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Everytime a new year comes around we all hear promises of meaningful resolutions, goals and commitments. Yup, we have our own set of 2020 goals laid out too. It is easy to say, and truly motivates you when you talk about it to others (or to yourself, no judgement we do it all the time), but saying and doing are two totally different actions. You have to go all in and choose to invest in yourself…it’s something we’ve been doing, but this year we’re on a completely new level. We’re going to share with you what lead to our decision to invest in ourselves and what that looks like for us on a day to day basis.
Our decision to go all in on Clark + Aldine was not only to have the freedom of owning and operating our own business, it was a decision to better our quality of life. Our health was dwindling due to overwhelming stress and anxiety. We acted recklessly with food, with spending, and found ourselves consuming too much toxic media. We were just in an all around bad place.
After nearly a year in business we sat down with each other. Our relationship was stronger than ever and we felt pretty happy. Our business was moving along swiftly and was profitable for us. But something was missing for both of us. We brainstormed together and identified a few key areas where we promised to invest time, money and resources in order to achieve a better life for ourselves and our family.
Anxiety is a bitch. There’s no other way around it. And if you choose to avoid it, you’ll be in for a rude awakening when it hits hard. That’s exactly what happened to each of us just before, and quickly following our endeavor. Together we talked about it and decided to invest the time, effort and resources into keeping our minds clear and calm.
We started with daily meditation. Every morning we wake up, sit up, open the Calm app and meditate together in our bed. It’s a great way for us to start our day with a clear and open mind, sometimes with one or both of our little dudes laying between us…they sneak in all the time.
We’ve always been conscious of what we eat, but when stress hits we tend to consume more than we should or skip meals all together…and we pay for it. So we decided to do something serious about it.
Everyday we take a multivitamin pack, make green smoothies (seriously super delicious), have a kombucha and stick to a very healthy balanced diet. Yes, we still do pizza + movie night every Friday with the boys, and we hand make every pizza (and the cheese bread) because we believe those are special moments that matter. We just eat consciously.
When it comes to diet we suggest that everyone do what is comfortable for them. Don’t overdo it to the point that you give up. You have to get a bit uncomfortable, but have a balance.
This is huge for us. We hear all the time from people that they don’t have the time to workout, they work too much, or there aren’t any classes that work with their schedule. We call BS on all of that. Those are excuses, not realities. We are a husband and wife, parents of two thriving boys, own a business, manage employees and run a household and we find 30 – 90 minutes a day for exercise. It works because of our mindset – we love working out together and it is extremely important to us.
7 days a week we exercise, together, at home or outside. Going to the gym everyday was not working for us, so we built one at home. We invested in a Peloton bike and use it for both cycling, as well as floor clases like strength training and yoga that we stream on a TV. We also run outdoors and are training for our next half marathon.
When you go all in on fitness, your diet and mental state feel the benefits too. See how this all starts working together?
Continued education should be a top priority for everyone. For us, we work in an industry where there are new products and innovations every single day. Not to mention the social media algorithms we must know as we invest heavily in content. So needless to say educating ourselves is essential.
The big one for us is reading. Every day, before we go to bed, we read at least 10 pages of a business, personal development or mindset book. It gets our brains fed and moving, which sometimes creates great dialogue for ideas we have right before we call it a night. We’re so privileged to have access to the stories, successes and failures, and lessons from those who have been there and done it before us. So hop on Amazon or visit your local book store and look at the top sellers under business, or personal development, or mindfulness and grab yourself a couple hardcovers…you will not regret the small investment.
We can not do everything. We repeat, we can not do everything. So we’ve embraced asking for help. We’ve invested in the right experts, resources and tools to help us manage our business and operate more seamlessly. In order to make money you have to spend it, and it is really scary. But we know we are doing it right and we will make it…it will all work out and pay off ten fold. We’ve put it into the universe and the universe will respond.
So far we have invested in a solid CPA to handle all of our monthly books, taxes and growth plans, a payroll solution to eliminate the need to walk around with a checkbook, singular insurance agency to handle all of the commercial insurance needs, software to plan and manage all of our social media, and a team of talented creators and makers to help bring the Clark + Aldine vision to fruition every day.
So there you have it. A quick why and how we’re investing in ourselves. We’re interested to know from you, our readers, how you are investing in yourself. So tell us! We’d love to know more about it and take some learnings and inspiration from you.
-much love
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