The Physical Movement, Lifestyle: Everyone Has A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Mouth!

Mike Tyson said it

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”

Wherever you are reading this, let’s start by sending you strength and courage to overcome whatever challenge this crisis has brought up.

Is that quote not most appropriate these days?

Talk about a change of plans!

The original version of this article was posted in December 2018 on the blog. Now it takes on a different perspective.

The premise of the blog was connected the world of athletic preparation in prioritizing our self-care and dealing with life’s interruptions.

When translated into the world of fitness and health, the Tyson quote can be interpreted “it is all good until you or a loved one gets sick, injured and/or sore”, or can apply to anything that interrupts our regular schedule.

Umm…we all have an interruption to our normal routine right now, don’t we?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Hopefully we can grab our morning fix despite this madness.

Side note: I must say I have not made coffee from home on so many consecutive days since, well, can’t remember if I ever have. I think there are lots of things we are re-discovering. That is a topic for another post.

Once that interruption hits, what takes priority?

Where does your self-care fit into that list?

Where should it fit in?

These interruptions are known as LIFE.

Yes, COVID-19 is a little more drastic than usual, but maintaining our own strength should still become priority 1.

That is exactly how the flight attendants describe the steps in case of emergency prior to take off, do they not?

Prioritize self in order to assist others.

In reality, interruptions often take precedence over our self-care. That is the culture we live in. How did that happen? That is another topic for another post.

If there is a silver lining to this virus crisis, it is that at a minimum we are being forced to press “pause”. Pause on our work and travel schedule, pause on our daily routines, pause on how we connect with people. Pause.

The world of physical preparation for athletes revolves around improving capacity to perform, reducing the chances of injury and assisting recovery.

The athletic world prioritizes planning and preparation as well as rest and recovery in a performance sandwich.

Prepare .Perform.Recover. Repeat.

Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash

As applied to our world, this emphasis of physical preparation targets exceeding the demands of our day to day.

We don’t think this way do we?

Recovery is important as well, as interruptions (aka punches in the mouth) elevate stress levels.

Like now.

As we get older, having enough energy tomorrow is almost as important as having enough today.

Do you remember a time when your engine was running on low? Aches, pains, soreness and sluggishness slowed you down?

This is normal part of getting older yes?
Well, depends.

It depends on what we are doing to re-fill the tank.

It depends on what we are doing to care for self.

It depends on how we prepared for this run on our energy.

That becomes the score on our test.

Use that as a benchmark.

How you feeling?

What you going to do about it?

Daily movement is the best medicine that you could take on.

If a prescription, it would be sold out. In fact, there is rush right now on fitness equipment, perhaps for this very reason. The impact is both physical and mental. Trust me, in my journey the mental outlet takes priority slightly over the physical self-care.

Nothing changes our perspective until we are forced to change. This week it is the corona virus. Last week, it was something else. Next week, who knows?

What we do know that if we prepare ourselves by caring for self, we are better off. So are our loved ones and work colleagues.

The crisis of the day can become more manageable.

Everyone has a plan until…..we get punched in the mouth

In the real world, the difference between this quote from Mr. Tyson, is entering the ring is not a choice for us. Our ring is life.

Part of life is dealing with “ punches in the mouth” .

We have 1 life.

We will get punched.

How we prepare for it & care for ourselves when happens makes all the difference.

Let’s stay strong & invest in ourselves!

This IS AN UPDATED version OF AN article posted on http://athleticover40.com in December 2018.