I definitely don’t do as well as I’d like with adversity. The whole “no pain, no gain” thing never really grabbed me. I’ve leaned toward the path of least resistance throughout much of my life. As I think about all this ahead of Hell Week, I’m not sure if it’s fear or laziness that’s to blame. Probably it was some combination of the two. But when I do think back over my life, there were definitely times when I embraced adversity and took on more than I thought I could handle. There were the years I lived overseas in my twenties, including a lot of lonely times. Getting a master’s degree while holding down a job. Losing my mother to cancer. Working with a therapist on some personal issues. Thinking back on those experiences, which were definitely hard, I realize there’s a lot I can do. So I’ll keep that in mind as I hit any low points in Hell Week or after.
I’m kind of the king of excuses—just ask my ex-wife. So that part of the action plan jumped out at me. I’ve vowed to get into shape hundreds of times over the last decade, maybe more. But I always seem to come up with a good excuse to put it off. Or I’ll start for a few days, only to hit on the perfect reason for giving up. It might be a conference I have to attend in a few weeks that’s going to make it impossible (or so I tell myself) to work out and stick to a healthy diet. Instead of putting in a few weeks of healthy living and seeing what happens at the conference, I’ll write off the entire month and swear to start as soon as I get back from the trip—which, of course, doesn’t happen. It’s going to be tough to break out of this pattern of thinking, but I know I need to.