Feeling like a Failure

So recently I've been posting a little bit about working out. I am by no means a fitness buff, but for the past month and a week I have been working out 6 times a week following the Blogilates calendars.
I usually don't like to share my fitness goals or the fact that I'm working out, because I'm always afraid that once I fail or stop, everyone will know that too. But because blogilates is such a community driven workout regime, I have been tweeting about my workouts and have learned to be a little bit more open about it without the fear of being judged for failing.

Well anyways, today I wanted to share some of the negative feelings I've been having:

When I first started doing the blogilates videos, man was it hard! I couldn't make it through most of the repetitions and took a lot of breaks. With that said, I would always push through and would always feel great about myself afterwards, even if I had to take a few breaks or couldn't do all the moves. This morning I noticed a slight change in myself, and it was that I really didn't feel like working out. I didn't quite know why but decided to watch some Vlog's from BlogilatesTV to try and get motivated. The video that finally got me to feel like I wanted to workout was this one. For the first half Cassey talks about her Bikini competiton, but in the second half she shares some great motivational tips for when you're feeling like you might succumb to a weakness. This had me ready to go.

Even though I felt motivated to start, about two videos into the workout I started to feel frustrated by everything. The fact that she was using a chair in one of the videos (we have no sturdy chairs in our apartment) the fact that my workout space is so tiny that my legs were always hitting the walls, the fact that I couldn't do the harder modifications of some of the moves... basically I was just feeling so defeated. I did end up doing all the videos (making my own modifications for the chair vid.) but I was taking a lot more breaks than usual and just overal having a shitty attitude.

Of course afterwards I did still get my surge of endorphins (yay!), and I think this is when I was really able to think clearly and analyze why I was having such a hard time.

This actually all started from last Monday's workout when I had an amazing day and did every single repetiton in all the videos without any breaks. I was so elated and thought to myself 'yes! I've improved so much from the beginning!' The next few days of the week I was still doing a great job, but I wasn't always getting all the reps, this is when the negative thinking began.

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I was starting to let myself feel like a failure. After that amazing Monday workout I expected that all my workouts would be the same. I thought I would be able to do every rep in every video because of how much I had improved. Any missed rep felt like a failure and a step backwards.

But this is not the case! Just because I still can't do every rep in every video, doesn't mean that I haven't improved. I really had to remind myself of just how many reps I was missing in the beginning and how much I was huffing and puffing. As long as I'm still pushing myself, I'm improving. I also had to realize that I'm working out every day, and since most pilates moves target a number of muscles in each move, its no wonder that sometimes I can't hold a plank position during a glute workout, if I was doing tons of arm moves the previous day. My Monday workout was probably so great because yes, I have improved but also because it was on the day after the rest day. All my muscles were rested and nothing was sore to begin with.

So basically what I'm saying (in this much longer than intended post) is that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. Always push yourself, but don't beat yourself up if you don't feel like you're doing as well as you should be doing. As long as you're pushing yourself, you're doing your best!

Whew, I feel like such a weight has been lifted. I think I was on the brink of quitting, so I'm so thankful that working out actually allowed me to clear my mind and zero in on what was holding me back. :)

Hopefully this post will be useful to someone, and doesn't sound too cheesy! (I hate being cheesy) I usually don't write posts like this but I felt like I should share, and also get it in writing for myself if I ever feel like this again. :)

<3