I hear imaginary crickets as I realize that no one is surprised by this.
The real surprise is in how many different ways I’ve cataloged my inconsistencies.
- My constant battle with my weight. Although I have worked out since I was 20, I have very seldom sustained any workout beyond a few months. Then I would find myself going back. Last year, when I visited my physician, I told her that I have done almost every workout in the book: yoga, swimming, kickboxing, water aerobics, aerobic training, track walking, weight training. And I've tried every method of motivation: paying for it, enlisting friends for wake up calls or as workout partners, pinning inspirational phrases/pictures. Look at the latest trend:
- Cize. Out the eight video sequence, I made it to #2. And this was after staying on video #1 for two weeks, then doing the 2nd about 4 times in another 2 weeks.
- Kettle Bell. I may have picked each of them (I have one at work and at home) up a grad total of four times.
- The elliptical. By far, one of my most successful endeavors, meaning I can do it for about 3 months consistently.
- Insert latest diet craze here.
- South Beach.
- Calorie Count.
- Jug of water per day.
- 40-day fast. I'm not going to lie, each one of these that I did gave me good results, especially when I started mixing them with exercise. And each of them gave me a better eating lifestyle than I'd previously had. But again, the goal was some kind of consistency. How come I can't sustain them is a question I constantly ask. I would be okay if I could just be one of those people who could take a weekend break from the wagon. But not only do I fall off it, I jump with a tuck and roll and sprint away from it, usually to the nearest restaurant.
- Writing.
- My book. I've started and stopped so many times I feel like I’ll be 90 before I actually finish it. The bad part is that I am SO CLOSE.
- This damn blog. Just trying to cultivate the habit of writing something EVERY SINGLE DAY is causing my brain to rebel. I've heard my self tell myself to write on Wednesday. And myself responded back to my self, I'll write later. And while I did indeed write later, it wasn't to blog, but to get my articles done, and I didn't even do much of that.
Okay, so those are only 2 things, but they seem to encompass so much of my stop and start life. Yet there are other things. For instance, I may start a project and never pick it back up. I didn’t even keep with organizing my calendar thanks to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I thought was the most helpful book ever. I had even practiced expressing gratitude on a daily basis through a Facebook group, and I was proud of that…and then it fell apart.
Believe it or not, I am not using this blog as a platform to berate myself. I’ve done okay in life. One thing I do manage to complete is reading. The only problem with reading is that there is SO MUCH out there to read that it makes it hard for me to ever whittle down my To Be Read Lists--any of them. Let's put it this way: for every one book I read, I manage to add 6 to the list (a topic I'll discuss in another blog). I do pretty well following timelines in my teaching too, although I leave as much room as I can for flexibility. And as I've admitted before, the freelancing is helping me be more steady with following deadlines.
There's always room for improvement. The old GI Joe cartoon slogan was "Knowing is half the battle." Now I just have to battle the other halves.
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