#Context
Recently I have gone back to school to get my master’s degree while working full time as a software engineer. Before school, my main responsibilities were work and my relationship with my fiancé. These are the things that are important to me, outside of fitness. When I took on the challenge of going back to school and working it into my life, I had to make decisions about how I wanted to spend my time. I think many of you can relate to making these decisions. We all must prioritize what’s important to us.
#Realization
You always have the excuse of “I don’t have enough time.” I feel like this is a way of excusing yourself from doing things that you don’t want to do. This might be hard for people to hear, but I think once you start doing the things you want to do while managing all the responsibilities you already have, you will realize you were telling yourself you can’t do something when, actually, you just weren’t trying hard enough.
#What happened for me
I had been telling myself that with school, work, and my personal relationship, I didn’t have as much time as I used to, so I was going to have to sacrifice some of my training time. I had been coming off a period where I hadn’t been training as much as I used to already. For me, this sometimes happens when I lose interest in my training after it gets repetitive.
Currently, I have found my interest again. I’m running consistently again and lifting weights 3 days a week. I think there is power in taking the first step. After I started running again, I had a realization: “Wow, this is amazing—I need to do this more.” The key word is need. I stopped feeling like this is optional. Running makes me feel good, improves my mood, and makes me a more pleasant person to be around. This, along with the huge list of health benefits, makes fitness non-optional for me.
When something isn’t optional, you find the time to make it work.