bootcampEarlier this week I came across a post by Lisa Byrne on how signing up for a bootcamp has significantly changed her health … and her outlook on life.

I was fascinated by Lisa’s story of how she got started on her new path, and how she kept going. And it made me re-evaluate the goals I’d set for myself at the start of the year, and ask myself whether or not I’d made any progress towards them.

Looking back, they were:

1. Give Waxing UnLyrical wings: yes, I think this is progressing as planned. I see more comments, traffic and greater engagement (certainly thanks in no small part to the Livefyre comment system but also to the consistency and range of content on the blog, much of which comes from killer guest bloggers, so this is not me patting myself on my back).

And you are a large part of that, so thank you.

2. Pay more attention to wellness: if I haven’t “slipped,” as such here, I haven’t made much progress. I do cook a little more (still not as much as I’d like to), but my exercise routine has become … shall we say … no, let’s not.

On the plus side, while my jazz dance classes came to naught, I did make quite a lot of progress in swing-dancing, and hope to take that up again soon. But I have a ways to go on the overall goal here!

3. Work smarter, not harder: this is a bit of a “yes and no” situation. I’ve been working very hard, and while much of it is smart (at least, I think so), it’s also been tiring me. Not tiring as in your run-of-the-mill get-tired-rest-and-feel-better tiring, but tiring as in am-I-really-cut-out-for-this? tiring.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking more about how to veer more towards the former as opposed to the latter (because I do think I am really cut out for “this”). I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel … and as soon as I know exactly what that is, and what shape it will take, I’ll tell you.

After reading Lisa’s posts, I realized the one thing I could do right now was get back to #2 (I’m working on #3, as I said earlier, #1 is doing OK). So I signed up with Grant Hill of My Bootcamp (they have a special deal for Lisa’s readers, which I was more than happy to take advantage of) to kick my butt into shape (pun intended). Our first session starts Monday.

It seems to have excited my Facebook friends, even John Falchetto (who is also an IRL friend), who very sweetly said:

John Falchetto thinks my bootcamp is crazy

This is a question I’ve been asked more than a few times since I announced I was doing this.

My answers to the “why?” question have been:

  • Why not?
  • I need to do this … if I don’t get my butt in shape now [pun intended], I never will.
  • I want to look on the outside the way I feel on the inside.

That last answer might seem vain, but it’s true. On the inside I don’t feel old, or heavy, and I want to look that same way. The first one … well, can you give me a good comeback to that? But the second answer is, I think, at the crux of it.

We only have so much time on this earth. It’s far too easy to let life happen to you, as opposed to living your life.

I’ve been in the “letting happen” mode for a while. Now it’s time to reverse the charges, as it were.

So if I live to tell my bootcamp tale, I’ll give you regular updates. I don’t know if I’ll come up with videos as great as Lisa’s, but I’ll do my best. But I do know this: if I don’t know it now, I never will.

Send me a good thought or two, will you please?

Image: suanie via Flickr, CC 2.0