Overcoming resistance

It was sooo hard getting through the Chest & Back workout today.  All my "stars" were totally misaligned; it was raining and miserably cold; I must of slept crooked or something because I woke up with a terrible kink in my neck; and I simply felt tired.

And you know you're fighting a uphill battle with yourself when the thought of hibernating like a lumbering bear feels like the ultimate goal in life.  And it didn't stop there; rationales left and right were springing into my head persuading me to skip the workout: "I strained my neck, so I shouldn't do an upper body workout" (doesn't that sound reasonable?); "It's dangerous working out when it's so cold, I could pull a muscle" (also very reasonable, no?);  "My husband's being lazy and sitting on his ass eating yummy bonbons, maybe I should join him, wouldn't want him to be lonely" (Ok, that's just me desperate to find any reason to get out of the workout).

But I stared down all those sinister thoughts and shouted "NO!"  I've suffered worse "resistance" in my days.  (Resistance was coined by Steven Pressfield in The Art of War to describe our inner antagonist that essentially goes around sabotaging our life's goals, such as I want to lose weight, but instead end up ordering a McDonald's meal with a double-thick chocolate shake!)

In the end, to overcome resistance, you simply just have to bulldoze it over; there aren't any magic tricks.   And I simply told myself that I can do it; if I simply take it one-step at a time, and don't think about the gasping pain of the pull-ups, chin-ups and all the tortuous push-ups introduced by Tony Horton, then I can get through it.  In fact, I cleared my mind of thoughts and simply pushed the play button.  I concentrated on the moment, never thinking about the last move or the next, simply working on the present and extracting every ounce out of myself that I could.

And I got through it!  In fact, even with a neck strain I was able to perform just as well as my last Chest & Back workout, woo hoo! (See my workout stats for Jan 9 )

I didn't let resistance beat me today.