Welcome to a new week everyone,
Tracey is in charge of this week’s boxing classes – and I have to admit that whilst I have loved doing my month of ‘Functional Fitness’ as part of the Try July Challenge (and no, I didn’t make it – only 24 sessions and not 25 for this black duck!) I am looking forward to getting back to doing a bit of boxing. I find that 2-3 boxing classes mixed in with 2-3 Functional classes works best for me in terms of a mix between strength and cardio and variety and ‘everything’ and the Funky sessions give me the ‘strength work’ I need and Boxing gives me the cardio I need…
Last week in Funky I did squats, deadlifts, bench press (dumbbells), push jerks and power cleans which to me pretty much covers all bases in terms of strength stuff – which was good…the thing I missed is that real ‘long duration, just keep going’ cardio burn you get from back to back to back ski-heavy bag-bike sessions that seems to crop up in boxing with alarming regularity…hate it when I’m doing it, love it when I’m done!
I have been getting some ‘when is the next challenge’ questions and the answer to that is pretty simple: October ‘SUMMER SLAM’. Four weeks of hard work and food restrictions and all of that to get ready for summer…we have deliberately held back on the regular gym challenges this year (after 28-days Later back in Feb) to enable everyone to have a bit of a ‘break’ and get their challenge mojo back. So if you are waiting for a challenge, well, that’s kind of the idea! We have one coming – Summer Slam – and it is coming in October. And yes, I have already started working on recipes…
I have had a couple of interesting conversations with people recently about habits, about getting to the gym, about meal prep and about the ‘time’ all of that takes and I have been thinking quite a bit about it. I guess where I am landing is that ‘TIME’ isn ‘t something that you can control…but what you CAN control are your own ‘intentions’ and what things are important to you. So here goes as I try to explain all of that!
In my house is a room (formerly the lounge room) that I have converted into a kind of ‘double office’ for me and Vanessa. But then I moved Marshall’s computer out of his room out into the ‘office’ (on Vanessa’s desk of course) which kind of makes it an office for me and Marshall. And then I put all of my guitar stuff in there which kind of made it a music spot for me and a ‘study’ room (aka OverWatch gaming station) for Marshall. Anyway, I try to spend a bit of time every day playing my guitar – and it is weird because I have to set aside ‘TIME’ to practise and one of the things I am always thinking about is how much time I have ‘left’ to do the other stuff I need to do – work stuff, footy stuff, family stuff…everything in my life now just seems a big race against time…of which there is never QUITE enough.
I have also noticed that depending on how much time I ‘have’, I feel good/bad/stressed/relaxed or whatever…my perception of time has a BIG impact on how I feel. For example, it is my week to write the boxing sessions this week which means I need to set aside 3-4 hours…and I am battling to set that time aside in my calendar…which makes me nervous that I will ‘run out’ of time. Now, I have always managed to finish the session plans ‘On TIME’ in the past 9.5 years so in theory, I should be confident of doing it again…but even writing that down has me nervous that I wont get it done ‘in time’. I am sure that type of scenario is familiar to everyone reading this…after all, we all have work to do and responsibilities to meet!
The problem is of course – and I am trying to acknowledge this – is that you don’t ever really ‘HAVE’ time – certainly not in the way you have red wine on the shelf (or guitars on the wall). I mean, sometimes I assume I have time – a couple of hours might be all I need – to do one task or another…but because I don’t ‘own’ time – it is just some crazy, virtual concept that is off in the future – I get sideswiped by ‘stuff’ that comes in, taking away my time and causing me to get STRESSED OUT. Basically, the problem with time is that because it isn’t something I really ‘own’, it can easily be taken away from me…
I am reading this back and I guess it is hard even for me to understand where I am going here, but I guess what I am trying to say is that despite your best laid plans, things are constantly – particularly in this modern age – interrupting us, or what we thought might be simple and easy is – on further review – big and complex…which means that you can quickly go from feeling OK and having ‘enough’ time to being stressed out and under the pump. I mean, living in the City of Cockburn (aka the roadworks centre of the universe) the simple task of driving from the gym to Gateways Shopping Centre can be an enormous time ‘suck’ that you cannot expect or hope to predict…all of which, means STRESS!
Basically, what I am saying is that time is ALWAYS unreliable. ALWAYS. So you can’t depend on it. What you CAN depend on is our BEST INTENTIONS. Because our BEST INTENTIONS are things we can protect – because they are part of US, not bound by the time we have ‘available’. For me, it is IMPORTANT that I get in the gym 5 or 6 times each week and do a bit of exercise. It is IMPORTANT that I practise my guitar. I can make sure that I work on these things with focus and purpose regardless of how ‘time’ might unfold.
Now – don’t get me wrong – the unpredictability of ‘TIME’ does knock me out of my rhythm from time to time (often from day to day and almost certainly from week-to-week). On the guitar front, I haven’t attended my lessons for almost 2-months now (the shortage of staff in the gym has sucked away my lesson time) and – as I have already indicated, I failed to complete the 25x sessions in the Try July challenge because I ‘ran out’ of time. BUT. My intentions remain and I continue to get in the gym and do my training and grab my guitar off the wall and annoy the hell out of the rest of the family. I try not to worry about how much ‘TIME’ I have – instead, I refocus on WHY I started playing guitar/WHY I exercise, refocus on my INTENTIONS and just keep on rolling, doing the best I can.
I guess what I mean by all this is that no matter what you do, you aren’t going to have enough ‘time’ to do it all. So stop stressing about it. Just roll with it. And focus on honouring your best intentions. If that means you only made it to the gym once last week but will get there three times this week – AWESOME. If it means you can only come twice per week for the next couple of weeks because of x-y-z – well, that’s still AWESOME. Don’t get stressed. Stay focussed on your INTENTIONS and being true to yourself and your INTENTIONS (losing weight, getting fitter, being stronger, eating better) and, if you do that, regardless of how fast you get there, you WILL get there in the end.
Again, if you focus on your INTENTIONS, then they will help you make the best use of your available time. For example, if you want to get better at playing guitar, you wont sit in front of Netflix, you will get our your guitar. If you want to get fitter and stronger, on the way home from work tomorrow night (before you go home), you will stop off at the gym and work your way through a session…or you will set your alarm and do that same thing on the way to work in the morning. If you allow yourself to be guided by your INTENTIONS then you will somehow find yourself using time in ways that alleviate your stress…because you can ‘look back’ with satisfaction on the things you have achieved each day…
Or, to summarise, when your ACTIONS and your INTENT are aligned, you will find yourself feeling LESS STRESSED and MORE SATISFIED. Which will make you feel like you have MORE of that intangible resource…TIME!
I think.
See you in the gym,
Michael.
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