Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Today I turn 65. I already belong to a Facebook group called Senior Lifeguards.
I just finished my skills of the month which are basically the same as the fitness tests for my National Lifeguard certification. I redid that qualification a month ago.
It sometimes seems like a crazy thing to do this job, but I love it. Happy birthday though me!
A new year often brings a sense of renewal. I’m not one to make resolutions in January. It is a good time to check in on goals and make adjustments. Steady as she goes!
I’m stacking the deck in my favour for a good 2026 by ensuring each day has movement in it. Daily dog walks, cycling commutes, strength and flexibility. I’m set up for success and have fully ditched “all or nothing” thinking.
Resilience
I’m bracing for bad stuff too. Experience has taught me along with all the great things comes a healthy dose of hard stuff, horrors even.
It’s the complicated gift of middle age, being pulled in many directions without falling apart.
Going through tough stuff has taught me I’m a good hugger. Olympic level hug giver right here. Happy to demonstrate at any moment.
I hold hands at hospital bedsides very well. I stay careful and kind now, even when I’m really upset.
I’m more resilient thanks to my fitness adventures.
So my wisdom to share on this year’s fitness goals is here for you if you need it.
It all counts
Watch didn’t record? Garmin dump your ride? It’s ok if it didn’t end up on Strava. Your body knows you did it. Data is only one measure. You were there. You did it. Go you!
Say it again, it all counts
Barely got to the workout? Had to wrap up early? Needed to lighten the resistance? Take a lighter weight?
AMAZING! You showed up for yourself and invested in your wellbeing. Well done!
You don’t have to like it
There will be days it sucks and you don’t enjoy the workout. You will always feel a sense of accomplishment regardless of how it went.
If a given activity is really chapping your ass switch it up. Ditch the weights and do a cardio dance class. Yoga pissing you off? Take up a martial art. You don’t always have to like it. Way to go!
Confidence comes from trusting yourself
You know when you are sick and need to rest.
You know when you need down time.
You know when you need help staying motivated.
You know who to go to for help.
You know a lot!
Trust yourself!
Plans rarely survive encounters with reality
The beautiful plan will fall apart. That’s ok because you knew it would happen and made flexibility part of the plan. Please, please, please break up with perfection.
My MVP (minimum viable plan) is 60 minutes of movement. Walking, cycling, stretching, dancing in my underwear. It’s adaptable.
Weather is sweet? I’m on my bike.
Back getting tight? Add another walk and do some yoga.
Bike out of commission? Grab some dumbbells.
You get the idea.
Messy is good
Challenge yourself to be a bit of a wreck. Not all moments are instagram moments.
Exploring the edges of your capacity is exciting and helps you grow. It’s not necessary every day but totally required to keep monotony at bay.
Team up to survive
It’s a fitness wasteland out here. Team up in person or virtually with workout partners. You will get more workouts in more often. Harness the power of positive peer pressure.
HAVE FUN
I’m serious. Play disc golf, beach volleyball, snorkel with manatees, whatever makes this year different than last year. Be silly and do stuff. That’s part of fitness too.
That’s it
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you gleaned some gems that you can keep for 2026.
Spoiler, this is the advice I need so I wrote it down. Hopefully I don’t forget!
LETS GO 2026!
Checking back and reflecting on what I have done is always interesting. And novel, because I’m usually that person who doesn’t look back often; I’m too busy chasing the next fun thing. Here’s what I had planned to do. How have things gone since my mid-year check in?
Camp more at the cottage property. My friend Mel was only available for one long weekend, and we had no time for hiking or canoeing. However, we did manage a proof of concept with the cats. Interior finishing is continuing to progress and the cats didn’t escape and get eaten by a bear, so this is definitely going to be a repeat project for next year, once I have electricity to run the heat and water pump.
Bike at least 2,000 km. I might hit 200. The knees are still sore, but I’m continuing to work at physio exercises to stretch and strengthen the offending areas. I have my e-bike back in service for the first time since last fall and I have gone out for a couple of longer rides. There are a few fun group rides coming up. I hope to get out to at least one, because I miss that social activity a lot. And it’s almost time to set up my bike on the trainer and see whether I’ll use it this year.
Read one book a month: goal complete and exceeded! Thank you Ottawa Public Library and your interlibrary loan service. I’m anticipating some quiet days in November and December when I can curl up in bed with a stack of magazines.
Cooking one new recipe a week, with lots of vegan and vegetarian, using what’s in my pantry as much as possible, has shifted a little again. I have decided to focus more on making sure my plate is at least half full of vegetables. I even spent a couple of months tracking what I ate (not quantities though). For the first time in years, my most recent blood tests show my cholesterol comfortably in the normal range, so yay me!
Gardening in a drought was a bit of a disaster. Enough said. I am already thinking about how to make my gardens more climate-resilient for next year.
Swimming 200km a year: I’m close to halfway there, but definitely will not meet this one. I am counting wins in that I reconnected with some old swimming friends, and made a few new ones.
Crafting was all over the place: I had fun at my textiles conference and followed up with a six-week course on one of the techniques I learned. There has been no art at all, but one of my really fun challenges has been making a pair of mittens patterned after those worn by Bernie Sanders at the first Trump inauguration, using a pattern I have mostly designed on my own.
Sewing continues to not happen.
Decluttering has definitely been a mixed bag, since I have taken on the challenge of cluttering at Mom’s. Her basement is being cleared, but mostly to my house. I am struggling to keep up with moving things onwards to their final home. It all makes me more determined than ever to tackle my own stuff.
Vacation to visit family and friends in southern Ontario ended up being too short, but it was fun to meet up with all the other bloggers for Sam’s birthday.
Elder care continues to consume way too much time, and yet I know it is precious time as Mom won’t be around forever. The realities of discovering how “not independent” Mom is, after spending a lifetime seeing her as very feminist and independent is shocking. It has me thinking a lot about how to ensure my own independence as I age, and simplify all the decision-making for my kids when they need to take over. An updated list of accounts and passwords would be a good start!
Most of my friends seen to be struggling with similar aging parent challenges, on top of their own health issues. So minimal get-togethers to just hang out. We’re all too tired. Heck, I was too tired even to relax in my hammock.
I haven’t been loud with my activist voice, but I did use my voice for an adventure. I joined in the production of one of the medieval York Corpus Christi plays, finished up my costume (that June sewing deadline on my original list), and acted the part of one of the three wise men.
Will I bother to update this list again? Probably not. It’s already almost the end of the year, and I doubt much will change between now and then. Besides, I could use that precious blogging time for a nap.
I will make another list for next year. My goals are always wildly ambitious, but I’m learning that checking in on them helps me to refocus and to remember my successes, no matter how modest.
Let me start by saying that the adage, “It’s just like riding a bike.” is a lie – I have not been on my bike in a while and riding was NOT a straightforward or automatic process.
So, over the past couple of summers – despite my best-laid plans – I haven’t spent a lot of time on my bike. Actually, phrasing it like that makes it sound like there was a time in my past when I did a lot of cycling but that’s not true.
I have had one bicycle or another ever since I was a kid but I haven’t done any regular riding since I was maybe 12 or so. I occasionally used my bike for transportation when I was in my late teens/early twenties and I did a little bit of riding with my kids when they were younger but neither of them were particularly into cycling AND I found it very difficult to pay attention to their safety and my own.
I know there have been a couple of times here on the blog when I have mentioned my intentions to cycle more and I did put in some effort around those times but sooner or later some combination of lack of skill*, poor weather, general busyness, or good old ADHD time/task challenges would waylay my plans.
As you can probably tell, cycling keeps getting put into the “I’d like to but…” category for me so I was quite surprised to wake up last Thursday with the thought “I’m going to go for a short bike ride this morning.”
So, around 10:30, after I drove my eldest to work, I lathered on some sunscreen, excavated my bike from the shed, put on my helmet and took off.
Truth be told, I wobbled off but I was on my bike so I’m calling it a victory.
As I got to the end of my street, I discovered that the easy path to the parking lot I was going to practice in was blocked off by a road crew who were fixing some wiring. So I had to turn around (very awkwardly and with an audience – sigh!)to go another way, another way that was UP A HILL.
At this point, I was being asked to demonstrate two challenging things immediately. I have a bit of trouble making any turns so making a tight turn was a nightmare. And going uphill is, well, going uphill. (And yes, for the record, I *do* feel quite odd talking about my challenges amongst all the excellent cyclists on this blog.)
But I got through both challenges with a good combination of spite, perseverance, and walking my damn bike in spots and then had the reward of riding downhill to my planned practice area.
I got to the parking lot and decided that riding in a large oval around the (empty) parking spots would be a good way to practice turning in a low-risk environment. And because I was looping around the same number of parking spots, I could create a baseline measurement of my efforts and how I was feeling at different points in the loops.
It went ok.
I was, however, plagued by the thoughts that pop up whenever I am trying to build a skill. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here? Is there something you’re missing? Is this hard because you need more practice or is it hard because you are missing some information? Maybe you are wasting time and effort here because there’s a little trick you don’t know? Maybe you should stop until you know what you’re doing?”
(Are those questions an ADHD thing? A Christine thing? A human thing? Since I have always been me, a human with ADHD, I don’t know how to distinguish which thoughts belong to which category.)
I didn’t let my brain talk me out of my self-defined practice though. I filed a few questions away to ask my husband later and just did what I set out to do.
And then I left for home.
It was only as I reached the end of the parking lot that I remembered the road crew and the fact that I had ridden downhill right before arriving at the lot.
That meant I had to ride uphill AGAIN right away and right after tiring myself out with my parking lot practice.
I did a ride/walk combination and got myself back home with minimal swearing but a fair bit of sweating and drank about 25L of water. (ok, it was probably far less than that but this version is more interesting AND it speaks to my perception of my refreshment.)
And I definitely plan to do it again this week.
Maybe even twice.
*I have always found cycling very challenging. I don’t make good use of the gears (a combination of a lack of practice and an utter inability to remember what to do when.) I find it hard to turn and I get panicky about it and often overcorrect. I am plagued and distracted by the feeling that I am missing an important piece of information that will keep me safe/make this easier. Yeah, there are a bunch of things.
PS – So, I just came back to this post to edit something and accidentally opened last week’s post instead. I had completely forgotten what I had written last week but I was delighted to discover that I actually followed a lot of my own guidelines when I decided to go out on my bike.
I have done this challenge for couple of years now. You can read my full plan for 2025 here.
Camp more at the cottage property. Hasn’t happened yet, but it’s still early in the season. I have made some modest progress on getting the cottage finished, including water and electricity. The canoe hasn’t gone into the lake yet, and I haven’t gone hiking; both may need to wait for my friend Mel’s annual visit.
Bike at least 2,000 km? Hahaha no! But I am doing lots of physio so my knees don’t hurt as much when I do bike. I’m trying to make it a regular practice, but I’m still struggling to set time aside to stretch and work on mobility.
Reading one book a month is going well. The only challenge is that I renewed my library card so I am reading books I don’t own, instead of reading books on my shelves so I can pass them along. I am a bit behind on reading magazines, but I think I can complete this challenge.
My longstanding challenge of cooking at least one new recipe a week is more-or less on track. My focus has shifted from cooking for Dad to cooking more vegan and vegetarian meals for myself. I have been far too busy to work on redacting medieval recipes. I’ll need to get back into the habit of doing that. I have been pretty good at shopping from my pantry.
The gardens are a bit of a disaster this year, and I totally forgot I wanted to push my boundaries on different veggies and only planted a few. However, I did successfully propagate new grape vines and overwinter pawpaws.
I have no idea how I’m doing on the goal of swimming 200 km a year. Probably not very well, as I missed quite a few practices this spring. My little crew of open water swimmers has fallen apart and I’m not sure how brave I am while I wait for next steps on treating the heart murmur.
I am doing some crafting but nothing too exciting. My textiles conference with four days of classes is next week, so hopefully that will spark some new ideas.
I am so far behind on sewing five new outfits I don’t even want to think about it! My machine is currently trapped behind kitchen cupboards that need to go to the cottage as soon as the walls are ready. I have acquired more fabric thanks to helping Mom declutter, but I have ideas for most of it (more Beach pyjamas!). Sadly, my art supplies are also trapped, so I have not been doing anything artistic either.
I have managed some visits with my son and grandson, but failed miserably at meeting up with friends for social time, or just relaxing, or even doing much volunteering. Elder care will continue to be a major theme for the rest of the year, which means I am cutting back on volunteer activities and probably not going to make that couch-surfing vacation.
Reviewing all of this reminds me that there are things I want to do and things I need to let go of. I am pushing myself too hard to achieve goals, rather than learning to relax and enjoy some of the freedom that should come with retirement.
A lot of things conspired in the first half of the year that made it very challenging to stick to fitness routines (or even house cleaning routines, to be honest). I think my goal for the second half of 2025 is to do as much of the 25 as I can manage without stressing myself, with a particular focus on those that are about relaxing and being with family and friends.
A few years ago, a group of 40+ women organized a “chill” low/no-contact indoor rec soccer league. The idea was to avoid the intensity, aggression, and injury risk that can make adult rec sports feel more stressful than friendly. Stories like those on this Reddit thread confirm that too much competitiveness can make rec soccer less fun.
Our soccer building keeps league-wide policies: in this new league we couldn’t self-officiate or prevent too-skilled teams from registering. Most players still wanted to play on their own teams and keep score. So, how do you ensure a new league will be fun and friendly when many elements stay the same?
We have tried a few things: captains keep a group chat, and referees are asked to be aware of rough play. This year, each team nominated a “player of the game” from the opposing team—a small gesture to recognize effort and positivity, not just goals. Since its inception, I’ve enjoyed playing in this league and am grateful to those who have supported it so far!
Still, as play has improved over the past few years, I’ve noticed a shift in the intensity level of some games. It has made me wonder: how can we maintain the spirit of “chill”?
Here are some on-field ideas teams could adopt or maintain:
And some off-field ideas:
The goal isn’t to restrict play—it’s to shape it in a way that reflects our shared values: community, fun, safety, and mutual respect.
Around the same time I was reflecting on all this, I read Sam and her colleague’s article, “The Virtue of Aggression in Sport” (2025). I’ll admit, the title gave me pause—given that I was sharing an update about a league trying to minimize aggression! But the authors draw a thoughtful distinction between unacceptable violence and “controlled physicality” (para. 1). I’ve heard a few league players express similar views: physical intensity can be part of what makes soccer feel satisfying. It doesn’t have to mean harm.
The article makes the case that some aggression is appropriate, even desirable, insofar as “those who are highly motivated to win will pursue their goals vigorously” (para. 3). And I don’t disagree—it’s important to clarify what kinds of aggression are acceptable and unacceptable in competitive sports.
Sam’s article makes valid philosophical arguments, but I think our chill league strives to align with its broader point about defining what kinds of physicality we allow. We can pursue the goal of “chill” by creating a space where fun, fitness, and community are the measures of success. Ideally, “winning” isn’t about the scoreboard—it’s about how we feel during and after the game: connected, respected, and glad we showed up.
After playing in our last regular game of this season, I realized one more thing: I care less about physicality and more about avoiding situations where negativity and aggression/competitiveness feed each other. For me, it is essential to maintain positive feelings of goodwill and care for everyone on the field.
So, as the league evolves, I hope we keep deciding together what kind of experience we want to have, then actively working towards shaping that experience. I plan to keep pursuing (vigorously) the goal of keeping a positive vibe on the field: that’s a win for me.
Rec sports players: how do you keep things positive and fun, even with varying levels of skill, intensity, and physicality?
I am a sucker for peer pressure, in a positive way. I love the mutual encouragement that comes from hanging out with similar-minded people. It is almost always the thing that gets me active.
This week, someone posted a question about why people don’t bike in winter/bad weather. I answered that I used to bike to work all the time, but with the new job I am finding it much more difficult: dark, wet from being in the pool, cold. His response was that the wet part was tough, but I should give it a try.
So I did.
The verdict? It was totally fine. Fun, even.
Admittedly, it’s not yet really cold, and this was a lifeguard shift so I didn’t get wet. I might feel less enthusiastic when there is snow on the ground and I have been in the water for several hours beforehand.
But I pulled my winter bike out of storage and oiled the chain. I still need to charge all the lights and pump the tires. I want to be ready to try and make that positive peer pressure feeling last.
Once upon a time, I was very strict with myself about my goals – very all or nothing.
If I couldn’t complete a goal to the very letter of what I had set out in my initial plan, it was a complete failure and I might as well scrap it entirely.
Let me tell you, that was NOT a fun way to think about things AT ALL.
I’m not going to get into all the ways in which that type of thinking is counter-productive, unhelpful, and downright depressing, let’s accept that it is, and roll on from there.
After I got over that type of thinking (at least on a conscious level), I went through a time when it felt pointless to set any goals. After all, I couldn’t possibly factor in all the things I needed to factor in so how could I possibly know what made a good goal? How could I possibly create a goal that I could actually complete?
And, yes, of course, ADHD (pre and post diagnosis/medication) factors into this process in all kinds of ways. When you combine a murky sense of time, challenges around figuring out reasonable timeframes, struggles with identifying doable tasks with an inherent reluctance around task initiation, you are going to get a bucketload of frustration around the goal-setting process.
But now I have had a lot more practice with being kind to myself and I am much more forgiving of my challenges with the whole thing.
My exercise pattern over the last week has been a great example of this.
So, last Tuesday, I posted about my desire to intensify my exercise, to work a little harder while I was doing a workout, and I planned to do a 10 minute kickboxing workout each day for 7 days and to reward myself with a new book if I accomplished my goal.
I thought that the fact that my plan was short, straightforward, and clear would make it fairly easy to complete.
I forgot to account for days when I couldn’t follow the plan.
I diligently did my kickboxing workouts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings and enjoyed myself in the process.
I had to do a few modifications, of course. Some of the movements were too complicated for me to pick up at that moment and some of them are kind of the opposite of my TKD training so I don’t want to pick up a movement that I will accidentally apply in class.
But, overall, it was a fun way to start my day and I thought it would be easy to complete the next four days.
On Friday, though, I had an early appointment and it messed with my routine so I planned to do my kickboxing in the early afternoon. But by that time I was working on a grant application and forgot all about my plan. I only remembered it when I was walking Khalee and I was afraid I would forget again by the time I got home (I’ve met me, I know what I’m like, and that was definitely possible.) So, I decided that I would go a slightly different route with an extra hill so I could push myself a little harder on my walk.
And I was right to add that to my walk because the next time I thought about kickboxing, I was turning off the light to go to bed.
Back in the ‘all or nothing’ phase of things, I would have forced myself out of bed at that point and done my workout and then struggled to get to sleep. I don’t pull that kind of crap on myself any more.
Then, on Saturday, I had multiple events and activities scattered throughout the day and it was only during a midafternoon stroll back from our lunch break that I remembered my kickboxing goal. Again, having met me before, I knew there was a huge risk that I wouldn’t get to that workout (my events ended at 10pm so there was no ‘when I get home, I’ll exercise’ happening that day.) So, my friend and I rerouted a little so our stroll became a brisk walk and so we would have a hill and a steep set of steps on our way back.
Sunday, I had another event in the morning, and a tangle of bits and pieces of things to do in the afternoon. Once again, I had good intentions of doing that kickboxing ‘later’ but I again found myself upping the intensity of a walk instead of getting to my video.
On Monday though, I was back to my usual daily routine and I easily (and enjoyed!) my 10 minutes of kickboxing.
There was a time when I would have called that a failure and I would have been embarrassed to bring that information here.
After all, if I can’t even do something for a week, what does that say about me?
Years ago, I would have thought this past week was telling me that I didn’t want that goal enough, that I wasn’t willing to work hard enough, and my metaphorical inner voice would have been muttering about me being a disorganized and lazy person who would definitely NOT be getting a new book.
Now though?
My inner voice reminds me that while my stated goal was to do seven 10 minute kickboxing workouts, my ACTUAL goal was to improve my fitness level by working harder when I exercise.
My planned workouts were the METHOD not the outcome.
If I pay attention to my level of intensity and increase that in doable amounts over time, I am going to reach my actual goal of increasing my fitness level.
Checking off specific workouts is really just one of the things I can measure along the way.
By intensifying the kind of workout I could do on those days, I was still making progress towards my goal without getting bogged down in the details.
In that way of framing things, I was still doing what I intended to do.
I could still add those workouts to my tracking chart.
I could still claim my gold stars.
I can still get my new book.
And, as a bonus, my goal from last week gave me lots of good information about my approach to exercise:
1) Exercising earlier in the day is much easier for me and gives me a good feeling of accomplishment first thing.
2) Even three days of focused exercise in a row makes it easier to intensify any other exercises I am doing.
3) Just 7 days of increased exercise makes me feel a lot better overall and makes me more likely to add more movement throughout my day.
4) I can’t exercise early in the day, I spend way too much time trying to pick the ‘right’ time to exercise later. (I mentioned this in last week’s post as a problem of trying to optimize) What I really need to do is to explore how I can create a ‘container’ for exercise at different times of the day
5) Even though, in last week’s post, I mentioned that I didn’t want to do the ‘work harder at something you are already doing’ thing, this time, in practice, it felt purposeful instead of punitive. That *may* be because I told myself that I only needed to spend 10 minutes at a higher intensity instead of trying to make the whole thing harder.
6) While it was only a short section of it, increasing my efforts during my walk with Khalee puts the focus on our speed and intensity rather than on the walk itself. The walks are good for me, mentally and physically, but that time is really about giving her time to get all the news a good sniffing of the neighbourhood can deliver. It’s ok to change the focus every now and then but I don’t want to put ‘this has to be exercise’ pressure on her (or on me!) every time we go for a walk. (I knew this from earlier this year but this past week was a good reminder.*)
*****
I’m keeping a similar plan for the week ahead but I have far fewer morning activities this week so I am going to pay attention to the timing and to the effort it requires for me to get those 10 minutes in every morning.
Maybe by next week I’ll be looking to do longer kick-boxing workouts or to add some additional exercises to my days.
Let’s see how it goes.
*I did notice that that post comes to many of the same conclusions as this one, just in a different way. Gotta keep relearning the lessons until things become more automatic, right?
Yesterday, I finally got to swim in a pond- my first time this summer!
It was big fun and it felt summery and relaxing and like I was letting out a breath I had been holding for a long time.
And it was all because I decided to reprioritize my summer fun.
Last month, I set out some kinda detailed but fairly flexible plans and I thought I was off to a good start on my summer.
But then some work projects went off the rails, and my foot started hurting, and the weather kept getting in my way (too hot, too rainy, too windy…you know the deal), and my weekends and evenings were crammed full of stuff and…
The short version is that I got overwhelmed.
And once I got overwhelmed, my ADHD went into overdrive and made it impossible for me to tell the difference between ‘meh, I don’t wanna’ and ‘this is actually an obstacle.’
And, as usual, it kept trying to get me to finish the stuff on my list before it would let me go into relaxation mode.*
Note: You might think this tendency is about needing to be productive or to really earn my rest, but that’s not the goal there. Instead, my ADHD wants me to finish this stuff so when I do rest, I can ‘really relax without this stuff hanging over my head.’ Alas, it also gets in the way of me actually finishing the stuff so it simultaneously keeps me from working and keeps me from relaxing but pressured me about both things. (This situation is just as fun as it sounds.)
I have been doing some fun things and relaxing here and there but I haven’t been able to really get into the plans I laid out in that post.
Here’s how things have stacked up so far:
I’ve been doing some relaxation exercises (imagine how tricky the past month would have been without them!)
I haven’t done any cycling.
I’ve done some yoga on the patio but not the 3-5 times a week I had planned.
I haven’t done any hiking.
I’ve done some hula hooping and had fun with it – I’m not any better yet, though.
And until yesterday, I hadn’t actually gone for a swim in a pond this summer.
Luckily, last Friday, my friend sent me a message asking me to hang out and swim with her on Monday afternoon.
My instinct was to say no but when I looked at the date on the calendar I realized that we’re well into July and I have barely done any of my summer fun!
That realization pulled me out of my ‘don’t relax until you can REALLY relax’ loop and reminded me that stopping to rest and to have fun is not only good in its own way, it might actually help me be able to focus when I head back to my desk.
So, on Monday, instead of trying to work on ALL OF THE THINGS, I picked three main things, worked on them until noon, had lunch and then headed out to see my friend.
I basically made fun my priority for the afternoon and I followed through.
And I had a glorious time alternating between being a pond creature and a creature who eats chips and chats with her friend.
Both of those are good creatures to be.
Yes, I know the joke in the title is ridiculous but I couldn’t resist.
Let’s just roll with it, shall we?
I find goal setting a tricky business overall.
The process of breaking things down into small steps and prioritizing is valuable but my brain does NOT want to do it. In fact, that type of thinking is my brain’s least favourite thing.
It likes to generate all kinds of extra factors and complications and ideas and it wants me to account for EVERY SINGLE ONE so I can PROVE that this goal/plan is the ONE RIGHT WAY to get where I want to go.
Is this helpful?
It is not.
Can I stop my brain from going into that loop?
No, I cannot.
Can I try to find a workaround?
I can try!
In order to work with my brain and ensure that it won’t fight me every step of the way, I have to find a healthy combination of specificity and flexibility – specific enough so that my brain registers the idea as an actual thing that is happening and flexible enough that my brain won’t revolt at the idea of being trapped in a plan that past me made.
And while I bristle at the idea of ‘making the most’ of summer (or of any season or event, really – the pressure! Ugh!) I do like the idea of making each season feel a little different by doing things that feel like they belong in that time of year.
So, to summarize (summer-ize? ha!) I want to do some seasonal things to kind of anchor myself in the moment, I want to have loose plans that help me actually do those things, but I want enough flexibility in those plans so my brain doesn’t get cranky and stubborn.
Here are a few categories of fun/ideas/goals/plans that I am playing with at the moment.
Cycling – I’m looking into buying an ebike but it’s not in the budget quite yet and I also want to make sure that I will actually use it so I am trying to use my regular bike more (and yes, I see the conundrum here – an ebike would increase my likelihood of riding more but…yeah) But the vague goal of ‘use my bike more’ is not helpful so I need to get specific – two 20 minute rides per week for the next three weeks and then reevaluate?
Patio Yoga – I love doing yoga on my patio either in the sunshine or in the evening with the little patio lights on. I want to say that I will start or end each day with yoga on the patio but I also know that I will get thrown off from this plan. So I think I will aim for daily outdoor yoga but with the idea that 3-5 times per week is more likely.
Hiking – I’m not inclined to do long hikes at the moment but perhaps that will change. For right now, I plan to do two short hikes (2 hours or less) in July and 2 in August. At least one of these hikes will involve a picnic and some reading in the middle.
Swimming in a pond – Last summer, I only managed to swim in a pond 2 or 3 times. This year, I am conspiring with a friend to ensure that I am going to *at least* double that.
Hula Hooping – I really *want* to be good at hula hooping but I never practice consistently enough to get the knack. I’m committing to bringing my hoop outdoors with me every time I hang out in my yard to write and I will practice for at least 5 minutes per writing session. Will this help me improve? Maybe, maybe not, but I definitely won’t improve if my hoop stays propped against the wall downstairs.
Deep relaxation – I’m going to follow daily, deliberate relaxation practices and hopefully get some of this lingering stress out of my brain and my muscles. (I know this one isn’t summer-specific but summer is supposed to be relaxing, isn’t it? Let’s say deep relaxation is thematically appropriate )
Sounds like some fun stuff, right?
Specific but not super-detailed?
Now as long as I keep below my brain’s ‘Oh hell, no!’ radar, I’ll have a great time this summer.
The photo below is largely unrelated but it made me laugh all over again a few minutes ago so I thought you might like it, too.
