Welcome to 2019 and all your new goals! I am not making any official new year resolutions but that’s just mainly because I know I won’t stick to them. I am doing at 10 day – 10 minutes a day workout challenge because I thought it would be fun and it would help me get back into better workout habits after losing that over the holidays (Shout out to Bryan with Bones to Bulk for putting it together. Check him out on Facebook). Yesterday at work, I helped move our food pantry. I was literally moving 13 pound cases of veggies all day long. I didn’t think we would ever get to the bottom of the stacks.
Needless to say, when I got home, I was not feeling up to doing a workout (even if it was only 10 minutes). I think I had a pretty valid reason. I had already done significantly more than I was going to do in the challenge workout. So I didn’t do it.
I know, you were probably expecting me to tell you how I pushed through and did it. But I didn’t. Today I did have a lazy day for most of the day, so I decided to double up and do day 4 and 5 back to back.
So why I am telling you this? I have done a few of these challenge groups and the only reason I have finished them is because I have to tell people whether I did the workouts or not. I wish I could say I was more motivated than that, but I’m not. One time I did a 14 week workout program with a friend. We worked out together 3 times a week and on our own twice a week. It was a brutal 14 weeks that resulted in me being in close to the best shape I had ever been in. But there were many nights that I was working out at 11:45pm after working a full day at both my full-time and part-time job just because I knew I had to report to my friend. If I missed a day, I would double up on the next day (which was absolutely brutal). In the end, I didn’t not skip a single workout.
Many of you reading this have probably made some commitments for 2019. To help you be successful, get some help. It can be someone who is making the same commitment you are, or it can be someone who is just there to check on you. It’s easy to think that with a new year we are going to just all the sudden start these extremely healthy habits, but the truth is that motivation will wear off quickly. I used to work for the YMCA and we couldn’t wait for March to get here because the parking lot would be a lot emptier.
I have a friend who decided not to eat sugar for 3 months. His wife decided to do it with him. She wasn’t thrilled about it, but I’m sure they will both be happy to have someone in the trenches helping them get through it. I committed to not eating sugar at work. I took a break from that during the holidays (which probably wasn’t the best decision). To help with that, in an email to my staff about scheduling, I told them about it so they could smack anything with sugar out of my hand if I try to eat it.
For me, commitments are a lot easier to keep if there is someone there holding me accountable to them. It’s to the point that I can’t make one without having someone in place to do that. Otherwise I’m like Paul when he says he wishes to do one thing but does the other (Romans 7:15-20).
until next time…