MAMACADABRA

So…what are you guys doing for the next 100 days? Me? Oh…I don’t know…just changing my life. Okay, that’s far too dramatic for what I’ll be doing. But who knows…it could happen.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a tendency to jump into things with tons of enthusiasm and hope. Soon after, however, I find myself paralyzed by fear of failure, or it feels like too much work, and I’m suddenly giving myself a million reasons why I can’t possibly go on. And believe me…I’m very convincing.

Case in point (there are soooo many): knitting. This past winter the little girls really loved cowl scarves. I thought to myself ‘this is ridiculous, this CANNOT be hard to make.’ I promptly found a lovely girl who instructs idiots like me to knit cowl scarves on YouTube. I started, and it took a weekend (not to finish it…goodness no) for me to get the hang of it, and to understand what mistakes I was making. It was easy! Something I could do while watching TV, although it took a little more concentration because I was knitting AND pearling, but I probably could have finished one of the scarves in a week or two. With the idea that I’m busy and have a whole lot of other sh-t to do too.

Instead, I set it down and never went back to it. Whether it was the work, or the understanding that the first one was not going to turn out perfectly, I just haven’t picked it up since. Not once.

I sometimes have a problem finishing things.

Last Fall, my girlfriends and I leapt at an opportunity to pay for four 2014 races in advance which would allow us to do that lovely 10 Mile again in October. Typically, you have to enter a lottery to get in, but by signing up for all four races we would guarantee our spot in the 10 Mile. We did it without a second thought. Not really acknowledging that one of the four races is a half marathon. I didn’t mind paying for all four races even if I didn’t plan to run that pesky half marathon.

We’ve completed the first two races, just little 5ks, but the half marathon is looming. It’s in July and training needs to start NOW. Over the past several weeks I’ve been trying to decide if I even want to try to train. I’ve run a full marathon, and it was seriously horrible, so I’m not entirely enthusiastic about running a half marathon. But I’d been playing with the idea of starting to train to see if I can manage the longer distance without re-injuring myself.

I decided to start training this week just to see what happens. In fact, training starts TODAY. My track record would indicate that this too will pass. In a month or two I could very well have given up on training.

But…BUT…

On Saturday I saw something on Facebook. A guy from my high school challenged all of his FB friends to participate in a 100 Day Challenge. It involves doing 30 minutes of exercise every day for 100 days. 100 days of no excuses. He created a private FB group and it’s straight-up cut throat. If you don’t log exercise on a particular day, you are immediately dropped from the group. Yikes!

I did what any self-respecting starter-who-has-trouble-finishing-things would do. I signed up right away!

For me, though. The 100 Day Challenge is less about exercise than it is about starting something and successfully finishing it. Exercise yes, but I’d also like to take this 100 Days to focus on some other things that I excitedly started but subsequently dropped. I used to write on this blog every single day. That was a while ago, and I’m not entirely sure if writing the blog every day will happen, but writing every single day…in some shape or form…simply has to happen. Projects in our house that remain unfinished, my office that needs serious cleaning and organization, they need attention.

So I’m giving it a shot. I don’t like that one of my faults is starting things and leaving them unfinished when the going gets tough. If I can turn that around in 100 days…it would be remarkable! It would be 100 Days of forward movement. 100 Days of turning things around. No matter what it will be 100 Days of something. As my former boss told me once…the time will pass anyway…you might as well do something with it.

That means I’ll be running two miles after work to kick off my training, and then heading home to work on a project I’ve been avoiding.  Go team!

TODAY: What if in the next 100 Days I can shake my tendency to leave things unfinished when I’m faced with fear of failure?

PS – 100 Days ends on July 7th. Half marathon is on July 4th. I can totally do this.

PPS – For some reason, by throwing this out there, I feel like I have exponentially increased my likelihood of failing. The pressure! But I am going to ignore that feeling and keep going!