I'm Just Not Motivated

I've been struggling.

I've been struggling in a big way.

Tears, frustration and feeling like a big, huge blob.  

I was telling a friend that I feel like I'm stuck in a loop.

• I am tired and sad and know that I will handle life better if I am exercising.
• I go out and exercise and because I've gained so much weight I am slow and everything hurts.
• This frustrates me and I give up.
• Then I'm mad that I gave up and use food to comfort myself.  
• Start back at step one. 

Round and round I go.  

I just haven't been able to find that switch or gear or whatever you call it to get my motivation going. 

I will admit, I had decided to just let it go until the end of the school year.  Why fight the battle that I'm obviously not winning or even making any kind of traction in the right direction? 

This has been the story that has been running around in my brain for a couple of months.  

Then today happened...

I teach a class called AVID.  I have had this group of students for three years.  We started when they were freshman and they are now juniors in high school.  AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.  We are a tight group and the kids refer to us as a family.  This past year has been really hard for my little AVID family.  These kids have had to deal with a lot in this pandemic.  They are taking on jobs to help their parents, trying to do online school while taking care of younger siblings that are also doing online school, sick parents, sick grandparents and a long list of other things that are hard during normal life.  Exponentially harder during a pandemic.  

In our class there is an agreement for the students to maintain C's or better in all their classes.  This has been really hard for some of them this year, because of the long list of things I mentioned before.  A big part of my job as their teacher is to support and encourage them while helping them learn skills that will help them be successful in life.  This year they have needed the support and encouragement more than anything else.  Haven't we all?

But life and responsibilities don't go away, even in a pandemic.  

Even for high school students.

Today I was catching up on grading for my AVID kiddos and was getting more and more frustrated.  Missing work, crappy work, videos off during Zoom calls, not responding to questions, etc.  I was over it!  I was ready to give my class a serious talk!!!

They log into the Zoom class, no cameras on, nobody responding to me at all.  

This just added fuel to the fire.  

I let them have it.  

Big talk about how there are times when we need to suck it up and get things done even when it's hard.  I was disappointed in them and frustrated with the effort I was seeing.  They needed to suck it up and make school happen.  I talked to them about how frustrating it was for me to know they are struggling but having no way to know what is going on or  what I can do to help them.  

I told them I was tired of hearing "I'm just not motivated" from students (all of them, not just this class).  

Then I had a little niggle in the back of my brain.  

Well shit.

I have been doing the same thing with my weight and exercise.  

The kids are doing it with assignments and school.

I sat back in my chair.  

I have an agreement with this group that I won't ask them to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself. 

Crap.

Crap on a cracker!

I looked at the camera and told the kids I have been saying the same thing about working out.  

If I expect them to stop using that excuse then I guess I have to as well.  

I was honest with them about the struggle I am having.  They know about my racing and exercising in the past.  

So I made an agreement with them.  My version of sucking it up would be to pick a 5k race to do in May and do the Couch to 5k to get ready for it.  I would show them my Garmin workouts so that I'm accountable to them.  They will turn in their work (quality work) and improve their grades, not just in my class but in all of their classes.  

I got home from work, changed my clothes, got Finn and headed out the door.  

Day 1 of the Couch to 5k is in the books.  

I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard on more levels than just being slow.

I'm pretty sure there will be days I want to quit and give up.  

I'm pretty sure that there will be times that I will be mad that I'm back to this weight and back to being slow.  A 5k is a far cry from half marathons and Olympic triathlons!

But I'm also pretty sure that I have a fabulous group of students that needed a butt kicking today and in the process of providing that for them I managed to kick my own.   

Didn't even know that was possible!

So here we go.  

Found this virtual race at the beginning of May.  I'm going to show it to the kids tomorrow and see if they are good with it.  But they know I love Star Wars and I think they will get a kick out this one.