I can always find the energy to get my school work done. I definitely don't always want to do it, but that lack of desire doesn't prevent me from buckling down and just doing what needs to get done. I manage to find time to get plenty of reading in. A few minutes here and there, whatever I can find to get a few more pages read everyday. A few minutes in the morning after everybody's gone, bathroom breaks, during my kids video time, I manage to squeeze it in. I usually commit to big chunks of time for working out. I can drag myself out of bed one morning a week to run. I'm usually good for a couple of workouts on the weekend.
I'm not good at grabbing a few minutes to do some ab work or grab a few push-ups. When my rowing machine was new, I would go out in my garage and row for 10 minutes or so, just to get a few thousand meters closer to a million. Now I don't go out there unless I'm going to do 5000 or so meters. I tell myself that I want to lose my gut before I get too old and start getting that old man body, but I haven't committed to really cutting out the calories required to really make a difference.
I can find time to do the things that I want. I guess the question for me is what is it about the things that I can find the time to do that makes it worth my time while I'm not able to do the same thing with other goals. This guy would say that I'm not willing to take the pain required to make those incremental improvements in my fitness. I manage to read who books by reading a bit here and a bit there. I could realize real fitness gains if I could do a few small things everyday for a couple of months. The fact that I don't do it implies that I don't want to be in shape all that badly.
The real story is that I haven't found the motivational hook that would get me doing it. Getting to 1,000,000 meters by the end of the year was a big motivator for me with the rowing machine last year. Finishing a book and adding it to my list is a good motivator too. I pursue trophies. I just need to find some kind of trophy associated with eating less crap and doing small things to get in better shape everyday. When I first thought about the whole trophy thing, I thought about it in a negative way, that I was only interested in collecting symbols that reflect some kind of accomplishment. Those accomplishments are evidence that I'm capable of something that I deem significant in one way or another. Well, why not twist that around and use it as a way to motivate myself? We'll see if it gets me anywhere (assuming I can figure out just what my trophy will be).
