MORE things to give up. Stay with me!

Almost done with my #FitFluential related "10 Things you must give up to move forward". Today I share with you my take on items 8 and 3.

Number Eight: Making excuses rather than decisions.

(ring...ring..."hello, kettle? this is the pot. you're black." -Pheobe) I have done this. As recently as today, actually. Yesterday I walked to work. Fresh snow covered the roads combined with my tires that are almost as bald as Robin Tunney's head in "Empire Records" didn't add up to much safety. Before you go giving me kudos for the walk, it is only about 3/4 of a mile. Seriously. During the walk, I had enough time to say to myself that I would now walk to work everyday for the next week. On the way back, I walked nearly a mile in the other direction to get mail, then tagged on about a mile walk though the woods to get back to the house. The weather was great, and it was wonderful to be alone in the woods making fresh tracks in the disappearing daylight.
This morning I woke up with plenty of time to get ready. I sat on the edge of my daybed, stretched my core a bit, then went right back under the covers. I made excuses like, "bah. it is raining out" and "really, how is a 3/4 mile walk going to benefit me, anyway?" So I fell back to sleep. I awoke at the last mintue, rushed through getting ready, and made it to work with 10 minutes to spare. How? I DROVE.
If, instead of making excuses this morning, I had just stuck with my decision to walk every day, I would have been 15 or more minutes early, not rushed, gotten some exercise, and STILL had plenty of time to make coffee in the office.

Number Three: Being indecisive about what you want.
This one plays hand in hand with #8. (side note: anyone remember "The Postman" with K.Costner? love that movie, especially Tom Petty's cameo at the end). I've been famous for this. A running example of this is that in the past I've decided to run a race, trained for a race, then at the last minute decided that no, I'm not going to run the race. I've come up with reasons that range from the very rational (can't afford it) to the not so rational (can't afford it...). This has been very frustration for other people, as they've altered their schedules and plans to accomodate my original decision to race, only to find out a week before the event that I no longer plan to do it. Part of the frustration comes from my lack of communication about my indecisiveness, but that's a topic for another day.
I need to focus on carrying out my decisions once I've made them. No more being wishy-washy.

This new year will see a new me, being MORE decisive and making FEWER excuses. Hell, there are still almost TWO WEEKS left this year. Why wait, right? RIGHT. Starting today, starting NOW, I will be more decisive and make fewer excuses. Boom.

What about you? How do numbers 8 and 3 apply to you?

Another "Top 10" List #Wellness #FitFluential

As my 44th birthday (technically my 45th; seems nobody ever counts their original birthday as 1, as it should be. even though i will be 44 years old, it is technically my 45th birthday) rapidly approaches (unlike the end off this sentence), I have decided to divulge some information about myself based on a list of "10 Things You Must Give Up to Move Forward" which I found on the interwebs that were created by someone much brighter than I am (as indicated by the fact that I cannot recall the source). <~~thought you'd never see that period, didn't you?!

10 Things You Must Give Up to Move Forward
1. Letting the opinions of others control your life
2. The shame of past failures
3. Being indecisive about what you want
4. Procrastinating on the goals that matter to you
5. Choosing to do nothing
6. Your need to be right
7. Running from problems that should be fixed
8. Making excuses rather than decisions
9. Overlooking the positive points in your life
10. Not appreciating the present moment

Worry not, intrepid reader. I will not be going through all of these in one fell blog post. Nope. For your continued reading pleasure I will drag these out for a few posts. Perhaps 3. Or maybe 5. You'll just have to tune in later to find out. Let's jump right in with number

5. Choosing to do nothing
This is, as present, nearly impossible for me to do. I am in motion most of the time, and when I seem idle, my brain is still trying to glom onto at least one or two of the ideas that are flying around in my head. This makes it difficult for me to fall asleep, or to return to sleep should I be lucky enough to awaken during the night.
This past Saturday I chose to try to do nothing of import and drove 30 minutes to go window shopping at stores that are 5 minutes away. My intent was to use the drive time and the different location as a mini-escape. Turns out that it was an impromptu lesson in doing nothing, as I had to stand around and wait 25 minutes for a nice mechanic named Mike to come along and rescue my keys that I had locked in my car for safe keeping. Good times.
In the coming year, I will, unfortunately, have plenty of time do do nothing. Which I will promptly put to use by working out more, being more creative, blogging more, and continuing to chase after that dream of inventing a perpetual motion machine (ok, maybe not that one). Does it count as "choosing to do nothing" if I schedule time to do nothing? I think it does.

As I have used up my comma quota (quotient?) for blogging today I will leave you with this: Which one of those 10 Things do you think would give you the biggest challenge? The least? Start with that one and work your way toward the biggest. I will be.

-Gene-