As you work to build your business, you may occasionally find yourself daydreaming.  It could be about a delicious meal (since you are living frugally while focusing on your business, right?), or maybe the car you want to buy when you sell your business, or maybe you’ve just been up working all day and are daydreaming about how comfortable your bed is going to be.

I’ve been daydreaming about traveling.  I want to go somewhere far away, somewhere exotic.  I want go somewhere where they don’t speak English and the food is delicious and every day is an adventure and there’s a bunch of fun stuff to do and the scenery is beautiful and I can meet cool people and not have to worry about work or anything like that.  There should be a beach where I can just relax and drink fruity drinks and watch the waves and the people and forget about everything that’s on my mind.  Somewhere like Indonesia.  It’s on the other side of the planet, everyone is supposedly super friendly, they have a bunch of (presumably delicious) spicy food, they have world-class snorkeling and beaches, and they speak Indonesian.  I’d visit the major islands, take in the sites, relax on the beach, eat some food, stay at a hotel Bandung, and just chill out for a while.

Palm trees!

The problem, though, is that I’d probably either get a little too relaxed and end up staying there too long or wanting to move there and letting my business suffer, or I wouldn’t be able to relax enough because I’d keep thinking about work the whole time and be sitting there on the beach like “yeah, this is cool, I wonder how many emails I’ve gotten today.  I wonder if any of them are urgent enough that I should be responding to them now.  I wonder if anyone is trying to get a hold of me,” etc.  I’ve always been kind of high strung like that, so as you can see, I really need a vacation!

Of course once it’s over you come back to reality.  I’m not sure how I’d deal with that, and that’s part of the reason I have trouble relaxing in the first place; I always know that “real life” is waiting for me when I get back, so I have trouble getting lost in the moment.

That’s actually something I want to work on.  I’ve heard meditation can be helpful with that so maybe it’s something I should look into.

My old roommate sent me this email earlier today.  She said I could share it here:

“I am never in my life going to get behind the wheel even after one drink. I say that because last weekend I got my first and only DUI. I went out after work with some guys that I work with and only had 3 drinks but that was all it took. I had a light lunch so I guess that is why but it wasn’t like I was sloppy drunk or even close to it. I got pulled over because I was on my phone like an idiot and forgot to put my turn signal when I changed lanes on the highway. I didn’t even see the cop behind me but he was in an unmarked car so I don’t know if I would have noticed even if I wasn’t on my phone. I did the whole field sobriety test and thought I passed but I thought wrong. The cop said I failed and then gave me an on-spot breathalyzer which I failed. I was then handcuffed and taken to the police station where I had to blow again on the big machine. I got processed and everything and after about two hours I was able to leave but a cab had to pick me up. I had to go the next day to get my car from the tow lot which was not cheap by anyone’s standards.

My next step is to contact one of the best DUI attorneys in Sarasota that I can and see what my options are. I am pretty sure that I am going to lose my license but I don’t know for how long. I am lucky because my coworker Jeff already said he would pick me up and drop me off if needed. He was out with me that night and he said it could have easily happened to him as he goes home the same way. I’m not glad this happened by any means but I am glad that it wasn’t worse. I didn’t cause an accident or anything like that. I know when that happens the court tends to come down harder on you. My ex-roommate John got busted for one years ago and he rear ended somebody and things did not go well for him. I forgot how much it ended up costing him but I know he had to move out and back into his parent’s house because of it.”

Youch.

When you become hyper-focused on your business, it’s easy to let some of your old healthy habits fall by the wayside.  As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes you end up skipping your workouts because you’re too busy.  That 15 minutes to drive to the gym, 30 minutes to work out, and 15 minutes to drive back home is more than you can spare.  Sometimes you feel like you can’t even take 20 minutes to go for a run outside.  Let me tell you, though, that you should take a break at least every few hours and do some stretches, especially if you’ve been sitting down the whole time.  There was recently a study done that basically said the longer amount of time you spend sitting each day, the earlier you are going to die.

Terrifying.

So get up and stretch.  Learn a few yoga poses to do throughout the day.

You’ll also find that you dietary habits may change as you become busier and busier.  Let me give you some examples:

Do you drink caffeine?  I never used to.  But then one morning I was just dragging and didn’t feel like I had enough energy to be productive, so I made a small cup of coffee.  And let me tell you, as someone who doesn’t drink caffeine, I had no tolerance built up at all, and that small cup was enough to get me energized.  I didn’t want to make a habit out of it, but you know how it goes; you’re tired the next day and so you decide you’ll just have one more cup.  And then another one the next day.  And so on.

And now I’m a coffee drinker.

Speaking of coffee, I’ve also been looking at green coffee bean extract to help me lose a few pounds that I’ve put on from not going to the gym.  Unlike the coffee I’ve come to drink, this is made from unroasted beans (so they’re still green).  It’s one of those things where I know it’s happening (me missing my workouts) but I can’t really afford to not be focused on my work at this point, and I can tell and feel a difference from not going to the gym as much as I used to.  I know it’s just for a short period of time (“short” is relative), but I don’t want to get to the point in the meantime where I gain too much weight and then have to start from an even worse place when I finally get back to the gym.