I'd Love to Get Started.. I'm Just Waiting for the Perfect Time
Sawyer Paull-Baird
Administrator, Moderator, Practitioner, AFS Staff admin
Happy Friday everyone. I hope you've all had a great first week of December =).
I wanted to share with you all an article I came across this morning that made an impact on me.
With New years resolutions around the corner, I feel like the concept of "waiting for the perfect time to get started" on something is particularly relevant.. or at least, more at the forefront of our minds as this is something that we all do in different aspects of our lives.. to varying degrees.. all of the time.. Whether it be in health/fitness, finances, spending more time with someone important to us... I believe this article is relevant to every person on this planet in some way, shape or form.
I highly encourage everyone reading this to take 10 minutes to read this article sometime today or this weekend, and then pass it on to someone else who you think would appreciate or benefit from it. Also, I am curious if there are any strategies others have used to help them JUST GET STARTED in the past?
Below is an excerpt from the blog. Hope you all enjoy!
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There is no perfect time. There never will be.
Oh sure, there might be some magic moment in your fitness journey where the universe comes together… and you’re wearing your favorite t-shirt… plus your extra-comfy sneakers… and that song you love comes on… and your body is full of exuberant, bubbling energy… and your favorite piece of gym equipment is free (in fact the gym is empty today, hooray!)… and you bang out a set of ten reps like the angels are hoisting the barbell for you.
But that magic moment will be one in the zillion other less-magic moments that make up your real life.
Indeed, if we are talking about a moment as, say, approximately ten seconds long, that means you have somewhere between 2,398,377,600 to 2,556,165,600 potential moments in your life.
Which means that a single perfect moment is, well, a very very very small part of the whole thing.
Yes, celebrate that perfect moment when it comes. But sure as heck don’t wait for it.
Take your moments. Make your moments.
Just so you know, nobody is going to give you any moments. You have to take moments.
Hunt them. Chase them. Make them happen.
Scratch and gouge moments out of other times. Chip off tiny flakes of moments from the monolith of your day. Use your teeth if you must—bite off mouthfuls of those moments.
You are holding the chisel and the pickaxe. You are the miner of your moments.
This frustrates us, of course.
It shouldn’t be this way, we think. Everyone else’s moments just… come to them. Everyone else has enough time. Enough money. Enough motivation. Enough information.
But it is this way. For everyone.
This is how it is, with moments. Moments resist expectations like water resists the intrusion of oil.
However, there is a perfect moment. There is actually always a perfect moment.
That perfect moment is now.
Here. Today. The living, breathing sliver of time that you have in this precise second.
Because that is all you ever have: right now.
Just start. At the beginning.
Here is another secret. You don’t have to actually work to get to the next moment.
All you have to do is start.
And then, moments will keep moving, as moments do.
One moment will stack on top of another and before you know it, you’ll have arrived at your destination.
“But I can’t!” You say. “I can’t get started! That is the problem, you see!”
No, it’s not. If you can’t get started, you’re just jumping too far ahead.
You’re not starting with starting. You are trying to start somewhere in an imaginary middle.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
Comments
@Sawyer Paull-Baird Thank you for the Friday afternoon read. Needed it :-)
Yup, my forever go-to for getting started is a passage from Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence; particularly the line 'but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on.'
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"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today...now let us begin."
@Angela Johnson Powerful!
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
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This is a great read, @Sawyer Paull-Baird - thanks! I know a lot of the trainers at AFS Rochester have mentioned Precision Nutrition as a great resource. I'll be bookmarking this article to refer back to it when needed! The concept that we aren't given moments but must take/make the moments we desire. "Chip off tiny flakes of moments from the monolith of your day." YES. Because not every great, ah-ha moment is big and grand but actually an accumulation of tinier, just as significant moments with less sparkle but just as much grit.
Great little read @Sawyer Paull-Baird~Especailly at this time of year, when the business falls upon us and we tend to take those moments and push them aside because we feel like we have more important moments that we need to tackle.
@Heather Quinlan Yes! That section made an impact for me as well. Big things are almost always the accumulation of small things paying off down the road. =)
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
This is a great encouragement, and I always say start now. But I actually have also benefited from seeing different times in my life as "seasons."
I think I am wired to need starts and ends to things, that's why I love the FS class style so much LOL! I love the newness of January, and I see the cold months as an opportunity to focus on exercising more as a way to cope with the dark and freezing temperatures.
In the summer I am still very physically active, but in different ways. I am home with my family and have to prioritize them but it is still good. And every September I look forward to "beginning again."
Either way, it is true that we always do what we want to do. It is a choice, and we do have the power to make today Day One :)
@Heidi Morris I appreciate that perspective a lot! I think there is certainly a cyclical nature to our lives.. there are times where we are more focused on some goals than others (if you look at all of our actions as fulfilling some "goal" we have). I think the difference from what you explain and what the article does is that you've already gotten started, and you haven't really stopped, you're just adjusting your dial up/down, which is actually a very important skill to have.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
I think this is what I'm having a problem with right now. I'm feeling like I need to start over every hour. One meal will be on my plan, healthy, good job Tricia! The next one I eat too much, or the wrong thing, or something unplanned happens and I'm somewhere with only crappy food choices. I know it's about planning ahead, and I realize that I've been bad about that lately. But also I feel like I've been back-sliding, and slightly out of control too. It feels like I'm driving a stick-shift but I keep stalling it out on a hill! Like it says above, I'm not starting with starting, but starting too far ahead, somewhere in the imaginary middle. But it seems like I shouldn't have this problem, I've been coming to work out consistently, learning to make healthier choices consistently. I guess it can happen anytime, this sputtering out, or sputtering to get going again. And I guess the point is that I just keep going and keep starting. Once I give up, I know I won't get anywhere.
@Tricia Nault No matter how long you've been working on health or fitness, there will ALWAYS be periods of "back-sliding". Even those of us who work in the health/fitness industry have such periods where things feel out of control and off-track even if some popular Instagram or whatever influencers want to make it seem like they have it all figured out- no one does all of the time.
I also think the dial versus pause button theme might be something helpful for you to reflect on. Thinking in the terms of dialing up/down depending on life circumstances, even on a day by day basis can reframe the mindset to less of a pass/fail view, and more understanding with yourself.
At the end of the day, understand what you're experiencing is normal and something everyone experiences. Don't beat yourself up, but think about what you can do (even just one or two things) to incrementally improve the things that have been tougher for you. As always, we're here to help however we can =).
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator