mcmurrss: From Start To Finish: My 16 Week Challenge

Recently, I learned something about myself.

I learned that I used to be a Starter. Starting something new is fun and exciting. Finishing, on the other hand, requires time, hard work and a serious commitment. Finishing didn’t excite me.

I wasn’t committing to my fitness goals, because I wasn’t having fun. Running ferociously on the treadmill just to end up in the same place 20 minutes later seemed ridiculous, and picking things up and putting them down made my head spin. I used to love running and when I first began weight training my body transformed in incredible ways, but neither were doing it for me anymore.

I knew that I had to find something, anything, that I truly got excited about.

Don’t get me wrong, I get excited about my nutrition on the daily, but I couldn’t get excited about fitness. I was discouraged.

That’s when I found yoga, all kinds of yoga.

Hot flow, power, fusion, core, hot hips, hot 26 and the practice that changed everything for me: yin.

Yin is unlike anything you’ll ever experience. It’s the opposite of our world, and after hearing the three principles of yin for the first time I was slapped in the face with a metaphor for my entire existence.

The three principles go a little like this.

The first thing you want to do in your yin practice is find your edge. Find that point of tension in your body that you can breathe through. It’s uncomfortable, but your body isn’t screaming. There is tension, but no pain. Next, find stillness. And finally, hold for time. Eventually, over time, your body will naturally open up and your edge will expand. You don’t have to tear and pull at your limbs to reach that next point of flexibility. It just comes with time.

In life, your edge is like the verge of your comfort zone. It isn’t necessarily a place you want to hangout, but if you spend enough time on the edge, you’ll slowly begin to grow and expand as a person. Before you know it, the limitations you once put on yourself will be gone. Your edge will expand, allowing you to move to the next point of tension.

From that moment on, I decided to truly commit to yoga.

I woke up every morning and planned around the class I was going to attend that day. Yoga gave me an appetite for fitness, and I was hungry.

27 days ago I started my first 30-day hot yoga challenge. It’s the first 30-day challenge that I ever truly intended on finishing. I now know that once I make the decision to commit, I AM capable of anything.

Deep down, the Starter in me hasn’t left. When fresh opportunities arise, I still get a rush of excitement and become eager to begin, but there’s nothing more fulfilling than becoming the Finisher you always knew you could be.