Is it weird to write a Go Team post when I am already doing Making Space posts this month?
Maybe.
Am I doing it anyway?
Obviously!
I am following my own advice this month and doing what I can to make space for myself but I still found myself at loose ends on Monday morning.
I know where the feeling came from – I overdid something on Saturday and woke up on Sunday with a very unhappy back. As a result, I had to dial most of my plans way, way back and I spent way too much time being still.* I didn’t get to do the fun things I had planned and I also didn’t get to have a sense of accomplishment from doing the few important tasks I had on my list for the day.
So, on Monday, I didn’t have any momentum from the day before to help me get started.
And since my back was improving but still tricky, I had to be careful – I couldn’t dive right into a lot of the things that would normally get me in gear.
I had a lot of things on my list that I was perfectly capable of doing but I just couldn’t make myself start them. (ADHD? What do you mean? 😉 )
Sometimes this kind of feeling would mean that I needed a rest but that definitely didn’t feel like the solution today.
I was writing my sister (Hi Neece!) to vent about all of this when I remembered the advice that she and I regularly hand back and forth to each other.
Do something fun first.
So, that’s what I did.
I spend 13 minutes drinking some tea while reading a mystery novel and then things did feel a bit more doable but I felt a bit overwhelmed by all of the things I wanted to get done.
At that point, I fell back on another piece of advice that I often trade back and forth with friends:
Stick to the basics.
So, that was my next step – a little bit of writing, a little bit of meditation, a little bit of movement and a little bit of work on my most pressing task**
And that’s what I did – some journaling, some meditation, some stretching, and then a short, timed work session.
Perhaps this is the point where you are asking, “Christine, what does this have to do with fitness?”
And *this* is the point where I would answer, “Everything!”
No matter how dedicated you are to your fitness or to your well-being there will be times when you will be at loose ends, when you have no motivation, when you are just plain cranky.
And even though you know that you will feel better once you exercise or meditate or whatever, you just can’t make yourself do it.
That’s when it’s time to a) start with something fun and then b) stick to the basics.
You don’t need to tell yourself a story about what you *should* be feeling or about how this “always” happens or about what this temporary feeling means. ****
Digging into those kinds of thoughts at a ‘loose ends’ moment can often make the whole situation feel more tangly.
Taking action – doing something you enjoy and then doing a few basic things to get yourself in gear – can make all the difference when you feel a bit stuck and unmotivated.
(I feel like this is all connected to the Fun Scale but I will have to leave that exploration for another day.)
And I wonder if creating a list of fun things and a list of basics in advance might be a good way to prepare for a ‘loose ends’ kind of day?
Anyway, Team, whether today finds you motivated or kind of meh, I hope that the combination of adding fun and then completing some basic tasks helps you to feel more satisfied with your day.
As always, here’s your gold star for your efforts:
*and not in a good ‘seek stillness’ kind of way, either
**the one that I can *feel* looming – it may or may not be the most important one or the one with the closest deadline but it is the one that is lurking at the edges and needs to be dealt with before I can work on anything else.
***In fact, all of that stuff was timed. I know my brain and I didn’t want to end up spending an hour on each thing and run out of time/energy for my other important stuff today.
****Yes, sometimes questions about these types of things are helpful but give the fun + basics plan a try first, just in case.
