Do Not Despise Small Beginnings

For most of my life, I’ve lived a very active life.

I was swimming every Saturday for years of my childhood. I was in dance class two to three times a week up until I was eighteen.

When I was in university, I kept myself moving by joining the gym some semesters. My friends and I would get together and exercise on Fridays. I did free yoga sessions on campus here and there.

And, of course, I was also walking approximately ten million steps some days just to get to my classes.

And, like many other things, that all stopped when I was stuck at home for months on end.

I went from having a fairly active lifestyle to barely moving at all.

It wasn’t an immediate transition. In the early stages of lockdown, I was doing home workouts for a while. But I quickly lost steam when I realised that the way my life had changed was not going to be as temporary as I initially thought.

So I started feeling bleh, which made me stop being active but the lack of activity only led to me feeling even more bleh, which, again, made me not want to do anything and—

You get my point.

When I started seeing my psychiatrist, one of the first things she told me to do was build a regular exercise routine. She didn’t tell me what to do or how to do it; she just told me to find ways to exercise that I liked enough to do regularly.

And I’d like to say that I immediately listened to her like a responsible patient but I absolutely did not do that.

Because all I could think about was how active I used to be before, and that I wasn’t sure how I would get there again, and that I didn’t know where to begin.

I had been thinking in circles for a while and then one fateful day, I was talking to a friend of mine (if you’re reading this, hi, Stephanie!) and she suggested I start by just taking a morning walk.

And that felt easy enough so I asked my sister if she wanted to join me and the next morning we went for a walk around the neighbourhood. And I enjoyed it so much that I kept doing it.

And then I remembered that I really enjoyed Pilates when I was a teenager so I started doing that too.

And then I remembered I used to like Zumba so I tried to sprinkle some of that in there as well.

(But not as much because cardio and I are not besties the way we used to be.)

Once I allowed myself to start small, it was easy to keep going and I was able to pick up more and more momentum.

I think at the beginning of a journey, it’s easy to look up at the summit of the mountain and wonder how you’ll ever get up there. And then when you’re making progress, it’s easy to feel like you’re not progressing quickly enough.

But you can celebrate a small beginning. You can celebrate the fact that you’ve started the journey in the first place.

And as long as you keep moving along the path, arriving at the summit is inevitable. Getting there is a when and not an if, so you might as well pace yourself and learn to enjoy the scenery on the way up.

It’s not like I have any grand fitness goals. I just wanted to start exercising consistently. I just wanted to feel better overall, both physically and mentally. And I can gladly say that I have achieved that.

All because I learnt to embrace starting small.

Until next time,

Siobhan K.