Becoming more active: "I feel determined to start fresh"
To mark the 100th year since the first British women got the right to vote, we are posting features on active disabled women. January saw our first ‘becoming more active’ blog post from 20 year old disability, lifestyle and beauty blogger, Shona. This month we continue to follow her journey to being more active.
We are happy to welcome back Shona as part of a regular feature about becoming more active. In her second blog post we hear her honest account about what to do when life gets in the way of being active.
Shona’s second blog post: When life gets in the way
Last month I started swimming again after years of not going. I originally had plans to go weekly, and then twice weekly eventually, to help both my physical and mental health. Life is never that simple though and I ended up going only once throughout February, sometimes life just gets in the way! I knew from the start that if I was to build up confidence, put my anxieties to one side and build up strength and stamina then I would need to go regularly. So, what happens when you stop?
February is always busy for me with it being the awareness month for my condition, Marfan Syndrome. I’ve had an unusual amount of exciting opportunities but I was sure that I could still fit in one session of swimming a week. My diary kept filling up though and suddenly I was halfway through the month and I hadn’t been swimming once. Then the cold and snowy weather came in, adding more difficulty. At first, I was disappointed in myself for not finding the time to swim as much as I wanted but I was putting so much unnecessary pressure on myself to do something that I was doing for fun.
Once you stop doing something it can often become 10 times harder to start it again and this is something that I’ve found, and I know I’m not alone in this. It would be easy to stop completely now, tell myself that I’m too busy to swim or that going once week isn’t good enough, but I feel more determined than ever to start fresh and hit my goals.
Swimming to me offers an hour to detach from the world, it’s relaxing and enables me to forget about any stresses I might have. Before this year I never really understood how sport could make such a huge difference to someone’s life, especially if it is only done for fun, but after just a couple of months of swimming, I totally understand it now. For the hour that I’m swimming, I feel free.
So, I definitely didn’t succeed in completing last month’s goal but my next one is to not put pressure on myself. Whilst I would love to swim at least once a week sometimes that just isn’t possible and that’s okay!
