Stop Waiting til It's Perfect to Start
Good morning, love bug!
I'm up and at 'em early today, heading to take a spin class for one of my 'cross training days.' I'll probably do a bit of weights while I'm there, too.
Quick Note on Working Out vs. Training
I'm honestly loving my training lately and looking forward to my runs -- more than I've looked forward to any workout in a long time. I've always explained to clients there's a huge difference between TRAINING and just working out. When you're training for something, you have a goal in mind that you're working toward, as opposed to just 'working out' with no particular goal (which is OK in some situations, but not very motivating in the long run).
For the longest time I would just 'work out' as a maintenance tool, or even sometimes punishment. I would have to 'earn' what I ate, or use it as a control mechanism if I binged and felt the need to 'undo' everything the next day. But switching my mindset from working out --> training has made all the difference for me!
Before I head off to get my workout in, I wanted to chat about something that's been on my heart...
Don't Wait Until Things are "Perfect" to Start
Mark and I were taking a long walk last night, as we often do after dinner.
I was expressing to him that while I don't feel sad or depressed (I'm actually quite happy with the move and everything going on), I don't feel particularly JOYFUL or HAPPY. I just felt kind of... meh. Flatlined.
I get that this is a normal state for most people and it's OK to not feel jump-for-joy happiness all the time, but seeing as that's how I've trained myself to feel over the past few years, I'm not really a fan of feeling just 'meh.'
He suggested something that rocked my world.
It's advice that I've heard of (and probably said myself) a bunch of times before, but it didn't really resonate with me until last night, when I was ready to receive it.
It's this: don't wait until things are perfect for you to start living your best life.
For the past year or so, I feel like I've been in a 'waiting' stage. When we moved to Texas for 3 months, I had the mentality, "OK, we're only going to be here for a short while. What's the point of putting myself out there, making new friends, going out and having fun? I'll just ride it out and then REALLY get things going when we get to Canada."
This is all subconscious, by the way. Consciously I'm like "JULLLIE. GET OUT THERE. DO YOUR THING GIRL. MEET NEW PEOPLE. HAVE FUN." but when it came time to actually do that I was like, "Meh. Don't feel like it. Moving soon anyway." LOL.
And now, we're living outside of Toronto with hopes of moving into the actual city, and I found myself unknowingly caught in the same mentality.
"Oh I'll just wait until we get our place in Toronto. THEN I'll start taking dance classes. THEN I'll start organizing boot camps. THEN I'll start networking and meeting new friends. THEN I'll start putting myself out there and meeting potential clients and hosting seminars and attending meet ups."
And let me tell ya, folks, the IF/THEN trap is deadly.
It's when you tell yourself IF these conditions are good enough, THEN I can finally be happy.
If I reach my goal weight, then I'll be happy.
Once I make a million dollars, then I'll be happy.
Once I meet the man of my dreams, then I'll be happy.
But here's the thing: what if those things never come because you aren't happy NOW?
I know from experience that one of the primary reasons my body didn't change back in the day when I was starving myself to reach a certain physique goal was because I wasn't HAPPY with where I was at. I was trying to hate/shame my way into change, which almost never produces the intended results.
And the same thing applies to my situation now. If I just wait around to start doing all the things I want to do until we move to our *perfect little apartment* in the city, one of a few things would happen:
1. I'd be bored to tears and try to fill my days with meaningless, unfulfilling work and activities just to 'get me by' for the time being.
2. I'd miss out on the opportunity to meet amazing people and most importantly, have some fun!
Because what do we have to lose, honestly?
What if we dropped the IF/WHEN story and just start living our lives to the fullest BEFORE things were just as we wanted them to be?
What if we could enjoy the journey ON OUR WAY to our destination, instead of having false hope that everything will be rainbows and butterflies once we arrive?
Here's my promise to you: I will NOT waste any more time waiting and wishing for my dreams to come true without putting in the work to make that happen. I'm going to get off my bum, push out of my comfort zone, and live with 100% authenticity and passion, even if I'm not where I want to be at the moment.
Because I know that by doing so, eventually I will get to where I want to be.
Might as well enjoy the ride ;)
xo
Julie