Personal Progress...

I'm not gonna lie.  I kind of hated personal progress when I was a teenager.  It didn't seem important to me, the projects seemed like busy work, New Beginnings was an annoyance.  And yet, here I am at 26 struggling to take control of my life.....I'm trying to institute my own version of personal progress.  Howe humiliating.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about a better way to motivate myself to improve the things that need improving.  I said at the time that it was likely to be the first in a series of, um, (for lack of a better/less cliche phrase) self-makeover posts.  At the time I was thinking my next post would be a continuation of the "I'm great right here, right now" theme.  However, the project I was thinking about at the time isn't happening just now (don't worry, I'll talk about it later).  Instead, I've been thinking today about the "where I want to be" side of things.

Last night I did 10 sit ups.  Just 10.  And then I stopped.  And I am not joking when I tell you that my abs didn't even wait till morning to let me know that they were not excited about that idea even a little bit.

this is how my guts felt.

I texted Kara after I finished: "I just did 10 sit ups and then stopped.  Clearly I am not good at exercise."  She texted back enthusiastically "that's excellent!"  Bless her heart.

But here's the thing.  Between none sit ups and 10 sit ups.......10 sit ups is excellent, if only because it isn't none.  Because even if I only did 10 yesterday, maybe today I'll do 15.  Or maybe I'll just do 11?  But the point is that I'm doing something, and if I start small, well then there's plenty of room for improvement.

the one place we all know will always have room for improvement
also, this is from xkcd.com, in case you live under a rock...

Part of the reason that I never work out is because I think about the prospect and I think about how much work it's going to be and it literally drains me of every ounce of....of anything!  Of desire and energy and good intentions.  (at this point I would like to post the clip of Jim Gaffigan talking about going to the gym, but alas it does not appear to exist on youtube.  so instead I'll tell you to go to netflix and watch both of his specials because they're ridiculously funny, and pay special attention to the part about the gym).  Anyway, I think this is because I assume that if I work out it is going to have to be super maximum hardcore and intense and I'll have to spend so much time on it and it will make me want to kill myself.  As I explained to Kara, the evening we spent making and gorging on poorly executed yet nonetheless delicious and fattening candy, I have never yet experienced the so-called "runner's high".  That is to say--I don't appear to have a body that releases endorphins when I work out.  I get exactly nothing from the experience except exhaustion and misery.  I'm not hyperbolizing for rhetorical effect.  I feel like shit after I exercise, and all I want to do is die.

ah grumpy cat...you never fail me

But I realized last night that when you're as out of shape as I am.....well, maybe starting with 10 sit ups is a perfectly good idea.  In my defense, I want you all to imagine not just that you're doing normal sit-ups, but that you're doing them with a 10 to 15 pound weight sitting on your chest.  Not to mention, you have the abdominal muscles of a 3 year old with stomach flu.  But the point is that I realized that...I could stop at 10.  It was something, but I didn't have to keep going till I hated life and wanted someone to punch me in the face to distract me from how much I hated it.  And more importantly, I stopped before I became overwhelmed at the impossibility of doing this insanity to myself more than one random night in my life.

And one last thing....even if I don't do 10 sit ups tonight, or 15, or 11, or whatever...I will do them tomorrow and that's ok.  Or if I do them tonight, but not tomorrow, that's ok too.  If you fail on any given day all it means is...well, nothing.  Tomorrow is, as Scarlet O'Hara says, another day upon which any previous days have no bearing.  I won't get overwhelmed and I won't get discouraged.  It's funny how cliches are cliche for a reason.