It’s Fun Friday and time for the A-Z Blog Hop. Do you believe we are at the letter U already? For me, today, U is for “unfocused.
I have worked for Koko Fit Club for over three months now and have trained a lot of people. Within a month of their training a lot of them achieve their first perfect workout, getting 1000/1000 and a pace score of 100%. Over and over I find myself singing their praises while I tell them I’ve worked out there for over one year and still have not achieved my first perfect workout.
It was these conversations that I was thinking about as I started my workout Wednesday morning. I was doing the first few exercises and contemplating why I still haven’t achieved what seems so easy for everyone else, even newbies. I was lifting my ankle up and down, thinking this, watching the pace bar going up and down when ‘click’ went the door. I found myself beginning to hurry the pace bar (which you can’t do) just so I could turn to see who just came into the club. There it dawned on me. During my workout I am unfocused. Everything distracts me. I love doing six things at once (the trait of a kindergarten teacher) so watching the pace bar while monitoring the door and/or even talking to people, kept me from focusing on that perfect workout. I just didn’t care enough to reign myself in and concentrate. My workouts are always nine hundred something out of a thousand. My pacing is never below 95%. That’s good enough, right? Right. Until the next time I find myself telling a new client I STILL have not achieved that perfect workout.
Through Bikram yoga I have gotten quite good at releasing myself from perfection. I lived by “it’s yoga practice, not yoga perfect”. And this was not a bad thing because my perfection addiction was well on its way to OCD and needed to be tamed. I have learned that just being there (yoga or fit club) was enough. I wasn’t home, in the chair. My motto for the last three years has been to “stay outta the chair”. Mission accomplished – but at what price? Do I now use it’s “exercise progress, not exercise perfection” as an excuse to not do something I know I’m capable of doing? Am I capable of doing it?
Wednesday I decided to try. I made up my mind to concentrate only on that pace bar and make note of anything that tried to distract me. 30% of the way done – still a perfect score – the beautiful picture on the big screen TV wanted my attention. 50% of the way through – the reflection of the swirling snowflakes outside onto the TV screen, wanted my attention. 65% of the way through – still a perfect score- the door opened and I oh so wanted to turn around and see who came in. 75% of the way through – STILL a perfect score – a friend walked by and I so wanted to engage in conversation. 90% of the way through – STILL a perfect score – I began thinking I was gonna do this today! 99.9% of the way through I saw myself wearing the Perfect Workout T Shirt you get, when – BLINK – the green line flashed yellow as it slipped out of the blue box. Really? I was on 7 out of my LAST set of 10. Three more pulls of the rope and I had my perfect workout and I blew it. I could not contain my excitement over getting the T Shirt long enough to actually get it. I was distracted from getting a perfect workout by the possibility of getting a perfect workout.
And so, as another day goes by, clearly U stands for Unfocused, I think I see a New Year’s Resolution in the making, and…I have written.
It must be hard to focus when the task is boring or redundant! Good for you in trying!
Unfocused? You should see me when I sit down to write some days!
Oh my, I wish I could workout that hard! Like you, I’m terribly distract-able. I can’t imagine doing the workouts you do. Well done!