When Procrastination Sets In...

We all have those mornings...the mornings where you wake up and you think "I'm going to get up...in...oohhh, 5 minutes." 10 minutes go by and you think it again, "I promise I'm going to get up in 2 more minutes..that's it! 2 more minutes". That's how I feel every. single. morning. It never fails. The trick is listening to that voice in my head or ignoring it. Lately...or for the past 25 years, I've listened to it more than ignore it. Today I decided to stop. Oh sure, it's not going to be a 100% turn around and I'll have the days when that little voice of procrastination wins over, but I'm just so tired of the excuses.

Last night around 8:15 (I kid you not) I fell asleep on the couch. So when I woke up around 8:45 I was like, "Dude, I'm going to bed and I'm going to wake up at 5:00 and go for a 4 miler". It felt great going to bed so early...but of course once I knew I was going to be waking up at 5:00 it took my mind about 45 minutes to quiet down enough for me to fall asleep. Then I woke up a few times completely drenched in sweat to the point that I almost thought I might be sick. My theory for this is that Steve likes it about 75-78 degrees in the house when he's sleeping. Whereas I can't sleep unless the thermostat is set to closer to 69-70 degrees. Naturally, since I went to bed so early, it was Steve's job to turn the thermostat down. So anyway, I woke up at 4:58. God, that's early. I quickly grabbed my phone, turned off the alarm, and laid back in bed deciding my next course of action.

Here were my thoughts (I am not crazy. I know you guys have the same quiet conversations with yourself when you're deciding to get up or to push snooze about 10 times, don't deny it):
"Do I get up? I could go back to sleep for another hour and a half. That would be nice. What if I am getting sick? Steve's been fighting something for a few weeks now. What if I got whatever he has? It might be better for me if I do rest...But I don't feel sick...Ok, ok...just think about it. Dude! You signed up for a friggin' 10k! Get your a$$ out of bed!! You're not doing yourself any favors by making excuses. Just get out of bed and put your workout clothes on, get your contacts put in, put your ipod on your arm, shoes on your feet and go! You'll feel so much better once you do".

This thought process lasted a whole 15, almost 20 minutes. Finally, I got up. I can't keep making excuses or I'll never get anywhere. I even left Steve in bed (since he's been sick) and went by myself (of course, I took Anna with me).

Basically, the point of this post is for me to see that I just LOVE to self sabotage. I did it with applying for a job at schools. I do it with working out. I do it with just about everything in my life. So what do I do to conquer that? First of all, I get up when I don't want to. Who LIKES getting up at 5:15 in the morning? I sure as heck don't. Who LIKES getting out of their comfy beds? Not me. Who LIKES or ENJOYS setting a goal and never achieving it? That's not my style.

So here I am. 4 miles later, as well as 4 hours later, proud of myself for getting my lazy a$$ out of bed and running when I really, really, really didn't want to. Naturally though, once I started running...ok, who am I kidding, about 1 mile into my run, I felt great. It took way too long to hit my stride and to not feel like turning around, but once I did I. was. running (said like Forrest Gump). I jammed out to whatever was playing on my iPod, I said "good morning" to fellow nutzo's out there also working out when the sun still hasn't touched the skyline.

I guess I'm also posting this for people who think it's not possible what I'm doing. I'm posting this because I know I can't be alone in my feelings of, "I could just put this workout off until..." and then that "until" never comes, or when it does it's 2 months later and you have to build back up to where you were in the first place. Seriously, my "until" has been practically my whole life. I'm tired of making the excuses. I'm tired of the self loathing that happens when I decide not to go for that run or not to go for a stupid little walk with my dog or not to go the FREE flippin' gym that's seriously a 2 minute walk from my apartment. There's no excuse for it. There's no excuse for letting myself go from an almost size 6 to a size 12. Luckily, it's whenever I hit this point that I re-evaluate where I'm at and decide to start working out again. Right now, I've made it back down to the 8...would be perfectly happy if that's where I stayed, but kind of hope with all this running that somehow my middle gets whittled down just a little bit.

When I have days like this, it makes me wonder why I couldn't be a good personal trainer. I think I could do it. I think I'd be really good at it, too. You know why? Because I know what it's like. I know what it's like to not be able to lift weights. I know what it's like to not be able to run a single flippin' lap around a track. I know what it's like to yo-yo diet/weight/motivation, I know what it's like to finish a workout and be on cloud 9 because oh. my. gosh. I just ran for 3 whole minutes on the treadmill! I mean, seriously. There are these people out there who are personal trainers who've never been there. They don't know what it's like to be unmotivated, to not know what's healthy to eat and what's not healthy. My momma wasn't raised to cook us healthy meals. All throughout my childhood I remember fish sticks, personal pot pies, huge hamburgers, big helpings of spaghetti, pancakes fried in oil. I think it's the people who can identify with others that are the most successful. So maybe that's a calling. It certainly isn't an unattainable goal.