For several years, I had set a target at the start of each year to try and get fitter or at least to engage in some sort of fitness activity.   Sadly, each year I have ended up prioritizing this target as low and therefore failed to make much progress against it.  I completed courses, read books, completed projects, but neglected the health and fitness aspect of my well-being.  I either couldn’t find the time, couldn’t find an appropriate fitness activity, couldn’t establish a habit or routine or one of a number of other excuses which all sounded plausible and valid to me at the time.

This year I made progress.   I started the couch to 5K programme and for 5 weeks made good progress.   It was becoming increasingly difficult each week as I had to run for longer periods of time however I had built a habit of getting up for my run each morning before work.   I was experiencing some mild aches in my legs but this wasn’t stopping me.  I simply put this down to the strain of the increasing distances.    I was motivated, and I could see the progress I was making.   Each week I was running further and further.   All was going well towards achieving a 5K run.

Then I had a family holiday and took two weeks out.    On my return I decided to jump in at week 4 of the programme, stepping back a week as I thought this would be sufficient to build up the habit again.   I found it difficult to restart my habit of morning runs but I managed it.   After only a couple of runs I started to have painful aches in the left leg in particular.    I gave myself a couple of extra rest days to see if this would help.    It didn’t.    I then tried to work through the aches and pains and this didn’t help either.

I eventually settled with a couple of weeks of rest and decided to go all the way back to week 1 of the programme, which brings us up to this week.    On Monday I wanted to start but made the excuse that it was a bank holiday.    Tuesday wasn’t any good; I cant quite remember what my excuse was, possibly that the first day back after a bank holiday deserved a lie in.    Finally on Wednesday after a significant internal struggle in getting out of bed, I did week 1 run 1 again.  Now, I just need to establish the habit.

As I reflect I can see decisions which impacted my progress, some right decisions and some where in retrospect I may have been wrong.    I can see that motivation has been key.   In the first 5 weeks I could see my increasing fitness level in the increasing times spent running.   This obvious progress kept my motivation up which helped in maintaining my habit.   When I stopped however and when I then had difficulties restarting the progress wasn’t there.  I was running distances less than I had previously managed but having pain in doing so.   It was demotivating and as a result made sustaining the habit difficult.   Trying to get going again was difficult and I must admit to being close this morning to not going for a run, to in effect give up on the whole endeavour.

I have now taken my first step to restarting.   The motivation and habit isn’t there so I will need to rely on my resilience and perseverance.   I suspect this will mean, each morning for the foreseeable future, I will need to fight to get myself out of bed and running rather than having an extra 30mins in bed.   Hopefully in five weeks time I will be back to the same stage I had previously achieved and that I can then go beyond to my eventual goal of 5K.

I wonder how my experiences might be mirrored in student learning?   How do we as teachers help to ensure they remain motivated and develop resilience?