Hey Team,
Today, I’m asking you to take good care of your future self.
I’d like you to consider what decisions you can make today (or, soon, no pressure!) that will make it easier for future you to do the practices you want to do.
Let me give you a non-fitness example…
For a while now, a friend and I have been meeting almost every week to spend a bit of time writing together. My initial plan was to spend these hang-outs doing revision on my novel but I haven’t actually managed to do that very often.
Instead, I have often gone with a section of my novel in hand then couldn’t make my way into it and ended up working on something else instead.
The scope of the project is part of the problem (my ADHD hates a huge project that will need multiple iterations) but after doing some project-focused morning pages earlier this week, I realized that there was a whole other factor involved.
I hadn’t actually prepared myself to work on my novel in those sessions.
I was expecting my jumpy brain to easily switch from whatever else I had been doing/planning/thinking about that day and just start working on a project that is largely undefined and will require me to work in a different way than I usually do.
That would be like trying to make a quilt by sitting at your machine with a bunch of uncut fabric in one hand and a pattern in the other and expecting to start sewing right away.
Or like trying to grocery shop with a list like this: 1) protein 2) carbohydrates 3) liquids 4) vegetables.
All of those things are possible but approaching them that way makes them far more difficult than they need be.
There are a lot of decisions to make between ‘I want to do this thing’ and the actual doing of the thing and if we don’t take the time to make those decisions, we are going to struggle unnecessarily.
Look, I know there are people out there who can say, “I’m going to start journaling!” and pick up their notebook and just start writing. And there are people who are able to say, “I need to exercise!” and just start moving.
That’s really terrific for them (gold star!) but for most of the people I know, things feel more complicated than that and if they try to start their practices without any prep, they are going to stall out pretty quickly.
So, Team, have a look at your practices you are trying to start (or planning to start) and/or at the existing practices that you sometimes struggle with and see if there are any decisions that you need make about them.
Do you need to choose a series of videos to work out with?
Do you need to pick which strength training exercises you’ll do in your next session?
Do you need to choose some prompts to journal from? Or a series of questions to ask yourself each day?
Do you need to decide in advance what kind of meditation to do?
Do you need to pick your clothes or your notebook or your reward* in advance?
If you have trouble figuring out what is in your way, you could try the ‘morning pages’ practice I have linked above (you can do it any time, really) or you can be REALLY kind to yourself the next time you feel stuck when starting your practice and instead of being annoyed or switching to something different to relieve the pressure of not being able to the thing, you can explore why it feels hard, what you need in that moment, and what you wish you knew right then.
As for me, I’ll be heading to my next writing session with a very specific plan – I have a list of things that have to be included in the next section of my novel and I will be able to get started on them right away.
(I also need to do this for some fitness practices but my novel is a much clearer example for our purposes today.)
Here are your gold stars for your efforts today!
No matter how big or small, no matter how hard or easy those efforts were, please, please, please take credit for them and collect these gold stars.
Our capacities and our abilities change from day to day and I really want you to recognize the work you are doing today even if it is far less than yesterday.
If this morning found you struggling to get out of bed but you did it anyway? Gold star!
If this morning found you struggling to get out of bed and you decided that the right thing to do was to rest? Gold star!
If you just did a really hard workout? Gold star!
If you just decided that you only had 1 minute of exercise in you today? Gold star!
Exercise and wellness practices aren’t about doing those practices, they are about helping us to take care of ourselves in the best ways we can.
And those ways will vary from person to person and from day to day and ALL OF THOSE EFFORTS COUNT. Every day. Every person.
So please be kind to yourself out there, Team.
Go Team Us!
*As you may have guessed, I am a strong proponent of regular rewards for practices someone is developing.
