The "Battle of the Mind"

MarshallCroft

The "Battle of the Mind:"
This is the hardest part of all, getting your mind in tuned to SUPPORT your constructive fitness goals, making physical fitness and nutrition as part of your daily life, not thinking of it as a nuisance. It’s amazing how bad habits consume your life, and how gradual they get stronger, to the point when you don’t even notice them, until you want to change them for better habits.
Like a frog not jumping out of slowly boiling water, that’s how bad habits creep up and, well… Sometimes, it’s like an “innocent seduction” that goes out of control and you wind up out of shape and unhappy over a span of years (different for everyone) simply by being seduced and distracted by those same bad habits. Sometimes, in finally making up your mind, you find that you’ve just lived in your own personal hell (fitness-wise, and figuratively), realizing all the other times you’ve tried and failed at attempts to get in better shape, that those same seemingly minor bad habits have ruled over you. And then you also realize how hard it is to stop those habits, or even change them.
Most people give up then and there, already believing that s/he can’t change no matter how hard they try. The few, the exceptional, are those that continue the drive regardless of what her/his mind projects. S/he knows that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel (without the train coming at you, the train is that habit/habits that push you further away from your goals). The exceptional burn through the negative thoughts that are generated by the mind to support those bad habits, regardless of what those thoughts may be. Those thoughts are different for everyone. The exceptional are NOT ONLY mindful of this, but they also start working out before the mind convinces them not to exercise (or eat these pastries, because it’s okay just this one time, or it’s not going to matter if you eat this now or later but you will). The exceptional understand that the negativity generated by the mind is nothing more than attempts to derail progress. The exceptional understand that SOME, maybe not all, but SOME of those bad habits can be substituted without much of a fight. The exceptional understand that sometimes, s/he just needs a little theme music to help burn through workouts and changing that music periodically helps to stay on track.
So I got up this morning thinking about how my mind is supposed to be my best friend, and, well, MINE!! It should be supporting me in any way I see fit. I thought about how many times I sabotaged myself with thoughts that convinced me not to work out “today,” which reminded me about all those other times that same thought occurred just at the right moment to literally convince me not to exercise or eat junk or whatever else that derailed me countless times from achieving my fitness goals over the years.
I got fired up this morning, and told myself I’m going for a jog with the promise that I’ll have a great burning workout after work today (exquisite pain) just for the hell of it. The thought in my mind then changed to “Go Forth and Conquer!” I used a Tabata Timer this morning for interval Jog-run in my .5 mile loop neighborhood. I jogged/ran for 30 minutes just for the hell of it and it felt good. Yeah, can’t WAIT for my late afternoon session. It’s going to be at least 2 hours long! My intention is to “burn the ‘tired’ out.”