I feel so freaking dumb coming back here to type out my plan for the future, but here we go.
I recently had an interview for a promotion at work (got it btw
). While preparing for the interview one of the practice questions I came upon was talking about a time you did something hard and what you learned. I immediately started thinking about 2018. I started by saying “In 2018 I went from not being able to run to my mailbox in January to running a half marathon in November.” I explained how I used a race every month to keep me motivated and how my biggest lesson learned was “progress not perfection.” And then I stopped my interview prep and looked in the mirror and said “did I really though?”Have I truly grasped that concept?Because lately it seams I’m good for 2 weeks of a routine or plan and then at the first sign of trouble I’m back on the couch for 3 months and then I start over. Have I really learned the lesson “progress not perfection?” Because I don’t think I’ve grasped the concept.
Then, I saw an interview with J.K Rowling ( not her biggest fan these days but YouTube was on auto play while I was cleaning) and I walked in the room to hear her answer a question about what’s next (I think this interview was shortly after the last HP book) and she said something about HP being her Unicorn and not feeling pressure to recreate that level of success. Didn’t think much of it.
Then I saw another YouTube video where a girl was talking about her experience going viral for 1 video. She talked about how the video really messed up her analytics. She explained how YouTube would tell her her views were “down” because a video didn’t get millions of views. When in fact, her video was getting thousands more views than her videos from before the viral video.
These 2 videos led me to another conclusion.. 2018 will never happen again. It was my unicorn. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it was magical. I’ve been trying so hard to recreate that first time feeling and that beat yesterday mentally, that I’m not giving my self credit for simply showing up. All of a sudden that wasn’t good enough any more. All of a sudden I don’t want to run a 5k unless I know I’m going to PR. And if something happens and I don’t beat yesterday, then I’m so hard on my self. It’s not fun anymore. And therefor it’s not motivating.. and then I miss a day... and then a week... I justify not updating my journal by saying “since this week sucked, I’ll just do better next week and then update my journal when I have a positive outcome.” Aka when I’m perfect again and well this poor Journal has been ghosted by me more times than most high school relationships....
So what’s the plan?
Well my foot and knee still hurt if I walk more than a mile or try to run, so I need to do some PT and get that better. Honestly, I’m not a great hot weather runner anyway so I don’t mind taking a month or so to rehab right now.
I recently joined a pool and discovered that swimming for exercise is more fun outdoors than it was at the y. I think it’s because I can float around, swim some laps, float again, lay in the sun, swim some laps and repeat. So that’s my main source of exercise right now. I’m also not tracking it. Partly because my lax nature of switching between swimming and floating makes it hard to track but mainly because I don’t want to beat yesterday. I just want to enjoy something that’s good for me.
I also want to get to the gym 3 days a week. But I feel like I’m starting too many new things at once. Historically that has been a recipe for disaster. So for now, the plan is to go every Monday. Just 1 day a week.
I had my wisdom teeth removed last Friday, and I used that as a time to quit soda. I figured if I was taking pain meds and prescription ibuprofen, I wouldn’t notice a caffeine headache and it worked- I haven’t had a headache all week! I have; however, been craving soda for the last few days though, so I’ve decided fountain sodas don’t count. The logic being, I don’t have easy access to fountain drinks so I have to go out of my way and make a conscious decision to have a soda if I want. (Is this the soda addict’s version of California Sober??)
Similarly, I’m not putting myself on any kind of diet and I’m not tracking it restricting anything. However, I have been decluttering my cabinets and donated a lot of my overly processed staples to the food bank. I have been trying to keep only healthier foods around. So not restricting anything, just making it so that if I want something not so healthy, I have to make the conscious decision to either go get it or pay a delivery fee.
I also want to get back into updating this journal weekly. I want to sit down and think out answers to the following questions.
1) What went well this week?
2) What went poorly?
3) What did I learn this week?
4) What do I want to learn next week?
Right now my hope is that I’ll be running again by fall, but if that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I’m not putting pressure on it, or promising myself anything.
$10 workout tomorrow! Upper body- it’s the easiest work out. I got this!
