Letting go and learning to be happily realistic with goals and life
I wasn't sure about sharing this, but am hoping this might be encouraging.
It's been nearly a 2-year, unplanned hiatus from fitness and working out.
It was very hard to become motivated enough to start again after the possibility to work out again finally happened with the start of the new year, especially with realizing how far I'd fallen behind, and how much was left undone which had been planned.
I'd just celebrated a full year of consistently working out with FB every week, and was in the middle of alternating Mass and Abs R2 programs when the world suddenly turned upside down unexpectedly and stayed off-kilter until now.
I missed so much in the past 2 years - so many new workouts, new trainers, new challenges, new programs - it felt so overwhelming and it was tempting to not start again at all.
But, I did...and scheduled the 2-week Pilates challenge along with the 5-day Better Sleep challenge, and suddenly felt stressed and overwhelmed again, feeling like I had to keep up and stick to the schedule and not feeling quite up to the task.
As much as I enjoy the pre-planned format of the challenges and programs, I've realized that at least right now, for me, following a 5 day/week challenge or program is now adding unnecessary stress instead of reducing it as intended. I feel like even 3 days/week is more than enough to attempt to handle right now, and my body definitely agrees.
In seeing how many new challenges there are and how far behind I fell in completing all of the programs and challenges, it became too stressful to have that as a goal anymore.
And as much as I enjoy trying out all the new workouts, and I had been fairly on track to achieve the crazy goal of doing all of the workouts at least once, it is now totally not doable with the amount of new content added weekly, even if aiming soley for the free workouts, despite the urge to keep going for it.
So, I came to the conclusion that each of these goals are really not worth the added stress of aiming for anymore at this poiint, and they have actually become detrimental to the underlying goal of being healthy and having a healthy, balanced life.
As a former, long-time competitive athlete, who's been used to setting high goals/milestones and pushing myself to exceed them no matter what, it's been a slow process of coming to grips with a different reality and in beginning to learn to be okay with a laid-back, non-goal-oriented way of approaching fitness and life.
Rather than seeing this epiphany as a setback or failure, I see it as an area of growth in learning to let go of perfection and stressful/overwhelming goals and constantly striving, and instead learning to focus on the exploration of something new and of the enjoyment of a moment, and learning to enthusiastically embrace positive, realistic non-milestone goals which promote health and well-being without added stress or an overwhelmingly heavy workload.
Somewhere along the journey from childhood to adulthood I lost sight of the fun and the adventure in life and became the overwhelmed, overworked, burned out, boring adult I'd thought I'd never ever possibly become, lol!
So, my resolution for this new year is to let go of all unnecessary "musts/oughts/shoulds" and stressful/artificial/unnecessary goals, and to explore the journey of becoming true to one's real self again - enjoying spontaneity, creativity, fun, and adventure, and shifting priorities and mindset in order to create the conditions for a state of being relatively healthy, happy, and well-balanced overall, and not to sweat the small stuff.
A new, realistic fitness goal is to just move regularly in some way or other, whether FB or outdoors or in daily living, and to do things which are fun instead of forced - if taking the time to do something for health, it's far more effective when it's actually done for fun of it instead of for health (No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness, Michelle Segar), and will be much more likely to happen consistently too.
For FB workouts, the new goal is to only focus on doing the types and length of workouts which are truly enjoyable, rather than forcing myself to complete workouts and programs/challenges for the sake of completion or to tick boxes or because it's supposed to be beneficial.
In reality, I actually don't need to force myself to do any kickboxing or body-weight strength or high-impact HIIT/cardio or static stretching or other training styles which I don't enjoy or which do my body more harm than good at this point.
I am totally free to focus only on the types of workouts I truly enjoy (for FB, currently Pilates, kettlebell, pure strength, and some mobility/yoga), and skip the rest of them without guilt or feeling like I've given up on a goal.
So, I plan to schedule no more than 1-3 FB workouts per week and let go and explore things which spark joy and feel fun, instead of getting stuck in the rut of forcing things and chasing after unnecessary, life-sucking "must dos" and goals.
I very much appreciate FB and all the wonderful, varied content and look forward to continue using the workouts, as desired, in doing whatever helps keep things more fun and freeing.
Here's to a fun, new chapter in the book of life - may it be a good one, lived more wisely and well than the last one!
What are your insights and resolutions for this new year?
Letting go and learning to be happily realistic with goals and life
I wasn't sure about sharing this, but am hoping this might be encouraging.
It's been nearly a 2-year, unplanned hiatus from fitness and working out.
It was very hard to become motivated enough to start again after the possibility to work out again finally happened with the start of the new year, especially with realizing how far I'd fallen behind, and how much was left undone which had been planned.
I'd just celebrated a full year of consistently working out with FB every week, and was in the middle of alternating Mass and Abs R2 programs when the world suddenly turned upside down unexpectedly and stayed off-kilter until now.
I missed so much in the past 2 years - so many new workouts, new trainers, new challenges, new programs - it felt so overwhelming and it was tempting to not start again at all.
But, I did...and scheduled the 2-week Pilates challenge along with the 5-day Better Sleep challenge, and suddenly felt stressed and overwhelmed again, feeling like I had to keep up and stick to the schedule and not feeling quite up to the task.
As much as I enjoy the pre-planned format of the challenges and programs, I've realized that at least right now, for me, following a 5 day/week challenge or program is now adding unnecessary stress instead of reducing it as intended. I feel like even 3 days/week is more than enough to attempt to handle right now, and my body definitely agrees.
In seeing how many new challenges there are and how far behind I fell in completing all of the programs and challenges, it became too stressful to have that as a goal anymore.
And as much as I enjoy trying out all the new workouts, and I had been fairly on track to achieve the crazy goal of doing all of the workouts at least once, it is now totally not doable with the amount of new content added weekly, even if aiming soley for the free workouts, despite the urge to keep going for it.
So, I came to the conclusion that each of these goals are really not worth the added stress of aiming for anymore at this poiint, and they have actually become detrimental to the underlying goal of being healthy and having a healthy, balanced life.
As a former, long-time competitive athlete, who's been used to setting high goals/milestones and pushing myself to exceed them no matter what, it's been a slow process of coming to grips with a different reality and in beginning to learn to be okay with a laid-back, non-goal-oriented way of approaching fitness and life.
Rather than seeing this epiphany as a setback or failure, I see it as an area of growth in learning to let go of perfection and stressful/overwhelming goals and constantly striving, and instead learning to focus on the exploration of something new and of the enjoyment of a moment, and learning to enthusiastically embrace positive, realistic non-milestone goals which promote health and well-being without added stress or an overwhelmingly heavy workload.
Somewhere along the journey from childhood to adulthood I lost sight of the fun and the adventure in life and became the overwhelmed, overworked, burned out, boring adult I'd thought I'd never ever possibly become, lol!
So, my resolution for this new year is to let go of all unnecessary "musts/oughts/shoulds" and stressful/artificial/unnecessary goals, and to explore the journey of becoming true to one's real self again - enjoying spontaneity, creativity, fun, and adventure, and shifting priorities and mindset in order to create the conditions for a state of being relatively healthy, happy, and well-balanced overall, and not to sweat the small stuff.
A new, realistic fitness goal is to just move regularly in some way or other, whether FB or outdoors or in daily living, and to do things which are fun instead of forced - if taking the time to do something for health, it's far more effective when it's actually done for fun of it instead of for health (No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness, Michelle Segar), and will be much more likely to happen consistently too.
For FB workouts, the new goal is to only focus on doing the types and length of workouts which are truly enjoyable, rather than forcing myself to complete workouts and programs/challenges for the sake of completion or to tick boxes or because it's supposed to be beneficial.
In reality, I actually don't need to force myself to do any kickboxing or body-weight strength or high-impact HIIT/cardio or static stretching or other training styles which I don't enjoy or which do my body more harm than good at this point.
I am totally free to focus only on the types of workouts I truly enjoy (for FB, currently Pilates, kettlebell, pure strength, and some mobility/yoga), and skip the rest of them without guilt or feeling like I've given up on a goal.
So, I plan to schedule no more than 1-3 FB workouts per week and let go and explore things which spark joy and feel fun, instead of getting stuck in the rut of forcing things and chasing after unnecessary, life-sucking "must dos" and goals.
I very much appreciate FB and all the wonderful, varied content and look forward to continue using the workouts, as desired, in doing whatever helps keep things more fun and freeing.
Here's to a fun, new chapter in the book of life - may it be a good one, lived more wisely and well than the last one!
What are your insights and resolutions for this new year?