Overcoming Inertia

I did get in the water!

Today I did not want to swim even though my training plan required it. I promised myself I would swim at least twice each week. Since Joe and I will be attending a conference the later part of the week, I had to swim yesterday and today to meet that goal. But I was awake half the night (full moon? too much going on in my life?) and by 3 pm was feeling out of energy. The wind was strong so I knew the swimming would be harder. As the time I planned my swim approached my self-talk was dominated by reasons why I shouldn't get in that water. This pattern is very familiar to me.  

The good news is: I did get in the water and I'm proud of myself. Much to my surprise, I actually found myself wanting to stretch the distance farther once I swam to the triathlon turnaround spot.

This too is a familiar pattern. I have a hard time beginning things but once I start I find energy and motivation in the doing. Funny thing is, my dad was like that too. And his mother before him. Is it genetic, learned, a bit of both? Who knows. The moral of the story for me is to somehow remind myself about the pattern when it is stopping me from starting something important.

One thing I did today that helped was to tell Joe I was having a hard time convincing myself to go swim. Fortunately, he didn't try to convince me I should or give advice. He just listened sympathetically (I think his actually response was something like "hmmm".) Somehow admitting outloud that I was having a problem with this helped me to get over it and get going.