Maintenance Motivation

Somedays when I send emails to my coaches I feel like Usher is behind me singing Confessions. Over the past few weeks I've managed to work my way into a funk. Our workouts have involved a lot of inversions and gymnastics that are a frustrating combination of physically difficult and mentally terrifying. After feeling defeated time and again at the gym, I've come home frustrated and ended up blowing off the things I really cared about to grab a drink as if it would help. After sliding down this slippery slope, I'm now tired, still frustrated, and wondering what I did with my last week. This little pity party will not do. Not at all. So here I am, up late again, but choosing to set myself up for a better tomorrow. Knowing that the better angels of my nature aren't at full strength, I have decided to help them out a bit. I've set up a to do list for tomorrow, set out my gym clothes to prevent any excuses for missing my makeup workout tomorrow morning, and I've cleaned out the fridge and thrown out what I haven't been resisting. Now I'm working on my head.

When I first started this entire transition out of a life lived between the time clock and the bar and into a life that I actively participate in on a daily basis, I found a lot of information, inspiration, and encouragement in blogs and especially in stories of other people who had made the same changes and seen amazing success. I became a Success Story junkie. Between CrossFit Central, Mark's Daily Apple, and various other sources I was overwhelmed with optimism and it really fueled me day in and day out. That was carried further by participation in competitions, PRs at the gym, results at each body comp, and a few big steps in my career. All of those things are great, but life isn't always about the big changes. Sometimes life is just about waking up ten minutes early to get some reading time in and setting your day up for success, or turning off the TV and getting that extra hour of sleep. So how do you stay motivated in those small moments? Nobody writes a success story about how they cooked lunch at home instead of going out and saved money and they feel great. They may tweet about it or post it on Facebook, but it can get lost in all the funny cat videos and baby pictures.

Due to my current mood, I decided to dig around inside my head and figure out what motivates me. Nothing I found was new, but reminders are rarely a bad thing. I love music and usually have two or three songs that I identify with and consider my theme songs* for certain periods of time. I'm a fan of quotes, the cheesier the better. I also keep emails and notes from friends and look back over them as a little pick-me-up. Since these things rarely pop up when you need them the most, I've decided to start a new page here on my blog. I have named it the Great Wall of Motivation. I will use it to collect anything that inspires me and check back into it when I get beat down.

How do you conquer frustration and funk?

One step at a time.
-PaleoJo


*Current theme songs:
OneRepublic - Good Life
Bad Meets Evil - Lighters
LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It

#winning

Someone recently posed the question "Does winning matter? Or is it good enough to compete?" To answer, I thought back to the competitions I've been in this year. I never had any intention of winning the Iron Belle Challenge or Fight Gone Bad. I am all for positive thinking and a champion mindset, but no amount of visualizing first place was going to overcome years of a sedentary lifestyle. Still, I look back on both of those days as huge victories. When I signed up for each one, I had a vague goal in mind. As I trained and worked towards each one I set specific goals for myself. As I competed, I had my goal in mind and was ecstatic to surpass it each time. When posting about the events online, I absolutely used the #win hashtag. So did I win? I didn't take home any medals, trophies, or honors. All I took home were some photos, a t-shirt, and a mental image of me in that moment juxtaposed with me from 8 months ago.

- fast forward through hours of inner dialogue and a whole lot of nothing happening -

Here are my personal beliefs. I think you win when you reach what you set out to do. If you set out to attain a trophy, you win when you receive that trophy. If you set out to beat a certain personal record, you win when you beat that record. I realize there are many arguments to be made against the liberal interpretation of the word win and I don't disagree with all of them. I am just choosing to decide what victory means to me. After spending more time than necessary, I have come to the conclusion that my daily goal is still the same:

Today, I want to be my yesterday. And if I beat my yesterday, I win.

So yes. Winning matters and competition is good. I just choose to pit Jo 3.0 vs Jo 2.0.

Choose your competition, define your win, and conquer.
-PaleoJo