I’ve written about my fitness goals here before and many of you already know that I made a promise to myself to do at least 20 minutes of walking on the treadmill every day.
I have an appointment with myself every morning, and amazingly, I am able to keep it. This appointment includes:
- A GREAT cup of coffee.
- 30-minutes with my Litebook.
- A healthy breakfast (it’s the same thing every morning so it’s a total no-brainer).
- Treadmill time.
Well, everything was going fine up this morning until the last thing on my list. For some reason it was a real struggle to get on that treadmill and do those 20 minutes. As I slogged along I thought about why it was so hard – today of all days. After all, I’ve been doing this for over a year. I’m not sick. I had a decent night’s sleep. I ate breakfast. So what the hell is my problem?
It was my mood. I wasn’t in the mood to do this very simple task, and my mood became a huge barrier to getting it done. When I really think about it, the idea of “mood” as an obstacle is not something new. I’m frequently not “in the mood” to cook dinner or go grocery shopping, but I’m able to do those things because other people rely on me to do them. And if I don’t do them my family might starve. Or at the very least, I’d have to put up with their complaints, and I don’t want that.
Here’s the thing, moods aren’t real. Not really. It’s not like I’m a marathon runner who is suddenly faced with an impossibly high wall across her path. Mood is not a wall, it is a curtain. A sheer curtain at that. It may appear to be in my way, and it might even be blocking my view of the path, but it’s not impassable. I have the power to push it aside and move forward.
So there I was, stewing about all of this while watching the time tick slowly by on the treadmill when this article by Leo Babauta appeared in my feed: What You Can Say Instead of “I Don’t Feel Like It.” It was exactly what I needed and it solidified a lot of ideas that have been floating in my head of late. Maybe it will help you today too?
