Starting from less than nothing

TaliaCoon wrote: »

Hello, I need some advice and I'm going to be blunt about it so please bare with me. This is far from the first time I've been on here and all other times I've failed spectacularly.

I've spent the past decade of my life being incredibly inactive and eating a terrible diet. Always saying I want to change but never actually putting in the effort. I feel overwhelmed with just how much I need to change in my life, it's like having to climb mount Everest with no help and equipped with only a toothpick.

The difference this time is that I have found something I desperately want to do and it's opened my eyes to how bad I've let it get and really given me the kick in the butt I need.

I want to learn Aerials specifically pole (yes judge away I don't care) and the Lyra hoop. I walk to and from work daily and I've started doing yoga to improve my flexibility and my knees hurt, my wrists hurt, I shake just trying to hold myself up, simple positions outright hurt. I feel pathetic.

What can I do? Where do I start? I'm determined to do this but I'm so overwhelmed and I've got no friends in this with me. I'm sorry for how long and wierd and whiny this post is but I wanted to give you a clear idea of where I'm at and where I want to be and get whatever advice I can so thank you for getting through it if you did abd any advice is extremely appreciated.

I'm going to be blunt right back atcha . . . and hope you'll understand I mean it in the kindest possible way, as if I were your concerned internet auntie (because, at age 63, I'm plenty old enough to be that).

A lot of the most worthwhile and rewarding things are hard. The implication is that achieving them requires patience and persistence, because progress will be slow. There can be great rewards along the way, but one of the very greatest is the visceral (not just intellectual) understanding that you can achieve nearly any goal, if you're willing to put in the time and work, patiently and persistently. Once your gut really gets that, it will be the biggest imaginable tool in your happy-life toolkit.

Personally, by nature, I'm kind of a self-indulgent flake, not very disciplined, not very patient. But there have been a few times when I decided I really wanted something, something that I had utterly no talent for at all. So I got engaged, started wherever I was (which was frankly pretty pathetic and incompetent, typically), and chipped away at learning and improving . . . painfully slooooowwwwwllllly. I would watch new people show up to do it, people who were way more talented, people who picked it up way faster than I could. Most of the time, they lost interest, faded away. I just kept chipping away, and slowly got better. Eventually, I was better than most of those talented people who brought more skills to the table, because they gave up, and I didn't.

The few people who have talent plus patience and persistence are going to be stars, of course. But those who have patience and persistence, but little/no raw talent, can become solid performers and quite successful at things, by just doggedly chipping away at improvement. Most people give up, talented or no. Just don't give up. It's magic.

So, you are on the right path. You want to do aerials, pole, lyra hoop. You know that you need to get stronger, you know that you need to improve nutrition. You're taking action, starting with walking and flexibility. That's how it starts. Progress will be gradual: Faster at times, slower at times, but rarely as fast as you might wish. If you keep going - which is not always easy - and keep making progress, you'll be able to do those things, less well at first, but then better and better.

In a few years, you can be the person new people are looking at, and wondering if they'll ever be able to do what you're demonstrating at that moment.

All you have to do is stick with it: Easy . . . but not easy.

Best wishes for much success! :flowerforyou: