The Muscle

Hello, ducklings! First, let me say HAPPY AMERICA DAY! To my stateside readers, I hope y’all are enjoying your cookouts, pool parties, and—of course—your explosives. To everyone else, I hope the weather is treating you well.

So today’s blog title is a bit misleading. I’m not actually talking about physical muscle today, like the kind needed to lift heavy pieces of metal or the kind needed to burst watermelons between one’s thighs. I’m talking about a metaphorical muscle: the willpower muscle.

Now, I’m not sure if my theory about willpower has much scientific merit, but it does make a whole lot of sense. Here’s what I’ve discovered: your willpower is basically like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger you get. If you don’t exercise your willpower for a long period of time, then it will atrophy.

Last week, I had a really sucky day where I woke up in a sour mood and just wanted to lay in bed and watch cat videos for like 12 hours. And at first, that’s basically what I did. 10:30 AM quickly became 3:00 PM, and before I knew it, it was 6:00 PM and I hadn’t even had a proper breakfast…or left my bed. (Pathetic, I know.) The longer I stayed snuggled up in my covers, laughing at the kittens gamboling around on my laptop, the less I wanted to actually get up and do something as simple as fix myself a bowl of cereal, or—heaven forbid—accomplish anything useful.

However, that day wasn’t my R&R day, which is usually Saturday. If it had been, I might not have summoned the willpower to get my lazy ass out of bed and do my workout. But…somehow…I managed to turn off the cat videos, drag myself out of my warm blanket cocoon, and begin my typical sit-ups/push-ups routine. At first, I told myself I’d just do the sit-ups and push-ups and skip the daily 5K. After all, I reasoned with myself, my ankle has been kind of bothering me. And I’m just out of it today…I’ll do the regular workout and skip the run.

But guess what? By the time my regular workout was completed, my energy had been restored and I thought, oh, what the hell, I’ll go run anyway. And I did! It was an excellent run, too. Granted, it was a bit later in the day than I am accustomed to, but it went well nonetheless.

So, even after most of the day was wasted on being a complete bum, I still managed to force myself to get out of the slump and do both my workout and my run. Later that evening, though, I caught myself wondering how I was able to do it.

See, I don’t have a shining track record of sticking to plans and achieving goals that take several months of dedication. I’m still not at the point where doing my workout, or practicing guitar, or learning ASL, is just a daily thing that I do without much hassle. Every day, there is a bit of initial resistance that threatens to hold me back. To be blunt, I’m pleasantly surprised that I was able to pull my shit together, get out of bed, and work on my goals. So what did it? What helped me snap out of my indolence and adhere to my plans?

I think it was a combination of two things. First, I had already spent a solid month following a workout/run schedule. A month isn’t very long, but it’s apparently long enough for me to build up my willpower muscle a little bit. Second, I did the good ol’ “baby steps” routine, where at first I told myself, hey, I’ll just get out of bed and clean up a bit, at the very least. Well, now I’m out of bed, so I might as well do some sit-ups. Okay, guess I’ll do the whole workout, but there’s no pressing need to run today’s 5K. Well, okay, now the workout is done and I’m feeling good. Guess I’ll run after all!

Sometimes, all it takes it just that first tiny step. Yes, I know that is cliché as hell, but it’s cliché for a reason, and that’s because it works. If you can force yourself to do one tiny little thing, and then another, and then another…before you know it, you’ve accomplished something. Sometimes, all you need is to check one item off your list. Then, a little bit later, you discover that you have checked off all the items on your list. (And even if you only checked off most of them, that’s okay, too. Hell, even if you only checked off your one small item, that’s better than what most people do…and what most people do is stay in bed all day and watch kittens frolicking playfully to jaunty music.)

Hopefully this post gave you a little inspiration, a little motivation. Feel free to share any stories in the comments section below. See you Friday!