It’s been quiet here at coldspeLL lately. I’m not going to lie to you, I’m in a major rut. Alas, the point of this blog is not to chronicle just the good times, but the not-so-good times too. It’s important to understand your dips so you can learn how to claw your way out of them. From April to October, I was a self-improving machine. I was highly focused and highly energized. Things started to fall apart right around November. I didn’t see it falling apart at the time..you never do..but looking back, I can see how my routine slowly decayed. That got me thinking about routines.. and water for that matter. Routines are a great tool to have, but the more rigid you make them, the more fragile they become. That’s what I think happened to me. The next routine I conjure up will be a lot less rigid and a lot more fluid..like water. I want to be able to change up my routine any time I have to with out throwing the entire process out of balance. Now I just have to figure out how to do that.

So what did happen? Where did it all go wrong for me? I think it really started when the cold weather set in. It’s very hard to get up at five in the morning when it’s two degrees out. It’s also pitch black until seven o’clock this time of year..so depressing! I found myself not getting up so much, and since a good chunk of my daily routine involved me getting up at the crack of dawn, the whole process suffered as a result.

Then, sometime in October I injured my hamstring. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t run on it, or at least that’s what I thought. I’m not, what one might call, an athletic person. I don’t have much knowledge of muscles and muscle groups and other such things. As my hamstring got worse, I would take a week off from running here and there. It never seemed to get better though. Then December came around and I decided not to run at all and see if it would eventually heal. It hasn’t.

Then came the holidays. My daily routine wasn’t very compatible with the holiday season. Especially the eating healthy foods part. Blah! The rest of my goals just fell apart after that. I all but stopped getting up early, which lead to less Python lessons and less meditation. Lack of running coupled with eating junk has taken a toll on my energy levels. Lack of energy had me opting to watch TV rather than read or study Russian. It was a nasty domino effect.

It’s not over yet, though. I’ve been reading a lot of the entries I made into my journal. Trying to remember what I did, how I felt, etc… It’s like getting advice from my past self. Then I remembered why everything worked for me. I started small. I need to get back to the basics. Back when I started all this I kept telling myself that anything was better than nothing. If I didn’t feel like exercising, I would just repeat that quote and commit to something lite, like ten push-ups. Ten isn’t much, but it was better than nothing. I used the same philosophy with my studies. Instead of studying a full section in my Python book, I might read a few Python blogs, or browse the Python forums. It’s not much, but it was better than nothing. This also helps to build confidence. Instead of giving in and not exercising at all, I would just lower the task and complete it. A completed task is a victory, at least on a subconscious level.

I also love Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan. Those three words have motivated me more than any other three words I can think of. “Just Do It”. So I did. And I kept on doing it.

Now I just have to do it again. Stay tuned…