Stick to Your Plan, Not Your Mood
Well, confession time, for most of last week, I hadn’t worked out in literally five days. Including barely jumping on my rebounder. It was a busy week, it was a short week, and it was my birthday on Monday. Happy Birthday to Meeeeeee!
Side note: My birthday year had already been off to a cracking start with ‘My Boys’, Arsenal, lifting the Premier League trophy just the month before. Yeah… I’ll absolutely take that lovely gift! ❤️🤍❤️
But back to this week, when the compressor thingamabob, whatchamacallit thingin our air conditioner unit broke, so it literally felt like I was sleeping in soup. Correction! I was trying to sleep in soup, but kept waking up at all hours, sweaty, sticky, and supremely miserable. So the one day that I had actually planned to get back to it and work out, I was silly tired.
The AC was fixed the very next morning, bright and early, as soon as Lowe’s or Home Depot opened up, and a shiny new version of the offending Flux Capacitor part was purchased. Very slowly, the coolness in my home came back.
Did I work out at any point that day?
Nope.
Why?
Because I still wasn’t in the mood and also, still in a bloody mood.
Okay, Fine. I Was the Whole Problem.
A few more hour pass and I’m reflecting on the whole episode, able to see it for the inconvenience it was and I finally saw, accepted, and admitted to my feelings. I didn’t work out that day, after enough time had passed, and I had the time, were all excuses.
Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses.
Mood: 1. Plan: 0.
Because as soon as I’m done working out, I always, always, feel great. For me, it’s a boost in every way. I’m not some super strenuous fitness person, but I do like strength training. My home mini gym is one of my happy places, and my rebounder is life. Yeah, it’s a workout, gets the heart pumping, the lymph moving, NASA says it helps support bone density, and to lil ole me, I can feel like a lil, silly, kid doing it, and ya can’t beat that, now!
As part of this commitment to myself, while I work out, I specifically use that time to watch certain YouTubers I really like and follow regularly. Sometimes they’re delivering real-deal political updates and current affairs. Other times it’s just travel, style, and trash talk. A delicious lil guilty pleasure while doing something that’s needed. So I’ve missed out on that quality time, too.
Missed that for a week because why?
I followed my mood instead of sticking to my plan.
Now is this the worst thing in the world? No. So I’m a little in the hole in my fitness, a lil off, let’s say but it was too easy to do, and keep doing. And where does that leave me?
If I’d just pushed past my mood, even if I started it angry, or still sulking, once I got into it, my energy would’ve picked up, just as always.
So, missed workout aside, thinking bigger picture here, why is it that we constantly, or at least far too often, when things go a lil off course, do we so easily fall into following our mood instead of our plan?
And I know it’s not just me. Come on… let’s own it.
Plot Twist… It’s Bigger Than the Gym
It’s all too easy to just chalk it up to laziness. Too intentional, even.
We find something else to replace the thing we were supposed to do. Edit the next chapter. Apply for the job. Save those extra funds instead of buying the thing we want but don’t need. Now we’ve convinced ourselves that we couldn’t do it because of XYZ, when we know good and well, we really could have.
This is not me trying to extend my own guilt trip, or raise any judgy-eyebrows on anyone else. I want to verbally and visually recognize it. Call it out. Because when I spell things out, when I really see them, they’re no longer so easy to accept the next time, and I can get back on track quicker.
Funny how we can have the directions (our plan) slap bang in front of us, then casually hand the keys to our mood and act all surprised when we don’t end up where we wanted to go. Oof!
Not to mention, if it wasn’t such a big deal, I wouldn’t be so annoyed over it. And the fact that I am was so pissed, meant it had to register in my hard-headed brain that I needed to follow my plan, not my mood.
Operation Focus: Get It Together, Bitch
Will it work every single time? Absolutely not.
Willing, I am. Completely delulu, I am not.
We’re all going to fall off our personal cliffs here and there. But can a longer rethink work for us more times than not? I’m thinking, yep. It has to because I want it to. Pretty please with bows on.
Now, let’s not be silly, if it’s something physical or mental that’s genuinely preventing you from doing it, that’s completely different. Not even in the same ballpark.
My Big Age process, aka plans for my life, is that I’ve got to get better with each step. Baby steps, included. I can’t go backwards, just do better the next time. And I really mean, do. Hold my damn self accountable… and actually do it not just say it.
I saw a cute Pinterest post that said,
“You don’t learn to swim by reading a book.”
You actually have to do the thing. You physically need to get ya bum in the water.
So this is just a little, but poignant lesson to myself, and maybe to anybody else out there. It’s not about the one-week missed workout. It’s not about the thing you already bought, and now regret, when you promised yourself, you’d save those funds.
It’s that the next time you know you don’t want to do or commit to the thing, you’ll take a couple of seconds. A few more moments to rethink.
- What’s your reason?
- What’s your excuse?
- What’s pulling you from sticking to your plan and not your mood?
Our mood really shouldn’t be our boss. Not mine, that’s for sure as I can only imagine the utter foolishness it would lead me into. [insert shivers].
Maybe your mood is just another background voice. A sneaky one at that. One that keeps testing or poking at our inner gangster, to see how committed you really are. Over and over. Waiting to see whether we’ll cave… or whether we’ll finally mean what we said.
Your plan was made by the version of you who knew where you wanted to go. Your mood clocked in that morning. And clocked in with a level-10 attitude, so if we fall for it, it’s like, “Ha! Gotcha, bitch!”
Either way, the choice is always ours. Stick to our plan or follow our mood.
Let’s keep trying to limit listening to the wrong voice.
