Protagonist is challenged, embarrassed, or in some way provoked. This trigger instigates her inner and outer transformation and is ultimately the stimulus for her character arc.
cue movie montage music
Within minutes of screen time, she has trained hard, studied hard, buckled down, and focused up. She has changed.
Oh, if only it were so easy for the rest of us. Headaches pop in, work keeps you late, plans change last minute, and life happens.
I wish I could say that something switched in my mind on that first Sunday and I was magically able to complete all my tasks with gusto and ease. I’d write with all honesty that the laziness in my life that continually ebbs and flows finally smashed against a rock and was never to be seen again. I’d tell you that real change was made. But I can’t…because it’s not true. At least not yet.
Instead, I was still the same me. It’s only been two weeks so any incremental changes would be hard to discern, especially the physical ones, but I do feel like the little tasks I’d assigned to myself each day are beginning to add up.
Season 1 Chapter 1 Review:
I was fairly successful in the first week with completing my tasks on their assigned day, but my schedule got thrown off with work-related stuff and I had to spend extra time playing catch up. The 40 minutes of cardio that I missed on the first Wednesday wasn’t completed until Wednesday of the following week. I added in 10-15 minutes of extra cardio on other days to recoup those lost 40 minutes. I’m a little proud of myself for sticking with it and not just leaving it red.
It didn’t take me long to figure out what I enjoyed on the list or which items were easily completed and could be crossed off with little effort. Those got done. However, the items that required me to sit down at my desk for half an hour plus or require a longer physical effort were harder to do.
Between the holiday weekend and feeling rundown because of certain days of the month, my second Sunday really suffered which is my heaviest day. I was able to recoup many of the tasks the following day since it was an extra day off and I woke up feeling really refreshed. I performed my upper workout that day and turned most of Sunday’s red into blue.
As I’ve gotten older it’s easy for me to see how food can make or break my day. It’s not always a one-to-one correlation between what I consume and how I feel, but it’s easily noticed when I slack on eating whole foods and instead dig into sodas, cookies, pizzas, etc. My nutrient-poor diet doesn’t hit me the same as a hangover, but it definitely leaves me sluggish the next day. I need to get my diet situated. It’s also the task with the most red on my chart as missing a WFPB day can’t be recovered. Green or red are the only options for that box. Changing a diet seems so simple; one just has to eat some things and not eat other things. But what a wild ride it is battling yourself between what your future self needs versus what your present self wants.
I was fairly generous with the “Be patient and kind” green versus red and only gave myself red when I truly deserved it. The Tuesday I marked in red was from me being grumpy at work with a new system that’s rolling out and, in my opinion isn’t ready, which is causing many of us stress and extra work. On that day I was perhaps a little too “honest” with what I shared regarding the new program rollout. I have a lot of work still to do on this.
The splits are getting me down. Last week I felt something stretch too far when I was in a split and the back of my leg (upper hamstring) wasn’t feeling right afterward. To let it rest and heal, I took a break from the splits (hence all the red) but I did continue to do some overall body stretching because it feels good. When my muscle feels healed, I’ll get back to the splits.
Lastly, I did crochet a bookmark. It’s pretty hideous but its shows I know the basics and I will continue to work on granny squares to improve.
Overall, the daily schedule that I started with was my best guess of what would work and there was some success in it. Allowing myself the flexibility to recover and recoup missed tasks makes my Season of Change easier to achieve. Not everyday is going to be a great day, but making the most of the days where I feel refreshed and energized seems to be working for me. I’m curious to see if the small changes make a difference over the next 10 weeks.
GREEN= COMPLETED
BLUE= COMPLETED ON A DIFFERENT DAY
RED= NOT COMPLETED
