A Shift in Focus

I had to buy coffee at my our 3% meeting today (that's what Marty, Brett and I call our weekly career-life meetings). But that's okay. I switched up my goals this week to cut down on my overwhelmed factor. To use one of Joni's phrases from Mary Kay, "I've got a lot of life going on." It's all good stuff.

So I'm going to break it down into doable chunks, do daily meditation, eat my meals more consciously, commit to FOUR weight training sessions and FIVE walking sessions this week. I'll just do my best. I read in Juli's blog that she has a much-loved training log. I keep a journal, but I don't keep an official record of "my workouts." I've only been weight training for a few weeks and just jotting the date and reps right into the book w/ the exercises. And my walking I keep a running tally in my head (like I do my checkbook), and I never forget how far I walk, because I have to map on the computer and that makes it stick. BUT I like the idea of getting in the habit of keeping an official training LOG because I fully expect to progress at much more rapid rate. (I DO keep very good business records and now that I think of it, will keep even better personal finance records, too.)

I'm going to label it training log and call what I do working out instead of practicing walking, my back exercises, or any other apologetic term that pretty much says, "I'm not really working out." Because I don't actually believe in living my life by comparison, but the reality of that kind of phrasing is that there is an underlying thought that I have that because my workouts would not be strenuous to somebody else then it's not "real." And that's not the kind of thinking I like to encourage in myself. I like to run my own race and go my own way, but I have to say my confidence in the physical arena and my own ability to correctly assess what it is I can do has been shaken in the last few years. I'm not regretting or apologizing or beating myself up for having these thoughts, I've just go to the point where I can see them and act on them differently.

The most important thing is to put my focus on embodying fitness now instead of recovering from injury. I feel the shift has arrived at the exact right moment as this kind of stuff generally does.

PS If I ever put the phrase--my workouts--in quotes again, remind me to knock that stuff off. Since the shift is literally taking place as I was writing this, I'm leaving that last self effacing quotation marks in there for posterity. :)