Benefits of a bad workout

I had a pretty crappy workout yesterday. We'd driven home after a long weekend out of town, and had stayed up too late, driven too long, and faced too many errands when we returned for me to put my all into it at the gym. I thought about not going at all, because what, I thought, was really the point. I had a half hour in me at most, and it seemed silly to bother.

But I got my butt over the gym, and did a half hour of lackluster exercise. I'd be shocked if I burned two points, though the bike machine recorded 150 calories. Whoop. I even drove to the gym--a 10 minute walk away (I don't usually count the activity points of that walk or other minor activity--I just do it because I should!). And unlike some other occasions on which I've not been in the mood, dragged myself to the gym anyway, and then found myself having a great workout, this was decidedly NOT, let me repeat, a great workout. I didn't wind up pushing myself harder than expected. I didn't wind up adding extra time. I didn't wind out doing a bit of lifting while I was there. I didn't even do any stretching. I just sat down on the bike machine with a magazine, pedaled for a half hour, and drove back home.

But I am so, so glad I went.

Why? Because I have learned that for me, if I stop, if I have reasons not to go, then there will always be reasons not to go. There will always be work to do, or tiredness, or some other reason. But if reasons never even enter into it, then it's just what I do. It's who I am. I don't negotiate with myself about whether today is a day I will brush my teeth or walk my dogs. These things are not optional; they are just what I do. I suppose this is a more loving way of thinking about what it means to "just do it," which has always sounded a bit hostile (stop being a whiner!) to me. I think what it means, for me, is that "it is just what I do."

I was thinking last night as I pedaled: this is not a love affair. This is a marriage. And therefore you show up every day, and bring the best you have to the table, even if what you have that day is not very much. You don't say: I'm not feeling it today, so I'm not coming home tonight. No, you bring yourself everyday, hopefully usually with a whole heart and lots of energy, but with whatever heart and energy you've got.

Best of all, doing so means that it's easier to keep doing so, to show up the next day with that heart and energy, because you didn't let yourself down the day before. If I hadn't gone yesterday, I would have felt frustrated and ashamed today, and that shame and frustration is NOT motivating: instead, it causes hiding behavior. Shirking behavior. But by showing up, I was true to myself and my goals, and that makes it easier to be true to them today--when I have some energy back, and am ready to put in a kick-ass workout!