My year of exercise
So. This time last year I set myself the somewhat ambitious goal of exercising every single day of 2017.
It’s now a full year later, and I hear you ask “how did you go?”. Well, I’m pleased to say that I actually did pretty well. I did indeed do some form of exercise almost every single day. The ‘almost’ refers to a few bouts of sickness (I figured it was okay not to exercise if I was bed ridden or suffering a vomiting bug), and there were two days where I got to the point of almost dropping off to sleep before realising that I had completely forgotten about it. Bah! On those two days I let myself off the hook.
The more interesting thing is how this form of motivation (setting a goal and making it publicly available to anyone who stumbled across it, and also sharing it with my friends/family on facebook) worked when all other forms of motivation had failed in the past. There would be times where I would get to the end of the day and realise I still hadn’t exercised and be like “Nooooooooo I don’t WANT to do this!”. But I had to. Cause that’s how it felt. Like, well, like there was no choice about it. I just had to.
When I was a lot younger, I used to have the willpower to make myself do anything no matter how hard it was. If I set myself a goal, then there was no way I could let myself down. But over the years, this determined perserverance has dwindled, and is sadly no longer the case. So to get to a point again where I would literally have to do something, felt pretty powerful.
I’ll be honest, the exercise I was doing was wide, varied, and not always very hard core. In fact there were some days where I was absolutely shattered and all I could manage was a 10 minute yoga session. I even had a few days where I went for a ‘run’, but it was only round the house. Ie, a combo of skipping, dancing and jogging inside! (As a side note, woah, skipping with a rope is HARD! I’m sure I found it easy as a kid, but now I’m like a complete unco about it).
I mixed it up between swimming, running, yoga, pilates, lots of cycling, my 7 minute high intensity workout app, and the odd burst of vigorous DIY like gardening, building or shifting house. There was no regular time of the day that I exercised — I would do it at any time, but very rarely first thing in the morning — more often early arvo or evening.
As the year wore on, a small thought wormed through my brain. What would happen on the 1st of January once my public goal was done and dusted? Would I just stop? I certainly didn’t feel like it was a habit, even after a whole year. it wasn’t like one of those things where I would automatically get my running shoes on first thing in the morning and be out the door before my brain had time to engage and try and stop me, so would I be able to keep it up?
I started to worry that by the time the new year ticked over, I would suddenly be back to the situation I was in before, where if I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t. And you know, when new years eve arrived, I still had no idea how I would act the following day.
The next day, after a slow start, I had a window of time to myself. And the first thing that popped into my mind was that I should go for a run. Relief! So it turns out there was some habit built up! The habit wasn’t borne from being a specific thing at a specific time daily, but instead it was that every day I would have to think to myself “what exercise shall I do today, and when is the best time to fit it in”. Turns out, bedding in that habitual thought is a pretty powerful thing in and of itself.
So, it’s now the 4th of January, and here’s where I’m at; I’m going to continue exercising every day. But I’m going to give myself a few passes for those days that are just too hard and too awful to contemplate doing anything exercise-like. I started to think maybe one pass a week? And they can accrue? But that’s, like, 52 days! That feels like a massive number — maybe I only need half that or less?
Sooo, I haven’t agreed on a system yet, but I plan on keeping the pressure on. And yes, that will mean still doing it when I really, reeeeally don’t want to. But the thing is, if I want to have any sort of a decent life as I age, with my kids, at work, in sport, and in fact all aspects of life that involve my mind and body, then exercise is not just a nice to have — it is a MUST have.
And this year: 2018. What ambitious goal am I going to set for myself this time? Well I’ve decided I’m going to try the process again but this time it’ll be to write something every day. Doesn’t have to be long, or even any good, and it certainly doesn’t have to be public or in any way published. But it has to be something that I can say I have written for the purpose of writing (ie just sending emails through the course of my normal work day wouldn’t count.
Let’s see how this one goes eh? Here’s my first start!
x
