Non-negotiables

I've been wanting to get back into the gym lately. My problem with the gym is that I'm lazy and quite frankly, I just genuinely do not like to workout. Everyone says that if you implement it as part of your routine and go, it will eventually stick and it will eventually become enjoyable. I can tell you right now, in the many years I have gone on and off to the gym, I literally never enjoyed it. Even if I go with friends, I still don't like working out. I just don't. The thing with routine is that it gives you the option to stick to it and I most often don't.

Unfortunately, as many others my age, my metabolism is starting to get crappy and especially as a hormonal woman, I most often eat food that is not good for me. That's another thing, I hate eating healthy too. So, as you might deduce from this situation, shitty eating combined with a lack of activity just packs on the pounds. Hence the need to go to the gym.

I suck at routine unless something is a non-negotiable. Work is a non-negotiable, waking up and going to bed at a certain time are non-negotiable. Everything else, is stuff I do sort of as a part of a routine but I don't really beat myself up over it if I don't do it. I do skin care stuff often but not daily cause I'm lazy. I take my vitamins most days but if I feel like it. I vacuum my apartment weekly but on no particular day and sometimes not exactly weekly. They're still technically routine things but I don't follow them religiously.

Now the answer to this might become pretty obvious to you but I don't know why it wasn't obvious to me until recently. I guess when you really look at the root of the problem, you start thinking about things differently and can find a solution that perhaps was in front of you the whole time. It's a mental thing.

How about making the gym a non-negotiable? Hear me out.

The gym is dreadful to me as a routine item and it never stuck because I gave myself the choice not to go. But what if I didn't give myself the choice not to go and it was something that I programmed myself to think was just something I have to do? I go to work, come home and change, and then go to the gym. It's just something I have to do, that's just how my days go - a non-negotiable.

I'm not sure if this strategy works yet cause it's still in my testing period but I actually have been going to the gym because I don't give myself the option to be lazy. I tell myself that I can go for as little as half an hour, so long as I go. Once I'm there, I usually will stay for longer just because I'm already there and in the event that I really am not feeling it, I sit my ass in the sauna. Either way I do it, I go to the gym because it's a non-negotiable.

Keep in mind that this is just an example of a non-negotiable but this strategy (which I'm sure someone out there patented and copyrighted the shit out of already but on my blog we'll call it my idea) can really be applied to anything your heart desires.

I was talking to my friend the other day about how she often gives chances to dudes who most definitely do not deserve her and in part that's just cause she's a pure soul, looking for love and most often, these chances she gives leave her heartbroken. I told her that I stopped doing that once I made my list of non-negotiables in dating because I'd rather be alone and focus on me than to put myself through red flag after red flag after red flag. I know what I want and don't want to settle for less and my non-negotiables keep me accountable in the dating world. I'm just not dating in general because I don't have time to waste on people who are only half of what I ultimately desire.

Whether your non-negotiables are in dating, fitness, or whatever else, try to remain accountable to yourself as to what is important to you and where you need to set those boundaries. Only you know what you are deserving of and you should govern your life accordingly. Don't be afraid to put those non-negotiables in action.

As always, thanks for coming to my Cez talk. I am totally going to the gym today.

xo