I confronted a harsh, harsh reality this morning. All the changes I am working to implement in my life may take a while.
I wasn’t expecting any of these things to happen overnight, but, well, I was kinda hoping.
This reminds me of something I heard on an Eben Pagan video (and I paraphrase), “what does everyone want? They want to go to bed fat, wake up thin, go to bed poor, wake up rich, go to bed single, and wake up with a gorgeous person next to them, and they don’t want to do any work to make it happen”.
I’m need to back up my story now. I have started a new workout this week, combining body weight exercises (squats, pushups, etc) with sprints. Essentially, I am giving High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) a shot.
I have being doing this every day this week, and this Wednesday morning I stepped on the scale after showering up after my run.
I was a bit pissed off that I didn’t lose 10 pounds in the last two and a half days. In fact, I hadn’t lost any weight. What the hell? I have been working hard, I am sore, my foot hurts, I have been eating this healthy food instead of frozen pizzas. My metabolism should be supercharged and have burnt off all the fat by now. What gives?
I was a little crushed. It may sound stupid, but this seriously was a blow. I started to think all those devilish thoughts like, “I can’t do this”, and “I’m no good”, and “I’ll never accomplish anything”. This is all the usual crap that goes on in my head that never gets me anywhere.
Somehow, I made it out of this. I think it was a simple thought that saved me, which was, “all this crap I’m thinking does nothing to help me kick ass.”
(I am giving this whole kicking ass thing a shot)
I got up, walked over to the white board on my bulletin wall, and wrote:
KICKING ASS WON’T
HAPPEN OVERNIGHT
Once it was written out for me, in plain site, it made a little more sense.
Progress is made up of many small, incremental steps, not one giant step that takes place instantly, and magically changes everything. This, to me, is the hardest part about any game plan that involves change. This is the greatest enemy of progress, and the greatest resistance to change.
Keeping this in mind, I looked at my morning in a new light. I made one of the many steps along the way to this change. The changes I am working towards will happen if I keep this up. It is just a matter of time.
I’ll make that step again tomorrow, and Friday, and over the weekend too. I’ve got plenty of time, in fact, time is the one thing I have the most of.
The trick is in choosing how to spend that time.