So, I mentioned that I have had some trouble staying on track. This week I purposely did my workouts different days so I wouldn’t be sore when I went to hangout with my girlfriend. The bad part is that this one day I moved my workouts around changed how I was thinking about workouts in general. A weird loss of direction that I have seen myself repeat over and over in countless hobbies. This time I want to think about it some before it causes any real problems to see if that introspection will lead to a resurgence of discipline or insight into the problem.

The first thing that popped into my head when I thought about the timing of my workouts this week was the tops I played with as a kid in my Paupau’s rec room. They were old fashioned wooden tops that you wound up with a string and then held just right on the hard wood table to pull the string and watch the alien twirl of the toy. As I watched them I always loved the moments when they began to wobble. I tried to spot the very first moments of their demise. My workout this week looked to me more like the full shaking back and forth of the top’s death throes.

With that image in mind I realize that I need to ignore any outside influences, any ideas that it is too late in the day or that I am already tired or I have eaten too recently. Like Cobb’s top from Inception I needed to ignore all of reality and rules that might distract me from my beautiful unaging children and just go for it like I haven’t noticed a thing. That is why I just did a workout at 10:30pm, which historically makes it super hard for me to sleep, and is likely why I am writing a blog post instead of sleeping. However I am back on schedule today!

Next week I need to keep this up. Sometimes I let myself come up with all sorts of reasons of not wanting to be sore(I know, that is a pitiful reason) or because other responsibilities come up and I have poor time management. The most dangerous option is to ignore my workouts with the idea that I am doing something more important like meditating or studying for classes in the coming semester. Yes, those ARE much more important, however they are not stopping me from working out and acting as if they are is just insulting myself.

Something I let hold me up over the last year was a stupid idea that I NEEDED certain situations in order to do my workouts, like I needed to set up my gymnast rings or I needed to find a place tall enough for me to hang without my feet on the ground. These were easy things to find, tree limbs and swing sets and problems solved. The issue was that I made excuses. The swing sets were to thick of bars. The tree limbs near my house were either to high or made getting my gymnast rings down a living hell. (A homeless man once went to nighttime construction crews around town to find me a ladder to get down a gymnast ring that accidentally got stuck in a tree.) However thick bars are often sought after, and tree limbs are in abundance if you just ride your bike or drive for a few minutes in ANY direction. I am not stopped by real physical barriers like my diabetes, however little psychological walls can feel like they are thousands of yard tall.

However, right now, I am on schedule. All I have to do, is be on schedule when Monday comes.

Also, because of the inception reference, check it out: http://inception.davepedu.com/