How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(34)
You’re standing in the middle of a blank piece of paper. Unleash your inner architect and design your path to success. Get wild, be creative, and don’t get distracted by the flow of traffic.
Traffic sucks anyway.
I AM LITERALLY LOLing as I write this chapter because I’m the least qualified person to do so. Ask me to pull an all-nighter and I will. Ask me to go on tour for two months and do two shows a day and I’ll do it with a smile on my face. But ask me to do twenty sit-ups and I will run away from home, throw my phone into the ocean so no one can reach me, and hide in the deepest, darkest corner of the earth. Since I stopped dancing professionally years ago, I haven’t been very good at keeping active. I tell myself it’s because I have no time—I’m always busy working. But as I grow older and hustle harder, I’m learning that being active and keeping my body healthy is part of my job.
Being active has nothing to do with being sexy, sculpting a six-pack, or fitting into a smaller size. It’s about making sure your body can keep up with your hustle. Having an amazing work ethic means nothing if your body can’t handle your fast pace. Being active also doesn’t mean you need to become a fitness guru (I mean, unless you want to). I often convince myself that in order to be healthy, I need to change everything about my life—I need to go to the gym for two hours every day and stop eating yummy food. But that’s not the case. Making small changes in order to live a healthier lifestyle can make a big difference. Here are a few ideas.
STRETCH IN THE MORNINGS
I’m going to be honest: most of my mornings begin in an extreme state of panic because I pressed snooze too many times and now I need to brush my teeth while somehow eating cereal if I’m going to make it to my meeting on time. I’ve never really tasted the original flavor of Cheerios. But the few times I have woken up on time and taken a few minutes to stretch, it’s made a huge difference in my day. Not only do I feel more energized and ready to take on the day, but I also don’t move like a ninety-year-old grandma. Who would have thought?!
DON’T TAKE THE EASY WAY
Throughout your day, take the stairs instead of an escalator (I think you’ve heard this before), walk to your destination instead of driving, get up to change the channel instead of using the remote, and when you’re getting ready to go out, dance like no one is watching.
DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF
Sometimes I stop eating all my favorite foods in an attempt to be healthy. But after a few days I cave and binge-eat all the extra-buttery popcorn. It’s not a good look. You don’t need to cut out your favorite foods completely; you just need to eat things in moderation. If you really want some popcorn, have the popcorn, but make yourself a deal. While the popcorn is popping, do some jumping jacks, and instead of extra butter, settle for regular.
DRINK WATER
I don’t think there’s ever been a day in the history of my life, except for maybe when I needed to get an ultrasound, when I’ve had eight glasses of water. That’s just so much water. Also, there are way more delicious things to drink! But drinking water has so many benefits that it’s literally stupid not to just do it. One of the ways I’ve learned to drink more water is to pay attention to my glass while I drink it. I know that may sound silly, but what I noticed is that when I drink water it’s ONLY because I’m thirsty, and so I take a few sips and am done with it. I never actually look at my glass and commit to finishing it. Talk about first-world privilege. So now when I’m drinking water, I don’t put the glass down or walk away until I finish the glass. Sometimes that even means telling myself, “Okay, three more big gulps and then you can leave,” as if I’m a four-year-old child. For example, earlier today I told myself that I wasn’t allowed to enter my apartment from the hallway unless I finished the water in my bottle. I stood there in the hallway guzzling water for five minutes.
Another great life hack: drink a glass of water every time you post on Instagram (or your favorite social media platform). Some of you will be drinking fifteen glasses a day, which is a good indicator that you should slow your roll. If you’re overflowing, you’ll know how our timelines feel.
When I was on tour I was in great shape. My show involved a lot of dancing, which helped build my stamina, and I was getting a lot more done in a day because my body could keep up with my mental hustle. I’d go to rehearsals, do four or five interviews, carry out a sound check, go for a meet-and-greet, perform a show, and then hop on a plane and do it all again the next day. When I’m not in shape, I walk up the stairs to my office and feel like I need to take a nap to recover.
On tour I also drank a lot of water because (a) it was a nervous habit and (b) during every costume change I would guzzle water to cool myself down. It wasn’t until the tour was over that I realized I hadn’t gotten a single pimple on my face in two months of traveling. H2O for the win!
I know it can be hard, but it’s important to be active and healthy. Aging is inevitable and poor health will catch up to you very quickly. A Bawse knows the importance of creating a positive environment for the mind, heart, and soul. You can’t have a happy mind if you have an unhappy body; it just doesn’t work. They would fight and break up. You don’t want your body sleeping on the sofa, do you? I didn’t think so.