Friday, January 16, 2015

Winter Workouts

My workouts at the beginning of this month:

  • Shoveling snow;
  • Pushing / pulling / dragging Goo in the stroller over unshoveled sidewalks;
  • Wrestling Goo into his snowsuit and boots;
  • Shivering on the train platform.

What have I not been able to make myself do on a regular basis? Get up early and do my strength training and boxing in the basement. Baby, it's cold down there!

The two weeks both before and after Christmas - so four weeks total - were not good ones for me physically. Stress and upset routines led to poor eating and minimal physical activity. By the time I returned to work I felt as if I was just returning from a long illness. And then the extreme cold last week and its impact on our schedules (school closings) kept me from picking up my workouts again, either boxing or running. At the beginning of this week I felt as if I was going to have to come back slowly and carefully if I wanted to avoid getting injured.

Which, as it turns out, is a good thing, as I've been neglecting a few things in my life and need to make time for them. It's a lot easier to fit in other things if I'm starting my workouts from zero! Much harder to be going full-pace the way I was (and loved doing) and then have to "give up" some of that.

That said, I do want to build my strength-training and boxing back up (I plan to cut back on running), and that will be hard since I don't have any external motivators for those right now. But that's about where I was last summer when I stopped taking classes, so I can look at my training logs to see how I did it then. But the real challenge is in finding ways to get myself out of bed in the morning and then downstairs. I'll figure it out, though. Slow and steady... slow and steady.

Grateful for warmer weather,
Annie


Friday, January 9, 2015

Word for the Year: Vision

Some of you may know (or have realized) that I spent a fair bit of time thinking about self-improvement, professional development, etc. A couple of months ago I even went through a 31-day exercise in goal-setting and action steps. So it would make sense that I would have a list of goals for 2015 and plans to implement them.

But all my reading and reflection these past months has led me to a different conclusion. That goals, as worthwhile as they may be in the short-term, aren't really going to help me become the person I want to be. For that I need to look at habits, and consider if there are habits I want to break, or, even more constructively, if there are habits I want to take up.

And to guide me in choosing these habits, I need to think about my visions for the future. What do I hope to have done in ten years? Who do I hope to become?

Other questions, borrowed from Jeff Sanders:

  • Which projects mean so much to you that you would regret not doing them?
  • Which goals would radically change your life more than any other?
  • What have you been dying to share with the world?

And then last year I found it tremendously helpful to think about a word for the year, something short and concrete that could serve as a touchstone as I went about my everyday life, making all those quick, immediate, unceasing decisions that we all make in the course of a day.

I'm sure I don't want to share my list of habits with everyone, and I'm not sure that I feel ready to share my deepest vision for myself either. But in the spirit of all the 2015 resolutions/goals posts out there, I give you my word of the year: Vision. So that I may continue to develop mine, and to view all those habits and goals and decisions with those visions in mind.

What would your word be?

Always growing,
Annie

P.S. While I reference Jeff Sanders above, my two favorite personal/professional development blogs are Leo Babauta's Zen Habits and Seth Godin's Seth's Blog. And I would not have found them without Matt Frazier's No Meat Athlete. Do you have a favorite self-improvement blog or resource?