built in forgetter / mental discipline

My brain has a built in forgetter.  No matter what my motivation, or past good behavior.  Once I stop for 'a little while', it's as if I had not had any motivation or desire to begin with.

What am I talking about?  Exercise.

First off, let's ignore the fact that I wrote down my exercise plan here in this blog - almost 2 weeks ago. (I had to look because in my mind, it was ages ago).  I thought this would be an extra motivating force to get me out the door...

The first week of my master plan I did not exercise at all.  I was not able to exercise in the morning due to not being able to sleep.  I could barely get myself out of bed to go to work.  Reason? Excuse?  It certainly caught me off guard.

Then there were the evening workouts during that first week that also went out the window, mostly due to valid reasons, but were they?  I probably could have worked my way around these other commitments.  During that week I barely gave not exercising a second thought; I 'forgot' about my commitment to exercising and let the various schedule conflicts override my original plans and did not give it a second thought.

My commitment to exercising started coming back into my consciousness on Saturday but then I couldn't go on my scheduled long swim due to the blizzard here in PA.  Didn't want to drive the 17 miles to the gym. Reason? Excuse?  So that left running on the treadmill in the garage.  By running on the treadmill, there was no distance to drive or schedule to work around.  Nonetheless, the amount of effort that I had to expend hemming and hawing was extraordinary.  And all of it was spent mustering up the motivation to get dressed and out to the garage.  The idea of running felt as if I had not done it in an year, and I felt I was going to be back at square one.  I wasn't, of course, and after running a bit all those negative thoughts began to dissipate.

This past week has been a little better: I ran on two mornings.  I also went to my core class this evening.  As each activity comes to pass, it gets slightly easier to get up and out the door.  It is easier, but not easy.  It helps to have a schedule and I am hoping to develop a back up plan that allows me to be more flexible.

Something else that has been helpful is not flagellating myself for not having followed my plan while at the same time forcing myself to walk out of the door.  Small lapses quickly degenerate to complete inertia.  Change is difficult.  I don't know if exercising will one day become 'second nature'.  Sometimes I hear of people who 'impulsively' go out for a run.  I only do bad things impulsively, not things that are good for me.  

My sleep, you ask?  It's a little better.  Thanks for asking.