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Hello everyone and thank you for joining me. As I’m recording this it is a rainy Sunday morning, I’m sipping my hot beverage looking out the window at the trees that have started to change colors. It’s a very relaxing picture but let me warn you this is not going to be the tone of this episode.

The pace so far today is giving me an opportunity to reflect on the past week and this past week was anything but tranquil. I was already a little off balance when something good happened and yet it sent me into a spiral.

Let me set the scene. Last weekend I drove my friends to the airport in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday and that began for me a week of house sitting and doggie sitting. My friends have two dogs and one is a one-year-old Australian Shepard. He requires a lot of attention and engagement and will get in trouble if you don’t wear him out.

This was also the week the BNI leadership positions transition over and as the incoming Secretary/Treasurer of my chapter there were a lot of things that needed to be requested, communicated, decided, put in place and prepared for.

I have also taken on being Vice President of the board for the Maine Women’s Conference this year and we have been in a recruiting phase for the board for the past month. All of a sudden this week there was an influx of emails with nominations and applications to review as well as attempts to schedule interviews for the candidates.

While all these things were not necessarily meant to happen all at the same time they did. It made for a hectic week but I’ve seen weeks like this before.

Sunday and Monday were very productive days for me so I felt really good heading into the week.

What I also had on my calendar was a large time block on Tuesday for training for my goal of 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one workout.

When Good News Feels Like Bad News

As I’ve mentioned on the podcast previously, I recognized I needed some expert help on this goal so I began working with Alex who is a personal trainer and nutrition coach in August. Alex put together a training and nutrition plan for me that we execute and review on a weekly basis. To save my joints in my weekly burpee workout Alex had me doing no more than 500 burpees in these weekly workouts. The focus of those workouts was initially getting down the proper breathing and form and once I nailed those the focus was to try to do the workout a little faster each week.

Based on the times I was hitting Alex and I guessed that it would take me about 4 hours to hit 1000 burpees if I could stay at a steady pace.

This week the training plan was to do burpees slowly and steadily for 4 hours just to get my mind wrapped around how long it was going to take. The best day for this workout was Tuesday as I didn’t have any meetings in the afternoon. I knew I wasn’t going to be good for much than basic activity after doing any kind of a cardio workout for 4 hours.

So Tuesday morning I began doing burpees slowly and steadily figuring I’d hit around 900. What happened occurred to me like good news and bad news all at the same time.

The good news is on Tuesday, October 2^nd at 11:41 am ET, after doing burpees for 3:38:34 I hit 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees done in good form and achieved my goal.

I shared with a friend that it was a little tacky to share that “I did intend to but I ended up doing 1000 burpees in my last workout.”

She responded that there is a saying, “practice hard so game day is easy.” I completed 1000 burpees so easily because I was prepared for it; better than I realized.

I also joked with Alex that I think he used reverse psychology on me. By telling me to go slow and just do burpees for 4 hours with no goal he made it easier for me to hit 1000 because there was nothing riding on this workout; there wasn’t any pressure. I settled into a kind of meditative state just focusing on breathing in, breathing out, awareness of my form and keeping count.

The bad news is I’ve been in a bit of a funk about it ever since. It had me in a tailspin because the plan was to train throughout October and complete this goal on October 26. I didn’t even know what to do or who do tell because there wasn’t supposed to be anything to tell that day.

I reached out to Alex to let him know my news. Since he has been wanting me to video the achievement of doing 1000 burpee goal all along it was his thought I should recover for a couple days, do workouts on a bike or elliptical to keep up my cardio while sparing my joints and then do the 1000 burpees again within 8 days, this time recording it.

I am not a selfie or a video person so redoing the 1000 just to do a video did not seem that appealing though I’ll admit it is a GREAT marketing tool and it would record the achievement of an enormous goal.

Typically after hitting a deadline early I would celebrate and then pivot to the next goal or deadline but this time was different because I wasn’t ready to be done with this goal. I’m a little bummed that this goal, which was going to be so amazing, has become a little anticlimactic.

I know there are some of you out there internally shouting at me that it is still an amazing goal, and it is. However, these are my feelings, and after some contemplation here’s what I believe is causing this experience for me.

1. Things did not go according to plan

I was going to have the next 24 days to plan how I was going to celebrate this achievement. I also hadn’t planned yet how I was going to communicate the achievement.

I was still contemplating if I would be videoed doing 1000 burpees. If so, I needed to decide if I would do the workout in a more formal location than the room in my home that serves as my office and workout room.

I definitely would not have planned to do 1000 burpees on Tuesday during one of the busiest weeks I’ve had all year. I would have done it on a Friday so I could take the whole weekend to recover. That wasn’t possible this week because I had two meetings on Friday afternoon.

I know a part of this is my Type-A tendency to want 1) a plan and 2) for things to go according to my plan. I have come far enough to know I have to let this go. It didn’t go according to plan but it is done. And as the saying goes, “done is better than perfect.”

2. I feel a void without another big goal lined up immediately

I have been contemplating what was going to be next for me after 1000 burpees. I have come to know myself well enough to know my life works when I have a fitness goal. I take much better care of myself when I am working towards an event or an achievement than I do without any external motivation.

I’ve talked before about Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz and no surprise, I’m an Obliger. That means I am more externally motivated than internally motivated. Give me accountability and I am capable of almost anything. It’s why I’m a fan of making goals public. But if I’m the only one who knows I should be doing yoga today and it’s not contributing to my performance for something public, there’s about a 50/50 chance I’ll do it. But if doing yoga today means I’ll be better for my other workout this week which is contributing to my performance at a race you better believe I’m doing yoga today. It sounds strange but it’s true.

Not having another big goal in place immediately has left me feeling adrift. Other than taking the dogs for a walk I haven’t gotten in any other workouts, not even the bike or elliptical – both of which I had access to this week.

My eating has also gone off the rails. It’s not egregious but it’s not anything I’m proud of either. I have been feeling so healthy, so fit and so well taken care of these past few months and within four days I made countless decisions that went against my health and wellness, never mind my fitness.

I want to have the next thing on my radar but thus far nothing is getting me excited and if you’ve been listening to this podcast for some time you know I don’t believe creating arbitrary goals is a good idea. Goals need to be personal worthy of us as individuals.

3. I’m not giving myself the space to allow what’s next to come naturally

Here’s where my higher self begins to come in and take over the conversation.

I just did 1000 burpees 5 days ago and my week has been far from routine or restful. I’m tired and off-balance and as one of my favorite cliche’s go, “it is what it is.”

And given how public I am about all my goals on this podcast how likely is it that I would go months never mentioning what my new goal is or at the very least what I am doing to keep my health and fitness at optimal. That would not happen.

I know for me, an if you’re Type A like me it’s probably true for you as well, it is so difficult to take time to stop, celebrate, rest, recover, reflect and re-energize but it’s so important. It’s the good work; it’s the work that sets us up for success in the next phase.

I think this episode as a way for me to sort through all my thoughts and feelings so I thank you for playing along with me. This has been incredibly helpful for me and I hope it was helpful for you too. Keep this in your back pocket if ever you get that anticlimactic feeling after a big event or achievement.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode this past week was a perfect storm of things that are important to me requiring a lot of attention all at once.

You need to know that as much as you and I plan, as much as you and I prepare, it doesn’t stop “life” from coming at us.

Sometimes, even when we’ve done all the clearing away of what’s not important to us, so we can focus only on what is important those things suddenly have needs at the same time.

Don’t judge yourself and your life too harshly. All you can do is your best.

However, the work that can be done now in preparation for the next time is to move the needle on what your best looks like.

Can you practice more awareness, presence, patience and listening? Can you take better care of yourselves so your body is better absorb brief periods of living at full speed?

One last thing…

You all, I did 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one workout and I did it in the month I said I would do it, October. Thank you for being a part of my journey and supporting me along the way.

As always, I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

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Resources

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to Doing: A simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

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