Carolina de Arriba

I couldn't fully be present with him after because I was exhausted.

It wasn't working.

And not just logistically, it was costing me something emotionally that I wasn't willing to keep paying.

So I quit.

And I felt like a failure about it for a while.

Until I stopped asking, how do I get to the gym more?

And I started asking a completely different question.

When in my day do I actually have an interrupted time that belongs to me?

The answer was early morning.

Before my son woke up, before anyone needed anything from me, that time existed.

I just wasn't using it.

So I built a system around it.

I found a workout subscription, like a Netflix kind of subscription that I could do at home.

No commute, no daycare drop off, not driving home in the dark feeling guilt.

I set an alarm two hours before my son typically woke up and that was it.

That was the whole system.

It worked, not because I suddenly had more discipline, but because I stopped fighting the reality of my life and I started designing around it instead.

I still do.

That early morning time is mine.

I have been doing that same routine with variations of it for over 15 years now.