Make it work for you

One thing that is true; you are the one who must put the work in. You are the one making it happen, the one putting in the hours, sweating through the discomfort. You are the one making sure to eat right, sleep right and do all the things you need to make it happen.

It’s important to have discipline and enjoy the process, but the goal to be fit and healthy is a lifetime one, there isn’t necessarily a point where you have arrived. So how do we take this list of things we must do to be happy and healthy, and structure it in a way we can continue to put that effort in sustainably?

Cardio is important, but you hate running. What about hiking? It might be leaving your running gear ready at the door or maybe its riding to work instead of driving? You are the one getting it done, so how do you want to do it?

Tracking your food is a great way to learn about your nutrition, but you hate MyfitnessPal and find it annoying. Does keeping an excel document work better for you? Or maybe busting out the markers and a new journal is what works.

Lifting weights is an amazing activity you can do for your health. But you are kind of bored with it. Well there is an almost endless way you can approach lifting weights and a myriad of different goals you can have for it. Which one brings back that spark?

A part of discipline is doing something whether you want to or not, but it is also not mindlessly ordering yourself to do something because that is what you are supposed to do. Too much of this and it all starts to feel like a chore, or a supposedly important task we should be doing but aren’t really sure why, while also beating ourselves up for not doing.

In this time of Covid lockdowns it is even more important. The usual tools and resources aren’t there, we can’t do things how we would normally like. Applying brute force to this problem and telling ourselves to just do it may be met with varying degrees of success.

So, the question is, how do make it all work for you?