Just Do It

I feel incredibly good right now because I’ve instigated a few changes that have taken AGES to implement.

It all started yesterday when I went to the gym (yes, the GYM! ME!!) after work. I managed to ignore the intimidating serious workout men (who ended up being very nice and polite really, despite their muscles) and did 6min on the bike and 17min on the treadmill - of which 4min was spent jogging! Not much to most exercise freaks I know, but please keep in mind that I have not exercised since 1991. Boy, was I feeling good!

Then I got home did the laundry, organised a menu and shopping list for next week (to minimise my usual ad hoc shopping which is dependent on what I feel like eating, ending up with loads of ingredients only partially eaten that get thrown away) PLUS I organised my budget, which had been ignored for ages due to the scary imbalance of expenditures to income.

Early days, I know, but already I feel like my life is changing for the better. There’s a very pleasant ache in my legs this morning (does this mean I’ll be able to wear shorts next summer??) and a sense of incredible satisfaction that things are getting sorted.

It really all started during my reading of ‘Failing Forward’ by John Maxwell:

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.

And I realised I’ve been waiting for the motivation to do all these things – getting fit, being more mindful of what I eat and budgeting – and hoping that this mythical desire would one day grip me and empower me to do the things I know I should want to do.

Hang on, I just had a thought. I was motivated by a quote saying to forget about motivation cos it doesn’t work. Hmm, that’s pretty ironic…