Focus on the Victories

Every morning seems be some kind of challenge. I live in an 18 hour home. Getting to bed at night is often the biggest challenge of the day. So i'll usually go noo-noos around 12 or 12:30. Then my son usually wakes me up at either 3:00 or 5:00 for a bottle. Either way I always wake up in the chair with him at 7 with an aching neck. I put him down and grab a 30 minute snooze. Which I really shouldn't do, but whatever. So I get up with just enough time to get my workout in, get the kids ready and off work. Well, today my body decided to interrupt me right at about the 8 minute mark of my workout. I'll not get into details, but as I was sitting there, all I could think was "I should have just stayed up at 7". I tell myself that EVERY morning, and still haven't done it. My bad. So now I'm running out of time and I'm having a huge crisis. THEN when I get back to my mat, I hit the wrong button on the remote and stopped the dvd. Then I hit the wrong menu item and started the wrong workout. Then when I started the right one (Energy) I found out the my player does not have a real fast fast forward. So all of this is just eating time. I'm watching the clock and I can clearly see that i'm running out of time. Then my mind started getting all logical on me. "You're already running late, might as well just quit now and do it later." Its amazing how many thoughts you can have in just a few seconds, and how many times you can use the word then in consecutive sentences.

It was decision time. I have learned that if I give in to those kind of impulses, its starts a chain reaction which never winds up ending well. So I just doubled down and decided that there is something else I can sacrifice to get that 5 or 7 minutes accomplished on the floor of my living room.

For me, anyhow, when I'm able to make those kind of decisions, something switches on in me and I go into overdrive. I find myself pushing even harder to overcome the feelings of discouragement and defeat. So today I made up my mind that I was going to do ALL of the 3 count pushups. And you know what. I did! Monday I was struggling with doing 2 and today I did them all. I pushed my big, fat carcass off the mat with everything I had in me and when I stood up and my arms felt like jello and I was all lightheaded, I was as proud and victorious as I've been in a long, long time.

I'm working real hard to stay on track even if i'm not 100% on plan. I have something of an extremist mentality, that if I can't do something 100% I shouldn't do it at all. That developed at a time when I had far fewer responsibilities, obligations and distractions and I could be captain hardcore. Today I have to be more fluid and flexible. I can't compromise the mission, but I can recalibrate and make adjustments. Instead of focusing on what didn't go 100% right and getting all discouraged, I'll focus on what I accomplished and celebrate a series of victories.