When not enough is actually all that you need.
It’s amazing how we let our minds trap ourselves into believing that we have to be “perfect”. I had a realization this week that I would like to share in the hope that it might help you treat yourself with a little more kindness.
On Wednesday evening I was blessed to be able see a late movie with my son. We got home late, and went to bed even later. Getting up at 6 AM to walk on the treadmill was a goal, but not one that I was looking forward to, and when 6 AM came I didn’t make the treadmill.
As I got up later though, I decided that I was going to dress and walk on the treadmill, even if only for a few minutes.
It turns out that 5 minutes on the treadmill was all I needed yesterday morning. Not that I burned a lot of calories, or radically changed my metabolism, but because I was able to change the thought pattern in my head, which is much more powerful.
I realized that the duration of time this morning spent on the treadmill was nowhere near as important as the fact that I had gotten on the treadmill. Because getting on the treadmill taught my soul the recurring lesson that exercise for my body is important.
It reinforced that I can make good decisions even after failing to follow through on an intention. Most of all it taught me that not being able to do “everything” that I had planned is never a reason not to do something.
Our success, our happiness in our overall journey is made up of many ‘somethings’ and very few ‘everythings’.
Rarely do we get everything we want, rarely do we achieve everything we set out to. But it’s the things that we accomplish in 5 minutes every day that cumulatively add up to changes for a lifetime.
Wherever you find yourself today, spend 5 minutes on you.
Do that every day and eventually you get where you want to be.
You might not get there as fast as you hoped, but you’ll get there much faster than you will if you never do something because you can’t do everything.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings