My Journey With Health And Fitness – Time To Stop Stepping Up

Overhead squats? Who the hell thought these would be a good thing? It was the brutal strength class at the fitness centre today and keeping with my I am stronger than I think mantra I decided to push myself once again. The instructor introduced a new exercise, overhead squats. This is when you take a wide stance with both your leg and arms and do squats while holding a barbell over your head (with your arms really straight). The instructor suggeested I do a weighted barbell for snatches and then go to an empty barbell for the squats. Hell no, I added a couple 10 lb weights and got through several rounds. Many of the other participants did this without weights but I am on a mission.

Yesterday I had a Zoom meeting with one of my volunteer organizations. I did that Zoom call while out on a 10k walk. Now please understand this is the busiest time of the year for me as I am doing year end books for my clients, doing taxes for paying clients and doing the Community Volunteer Income Tax Clinic along with my other volunteer and political work. On top of that I am now 3 weeks away from heading off on my 10 week trip to Mexico. Despite all of this while on the call I volunteered to do 3 new projects. Oh but wait, I had also volunteered to facilitate an extra support group this week. Seriously I don’t know what is wrong with me

I got home from my walk yesterday and immediately started working on the 3 projects I had agreed to. It took several hours but I got them done. Then of course it was on to doing some taxes. By time the day was over I was done. I get that saying that if you want something done ask a busy person but I need it to stop being me.

And so, I have committed that for the rest of this month I am not going to be stepping up. Sometimes I get to the point where I am so overwhelmed by what I have committed to that it is suffocating. I’ve still got a pile of work to get done in the next 3 weeks so I am going to work on not adding anything to the pile. But I’ll admit, while I am writing this I know all it will take is for someone to ask me to do something I likely will.

So, I will continue with the lip service that I will stop stepping up but any of you reading this who knows me understands that this is likely completely untrue.