Procrastination

Procrastinate: to put off intentionally and habitually.

There are some things that I do intentionally and habitually every single day. I wake up and immediately make breakfast and get a cup of coffee or tea. I will read for a few minutes, check email and Facebook, and get my kids their breakfast, milk and juice.

And there are other things that I intentionally and habitually put off. Things that would probably surprise most people, but if they are paying close attention, I'm not fooling anyone. I put it all out there perfectly clear. When I'm doing something you see it; when I'm not, you don't.

I'm going to digress a little. I requested a book from Paperbackswap called The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration by Kevin Nelson. So, like some people do a daily devotional each morning, as I mentioned above, I've been reading a page of this book with my morning coffee. Maybe I should be doing the devotional - who knows. That's another blog post.

I've been thinking a lot about why every time I am doing a race, it seems to be the two weeks prior to the race that I'm somehow able to muster the ability to finally get back on track with my training plan. I spend so much time preparing the plan, I map it out for 12 weeks ahead of the race. I build in cross training workouts and detail my running workouts. And then something happens. This season, it was sickness. We all got sick! Weeks go by, and maybe I'm getting one or two of the 5-6 planned workouts completed. What is wrong with me??

I think I've boiled it down to my worst character flaw. I'm a procrastinator. I'll find a reason to NOT do what I have to do. Be it laundry, paying bills, making phone calls, dusting the house, buying a gift... I always wait until the last minute. Why do I do this? I completely sabotage myself, stress myself out, and have a house that is sometimes less than pleasing to my hardworking husband to come home to.

So back to the book. Wednesday's daily read quoted Aristotle, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." I think that's what got me thinking about my procrastination (instead of my excellence). Today's talked about turning our weaknesses into strengths, and offered this simple advice, "If you want a remedy for it, you're going to have to do something about it."

It's always so freakin' obvious, right?

So what am I doing about it? This week (also conveniently within that 2 weeks until my next goal event), I've been on target. I've been eating what I'm supposed to eat, I've been logging every last morsel, and creating huge calorie deficits to burn the excess fat on my body. I've been doing my running workouts as scheduled, but since I'm just getting back into a rhythm, I haven't been pushing the cross training so that I'm not overly sore. I have a half marathon in 10 days; I don't need to be sore. I just need to be able to run the distance. I can already see and feel a change. My body is responding and feeling well.

Procrastination is my weakness. I am not exactly sure how to turn it into a strength other than to pummel it into submission with my new found commitment. This is a topic I'm going to have to come back to because I still haven't gotten to the root of "why" I procrastinate. But I think it's the same question all of us have to answer in relation to our own individual self-sabotage. Some people do it with food, some with alcohol, some with psychological and behavioral habits. Many of us never reach our goals because, like Jillian Michaels (whom I love! and just met!!) says, "You gotta get out of your own way."

So, more on this to come. Just wanted to put it out there. That's my own first step.