I wish I could say I follow SIMPLE perfectly every day.
I don’t.
I’m the same person who convinced myself I was going to start waking up at 4:30am and go to hot fitness classes.
And in my head, it made perfect sense.
I’m not a morning person… but somehow I was going to wake up early, get my ass kicked for 45 minutes in a 110 degree room, and come back a completely different person.
The idea sounded great.
The reality?
I was jumping into something way too extreme, way too fast.
And that’s been the pattern for me.
It’s always been all or nothing.
Either I’m fully committed… or I’m not doing it at all.
So I had to take a step back and ask myself:
What does this actually look like in my real life?
Because my real life isn’t built for perfect routines.
Monday through Friday, I’m heads down working from about 8:30 to 6 on a good day.
Sometimes I can start earlier if my husband is doing daycare drop off.
But when it’s my turn… my morning is already spoken for.
It’s breakfast.
Getting dressed.
Trying to get out the door on time.
And my daughter’s hair.
Which sounds simple… but it’s not.
She has really curly hair.
And she hates having it brushed.
So what should take five minutes
turns into tears, negotiations, and me already behind before my day even starts.
And that’s the part no one really talks about.
Because this is why perfect routines don’t work in real life.
Life doesn’t wait for your schedule to be ideal.
And that’s the part I used to fight.
I’d try to build routines that didn’t account for any of it.
As if I could just carve out this perfect, uninterrupted version of my day.
But this is my routine.
The chaos is part of it.
And… I’m okay with that.
So trying to force a perfect morning routine before all of that?
It just wasn’t realistic.
And honestly, it was taking away from the exact thing I was trying to protect.
So I tried something else.
I told myself I’d go for a walk every day at lunch.
Simple, right?
I work from home. I have flexibility.
But then the day starts moving and there’s always more to do. And instead of taking the time, I’d start to feel guilty for stepping away.
So that didn’t stick either.
And that’s when it finally hit me.
I wasn’t failing.
I was trying to force my life into something it wasn’t built for.
I had to be honest about what actually matters to me right now… and build around that.
Because balance doesn’t mean everything gets equal time.
It means you’re making intentional decisions about what matters in this season of your life.
Right now, that looks like:
Showing up fully for my job
Being present for my family
And finding realistic ways to show up for myself in between
So I compromised.
I bought a $40 standing desk and a walking pad and put it in the corner of my office.
Nothing fancy.
Just enough to prove to myself I could actually stick with it.
Now my mornings look like this.
I wake up. I get ready.
My husband is making breakfast for us and our daughter.
We eat. The chaos happens. We get out the door.
I come back home, make a cup of coffee, and start my day.
Emails. Follow ups. Getting organized for the work day
And while I’m doing all of that…
I’m walking.
No, it’s not a 45 minute hot fitness class.
No, I’m not drenched in sweat feeling like I just had some life changing workout.
But I still did something for myself.
And more importantly… I can actually keep doing it.
That’s just one example of what SIMPLE looks like for me right now.
It’s not about doing everything perfectly.
It’s about finding a way to show up consistently… even if it looks different than what you originally planned.
Some days it’s more.
Some days it’s less.
But it’s something.
And that’s enough.
This is where it stopped being an idea…
and started being something I could actually stick with.
👉 Continue here: how I actually use SIMPLE (without trying to do it all)
Simply Sonia 