Dress: Target

Cardigan: Target

Scarf: Hallmark (gift from my mom from Hallmark of all places!)

Boots: Ross

Like the outfit? See more details here!

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll generally see a status update about how I’m heading to boot camp, ready to get my butt kicked. Sometimes you just need to sweat it out, you know? The key to continuous physical improvement is muscle confusion. You start to plateau when you go through the same motions without challenging your body. Have you ever been water skiing or snow skiing, and realized that your body hurts in places you didn’t know had muscles? What about rock climbing? I didn’t realize that my fingers and wrists could wield so much power (or, in my case, so little power!) I went through a few years with a body plateau because my gym routine was stagnate. I’d go to the gym, run 3 miles on the treadmill in just under 30 minutes, and then do free weights for another half hour. I’d spend an hour at the gym 4x per week, and my body stayed the exact same. Then I got antsy, and I started doing the elliptical, lifting heavy 2x per week, and finally, mixing up my routine between high intensity interval training and some combination of weights and cardio. At this point, you’re probably wondering what muscle confusion has to do with business.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. Sometimes we get so entrenched in doing business they way we’ve always done business, that we just can’t move forward. We come in at exactly 7:42 am every morning, sit in the same position at our desk for exactly 8 hours, and drive home on the same road at 5:04 pm every evening. In my case, I’m even wearing the same outfits! No wonder we aren’t coming up with the next big ad campaign, the latest new gadget, or the next great company! There’s no disruption to jolt us into a great idea. I’ve been feeling antsy for the next big thing, but I’ve been going through the motions every day, so the next big thing just isn’t happening. I told my husband that I feel like the daily grind has just beaten the awesome right out of me!

So, the past few days, I’ve been trying to do some brain and life confusion to get off my plateau. A group used a new software in class last week, so I decided to learn that software. If you haven’t played around with Prezi, I highly recommend it! It’s a cloud-based presentation software that zooms around the page for transitions, and it’s a nice change from traditional PowerPoint (be forewarned though, the zooming can make you a little nauseous if you work in it for too long!). Vimeo is next on my list of new software to play with, which will hopefully unlock some more creative areas of my brain. I’ve decided to direct the drama portion for a children’s musical at church. I tried a new recipe last night, which was delicious. Even the little things, like coming in to the office early, should help jog my brain. Any other blogs or activities I should try to get off my plateau?