The best time to adopt a better lifestyle

I have this theory that the timers on cardio machines were developed in Hell. They operate slowly in order to extend your torture and agony. There is no way that twenty minutes on a treadmill is the same as twenty minutes in real time. It’s some sort of Hellish cosmic joke where we’re all victims of this never-ending hoax. And then, to add insult to injury, we keep on returning to gym.

Sometimes I get the better of the hoax and avoid the gym. But then I get sucked in again. And the agony is always worse once you return after a break.

You know that feeling when you are sweating it out and you need to distract yourself from what you are enduring? I was on the rowing machine at gym, looking out the large glass windows at the trees on the surrounding hills. The beautiful colour of the changing colours of Autumnal leaves captured my attention.

There was one tree that really caught my eye. The changing colours were incredible. Perhaps it stood out so predominantly because the forest behind it was still green. Even in Nature, things grow and develop at different times.

So it was okay that I was only on the rowing machine in May, my first real attempt to kick-start what should have been New Year’s resolutions. If trees can adapt to the seasons at different rates, so can we.

I had been beating myself up (not literally – that would be too excessive even for me) about the fact that it had taken several months for me to get my A into G. I realised that ‘should’ often involves undue criticism. We worry about what we should be doing, what we should look like, what we should be earning, and when we should achieve all this.

But that just focuses on the negative and fosters criticism of ourselves and others. It’s not about a specific date. It doesn’t matter when you start. So what if I only got back on track with a healthy lifestyle in May? The point is that I have. Who cares when I will get to the level of fitness that I once reached? The point is that I will at some point. Hell, I might even surpass it.

So when is the best time to adopt a better lifestyle? It’s not about when. It’s not even really about how. It’s about developing a habit organically because you enjoy the process. And that is what my next post is all about: the truth about developing new habits.

When did you do something later than you ‘should’ have, only to realise the irrelevance of the timing and your self-criticism?

Avoiding reverse gear (and preferably not stripping the gearbox)

You know that feeling when you’re running enthusiastically, all is going well, and then out of nowhere you land flat on your face? I do. (Apart from the running effortlessly part. That never happens.) Sometimes I feel like my life is like that.

So those of you who read my previous post about pink jellytots and other hire cars will know that for two weeks I have to drive a mobile air raid siren that had the reverse gear where I’d expect the sixth gear to be. So basically every time I am about to slide into sixth out of habit, I have to prevent myself from stripping the gearbox. My life is like that too.

Sometimes everything seems to be going so well. It’s like the universe is smiling down on me. Everything falls into place. Everything is as I want it to be. I seem to be approaching the next level of fulfillment but as I try to get to that next gear, I find myself in reverse with the danger of causing extensive damage (to my mental wellbeing that is).

You’d think that after many years of going through life’s ups and downs I would be used to it. Not so much. I still feel frustrated, angry, and depressed when I hit a ‘down’. Especially if it’s a long fall from the ‘up’. On the other hand, I still enjoy the intoxicating exhilaration of life’s good times. It’s just a matter of prolonging the ups and minimising the downs.

Perhaps the key is to be conscious of where you are, and avoid anything that might precipitate a down. Much like I have to remind myself on a daily basis (for two annoying weeks) that when I’m in fifth I need to stay there, and consciously avoid any movement towards reverse. You need to find what moves you backwards in your life, and consciously avoid it in order to move forward.