May 8
It helps if I am honest with myself about why something is difficult for me. If I can acknowledge to myself that the real issue with exercise for example is mostly that I just don’t want to do it (not that I can’t make the time, etc., etc.), then I can work on the convincing-myself-that-it is-worth-it-to-me part. If I never own that this is the truth, and that too busy, tired, stressed, or whatever are just excuses I make to myself to get out of it, then I am never learning to solve the right problem.
Case in point: On one especially PMS-y day when I was going to bail on my regular 6 pm step class because understandably I was tired and overwhelmed, not of course because as usual I just didn’t want to go. Recognizing this mental game, it occurred to me that this instructor has virtually never not been here on a Wednesday night. There must have been Wednesdays when she had her period, didn’t feel well or just didn’t want to go. Apparently she never let not feeling like going, no matter how good her reason, stand in her way. I realized that I am that way about work. I will acknowledge being overtired, coming down with a cold, being extraordinarily stressed, but it never means that I actually wouldn’t show up for my job. Just a decision.
The instructors at my gym get pregnant, work practically right up to their delivery dates, have the babies, come right back to the gym and never look like they have born several children. There is a reason for that. So, convinced and inspired by her commitment to either herself or the gym, or maybe just her own work ethic, I stayed that night and interestingly enough, from my lethargic, bloated, exhausted state, I had the most energized workout I can ever remember having. I even, for the very first time, went on one of the elliptical machines after the class was over, I was so not ready to stop! Go figure. I never forgot that though.
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