Start, Stop, Continue
Two or three years ago, I fell in love with TRX. I started doing it once a week, then twice….now I pretty much do it 5-6 days a week. I have an app where I can take on demand or reply classes and slowly I am seeing huge improvement.
On the downside, since working out with TRX, I have really bulked up. I still think of myself as a slip of a person, but that is no longer true. On the plus side, my balance—never a strong point (see my broken wrist, ankle, assorted fingers and toes) has markedly improved.
I still get incredibly frustrated when there is an exercise I can’t do or can do but can’t KEEP doing it for as long as the instructor thinks I should do it. I do constantly remind myself that they are mostly in their 20s, 30s, 40s. I am almost twice as old as the oldest instructor. So I try to give myself some slack.
Balancing how much to let myself off the hook with how hard I push myself is challenging.
It is, however, a challenge I am used to. Work is a lot like TRX—when to push and when to cry Uncle and flop down.
Staff at smaller nonprofits typically grapple with this hourly. What to do; what not to do? One of the exercises I often ask at planning retreats is for the participants to consider what do they need to start doing (in order to accomplish this new thing they are thinking about), what will they need to stop doing so they have time to do this new thing, and what must they continue to do?
It’s great to remind people that doing it all may not be the best strategy.
Start, Stop, Continue is important for many things we do—from TRX to work and everything in between.
It reminds us that our bandwidth is not limitless; that we must consider what we have the ability to do. What we can do is, I would argue, more important than what we think we should do.
Like many of you, I imagine, I have a hard time saying no. Sometimes it is because the offered project is really interesting; other times it is something i want to learn, have something to teach, or I just like feeling needed! Whatever the reason, I say yes too often, and then don’t think about how I am going to fit this in and (and this is arguably the most important part) do it well.
Another thing I learned through TRX is that I don’t have to—can’t really—do the exercise one way. Form matters a lot in TRX, but there are always progressions I can try, or regressions when I just am not able to the exercise as shown. And the instructors on my app are great at both showing these to the audience, and telling us that any way we can do this is great—as long as we make sure we are doing it well.
I love that. It means that if I can’t do a push from my toes (which I can’t), it’s ok to do it from my knees as long as I am not in a table top position. But I am also reminded that I should challenge myself when I am ready. Which, of course, is how you get better. So, start, stop, continue, and improve!
Think about it—isn’t this what you do at your nonprofit every single day? And isn’t this how you increase your capacity to do your work better?