Friday, January 24

The Motivation Suit

My name is Geraldine and I started this present blog back in February 2012, I had been blogging before under a previous Twitter name of BlessedSister. I started the Gin or Gym blog because my Doctor told me I was relatively in good health but if I wanted to continue with my lifestyle I would need to do something else. Hence to have the gin I decided I needed to do the gym! As a complete gymophobe the blog originally started as purely gym and my struggle with doing something I just did not want to do but I very quickly realised that along with fitness of body, you also have to look at fitness of mind. I suffer from heightened anxiety now and again but thanks to the gym, family, good friends and a great counselor, I have come to use my Gym sessions and my Blog as my "medication". The Blog helps to get the irrational thoughts out of my head and onto the page. My goal when I started the Gin or Gym Blog was to look fabulous at my fiftieth birthday party last June. So now having apparently achieved that goal I am starting to look at my #nextsteps and planning out how to spend my #blacksuitfund once I dropped a dress size or two.


I fell asleep on the bus the other day and had to get off about four stops past my own. Result? One soaking wet, very grumpy, tired me who could not be bothered to go to the Gym! As I walked down Hyndland Road I passed a clothes shop and in the window was the most gorgeous, simple black suit. Beautifully shaped jacket with a tiny black satin trim round the collar, capri style trousers and a crisp white shirt, it was pure elegance. I stood there, dripping, thinking of a pair of stunning heels I had seen that would go perfectly with it and for one brief moment, my confused, overweight old body was in that suit sipping cocktails at some glamorous bar with Bradley Cooper. But the day-dream was rudely interrupted by some crazy woman with mad, wet, bedraggled hair and terribly smudged make up staring back at me through the window. It took me second or two to realise it was me and OMG what did I look like!

A huge sigh escaped my tired body and I started the rest of the long splash home through the pouring rain and I was just at the point when only a fish supper, a huge bottle of wine and most of the Cadbury's factory would cheer me up when I had a thought. I was about to spend about fifteen quid on a half decent bottle of wine and enough fat to harden my arteries, what if I took that fifteen quid and used it to start a black suit/fab dress/amazing pair of shoes fund? The arguments started in my head, the you are feeling rotten just now wait till you are thinking clearly versus the brilliant idea go for it, I was in a wee world of my own when a very kind van driver thought it would be really good fun to get really close to the kerb and hit the massive great big puddle that would finally soak me through. I genuinely could have cried but the silliest thing happened, I realised that I was only a few feet away from my Gym at Western Health and Racquets Club and I had my gym bag with me. Go in there, get dried, change into your Gym gear and go home. Eh no, I went in, got changed and found myself on the cross trainer, followed by the rowing machine followed by the bike! Yes, I know, I was just as confused, how the hell did I go from the depths of bedraggled depression to working my ass on on the cross trainer?

The answer, motivation. Somewhere deep inside of me the thought of that black suit had stuck. My tired old brain had stored the thought that if I worked hard enough despite obstacles, rain, van drivers and fish suppers one day that drink at the glamorous bar in a fab black suit might just be me! It also made me realise one more thing, you can read all the books, check out all the quotes, listen to all the gurus but if the motivation to succeed is not in you, it will not work, particularly when you are at your lowest. No one can make you stop feeling sorry for yourself, no one can make you put down that third bar of chocolate and get your trainers on and even your personal trainer can try their best to motivate you but it comes down to that old saying of "the flesh is willing but the spirit is weak". Your arms might say go on lift that 7kg weight over your head but if your head says eh nope, you are going to get no where.

Finding your motivation is tough but if I, a recovering gymophobe, can do it after a day like that then anyone can. For me it is the black suit thought that I want to become a reality, the thought that I can fit into it but also that the person wearing it will know what she has done and be able to celebrate that success. So it a physical as well as a psychological goal and has to be achieved by the end of May! So the piggy bank is out, the fund has thirty quid in it so far now to sort out the rest and see if Bradley Cooper is free at the end of May.


Here is to 2014, the year of motivation and next steps.

No comments:

Post a Comment