Blue Belt Motivation

It's been about 1 year since our family got involved in tae kwon do. We had thought we'd found a sport for Zach but it ended up being Teagan who took the plunge. We had met this TKD school at our local Farmer's Market on a day geared towards what the community has to offer kids. Zach broke a board and seemed really excited about it so we signed up both kids for a private lesson.

I was out of town, Jeff took them. They still both loved it. He didn't sign anything that day since I was out of town. When I got back home, I called to find out about pricing and was invited to an open house happening in just a couple of days. We went... and that's when Zach backed out. He realized that other people would be in class, other people would see him and that was just too far outside his comfort zone. But Teagan was still all in!

So for the next 2 months, we all went to class and fell in love with the school, the Masters, and everything Teagan was learning. In early November, I signed up for a free 4 weeks of classes.

And 4 weeks after that, the entire family became full on TKD students with a goal of becoming black belts.

It's really hard to quantify everything that I've learned in this past year - about myself, about my husband, about our family culture, about my kids, about TKD, about Korea.

And now we have finished the lower belt program. We are all "high belts" now and that carries additional responsibility.

And work.

It's been made clear that now that the family class is divided into low and high belt times (meaning you won't have low belts and high belts in class at the same time), the high belt family class will be harder. Because the expectation is higher. We have the foundation and now we have to work harder to learn higher level skills.

But here's the thing.

While I've certainly made the commitment to regular exercise - we attend class 3-4 times per week for a 50 minute workout that includes stretching and a lot of sweating and cardio activity - I haven't made any dietary changes.

I've lost a couple of pounds but not because I'm trying.

My flexibility has improved. I am seeing that I am stronger and more flexible because of the consistent exercise.

But I'm still fat and old and out of shape.

If I really want to excel as I continue to proceed through the belts, I have to find the motivation to start making some serious changes to my healthy living. I need to be active on my days off from TKD - walking a couple miles, finding a yoga class. I need to make smarter food choices. I need more fruits and veggies and less fast food drive thrus. I need to drink my morning coffee and then stick to water or unsweetened iced tea.

I know the change I need to make. I've done it before. I have a reason to do it - so I can become better at my sport.

But my willpower is still weak.

How to you carve out motivation???