Thoughts, Words, Deeds, Habits

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.

― Mahatma Gandhi 

I've been on the fence for TOO LONG (YEARS in fact!) when it comes to exercise. Being in constant pain from an assortment of issues does not help. More activity = more pain. And that is where the entire THOUGHT of exercise begins and ends. It hurts too much. And if that weren't enough, I detest sweating.

I'll be 50 in August, so there's only so much longer (which is to say NOT AT ALL!) I can continue to blame my parents and the poor examples they've set for me about how to "adult." But what to do? 

Currently I've been going for acupuncture, in addition to my regular chiropractic and physical therapy and massage appointments. I decided today to get back on my protein shakes in the morning (instead of waiting for the afternoon--and some days I forget or decide not to have my shake). And UGH, I need to try to hydrate myself more sufficiently, as this no doubt is impacting a lot of things from my blood work being skewed a bit, or my kidneys not flushing out the things it should flush out.

Let it be known: This morning, I decided to have a different approach to exercise, or at least in the ESTABLISHING of a HABIT of exercise. 

I've decided to emulate Kimmy Schmidt with her 10 seconds at a time approach to pain or difficulty:

I've actually used that philosophy at times, give myself a moment, breathe, and ten seconds later, lather-rinse-repeat if necessary. 

Somewhere along the way, I saved an article about Kaizen (the definition of which is "slow, continuous improvement," and I even found some other articles (i.e.) devoted to applying Kaizen in small increments of time, to work towards fulfilling goals. I might not know much about the process, but at its core is making small, manageable changes or sustainable progress towards a goal. 

I have a very short list of what I want to work on in my life: 

1. Exercise more.
2. Find a new job.

Both of these two goals involve tedious work, but if I just "keep at it," chipping away at it daily/weekly, eventually I'll meet my goals. 

In the case of the exercise, I just associate so much unpleasantness along with it, but the reality is, the more I put it off, the less active I am, and the less active I am, the more problems I will have to deal with later as a result. So it's imperative I work at it NOW.

So, this morning, while my coffee was brewing, I hopped on my recumbent bike for five minutes. Five minutes seems a laughable duration. Rome wasn't built in a day. And I know if I push myself by a longer duration or by increasing the resistance on the bike, I know I'll hurt more tonight or tomorrow, and thereby make it more likely I won't get on the bike again any time soon. 

(Full disclaimer: After five minutes on the bike, I also did some stretching with my resistance band and  about 10 pumps on my Thigh Master. Baby steppin'!)

(God I hated "What About Bob," but the one thing they got RIGHT in that flick was the simple idea of baby steps.)


Tonight, I hope to repeat this action, hop on the bike, and ride for 5 minutes. Heck, I might end up riding longer, as I think that watching a TEDTalk while riding my bike, might make the time go quicker, and in the process, I'll be pumping some useful information into my brain.  I enjoy TEDTalks, so perhaps I can end up looking forward to my "5 minutes here, 5 minutes there" routine and sustain it for a while, and hopefully it will become second nature to me and I won't view it as such a chore. PERHAPS. It's a theory at least. Perhaps I can start and end my day with a TEDTalk and bike routine. Let's see how I do tonight with watching the TEDTalk while I bike--I didn't think of "baiting the hook" with a nice reward for WHILE biking. I just thought of this idea just now.

I'm thinking it, and speaking it, and hopefully my words become actions, and my actions become HABIT.  The more active I become now, hopefully will equate to a quicker recovery time when I finally get my knee replacement (later this year). 

My overall objective is to make my NEXT 50 years be the BEST years. Let's just see how tonight goes.