Why a Couch Potato Will Stay a Couch Potato
(This is part 2 of a post I wrote last time called Law of Momentum: Pivotal for Success)
On Monday’s post I talked to you about the importance of momentum when it comes to achieving success. It’s a great feeling when you have momentum on your side because things just get easier for you.
However momentum can work against you. Too many bad negative habits kept too long can sneak up on you. Remember the law of inertia? The first part says an object at rest tends to stay at rest. That’s bad like a paper cut.
Has this happened to you? You’ve let bad habits compound and next thing you know you’re unrecognizable to yourself or you’ve put yourself in a miserable life situation. You feel you attract bad luck. You blame everyone but you. Guess what? It’s the law of momentum working on your bad habits!
That’s what happened to me for most of 2010 up till October. It started with big meals. I didn’t control my super bad sweet tooth (hello ice cream). Then got lazy to work out. It led to feeding my brain with uninspiring, useless information online and on TV. It was getting me nowhere in life.
Thankfully I woke up. I believe anyone who’s on a downward spiral but gets out of it has that moment where something clicks. I had to stop this negative momentum. If I didn’t, I’d be fatter now, uninspired to make my life more meaningful and I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now…not dead but just not blogging.
Then you read about my five month physical transformation last time. Well what happened since then? That’s what I’m going to share. It’s not pretty.
After my last half marathon on Feb 12, 2010 I left a few days later to go to Taipei, Taiwan to visit my (then girlfriend) now fiance (thank you thank you). I decided that after 5 months of intense training and running two half marathons my body could use a small rest.
What I love about going back to Taipei (my parents are from there) is the food! So I would be eating a lot. Though I was a bit worried about putting some weight back, I wasn’t going to hold back on eating. It was Benny vs Food.
But since my fiance was going to the gym three times a week, I thought would go along and workout too. At least burn some calories and stay in some shape. Good plan.
It didn’t happen as I planned. It’s one thing to go without working out for two weeks but two months put me back to before I started training last October. Goodbye momentum.
I tried at the beginning. I went once one week, twice a couple weeks later. Then we’d be too busy to go. On days I wanted to go, she didn’t feel well so I skipped too. Then towards the end of March I was really working on starting this blog so I would easily stay up till 2 or 3 am. Goodbye morning exercise.
It’s okay I thought. I’d come back home in April and start running again. I’d pick it up no problem.
Instead since I had been at rest it was easy to stay at rest. I ran once the first week but the other mornings I found myself working on this blog before having to work. In about 30 or so days since I’ve been back, I’ve been running 5 times. I’ve had plenty of chances. Before I ran 5 days a week no problem. It was second nature.
I lost that momentum I had before. It was hard to get started again. My fitness level went back to running not even 30 minutes and I was done. I was thinking “How in the world did I run two hours straight just two months ago?”
What You Should Learn from My Failure
If you’re working towards a goal, whether it’s life, business or in health, and things are going well, you’re on the up and up, and have got a rhythm, don’t stop and start too often. A car on the freeway just needs a little pressure on the gas pedal to keep going 80 mph. If you keep slowing down, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, not only does it take much more gas but it’ll take longer to get to where you want.
If I want to run a half marathon now, I’d have to go through at least eight weeks of training to run the way I ran last time. If I had been conditioning 2-3 times a week, it’d take less time to be ready. I also would be into the habit of still exercising. I wouldn’t have to try so hard just to get my lazy butt outside.
I want you to learn from my mistakes. I’m here to learn from it as well.
Good habits or bad habits will compound over time. What type of momentum do you want in your life?
As for now my goal is clear here. I’m building momentum for my online presence. I want to reach more people who do not to lead a boring, safe life but a life of excitement, passion and just overall kick ass. I wanna help. I know momentum is not on my side yet but I’ve learned from my past failures and know the importance of stacking positive habits. Slow and steady wins the race.
And I’m back into running but starting from the beginning again.
Now I ask you….
-What are you working on right now to try and build momentum?
-Have you had an experience like me when you were on a roll but stopped and it was so hard to get started again?
Please share either way. I’ve shared my failures already so don’t be shy.