Waiting For The Move

I am starting this blog quite late in the day as I have been sidelined with my other passion, filmmaking. My body is still aching from the battering I have put it through this week and the shock of working for eight days in a row – I’m barely used to working two days in a row, further more eight! My training has been intense this past week, really showing me how much I have slacked off.
It is so easy to fall into a pattern of apathy and convince yourself that you are doing enough. This is not only true with regards to fitness but in any area of one’s life. We can all think of things that with a little more application and less complacency, would be very different. I for one should be at least partially fluent in Spanish if I had actually maintained any of the enthusiasm that I have had after my annual jaunts to Lanzarote.
But as learning the language, as beneficial as it would probably be, is more of a want than a need, I still have not got around to it after more than two decades. A lot of the same thinking and approach can be applied to fitness and weight management. Western society especially is proof of weight management being more of a want than a need for most. As beneficial as a healthy weight would be for so many – it would definitely lessen the burden on our national health service – it is not a pressing need for most.
Vanity has more of an impact on people’s desire to get fit or lose weight rather than any conscious decision to improve health. The accompanying improvement in health is a great add on, but it is how one looks that keeps one going. There is also a lot to be said for doing. Many an internet guru, a self-help maestro, smiling, positive faces, repeat this mantra of doing,
It is the way of generations past and those from the working classes, to do what you actually know how to do. A carpenter would build furniture or housing frames, a mechanic would fix cars. This was the way for most and it was accepted. It made sense for those experienced in certain fields to do those professions. As time has moved on and the lines between the working class and middle class become blurred, manual jobs are not as common as they once were, the divide less clear.
In these modern times, many people do work that does not require expertise, due to the advancements in technology. Many in modern times, regardless of their ability or expertise, apply for jobs or undertake business ventures they have no notion of. For the pre-millennial, this sort of approach seems crazy, but for this generation of doing whatever you like, it is almost the exception that does not try to take on a profession outside of their sphere of knowledge.
Though I am not a great advocate of this kind of thinking, there is something to be said for doing as opposed to waiting. Acting on an idea, desire or thought creates, if nothing else, momentum. There is nothing worse than the feeling of missing the opportunity. The ‘I should have’ thought is one of the most gnawing and regretful.
Breaking the mindset of waiting for the right moment is difficult – believe me, I know – but it is possible. Start small, really small. Get up for work five minutes earlier than normal or take the stairs at work. Drink a glass or a pint less a week. Go to bed an hour earlier. Little things that you can comfortably do, just to build confidence and train the brain.
Life is just a collection of habits, good and bad. As I have said many times before, humans are lazy, we like to know what is coming and stay within a comfort zone, but it is the comfort zone that keeps you fat and unsatisfied. Ultimately, nobody progresses standing and waiting for their moment. Stop waiting.