Too overwhelmed to start? Head outdoors
With the Dubai Fitness Challenge 2021 in full swing across Dubai, the city is abuzz with workshops, events and discounted offers designed to get citizens and residents moving. If you are still sitting buried under work and a mile-long to-do list, then our suggestion is to take the smallest, least overwhelming step down the road towards fitness.
With the weather cooling down considerably in the UAE, it’s near perfect out of doors to be walking to the sound of waves lapping up onto the shore, the sand powdering your bare feet, the sun shining down on you, the trees and flowers absorbing your every exhalation and giving you fresh oxygen to inhale.
For now, for your own sanity, ignore all those highly-driven souls with toned bodies and washboard tummies. Remember all you are trying to do right now is make a start. And there’s probably no better way to get moving than hand in hand with Nature?
Do I even have time for this?
There’s something about being in tune with Nature. It helps slow us down. It’s an antidote to our busy, fast-paced, chaotic and wired lives. Your reaction to Nature might indicate just how much the business of your life has stressed you out.
Within the first few minutes itself, you might start chafing. You might find yourself thinking: “Don’t I have so many things I ought to get done rather than walk aimlessly on the beach? Haven’t I left a mountain of work behind? It will still be waiting for me when I get back! Why not just cut short my walk and head back? I can do this another day when my schedule isn’t this packed.”
Having your mobile with you is guaranteed to make things worse.
It will ensure that although you are out bathed in Nature, you are still wired to your office, your to-do list and anyone can at any time call to retrieve your attention from the life teeming outside to your very personal life that is constantly making demands on you and your time.
If not now then when?
However, even as these thoughts are fleeting through your mind, ask yourself: ‘If not now, then when?’
Our lives will forever remain fast-paced. There will always be more than you can possibly do on a given day. If until now you haven’t been able to make time for a slow walk, a leisurely meal with the family around the table, a quiet 20-minutes with a book or a hobby, then chances that they will happen in the near future are pretty slim.
Now in its fifth year, the Dubai Fitness Challenge is an attempt to inspire everyone to make a daily 30-minute fitness routine a part of life. For many, the activities and billboards serve as motivation to start exercising but sustaining the practice after the month ends, is a different matter.
So don’t burn yourself out by setting impossible goals. Results will start showing only with consistent effort. Consistency can only come when you are enjoying the process. And you will enjoy the process only when your targets are small and achievable initially. Once a habit takes hold, you will begin raising the bar yourself.
At Pratimoksha we are always available to guide you. Our FREE 15-minute consultations might help set you on a Yogic path. You will never know unless you give it a shot. Call us at 00971-50-3955613.
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