In my heart, I bristle at routine. Yet, I crave routine. Thus, I’m always arguing with myself. I have a pre-set event every Wednesday at
7:00 p.m. I spend most of Wednesday
afternoon trying to convince myself of reasons I can provide for missing the 7:00
p.m. event.
Every Wednesday I attend the 7:00 p.m. event. After the event, I think of how fortunate I
am for having attended that very day and had I missed it, I would be so very
regretful.
I’ve also had, for a number of years, one of the pedometer,
sleep monitor, heart rate monitor bands that are so popular. When I first got the band, I walked around my
neighborhood faithfully. Then I fell out
of that routine for quite some time.
I’m
working to get back into the routine. I’ve
even found myself adding step to my day or looking absolutely silly while
walking/dancing in place in my office in order to meet a goal set for the
number of steps by a certain time of the day!
1.
Keeping
up with my status has proven helpful to me in establishing (or re-establishing)
a routine. I’ve learned that when I lack
a status knowledge, it is like nailing warm pudding to a tree. I just ooze everywhere with no
direction! So, I am now glancing at my
band more often, syncing it with my iPhone app more often, and keeping the
steps at the front of my mind.
2.
Setting
realistic goals/efforts has made me more motivated. Everyone talks about a specific level of
minimum steps to get in a day. I was
getting way, way fewer (then discovered my band was not functioning properly)
and falling short day after day made me feel like a balloon spewing around the
room until it is out of air. I just lay
around deflated!
Then one day, the Under
Armor app sent me a little note that said “women in your age category usually
get XYZ number of steps per day on average.”
Because that number was lower than what everyone talks about, I realized
I wasn’t the only person missing that magical level (silly, I know) and I felt
I now had a more realistic goal to shoot towards.
3.
Do little
things such as just trying to move more this hour or by the end of the
morning, I will have stepped at least 1000 steps helps me have larger gains in
achievement. When I think of the huge
number by day’s end, I get overwhelmed and shut down but when I think, I can
get 300 steps by taking a quick walk around the outside of my building, then
those little numbers add up more quickly than I realized.
I’m learning that these three little tricks also help me in
other ways. I was thinking about this
blog and I told myself I needed to write something every day. Silly me, I should have known that setting an
unrealistic effort such as that would shut me down! What did I do? Nothing.
I shut down. Duh! So instead, I thought-what if I establish a “new
post by every Tuesday” as an effort?
Could I do that? And yes, yes I
can!
I also have challenged myself to stop handwriting everything
(and I do mean EVERYTHING-imagine dissertation) and begin composing more
electronically.
This will be a mental
adjustment for me but you know what? I’m
going to:
1.
Keep my status visable
2.
Set a realistic effort/goal for myself
3.
Do something small each day
Then I believe I should be able to achieve my “post by
Tuesday” each week. Let’s see how I do!
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