your very best.
Time is always of the essence. It’s something no money in the world can bring back. It’s finite, that’s why it’s so precious. So why do we waste it? Why do we not take more pride in ourselves?
Our health and fitness is the foundation of good living.
Without our health the rest of it all just falls away into insignificance but we only realise this when our health is at risk.
I ask you, I beg you, in 2020, look after yourself. Invest in yourself. Invest in your health and fitness, mentally and physically. It’s the first and best investment you should make.
10 Ways To Invest In Your Health & Fitness
You don’t have to sign up for a marathon to invest in your health and fitness. A small commitment to get active is a great start.
Doing everything at once can lead to burnout and giving up in a matter of days. Instead try to focus on one thing each week. Then the second week, add something else. The third week add again. After ten weeks you’ll be healthier, fitter and happier, and it would be all thanks to having started to invest in your health and fitness.
Here are 10 tips you can incorporate into your life starting to day.
Start walking.
Walking is free. It can be done anywhere and anytime. No need for fancy equipment or driving to the gym. Walk around your block. Walk to the local part. Put on your joggers and start walking. Start with 20 minutes a day, then add 5 minutes each week until you’re walking for at least 45-60 minutes on most days of the week.
Keep a food diary.
Whether you do this for a week or two to analyse your current diet or maintain it as lifelong practice, that’s up to you. A food diary will keep you accountable and show you how much you’re really eating. Nine times out of ten you’ll assume you’re eating a lot less than you really are.
Start the day with a healthy breakfast.
For cereal lovers, sorry but cereal is not healthy. Usually it’s packed with sugar and other crap that your body does not need to start the day with.
Choose scrambled eggs with chopped herbs on rye toast with half a tomato, some avocado and rocket leaves. Maybe have some greek yoghurt with banana and sprinkled with mixed nuts and seeds. Or choose a home made smoothie based on coconut water filled with green goodness of spinach, spirulina, strawberries, beets and mango.
These are just examples, choose something that you enjoy. Food is meant to be enjoyed.
Choose your snacks wisely.
While it might be easier to just reach for a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar mid afternoon, you’re not doing anyone any favours. That 3pm energy slump is a pain but you’re more likely to overcome it by having a chopped up carrot with hummus or a banana than you are with some junk food.
Include weight training.
Weight training has many benefits and no, ladies, it will not bulk you up. Instead it will trim you down. A kilogram of fat is about three times the size of a kilogram of muscle.
Healthy and strong muscles (strong not bulky) support your joints and daily movement. Strong muscles can prevent back pain and strain and if you’re sitting on your ass all day in front of a computer screen like I do, then working on building muscular strength should be a focus. Get a personal training to show you the ropes until you feel comfortable doing it yourself.
Add yoga.
Flexibility is important for overall healthy so is breathing right. Yoga is as much about breathing as it is about bending your body in awkward poses. Even 15 minutes a few time a week can improve your posture, flexibility and general wellbeing. It’s also a time that can double as meditation. Clear your thoughts, focus on the breathing and get back in the good books with your mental health.
Finish the day off with a nutritious dinner.
Steamed fish or grilled chicken with vegetables or a vegan version if that’s your thing. If you aim to start and finish your day with a healthy meal your body will thank you for it. The morning provides you with energy for the day, the evening ensures you have good nights’s sleep rather than tossing and turning while your food tries to digest properly.
Take time out.
Our mental health is as important as our physical health. We live in a time where life is easy, everything is created to make our way of life simpler, more accessible and on demand, and yet people have lost their purpose. Depression is on the rise. Gratefulness is a forgotten virtue.
Take a moment every day or a few times a week to sit or lie down and be thankful for all the wonderful things in your life. It’s easier to focus on the negative, believe me, I know, I’ve been there, at some point in my life that thinking changed. It was frustrating. Now, when my negative thoughts start spiralling out of control, I fight them with positive ones.
I contradict them.
Sometimes I feel better within moments, at other times it takes a little bit longer. But it sure is more pleasant focusing on the good. That doesn’t mean you forget the bad, you just perceive it differently. It’s also much easier to seek out solutions.
Consult your doctor.
Get check up regularly. Discuss any changes your planning on making to your diet and fitness. Just remember, the GPs do limited ours on diet and exercise. They want to help you but they are the ones putting money in pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes we need those pharmaceuticals but they shouldn’t be the first thing we resort to, they should be the last.
Invest in your health and fitness, talk with your GP about it. If they roll their eyes, find a new GP. I’m not a doctor or a health professional so this is general advice only. Use it wisely.
Laugh and have fun.
Take opportunity to connect with family and friends. Go out and make friends. Humans are social creatures. We need each other to be happy. We’re not living in a bubble. Surround yourself with warm hearted people.
These are just some of the ways that you can invest in your health and fitness. Start with one thing, then build on it by adding another each week. In ten weeks time your health and fitness levels will improve, the niggles might even disappear, you’ll sleep better, you’ll think better, and more likely than not, you’ll be happier, saner and more productive.
11 quick tricks that will help you invest in your health and fitness
Invest in a stand up desk and alternate between sitting and standing
Make sure your desk and chair are positioned ergonomically
Drink plenty of water throughout the day
Eliminate soft drinks from the menu
Aim for 10,000 steps a day
Limit caffeine to 1-2 cups of tea/coffee per day
Take regular breaks – aim to get up and stretch every 45-60 mins
Meet friends for a walk in the park instead of coffee and cake
Take a up a sport that you love
Remember every day can be day one
We only have today, make the most of it every day
How do you stay fit and healthy every day? Does it make a difference to your writing?
Disclaimer: I’m not a health professional. This post is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I do hold a Certificate IV in Fitness and have trained myself for numerous fun runs, triathlons and regularly train with weights and yoga, etc. I incorporate most of the tips above into my lifestyle. Check out www.runningcandid.com for more info if you’re interested.
So apparently the most important part of a successful writing career is an email list. Not just any email list but one that includes high value subscribers, the type that buy your book the moment it comes out, leave lovely reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and tell all their friends to buy your book – or at least subscribe to your email list.
Check out this great article on getting those subscribers on your list:
Do you have a regular newsletter for your subscribers?
I’m guilty of letting my email list run cold. Not in 2020, this year, the email list is going to heat up. How about yours?
With the natural disaster of the Australian bush fires it’s nice to see the entire country digging deep and helping out in ways they can. Generosity should not be measured. We each give what we can.
We don’t have crystal ball to tell us what’s going to happen but we all like to make predictions at some point in time. Whether it’s predicting what’s going to happen in your life, with your writing or the publishing industry, looking at current trends we can try to predict what’s to come and try to position ourselves to make the most of what’s to come.
Whether you want to hear it or not, you’re not going to sell books without marketing yourself. Sure you could hire someone to do it for you but you have to believe in yourself, your abilities and your product from day one, even if everything around you is falling apart. You can’t avoid book marketing, not in the 2020s. Marketing is evolving and it will keep evolving and you need to keep up to stay in the game.
Do you have any book marketing tactics that have worked or are working for your right now?
Publishing is an evolving industry. The gate keeps are gone. Publishing is accessible to anyone with an idea and an internet connection. It means that the readers choose who stays on top of the game. It’s exciting and the arena is filled with opportunities.
Have you come across anything interesting in the writing and publishing sphere?
Urban Fantasy. I only became a fan of urban fantasy books in the last few years. I’ve always loved vampire fiction, on screen and off. I like a bit of witchcraft thrown in. Add a bit of a love story, some crime and drama, and maybe there’s potential for a story.
My first project for 2020 is to finish the first book in my Mystic Creek/St Clair Sisters trilogy.
The first three books have been more or less drafted along with three novellas. I’m super excited.
So January is about finishing the first book and introducing my new set of characters.
Mystic Creek
A small town. A fifteen hundred year old witch. A fallen angel. A forbidden love.
Evil lurks in Mystic Creek, the little town forgotten by history and overshadowed by demons. The portals open and evils seeps through. Only an immortal witch can stop them. But something is coming and it’s much worse than just a demon from another realm. Someone wants power and they’re willing to go to incredible lengths to get it.
Rebecca St Clair isn’t going to let that happen. She is death’s worst nightmare.
But this time around she’s facing an enemy that she might not be able to destroy. An enemy too close to home.
Will she find the strength to save Mystic Creek even if it means destroying someone she loves?
I’m looking forward to sharing this story with you in 2020.
Australia is burning. Three different states are facing a natural disaster. Families have lost their homes, hundreds others are likely to lose theirs soon. Animals are dying. The land is arid, the winds are strong, and the fire spreads.
We need rain. Lots of rain.
Australia is a mostly dry country. A vast land of dessert, red soil, as well as rivers, lakes and the wild ocean. The rivers and dams are drying up.
The east coast of NSW burns. Victoria burns. South Australia burns. Take a look at the map and it appears that a quarter of Australia is in flames.
We’re surrounded by ocean and yet there is little we can do to stop it. Until the sky pours down with much needed rain, it’s a hopeless but necessary pursuit to stop the burning.
But it will stop.
Australia is strong. The people working together are stronger than ever. The firefighters and volunteers and every day Australian’s are doing their bit. They are the true heroes in this country.
It’s easy to sit in the comfort of your living room and comment on a disaster a few hundred kilometres away. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and suffering that so many families are going through right now. Their lives torn, their homes engulfed by flames, everything they’ve known burning before their eyes. Not knowing when they’ll go back or even if they’ll ever go back.
Australians are strong. They will come together, they will rebuild what is lost.
That stage is still so far away. The end of the fires is nowhere in sight as the summer heat and crazy winds continue.
There will be blame laid against our leaders. How much fault is there’s that the fires still burn is debatable. They didn’t start them. But they haven’t shown the greatest leadership skills throughout the ordeal. They failed to take the issue seriously from the onset.
Could things have ended up differently? Could the fires have been contained a few months ago? That’s anyone’s guess. The conditions haven’t been good and playing the blame game isn’t going to bring back the lives lost, the animals killed, the houses destroyed.
The fires are burning. They are destroying everything in their path. Reminding us that we are all in this together. We need to stick together. Look out for each other. Help one another in times of need.
Why is it that only when disaster strikes that we are willing to come together?
It’s times like these that we see the best and worst in people. Whether it’s a natural disaster or a war there will be those with open arms as well as those who take advantage of the situation.
Disaster can strike any one of us at any one time. Most of us live in the belief that it will never happen to us. Maybe it won’t. Chances are that something will. Whether it’s being caught up in a fire, an inconceivable illness, a job loss, death, or war, we will all be touched by a disaster at some point in time during our stay on this earth.
This is our home but we are only passing through. We borrow it from those that will come after. We have a leasehold on the earth and nothing more. We can make ourselves believe that we own it all but sooner or later it all becomes someone else’s.
It’s moments like these that remind us of what is truly important.
I like to believe that the majority of humans are good. That the pendulum swings towards the side of good not evil.
We are so busy with our lives that we start to believe that the world revolves around us. It doesn’t. Nor does it owe us anything.
It’s in the disasters that we see just how vulnerable and powerless we really are against mother nature. At the same time it provides an opportunity to test our strength, courage and ability to rebuild.
The fires continue burning. The Army Reserves are being called in. People are being evacuated by the Navy. Volunteers are risking their lives to put out the flames. Tears are falling, they will continue to fall, but in them there will be strength and dedication to start again, to start afresh.
Things will get better. The fires will stop. The damage has been done but Australians will come out stronger. United they will conquer whatever gets thrown at them.
I have hope. We need to have hope. Hope is what gets us through. We need to believe. But belief and hope on their own are worthless. Like dreams without a plan, hope and belief without action will result in nothing.
We must all help, no matter how small or how large, our contribution will be appreciated. It will make a difference. It’s starts with us. It starts with you. We are the difference makers.
Whether it’s $20 for the Rural Fire Brigade, a roof over a young family’s head for a few nights, donating clothes to a shelter, providing a hamper of food and water for those in need. It’s the little things when put together that make an incredible difference, and show just how fortunate we are to have each other.
Fiction is a mixture of truth and lies boiling in a cauldron of words, sentences and paragraphs.
I tell myself fallacies every day. Great ones, little ones, crazy ones.
Even when I’m not writing fiction.
The brain is an incredible organ. It’s capable of insane feats. We don’t even know the half of its capabilities. It controls us even when we try to control it.
The fallacies we tell ourselves often cause the greatest damage.
We assume the worst. Then we have conversations in our head that will never actually play out. We imagine things based on our preconceptions.
There are also the fallacies that are good for us. The optimism that the future is certainly bright – it is but we can’t guarantee it. Most people believe they are better than average. The truth is that most of us are just that – average. Did you know that you are the average of the five people you spend time with?
As writers we tell ourselves lies every day.
I will write 1000 words every day without fail.
I’ll send out 30 queries every week.
The book only needs a read through.
I’ll do a better design than the professional cover designer.
The blog will make $2000 a month within six months.
I’ve been eating super healthy the last few days.
I’ll exercise when I get home from work
Do any of them sound familiar?
Fallacies. Not all of the time but certainly a lot of the time.
A common fallacy, and I think this is prevalent in creatives, is that we are not good enough. Not good enough to be published, not good enough to be read, not good enough to be successful, not good enough to achieve our wildest dreams.
What sets us apart from the people going out and getting what they want?
It’s the fallacy we keep telling ourselves.
When does it start? How does it form? Why in the world do we let it take over our thoughts?
You are good enough. We are all good enough to follow our dreams and be successful. Not all of us will. That is life.
But it starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with us.
We decide when we no longer want to listen to the fallacies.
Only then can we start making positive changes. That’s when we can start moving forward believing that, yes, we are good enough, yes we too can be successful, yes, the road may be tough but we can get through it.
Why do we tell fallacies to ourselves?
Often we lie to make ourselves feel better. We search for reasons for our self imposed inadequacies or the feelings of gloom that at times possess us.
Sometimes we just feel bad because we feel bad.
There’s no reason for it.
I’ve gotten out of bed after a perfectly good night sleep and felt like crap. Like it was me against the world. I got over it after a run.
Still there was no reason for feeling bad. It was simply one of those days.
I could have delved deeper and came up with reasons for feeling like shit, maybe it was because someone said something that hurt last week, or I didn’t give the driver way the day before because I was in a hurry, or maybe I forgot to write the thank you note to a colleague for something they’d probably already forgotten about.
If I had more time in my day, I’d get that book finished.
BULLSHIT.
If you really want to do something, whether that’s write and publish a book, lose 50kg, get a six pack, start a business, travel the world, change your career, get a dog, learn a second language, be happy, you will find a way to do it.
The more time you have on your hands, the less likely you’re going to fill it with what you’re supposed to be doing.
We need to stop lying to ourselves by saying we need to wait for the right time, the right job, the right season, the right partner, the right day of the year. We don’t.
All you need is you, all you need is to start today.
The fallacies we tell ourselves are part of life. They aren’t going to stop. Some days they will be positive other days negative. As long as we can recognise them and not allow them to take over our lives then we’re all good. At least that’s what I like to tell myself.
What fallacies are you inclined to tell yourself? Does it help or hinder your writing?
