Hi, I'm Monica Packer, and you're listening to About Progress, where we are about progress made practical.

One morning late winter last year, my big kids were gone to school and it was just me and the baby at home and I had this precious amount of time before my preschooler came home

midday and I was trying my darnest to prioritize something

I had really been looking forward to and needed to do but found it really hard to do and

that was getting back into strength training.

Now to do this, I chose what I thought

would be a simple 20 minute workout

and I got started.

Well, I managed to complete just 14 minutes of that 20, but it took me over the course of 2.5 hours to do that 14 minutes.

And that was due to interruptions ranging from my baby

waking up like after 20 minutes of a nap to the pest control man coming and

calls from school and so much more what should have been simple.

Simply wasn't.

The most common New Year's habit people want to work on is exercise and for so many good

reasons yeah there's definitely some shoulds in there exercise can be pretty

emotionally charged topic right so we can see people doing it because they feel like they should or

because their neighbor is doing it or because they want to look a certain way. And, you know, with all

that being said, I think deep down, we all know that working out helps us with our bodies for sure but also

with our minds with our mood with our spirit so let's say that you want to improve how you

exercise this year,

and you are wanting to do it for some really good reasons.

But right now, as well as in maybe times past,

...