radicallifechange

In the PN lesson I'm reading today, it's differentiating familiar difficulties with new challenges. Familiar difficulties might be: constantly running oneself into the ground working two jobs, etc., and though it's hard work and a lot of effort to maintain that, it's FAMILIAR effort.

And for someone like that, a new challenge might be cutting back on work, staying at home a whole day and enjoying some time with their family. Or going out and enjoying a relaxing activity just for themselves.

So I wanted to think about what kind of challenges I'm avoiding. Now, there is a definite familiarity to my plan for me. I like to plan; I like to set big goals; I like to try to find the "right" way to do things. I've never done anything so ambitious nor done it this way before, so there is a lot of newness here for me, and I'm learning a lot. I'm not going to make the mistake of making this all black/white -- I'm sure there are areas where I'm in familiar territory and areas where I'm not.

But what new challenges am I SPECIFICALLY avoiding?

Well, I can think of a few off the top of my head.

• Becoming more comfortable with insecurity. I hate insecurity. I hate feeling insecure. I hate NOT KNOWING things. I hate not knowing basic things, like when I'm going to wake up or when I'm going to get to sleep, I hate not knowing more complex things, like how my boyfriend is feeling after a potentially tense interaction, I hate not knowing when/if I'm going to have the time to do the things I want to do.
  
  I hate the idea of trying to accomplish all my goals without setting up a structure and time structure that make it possible. I hate the idea of trying to wing it every day. I hate the idea of trying to fit things in when I can. I want to have ample time, I want to feel relaxed, I want to feel SECURE. I fucking hate the idea of day to day struggling to figure out things like, okay, I didn't have time to do a workout this morning because I woke up five minutes before I had to leave, but maybe I can do it tonight when I get home from work right before I go to bed...
  
  I hate that idea. I hate the idea of that insecurity, that constant feeling of being off-kilter, of struggling so much. I love the idea of getting up in the morning, taking care of what I want to take care of, and then being able to go to work, get that done, come home and sleep and be relaxed knowing I've done my stuff.



• Taking on too much variety. Initially I was thinking that I'd be able to start varying my workouts more by February. Instead, I have cut back to basically one workout routine for February, because I'm still struggling so much with the sleep thing.
  
  There's something about a lot of variety that I find offputting and intimidating -- I don't think having to THINK so much all the time, I like the idea of becoming comfortable with one specific routine, improving at it and being able to note my improvement, rather than constantly feeling like I'm barely even able to get through routines. So I was going to wait until I have at least one workout down before moving on to adding others. I don't like to idea of learning multiple things at once, feeling like a beginner at multiple things at once. Maybe it's because I'm also learning a new job and learning new skills at my main job (branching out into a new area of the same work I do), but when it comes to my workout I want to be able to have a set of moves DOWN. I like that security that comes with having something down, with not having to refer to the paper every five seconds.


• Eating slowly. This was something I thought about before signing up for Precision Nutrition, and I didn't decide to put it in my plan. But it turned out to be the second habit for PN! Hahaha. I was resistant to challenging myself with this because I felt at this point it was more important for me to at least be putting healthy foods in my body on a regular basis, because in the past I've had resistance to eating healthy even when the food is made for me. I really struggle with eating slowly. I've been struggling with the habit a lot. I have no problem CHEWING and eating slowly, actually. I have problems NOT DOING OTHER THINGS. I always want to somehow keep myself occupied while eating -- reading, browsing the internet, whatever.
  
  I actually find that when I sit there and just focus on eating, I tend to eat faster. If I do something else while I'm chewing, then I can chew more slowly. There's something about just sitting in front of a plate and staring at it that I find very unpleasant. I think boring is the word. Obviously this isn't such a big deal if there's someone I can talk to, but when it's just me, and I'm sitting there with a plate of food and feel like I'm just WAITING, I don't know. Bleh. I'm still working with this, ha! Even though we're on to our next habit this is still the one I'm putting more effort into.


• Meditation. I thought about adding meditation into my plan and opted not to. I didn't quite feel like it was the time. I feel that that's something I want to tackle when I'm a bit more solid in my routine, etc. I'm not sure if that's because I want to put off something uncomfortable until I feel more "secure" and "together" or if it's an accurate intuition letting me know that it makes more sense to tackle one area at a time.


• Relationship stuff. I work on relationship stuff to a certain degree, and have gone to couples therapy with my boyfriend, but I know that I'm capable of doing a lot more focused and directed work. I know that I'm really able to WORK this stuff if I want to, and there's a part of me that thinks "no, I want to do all this other stuff first, then I can work on the relationship stuff." And in this instance I do think it's part of me avoiding. Avoiding all this mucky stuff that relationships bring up.