THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 4 minutes

Boring Situation Survival Guide

I’m writing #76 from Regions Hospital in St Paul, MN, because Jones baby #5 is here!

Our due date was Jan 29 with a scheduled C Section that we thought we’d get to on Feb 4th - but Erin went into labor early Friday morning, and at 410pm Scarlett Amelia Jones was here!

Mom and baby are doing great, and I’m thrilled to have my fifth (and final) child join our large and loving family.

I’m also feeling pretty darned good, having done this a few times, I was physically and mentally prepared for the experience that all parents have gone through. One that can be pretty grueling - obviously much more for mom - but also for dad.

Getting through - and even thriving - in situations like this, is something that can be trained and developed with preparation and discipline. So I thought I’d walk through a brief survival guide for these situations that we all encounter in life.

But first, what are these situations I’m talking about?

Well - they’re the situations in life that are similar to when you have a baby. Multi-day low activity experiences that take you completely out of your routine.

Everyone experiences these situations. Here’s a list of examples:

• Long work conferences or retreats

• Family vacations (especially with young kids)

• Hospital stays (for you or a family member)

• House moves or relocations

• Weddings (especially if you're part of the wedding party)

• Natural disasters or emergencies

• Caring for a sick or aging family member

• Extended business travel

• Major home renovations

• Warfighting (believe it or not warfighting is mostly sitting around doing nothing)

These situations are starkly different than physically focused experiences like camping expeditions, hunting, festivals, or anything where you’re moving most of the time.

The themes of these experiences we’re surviving are:

• Minimal physical activity and a lack of options for activity

• Unfamiliar food options

• Lack of natural light, nature, and the great outdoors

• Multiple days

These situations are different than single events - like a funeral - where there’s something you just have to get through and you’ll be back to your normal routine. No, we’re talking something that requires multiple days to get though, along with you showing up as a good version of yourself for others.

The tendency (I’ve done this many times) is to just get through it, and not worry about any of your rituals, habits, and discipline that have made you the person you are.

This is a bad idea for many reasons, I’ll name just a few and then get onto the survival guide because I think you all will agree with me on this:

1. You need to show up for others in this situation - if you don’t care for yourself you won’t show up the way you want to

2. Energy levels are important here - drop your routines and your energy will equally drop

3. Enjoyability - the better you handle these situations the more you’ll enjoy them

4. When you’re done - you’re going right back into life when you’re done, the less you need to recover the better.

The Survival Guide

Here’s a few key areas to make these situations go much better.

1. Sleep - Amateurs run on adrenaline and figure they’ll sleep at some point later. Pros sleep when they can.

In combat situations when you’re holding defensive positions 24 hours a day while doing missions - you have to put teams on a rest rotation as soon as you stop moving and require the men to get sleep immediately - otherwise they’ll stay up and be too tired to do their work after a few days.

2. Move - Lack of movement really drags you down after just a day or two in these situations. Hospitals don’t have gyms (they have Mcdonald’s though, weird huh?) so you have to be creative.

Getting outside and doing mini workouts is the easiest way to combat this - rounds of pushups, situps, and air squats can be done literally anywhere and can be a great workout. Simply being a little creative means you can do workouts anywhere in the world. If you’re stuck in a room for multiple days you can do sets of pushups and get a great workout.

I walked a bunch back and forth on day one in the hospital, and day two I went home for an hour to grab stuff for Erin, and did a garage lifting session that was fantastic. 3. Eat - It’s SO tempting to say screw it and eat whatever garbage there is in these situations. The problem is everything compounds here - you’re not sleeping well, you’re not moving the way you want, you’re stressed, so eating poorly will negatively compound the effect and make you feel more like garbage.

3. Eat - It’s SO tempting to say screw it and eat whatever garbage there is in these situations. The problem is everything compounds here - you’re not sleeping well, you’re not moving the way you want, you’re stressed, so eating poorly will negatively compound the effect and make you feel more like garbage.

So try to eat healthy. Here’s a few pointers to manage when you can’t control what the options are:

• Avoid processed foods - That’s packaged goods with multiple ingredients.

• Prioritize protein - Protein fills you up and keeps your brain function up the most.

• Cut out the sugar - Too much sugar in the long-term is obviously bad, and in the short-term it creates massive energy spikes, causes you to retain fluids and bloat, and reduces brain clarity and function.

• Keep starches low - Starches are also sugar, refined ones like bread and pasta are to be avoided. This isn’t a “don’t eat bread” in general statement, it’s avoid it during these situations to keep your energy levels even.

• Get your sugar from fruit - Ok what about fruit? Fruit is sugar, should you avoid that? No - fruit is good for you so eat that in moderation.

• Eat fat - Fat sources like nuts, avocados, seeds, are great sources of calories to keep you feeling satiated and fueled without big energy spikes.

4. Hydrate - Dehydration can make fatigue worse and exacerbate stress and anxiety. It also reduces cognition and brain function. Drink plenty of water.

5. Hygiene - It’s easy to ignore this part when in these situations. I find I need to double up my hygiene to keep a fresh feeling physically and mentally. That means I’ll probably find a way to shower twice in a day when one is sufficient.

6. Find your mindfulness - Meditation, breathing, reading, journaling, prayer, whatever you do to keep you mind focused and fresh - keep it up.

7. Get outside whenever possible - There’s few things more effective than getting outside and getting fresh air in these situations. Do that whenever possible.

8. Cut out social media - Mindless scrolling is negative at any time, especially when you’re in these situations. I deleted all of mine before going into the hospital, easy peasy.

These are just a few key ways I’ve learned to stay sane, stay focused on being the best partner possible, and even enjoying, these kinds of situations. We all have them, instead of just white knuckling it and getting through them, we can approach them in a way that makes them much better.

Talk to you next week,

Mike