“How do you stay motivated?”
Anyone who’s committed to a longterm healthy lifestyle has been asked that question. Friends and family praise your willpower, your motivation, your ambition to stay devoted to what they might see as a crazy lifestyle.
Well, I’m not going to beat around the bush or bury the lead.
Here’s the secret: consistency.
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Spend enough time on this planet, and you’ll notice that everywhere you turn, society is telling you to fix yourself.
Especially around New Year’s, when so many people set resolutions or goals, messages like “this is the year to finally lose weight and love yourself” are ubiquitous.
It. Drives. Me. Crazy.
The implication in that message is that losing weight is the path to loving yourself. You’re only going to love yourself if you lose 5, 10, 50, 150 pounds.
That’s ridiculous. Not to mention completely untrue.
Having dinner with my family, I joked about how introverted my husband is. Whenever I try to introduce him to my CrossFit family, he jokes that he doesn’t want to be friends with “those people”. Unfortunately, my sister latched onto that line: “I wouldn’t want to be friends with those people either.”
Me: “Why not? They’re normal people. Some of the nicest people I know.”
Sister: “They’re not normal people.”
This threatened to ignite a fire because I knew she meant it negatively. There’s something wrong with people who work out regularly and enjoy it, to her. Especially CrossFitters – we drank the Kool-Aid, we joined a cult. We’re not normal.
I changed the subject to avoid an argument we’ve had before, but in my head I was firing off retorts (starting with something I’ve wondered frequently when talking to her: “can’t you support my activity in something that obviously makes me happier?”). Until I realized that she was right. We aren’t normal. But perhaps not in the way she meant.
Without hesitation I can say that I’m happier now than I can ever remember being. I turned 26 last month and I’ve found myself reflecting on the little truths I’ve learned about happiness in my first 25 years.
I wasn’t always a happy person; I spent many of my younger years expecting that happiness was unattainable. Fortunately, things change.
I’m in a new mission: spread positivity. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about positivity and the internet. I think about how negative messages spread like wildfire and cut deep, whereas positive messages are few and far between.
If you’re a blogger, I’m sure you know what I mean. But beyond social media and the internet, it’s in our work relationships and our personal relationships IRL. Negativity and complaints are vocalized, but even the simplest messages of positivity are kept to ourselves.
Most people aren’t trying to pump negativity out into the world. I mean, I think we can all agree that we’d like the world to be a more positive place. And I’ve been feeling like maybe I can do a little more.
