I’ll admit I had some big hopes for this month after my last post. I said I would write a new post every day, while also working out or staying active at least twice a day, for the entire month of February. Unfortunately I’ve already I’ve fallen short of those hopes. Literally a day after issuing the challenge I skipped posting, actually two days in a row. I don’t have a great excuse either. I downloaded a new game on my laptop that I spent almost all weekend playing while neglecting my goals. I did exercise, but not to the extent I’d hoped. I can say that at least my nutrition was in line with my goals as one positive mark for the weekend.
Here’s the thing. A lot of times when I fail a challenge, I set it to the side and say to myself that I’ll try again another time, that this challenge wasn’t right for me and my normal habits are fine for now. But I don’t want to do that this time, for two reasons. First, just because I’ve stumbled doesn’t mean I’ve given up. Sure I missed two days, but I can make those up and get right back on track for success. A little hiccup at the beginning doesn’t mean I’m a failure, it just means I might need longer to adjust to the current goal.
The second reason is pretty similar, but I’m making it a separate point to emphasize the message. One of my favorite YouTubers, SkiMaskDuets, made a challenge video last year about quitting dopamine for 30 days. It’s a quality video on it’s own, but one thing that stuck with me about this challenge that other challenge video’s never show is that he admitted he failed halfway through. He was on a great streak doing everything right, then one night had a craving and broke down by eating a ton of junk food. First of all, I feel like you never see anyone admit they’ve failed one of these challenges. Like almost every video I see they make it through whatever challenge no problem just off of sheer willpower. It’s all very admirable, but when I try and fail immediately on things as simple as this, seeing people always succeed kind of kills the motivation.
But in Ski’s video, he openly admitted to not meeting his goal on the first try. He had great momentum and just slipped. And here’s the thing; he kept going. He admitted he slipped, acknowledged the hardship and learned from the mistake. Then he got back going and completed the challenge like a champion.
What I took from this is that not all challenges are going to be easy, and the ones you fail are likely the ones you need to keep pushing on. The key is not letting yourself get discouraged when you slip and just keep after it, no matter what. Sometimes messing up makes succeeding that much sweeter.
All of this is to say I’m back, and you can expect a few posts coming today to make up for the missed days. I won’t let a lazy weekend ruin my goals this easily.
As always thanks for reading. Rock on, stay strong.