DAY SIXTEEN: Life Meets Kettlebells

What should you do when you have committed to a fitness challenge, but it gets in the way of life? Or, when life comes along and “interferes” with your fitness stuff? If you find yourself asking the question, for starters you’re in a good spot, because you have a conflict between two things both of which you probably want to do. Although fitness challenges – especially one where you’re actually racking up a specific number of reps – can seem like they are all about the numbers, they are not. They are about committing yourself to increasing your healthy activity level, and about doing that in a healthy way. If you recall, wellness is not simply physical fitness. In fact, the two are not synonymous. Wellness involves how you are doing across a number of domains, one of which is physical wellness.

The reality, however, is that wellness involves social and emotional aspects (and more), but it seems silly to me to promote one dimension to the detriment of others. So when you find yourself feeling conflicted about doing a fitness activity when some other life event has come along, acknowledge it and move on. Life events have a way of involving people, which definitely taps into the social aspect of wellness. And if doing things with people affects how you feel (as if that even needs saying), then it also taps into the emotional aspect of wellness.

So think big-picture wellness. Do things which move your overall wellness up and to the right. You can almost always tweak numbers, and you don’t want your self-improvement activities to actually do damage to other aspects of your well-being.

Enjoy and embrace life. Fit your fitness stuff in around it. Fitness stuff is like packing peanuts – annoying, but effective.