Fun and Fitness: Stop procrastinating and just do it!

Let's face it, we all make excuses from time to time. Some of us live our lives full of excuses, while others use them on the odd occasion to rid themselves of guilt. Our excuses typically revolve around work, progressing and the will to simply try our hardest. But more often than not, we make excuses for the simple, everyday tasks that we know we should be doing!

A few years ago, I decided to try to learn the guitar. It started off okay, with steady improvements, but I eventually let the practice diminish. I've heard many times that one of the golden rules of the guitar is that even when you have become quite savvy, you should practice for 15 minutes every day. Who knows — maybe if I never stopped, I could possibly be at that "15 minutes a day" stage.

This brings up a couple of important points that can be applied to pretty much anything. Firstly, you never know until you try and actually give it an honest, full-out effort. Secondly, although you may start off strong and succeed at something, if you don't maintain it, you may completely lose it.

Throughout the day, regardless of how busy we are, we typically have moments of downtime. For example, if you work in an office, you will have opportunities where you can get up and accomplish something for yourself that is not time-consuming. Remember that nagging shoulder injury that your physiotherapist had you vigorously rehabilitate and sent you off prescribing that you should maintain certain exercises for 15 minutes? Do that during your office downtime! Sure, you might not be able to do 15 minutes straight, but you can probably split it up in three separate five-minute sessions instead of checking your Facebook account!

Okay, so it might be a little awkward if you try to do your 15- minute routine in the waiting room of your dental clinic. You should always have time set aside at a certain point in the day for such important health necessities, especially when they aren't time-consuming! I might not have been able to bring my guitar to work to practice my 15-minute jam sessions, but I could have easily fit it in another specific time of the day if I'd stopped making excuses.

It's one thing if you'd LIKE to do something but don't follow through on it. It's another thing if you NEED to do something but keep making up reasons to postpone it. DO it and prosper!