24th October 2017
So yesterday I was very demotivated and the last thing I wanted to do was exercise. But today I feel the opposite! I’m assisting with a research project at university with a researcher, and I met her this morning to discuss ideas and things that I’d reflected on etc. I think sitting with her really helped to ground me for the day – she’s so lovely, it’s like working with an equal and not a manager who always feels slightly superior to you. So when I came home, I felt intellectually stimulated and ready to work out.
I looked over the routine – a reminder that the app I’m using for my challenge is the 30 day fitness challenge app so take a look and try it yourself, it doesn’t take long each day! They provide instructions for each exercise in case you’re not quite sure what it is. Today I had to do diamond push ups, or rather a lame attempt at them! I had to form a diamond shape with my hands just under my chest, and then press down as though I’m doing a push up. It felt impossible – when I did regular push ups (on my knees) before that I managed to push through about 4 and then I started to feel a real strain as I went down. My upper body is certainly my weak point. Not to put the message out there that it’s an impossible exercise, but for me I’ve found it’s particularly difficult.
I noticed that my frame of mind was more positive today. At one point I had to do 60 leg raises! I got through 15 and paused for about 5 seconds – it burned so much! When I got to 40 I told myself “20 left” and then counted from 1 to 20 rather than 40 to 60 – it almost made it feel less daunting. And although I didn’t pump through them effortlessly, atleast I got moving and did something. That mindset really helped me to push through, and I told myself it’s okay to feel as though it’s hard and you need to take a quick break. Yesterday I was the opposite, and was hard on myself about it. What I’m trying to say is that in reality, we aren’t perfect and sometimes we do have days where we really struggle. And that’s okay. We’d be pretty boring humans if we were perfect!
After the challenge I decided to do 15 minutes of a morning yoga routine by “Yoga with Adrienne” on youtube. She’s a great and welcoming yoga instructor whose videos are never daunting and are specifically tailored to be challenging yet suit beginnners. There are many advanced routines out there that just, in my opinion, have an obnoxious feel to them (maybe that’s just jealousy on my part :P), but Adrienne is brilliant because she focuses on finding what feels good, rather than trying to push through and do the toughest possible variation of a pose. Yoga is a great thing to do after a work out – it’s like an extended and more mindful strecthing and cool down routine which is as much of a psychological practice as it is a physical one.
So remember that when you’re demotivated, “this too shall pass”, and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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Reflecting on well-being. 