This week culminated in a pure crisis of motivation yesterday morning when, around 7:00, I suddenly decided I just wasn’t going to work out. I just couldn’t.
photo credit: ant.photos
This came hot on the heels of Wednesday night’s slump (Oh, I’m so tired — I can’t do more than 20 minutes of cardio…) and certainly has psychological and physical ties to Tuesday night, when I couldn’t fall asleep until about 2:00 a.m.
I’ll probably get into details leading up to the crisis, and the emotions involved (I am a therapist after all), but for now it’s enough to know that the crisis was diverted from becoming much bigger.
Here are the steps from my Preparation Stage that I drew upon to identify and head off the problem as soon as I was able:
- 1.4: Self-talk and visualization
- 1.5: Set my focus
- 1.7: Journaling
- 2.4: Sleep schedule
- 4.1: Select a few supportive friends to be my safety net (and reached out to them)
Active steps I took to prevent the problem from becoming bigger:
- Mentioned my concerns to Supportive Female Friend, even though we didn’t have enough time to really talk about it.
- Called Supportive Male Friend, left a message saying I needed him and to please call me back ASAP.
- Reviewed my focus, my journal, and my visualizing.
- Arranged to get an extra hour of sleep last night.
Here are the results from the steps I took:
- Supportive Male Friend called back and let me open up, admit my mistakes, and express my fears and concerns. He talked about his experiences (he also exercises 2 hours/day — enjoys walking to and from work) with motivation and asked hard questions. I didn’t shy away from the questions, which I’m proud of, because they stung a bit. In the end, he was right. How much do I want this, anyway?
- Supportive Female Friend called this morning at 6:20 to offer support and make sure I was exercising. Even though we hadn’t had a chance to get into details about anything yesterday, she was still loving enough to follow up and show her support. That was pretty amazing.
- I set a new focus based on these conversations and then got back to work.
What’s fascinating to me is that last night, for the first time, someone outside of my support network mentioned to me that I looked thin. Timing is everything.