There is nothing worth doing
that isn’t worth doing poorly, as the saying goes. This is true, but so is the saying that there
is nothing worth doing that isn’t worth doing well. Welcome to my world: Paradoxland!
If I were some kind of
stereotypical Zen master Yoda figure, I’d just stop writing right now and let
anyone still reading figure it out.
Since I’m not, it would just be laziness masquerading as promoting
independence or something. Here’s why
both things are true, at least in a fitness context.
A poorly-done workout is
almost always better than no workout at all.
(The exception would be the workout with so little attention to form or
safety that we get hurt.) Maybe we don’t
give 110 percent (not that that is even possible) or even 100 percent; maybe
today we put in 25 percent of the effort.
That’s still infinitely more than 0 percent. And it often turns out that once we have
shown up with our bad attitude and our weary body and our intention to do the
least possible work, we suddenly get into it and do more than we thought we
wanted to or could.
However, there is joy in
mastery. When we try to learn the new Zumba
routine and we nail it, we feel awesome (I am using my imagination here—Zumba is
not my gift). Figuring out the mechanics
of heavy squats and then succeeding at a personal record can transform our
sense of our own power. Approaching our
workouts with curiosity and attention, with care for the craft of working out,
we become something better.
Some days, we get
motivated by being able to do the worst workout we’ve ever done. Some days, we go because we’re seeking the
Platonic ideal of workouts. Either
way: let’s show up.