So this is the New Year
Hello from the future,
I hope 2023 is treating you well so far.
I mentioned last week that I have a not so healthy habit of feeling like I am the first person in the world to have felt a certain way, so I thought it would be fun (fun!) to share with you how my first week of the year has gone and what I have learned along the way.
I am yet to finalise my resolutions/goals for the year as I like to think of the new year not really getting underway until after the first week has concluded. However, there was one which I was quite keen to get underway with immediately - to exercise every day unless I was ill or travelling. (This is not going to be a treatise on the benefits of exercise - there are plenty of places where you can find opinions, healthy or otherwise, for that. I have simply found a nice correlation between my general mental wellbeing and my exercise habits. As always, correlation does not equal causation!)
I joined an excellent gym in 2022 - it is a mixture of weights and conditioning, and the classes are forty five minutes long. Most importantly, the guy who runs the gym and takes most of the classes is an absolute champ. He demonstrates well, keeps the class encouraged throughout both individually and collectively and corrects form when it needs to - but not in a way which results in shame (this has been my experience in a lot of gyms). He also humours me in Basketball chat when it is fairly clear my knowledge is sketchy at best (go Grizzlies).
Over Christmas and New Year there has only been one class a day, which I have been attending diligently. This level of consistency was good not only for my physical, mental and ego’s health but also gave me a platform to begin 2023 with.
Can you see where this is going yet?
This week, I was booked in from Tuesday to Friday and keen to get to it. After all, it was one of my resolutions!
Tuesday and Wednesday, all good.
Thursday.
As the classes are only once a day over the holiday period, they are a bit crowded. A guy asks if he can share my barbell with me for some deadlifts just as I’m about to begin a set (This is not a flex, it was a verrrrry light weight). In my haste to get the set done, less this man who was not even looking at me judge my set, I rush through and bam, I feel something in my back.
Well, fuck.
It is now late Saturday morning as I type this and I have not done any exercise since that class. So much for resolutions eh! All done in one week.
But wait!
There was more than one resolution which I had written as a rough outline for 2023.
Be kind to myself.
Be kind to myself despite the intense frustration at not being able to do anything more this week. Be kind to myself and listen to how my body is feeling and reacting and not making myself feel any worse. Be kind to myself and remember that nobody else actually cares whether I make the gym, or logs a run on Strava (and that nobody caring is in fact a kind way of saying this to myself!). Also be kind to the guy at the gym who did not cause me to rush my set.
Being kind to yourself is not a new message and is not something that struck me like lightning whilst I was asleep (if only I was……kind to myself!!!!). It has been somewhat of a revelation to me over the last few years though, the notion that how are we ever to achieve anything or feel good about ourselves if we don’t treat ourselves with a level of decency or kindness that we would like others to treat us.
It’s not easy, but god dammit nothing worth it ever is really.
So when I sit down to finally write my goals for the new year, I’ll make sure being kind to myself is #1. I might even share them with you.
Until next week, you have my permission to be kind to yourself for all of 2023. You deserve it.
Onwards,
Richard
(Note: I had a rough draft of this post knocking around in my head - honest! - and was pleased/mortified to find a very similar topic come up in the latest edition Oliver Burkeman’s excellent newsletter The Imperfectionist. You should subscribe to it. Damn him for being so eloquent)
