Rehearsal last night was surprisingly smooth. We have a new stage manager/techie guy, and I have to say that for being so hastily added and brand-new to the production, he really did a terrific job. A real team player! I love that. :)

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I think I’m on my way back to normalcy as far as health is concerned; got through my workout with nary a complaint from my body, so I pushed myself a little bit more. That’s the key, I think, to doing the Power 90 series: when it starts to feel easy, take the initiative and push yourself to move a tiny bit faster, work on improving that form to make it a little closer to perfect, add a little weight, etc. It’s as much about listening to your body and knowing when to self-challenge as it is about the self-discipline to work out every single day.

I’m learning a lot about myself during this process. I’ve discovered I’ve really been selling myself short for a very long time, and I’m capable of much more than I thought I was. This is not me bigging myself up; this is me understanding that my brain has been my biggest obstacle. One of my best personal triumphs has been the ability to accept the idea that some things need to be worked up to… and that’s OKAY. I’ve been such a perfectionist for so long that I would give up on exercises that I couldn’t do absolutely perfectly for exactly the prescribed number of reps or intensity. I would have rather done nothing than take the risk of not doing something perfect. And that goes for other things in my life, too. Perfection or nothing: that’s me all over. But I see now how changing my approach is affecting my body… how telling myself, “try your best, and if it’s not perfect, you’ll do better next time” is working.

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and my favorite morning show was interviewing a local college basketball coach who has his doctorate degree in sports psychology. Have you ever heard of that before? I hadn’t - and so I looked it up to see what it was all about. Sports psychology is defined as “an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from the fields of kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical factors. In addition to instruction and training of psychological skills for performance improvement, applied sport psychology may include work with athletes, coaches, and parents regarding injury, rehabilitation, communication, team building, and career transitions.” (That’s from Wikipedia.)

I find the notion of this kind of study absolutely fascinating - really up my alley. I know now from firsthand experience how we have to get our brains on board for this journey, that the first real change anyone needs to make before embarking on the road to a fitter, healthier lifestyle starts with your psychology.

There’s a very good chance I’ll be going back to school - soon. This is something I would be very interested in pursuing… or something like it.