The days are shortening, our state’s COVID metrics have gone negative and our youngest’s class had a positive last week.
How am I going to find the win this winter?
The first thing I did was start a gratitude list.
Gratitude and engagement are useful antidotes to anxiety and grief. When I started to think about gratitude, there was a lot of positive stuff happening this year. In the day-to-day of home school, I’d forgotten the good stuff. I’ve written it down and kept writing.
Next up, I returned to the beginning.
When COVID started I had two goals: maintain my standards and don’t complain. No reason to abandon those. Useful filters.
Then I had a look around. How’s the vaccine timeline going?
“February or March” => hmmm, I should probably count on intermittent Home School, and COVID constraints, through the end of May.
Next spring is way too far out, even for a planner like me.
I decided to keep “base training” through the winter => sixty weeks of base training will completely transform my body.
Have you been paying attention to your wins?
What does better look like?
- Weeks where I spend a day in the wilderness are better
- Mornings where I wake up early, and train, are better
- Hiking with my wife is better
- The way I feel after I clean the house is better
- The way I feel after I declutter is better
- Setting a new PB in my home gym is better
“Better” requires me to break my inertia and take action.
Sometimes, getting to better requires me to endure actions that might not be fun.
- 2-7 hour drives
- Cleaning toilets
- Touching every single item in a room => keep or ditch
- Getting up out of my chair => the constant temptation to parent from another room
- 60-minute muscular endurance grinds => working through the despair of Minute 37
If I want later to be better then I need to deal with these realities.
Pay attention to better and keep grinding.
Feel The Byrn 
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