Of all my disciplines, the hardest for me to be faithful in is my exercise. I have a goal to walk, to ride my stationary bike and my real bike, and to lift weights. I want to do at least one of them every day.  I know how important this area of my life is to my energy level, weight management, and overall good health, but I continue to struggle to maintain my commitment to it. The reason is the same for me as for most people my age: it hurts. Even with the exercise, my joints hurt from arthritis, and my muscles ache whenever I strain them —I guess because they are old. Ibuprofen is my main cure. So I have to overcome those deterrents every day mentally. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. The key to getting over the hump in any discipline is to write down the goal I want to accomplish clearly and read it every day. Many people ignore all reminders of failure in any discipline in which they are not doing well. That may take away the sting of failing, but it certainly won’t motivate us to grow or change. Reading a goal every day that you are failing miserably at will, for sure, make you feel like dirt, but it is that feeling that keeps pushing me until I do it. I usually miss a couple of days after the initial success, but I keep reading the goal every day and do the exercise again and again, and before long, it becomes a habit.

Sometimes I fall away from the habit when I am on a fishing or other kind of trip and have to redo the faithfulness process, but I do, and I get back to the discipline. On the exercise goal, I have set some public benchmarks. I am committed to running a half-marathon on November 29th, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by not finishing or by taking 20 hours. I have set a goal to go on a 30-day bicycle trip in June. I have also set a public goal to climb Mt Adams on July 11th with several other climbers. The key to success in those three events is training and preparation without waiting until the last minute. The older I get, the more difficult it is to maintain my exercise goals, but I will work hard at it because I don’t want to become a vegetable.