It is now the end of the semester, meaning the end of our class as well as our self-development projects. Looking back over the past several weeks of my progress, I am overall very proud of myself and my accomplishments. Although my initial long-term goal was to do 5 unassisted pull-ups by the end of the semester, I was forced to adjust that goal as I had some barriers along the way.
During week 5, I had an accident at work where I cut myself with a broken wine glass. I was sent to the emergency room where I spent 3 hours of my Tuesday night and got 5 stitches. This was one of the most challenging and stressful events to ever happen to me because I normally do not get injured nor have to really re-adjust myself to things. I am a planner and when things do not go according to plan, I stress enormously. I was required to keep my stitches in for 10 days and during those days I avoided engaging in any physical exercise that required me to hold anything or put pressure on my hand. This injury set me back a good 3 weeks of my self-development project, and being the way that I am, I surprisingly did not let it get in the way as much as I thought it would have.
Getting stitches for the first time was both a blessing and curse for me. It was a curse because I had a fear of splitting my stitches and re-opening my cut. But it was blessing because I experienced something I never experienced before and was able to take a little breather from my usual routine. Even though this event was a scare for me and put me behind in my self-development project for class, I learned to accept that things are not always going to go as planned and that I have to be quick on my feet to figure out a back-up plan.
My back-up plan was to take a break from my pull-ups because my cut was still healing and it also allowed me to focus my time in areas of my life where I saw myself weak in. I gradually got back into little exercises such as cardio, push-ups, and crunches, and eventually got back into my lifting and assisted pull-ups. More specifically in my pull-ups, I tried to pick up from where I left off, but I found myself having to add more weight since I had not done them in 3 weeks. At that point, I had not choice but to get rid of the set 5 unassisted pull-ups and to just go with it and see what I can accomplish from there. As I had some other barriers such as my schoolwork load piling up and still working at my job, I was able to fit in going to the gym and in the end I ended up just barely doing 3 pull-ups.
Although my initial plan of 5 pull-ups did not go as expected, I am very proud of myself for still getting to 3 pull-ups. I am even prouder of myself for being strong through the whole process in accepting what has happened to me and getting the courage to adjust to change in my routine. In the future, I would still like to keep 5 unassisted pull-ups as a long-term goal that I hopefully get to eventually even though I did not accomplish it through my self-development project.
During week 5, I had an accident at work where I cut myself with a broken wine glass. I was sent to the emergency room where I spent 3 hours of my Tuesday night and got 5 stitches. This was one of the most challenging and stressful events to ever happen to me because I normally do not get injured nor have to really re-adjust myself to things. I am a planner and when things do not go according to plan, I stress enormously. I was required to keep my stitches in for 10 days and during those days I avoided engaging in any physical exercise that required me to hold anything or put pressure on my hand. This injury set me back a good 3 weeks of my self-development project, and being the way that I am, I surprisingly did not let it get in the way as much as I thought it would have.
Getting stitches for the first time was both a blessing and curse for me. It was a curse because I had a fear of splitting my stitches and re-opening my cut. But it was blessing because I experienced something I never experienced before and was able to take a little breather from my usual routine. Even though this event was a scare for me and put me behind in my self-development project for class, I learned to accept that things are not always going to go as planned and that I have to be quick on my feet to figure out a back-up plan.
My back-up plan was to take a break from my pull-ups because my cut was still healing and it also allowed me to focus my time in areas of my life where I saw myself weak in. I gradually got back into little exercises such as cardio, push-ups, and crunches, and eventually got back into my lifting and assisted pull-ups. More specifically in my pull-ups, I tried to pick up from where I left off, but I found myself having to add more weight since I had not done them in 3 weeks. At that point, I had not choice but to get rid of the set 5 unassisted pull-ups and to just go with it and see what I can accomplish from there. As I had some other barriers such as my schoolwork load piling up and still working at my job, I was able to fit in going to the gym and in the end I ended up just barely doing 3 pull-ups.
Although my initial plan of 5 pull-ups did not go as expected, I am very proud of myself for still getting to 3 pull-ups. I am even prouder of myself for being strong through the whole process in accepting what has happened to me and getting the courage to adjust to change in my routine. In the future, I would still like to keep 5 unassisted pull-ups as a long-term goal that I hopefully get to eventually even though I did not accomplish it through my self-development project.