I watched Brooke’s call regarding the 5 Pounds Stronger and was amazed when she said that we don’t all have to be excited about working out and that it works better for her to dread it and do it anyway because if she has to also be excited, then she has to coach herself to get excited AND workout.

It got me thinking about exercising for me, fasting for a couple of hours each day and even writing my book: three activities I always, always dread.
And some days I do better and some days I don’t but in the recent years since I’ve been a scholar (Quadruple Scholar now), I did notice that the quality of the activity I am engaged with is different if I do it even though I feel dread vs. if I coach myself to get excited about it.

So, for example, I would go on a 20:4 intermittent fasting protocol while hating every minute I fast and looking at the watch all the time. That was one way to fast.
Other times I took the time to notice that I dread the next 20 hour of fast and sat down to coach myself and reminded myself why I am doing it so that I could experience those hours with more ease.

Same for the time I schedule to write. I always dread my writing time but almost always, if I go for the “do it anyway” while I am dreading it, I am all tense, hating every minute of it and can’t wait for it to be over.
When does it make sense then to take the time and ALSO coach ourselves before an activity we dread vs. just do it?