Let me start by saying, you can absolutely add excitement to your life when you set your mind to it! Blah, blah, blah, sounds cliche, right? I know, but I’m not sorry because it’s the truth. There will always be something new in life that seems exciting but so scary. If you would have asked me 6 months ago, that thing was kickboxing. I hated it, with a passion. Like to the point of tears when I would go. It got to the point where I quit going altogether. I would constantly feel defeated and weak, comparing myself to everyone else with their strong kicks and hard punches.
My gym does kickboxing on Fridays. I go to a bootcamp gym where each day has a new and original workout but there is a specific type of workout for each day. Monday is Strength day, Tuesday is Endurance day, Wednesday is HIIT and Yoga, and so on. You get the point. Well, Fridays are kickboxing so there isn’t really an escape from it unless you just don’t go all together, and that’s exactly what I did. I gave up and quit going on Fridays. I came up with every excuse in the book to validate myself. “Oh, I’ll use it as my rest day”, except I also used Saturday and Sunday as rest days. “I’ll just go running around the neighborhood”, 15 minutes later I’d get bored and my “workout” was more of a light day.
One day, I took a self-defense class with some powerful women in my life. I felt the urge to build myself up. I have felt the excitement and knew I wanted to be stronger and feel better about myself. Throughout the class, I kept thinking about kickboxing and how much I hated it but how that also meant it was something I absolutely needed.
I dreaded going but bit the bullet and went for it. The first few weeks sucked. I still hated it and felt weak and incapable. I continued to make every excuse possible as to why I can’t do something but each day that I went, I went through a little shift. It was slow and steady, but I began to feel myself feel a little bit stronger, a little bit more powerful, and a whole lot more confident. My excuses turned to motivation. My weaknesses became my strong points and here we are. Kickboxing is now something that I look forward to each week and the only class that I wake up at 5 am for.
The point of all this isn’t to tell everyone how great or how awful kickboxing is. It isn’t to tell people to go try a kickboxing class (although I do encourage you to). This is to tell you that you may actually come to love something that you think you hate and sometimes you have to just give it a try. It feels exciting to me now to kickbox. It has added a whole new element to my life that I have come to love and look forward to.
Be open-minded and wipe out all of the negativity in your mind. The day that I went into kickboxing with a positive attitude was the first day that I felt my true power and the day that I decided I liked it. So, I say go for it. Try that class you are scared of. Go to the event that you think may not be fun. Take the class that sounds boring. Give the guy (or gal) a chance who may not seem like the perfect fit. Go for the career that seems terrifying. Keep your mind open and do whatever it is and do it wholeheartedly. That’s how you will add excitement and keep life refreshing. That’s how you will feel more confident, positive, and powerful. Believe in yourself and simply go for it!
