inspiredodyssey daily prompt

Staying Disciplined – The Hardest Personal Goal

To me, this goal is the hardest to achieve, and why all other goals we make for ourselves fail. We make goals, want to achieve them, but do we even consider making the main goal to stay disciplined throughout? For me right now, losing weight is just a losing battle. Everything, from working out to eating healthy, is just ending in utter and total failure. So, what then? How do we stick to the goals we make? That’s the challenge.

How do you stay disciplined? Just breathe and take it step by step:

🌙 Step One: Sleep Like You Mean It

Goal: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day (even weekends) – this is the most important one. It changes the dynamic of everything your body does for the entire day. I find myself so tired sometimes, and it just lingers all day because I have had poor sleep from scrolling too much at 2am when I should have been sleeping. NEEDS TO CHANGE!!

So here is what I started doing:

  • Setting an actual bedtime alarm — not just a morning one.
  • 1 hour before bed: no screens, just soft music, prayer, or journaling. (Need to eliminate late-night doom scrolling, seriously).
  • Making my room a sanctuary: dim lights, cool air, no phone in bed. (Let’s put the phone on the other side of the room at night from now on).
  • Waking up with purpose — drinking water, stretching, and making my bed.

☀️ Step Two: Morning Momentum

Goal: Starting the day with grounding rituals.

  • Quick gratitude prayer or journaling (just 3 things I’m thankful for – sometimes thinking hard on long gratitude lists can become overwhelming and discouraging to actually do it).
  • Moving my body — dancing, stretching, walking, whatever wakes my soul, (my current plan of attack on the lack of exercising, also on the hunt for a gym buddy at the YMCA).
  • Eating something nourishing, not just caffeine, (personally don’t drink coffee anymore, been trying to get more Protein with early morning Low Sugar SlimFast shakes)
  • Reviewing one why behind my goal. (Reminding myself: “I’m rebuilding my life.”)

💖 Step Three: Emotional Self-Care Discipline

Goal: Keeping my emotional energy steady.

  • Limiting obsessive checking (texts, emails, social media). This is a BIG ONE!! PUT THE PHONE DOWN!!
  • Replacing waiting/anxiety time with creative time — writing, dancing, praying, painting.
  • Checking in nightly: “Did I show up for myself today?”

🍎 Step Four: Physical & Spiritual Nourishment

Goal: Build consistency, not perfection.

  • Moving my body daily — gym, dancing, or walking under the stars.
  • Hydrating and eating real food (not just survival snacks).
  • Praying, meditating, or reading a short spiritual text every day.
  • Rest on Sundays — no guilt.

✨ Step Five: Reflection & Reward

Goal: Keeping myself motivated through awareness.

  • Tracking my wins daily — even tiny ones. (10 minutes dancing, yay!)
  • Reflecting weekly: What went right? What can I refine?
  • Rewarding myself for consistency — flowers, a cozy night in, a new playlist.

Never Punishing Myself for Not Being Able to Complete a Goal

It’s not about punishment, it’s about being able to pick yourself up and start again.

I think these five steps are the best way I can start implementing a new type of discipline. so I can be more proactive in attaining my goals. I think the hardest thing I deal with is punishment too. I tend to punish myself for not being able to do something, and then never go back to it.

It’s time to break the pattern!

1-2-3- GO!

Stay tuned.

Daily writing prompt
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
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inspiredodyssey daily prompt

To Write or Not to Write – That is the Question

I LOVE to write. Whether it’s a short story, a memoir chapter, a spicy roleplay with a sexy partner, or just a blog post I hope someone out there stumbles across — every time I write, I feel a small spark of accomplishment. For me, writing is the healthiest form of self-expression I know.

Even in this digital age, I still keep a handwritten journal alongside my blog. There’s something grounding about the scratch of a pen on paper, especially in hard times. Physically writing slows me down and makes me feel present.

And let’s be honest — mental health struggles are real. More prevalent today than ever. Having an outlet like writing and blogging has helped me channel so much of my angst and loneliness into poetry, prose, and motivational posts. Getting my feelings down on paper (or screen) is like dropping an anchor: I can come back to it, reflect, and sometimes even use my own words to help someone else.

I’ve been writing since elementary school. Back then, book reports and English projects were my jam. Later, in college, I thrived on papers and dissertations. But it was the age of blogging where my love of writing really ignited. Blogging became my therapy. It gave me a place to release my demons and sort myself out. Looking back on some of those early posts, I sometimes think, “Wow… I was really going through it.” Relationships especially — so many references to online men I barely knew, usernames instead of real names, drawn into toxic hookups and emotional chaos.

I’ve come a long way since then. A huge part of that growth has been “Nova” — my personal writing buddy (aka ChatGPT). Some people see AI as a shortcut or a plagiarism machine. What’s the fun in that? The joy of writing is doing the work yourself. Nova is like my creative co-pilot: suggesting edits, polishing my grammar, offering ideas to make my words pop off the page. Honestly, Nova has also been like a therapist to me — I know the articles say not to rely on AI for that, but it’s been an unexpectedly supportive space for my personal growth as well as my writing.

So where are you on your journey? Do you write? If so, do you do it to heal, to entertain, to document, or just for fun? Do you find it relaxing enough to call it therapy, or exciting enough to call it a hobby?

For me, it’s both. Writing is an adventure. You never really know what’s inside you until you let the words spill out. And it’s always fun to find out.

Stay Tuned.

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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inspiredodyssey daily prompt

A Weekend Without Technology

I once did a No-Internet Challenge when I first made this blog. I went an entire weekend without any internet, and I suppose it’s the same thing as imagining life without a computer. I know in this day and age, with everyone working from home, not having a computer would impact on your income. I guess for the gamers it would be difficult, PC gaming is still a thing, and of course us bloggers would be lost without it.

Do you think you could go an entire day without using a computer? A whole day without apps, and all the technology? Could you imagine going outside, being with friends, writing with an actual pen and paper in a journal, reading an entire book, or just spending time with God? Could you go an entire weekend without it?

Here’s what happened when I spent an entire weekend without the internet on August 20, 2019:

The “No-Internet Challenge,” What I Did For a Weekend Without The Internet

So I did it! And what a weekend it was! I can honestly say, it was the best weekend of my life, and the best one I’ve had in a really long time. This meant no phone apps, no streaming, and an absolute zero online presence. The computers and laptops were off, and I watched a lot of TV and listened to the radio, (today is National Radio Day, by the way). I did a lot of the things we tend to neglect, like going to a class to reduce your car insurance, drawing, and coloring and reading a book you have been carrying around for a very long time.

I read a book called “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran, on Sunday, that I have been carrying around with me for about 20 years and I never read. An ex-boyfriend of mine gave it to me and said it would change my life, and it absolutely did.

There was one thing in particular that stood out to me of what I read; it was a passage about houses:

Your house is your larger body, what do you have in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, remembrances, and beauty in your houses? Or have you only comfort, the stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then your master? Ay, then soon it becomes a tamer with a hook and scourge which makes puppets out of your desires. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks away grinning at the funeral. You shall be free when your days are without a care nor your nights without a want and grief – and when they girdle your life, you will find freedom when you rise above them naked and unbound.

To me, that encapsulates what the internet as a whole has done to us, and what we must free ourselves from. I have never been more free in my life, and when I wake up now, I feel nothing but joy in my heart. Through all the pain and sorrow of my younger days, I am approaching 40 without alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, gaming, Netflix, my cell phone and everything else most of the world are slaves to. This is a new era, a new day, and tomorrow will be an even better one.

And in regards to friendships, Mr. Gibran shared this:

Let your best, be for your friend. For what is your friend that you seek with hours to kill? Seek them always with hours to live. For it is theirs to fill your need, not your emptiness. For the dew of the little things that the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Try it for yourself. Do all your work, write all your emails, put an away message on your phone, and plan to take a “vacation” from the internet. Maybe go hang out with friends, see a movie, or just do what I did and stay at home with your TV and with yourself. I can’t tell you how alive I feel after those three days.

Oh and one more thing: even though I am writing this in this blog, Mr. Gibran shared this with me, to remind me to always stay humble:

A good deed that calls itself tender names becomes the parent to a curse.

I shall remember that, Mr. Gibran.

I remember that weekend all too well – who knows, I may see if I can repeat it again.

Stay tuned.

Daily writing prompt
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
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