Talking to Myself

I usually do 1/2 hour of wii fit each day. Sometimes I do 1/2 hour of treadmill, but I always do the Wii fit. (Heh. I say "always" like I've been doing this for more than a couple of weeks. Maybe I've had a lifestyle change.)

Anyhow, I weigh in early tomorrow at school because I will be gone Friday. I got on the Wii fit and was up 7/10 of a lb. I thought, "I'll show you!" and promptly got on the treadmill for 1/2 hour. Afterward, I went to do my 1/2 hour of Wii fit (if I'm by myself I usually do the free step at the highest speed). After about 2 minutes I was ready to quit.

I realized that mentally I was saying, "I'm tired, I don't want to do this, my chair is right there, I can just sit, it's going to take me forever to finish a half hour."

What timing. A day or so ago I was trying to bump up my SparkPoints and I read a SparkPeople motivation article about the power of positive self-talk. I have always believed it worked, or at least helped. Just watching my daughter repeat "I think I can" when trying something new reinforced my belief. But I'd never actually DONE it. It never occurred to me to do it. But because I had just read that article, I thought of it before I gave up and I tried it.

I set up an "I can do this" mantra in my head as I stepped and watched the Olympics. Shortly afterward, I was surprised to realize that I was 20 minutes in and didn't want to quit. It had worked!

So, there are two morals to this story. First, the positive self-talk does work. Second, doing things on the SparkPeople site such as connecting with friends and teams, reading articles, and tracking really does help. If I hadn't read that article, I would have probably plopped down in my chair and not only missed the rest of my exercise, but felt terrible, too.