Week 1: Motivation

The Plan

Here’s my first project, I’m going to start with the most logical step that can hopefully be applied to all of my later efforts…self motivation.

            I was inspired for today’s post by a blurb on the John Tesh radio show, “Intelligence for your Life”. This tip was specific to working out, and stated that you will be more likely to stay consistent with your exercise routine if you tell yourself “I don’t skip workouts”.

            I haven’t been able to find the link to the exact story, but they quoted some research study or another. However, for me, it reminded me of something that my high school tennis coach told us about positive thinking on the court. He said that if you want to get better results in your game, the way you phrase your mental pep talk in the middle of the game can make all the difference. If you’ve missed a few serves in a row, don’t let yourself think “Quit missing those.”, or “Don’t miss this one.” Instead, say the same thing, but from a positive perspective such as, “I’m going to make this serve.”, and “This one is landing right in the corner.”

            Whether there is any proof behind this or not, I think this sounds like a good way to improve your mood and outlook on life no matter what the outcome of your struggle or challenge is.

            So I set myself a goal for this week. I’m going to give myself three personal mantras that I will use at least once every day to try and improve my chances at being successful in three separate areas.

            Here they are:

                        Exercise - “I don’t skip workouts”

                        Diet - “Make a healthy substitution”

                        Mental/emotional - “Positivity”

The Results

            Hooray! One week down, the time sure does fly when you’re becoming a better person.

            In case you couldn’t tell, this week was a definite success. I achieved all of my goals, and I now have the first layer on which to build a new me.

            So let’s break it down a bit. First we’ll look at fitness/exercise. I found this to be the one I was most dreading (who out there is honestly that surprised?), it’s daunting trying to start up a new workout routine.

            Knowing this, I did my best to not over do things right off the bat, and also to set myself reasonable goals. That meant no hour long cycling classes, 50 lap swim sessions, or “300” ready lifting routines. I just kept to my mantra of “I don’t skip workouts”.

            The first two or three days that simply meant doing a small (10-15 min) set of various activities at a moderate difficulty. These typically consisted of jumping jacks to warm myself up and get the blood pumping, push-ups, squats or lunges, planks, crunches, or leg lifts for the abs, and of course stretching both before and after every workout.

            Keep in mind; I’m in absolutely NOTHING approaching good shape, and to add to it, I spent over a week off my feet in the hospital for a burst appendix only a month ago. These little workouts aren’t going to cut it moving forward, but they are definitely preferable to my typical first workout attempt of: 10-15 min of cardio, 20-30 min of lifting/strength, 5-10 min of cardio/cool down, topped off with a week of being too sore to even get to the gym again and falling off the wagon with just one workout under my belt.

            As far as the diet plan goes, this was my least successful bit, though it was still an improveM3nt, so I’m chalking it up as a win. The major thing that I improved in this area had more to do with budget than health, my arch nemesis, packing meals for work. I only found myself eating out once this week, and that was today as a reward for being good all week. My plan didn’t do the best as far as health was concerned, as I still had a pretty big, vegetable shaped, hole in my diet. I love veggies, but I just never think to cook up extra when I’m making them, and I never think to plan time to make a main dish AND a veggie when I’m whipping something up for work. However, this is still a step in the right direction, and I will gladly use this as the basis for continued growth.

            My attitude was the one thing that I wasn’t too worried about for this week’s challenge. I’ve always been a relatively positive and optimistic person. This proved true without me having to put too much conscious effort into it. The one exception was while I was driving to work, I found myself encountering multiple “less than aware of their surroundings” (to put it politely) drivers in a row. I got to a point where I just barely caught a red light that is notorious for being slow, and was building myself up into a mini hissy-fit, when I stopped for a second, took 5 deep breaths (in through the nose, out through the mouth) and tried to look at the situation from outside of myself. I realized that I was about to let these people ruin my entire mood just before I arrived at my job (front desk at a hotel, and VERY people centric) which would likely keep me in a foul mood all night. Those deep breaths along with some concentration on the music playing on the radio (my car is almost always tuned in to classical MN public radio) brought me back to a place of calm, and peace.

                        So, what do you think? Was it as big of a success as I think, or am I just being a cock-eyed optimist? If you like what I’ve done, try and think of some small ways that you can get the ball rolling on a change or two in your own life. Remember what we learned from the movie “What About Bob?”…baby steps.

Here’s a better me wishing you a better week!