Health & Self-improvement | ILLUMINATION

Everything I Learned From My 7-Day Jogging Routine

I jogged for 7 days in a row, and experienced many health benefits, as well as productivity benefits. Here are the life lessons I learned.

Jogging, running, and walking outside all provide great benefits for the health of the body and mind. I realized that I should go out for a run every day to keep my body healthy during my break from school because typically I would work out every weekday and rest on the weekend.

I didn’t want to get out of shape by making unhealthy decisions, and I didn’t want to give up the time I spent being active. On February 25th, I decided to try out a jogging or running routine for seven days in a row. On the first day, it all seemed foreign to me; leaving the house to run for an hour at 2:00 PM was something my body hadn’t been used to. However, my mind quickly adapted to this new habit, and on the second day, I already noticed it was almost time for my jogging routine at 2:00 PM.

The major benefits that I enjoyed from the first day were that I was spending way more time in nature and in the sun than I had in multiple months. When it’s winter and you have school for seven hours in a day, it’s pretty difficult to spend time outside when the Sun sets as soon as you arrive home.

Additionally, to further explain myself, I worked on the weekend from morning to night, so there was no time left to enjoy the outdoors when I left the house to go to work and came back home when it’s dark out.

This routine truly helped me more with my mental health than my physical health. Though I lost 6 lbs that week from weighing 167 lbs to 161, I think most of that came from the intermittent fasting, and the running for an hour helped a little bit.

Why jogging?

I know it’s not the most exciting exercise routine, but it fit my interests, and I loved jogging every day in this routine, so I guess I chose the right one for me.

I found out from jogging in the past in a park near my home that I enjoyed being adventurous and exploring new places to go jogging. The reason why I didn’t choose cycling on a bike — the only other option I would’ve considered for outdoor exercise, over jogging — is that I currently don’t own a bike and I’m perfectly happy jogging around already.

I always found jogging to be good moderate exercise that engages the entire body and allows me to see beautiful places, so that’s why I chose to go jogging for seven days as a new routine. After a few days, I practically had 3:00 PM fixed in my mind as my jogging time and looked forward to it.

I ended up discovering many new paths on the route I typically take when jogging, and it was really refreshing to be outside in the sun and witness the beauty of nature.

I wanted to do an hour of exercise every day because my doctor has always recommended that I do at least an hour of exercise on the days that I have the time so I can keep my body healthy and give it a good reason to produce enough energy to stay awake and focused the entire day.

What challenging routine should I do?

If you want to start your own routine after reading this story, these are two major things I think a person should consider for their routine that they want to adapt to learn from and get health benefits from.

Firstly, you should do something that is difficult or takes more time than you can usually afford in your schedule.

This can be playing the guitar for seven days to become a better musician, cycling to stay active, working on pushing your business(es) to the next step by reaching out to small businesses and other clients to get paid your first invoice, and whatever else that applies to your situation of what you need to improve upon and get done.

Second, you should do something that you enjoy doing and won’t quit in the first few days as an attempt.

If you set up a routine that consists of something you enjoy enough to continue doing, while that thing is also something that is difficult and takes time that you usually put off for another day, then you will very likely be able to complete this routine and benefit from the health benefits, productivity, and success that you gain from it.

The Story

I loved seeing the beautiful trees, meadows, and animals as I ran up hills, sped through the trails, and breathed the fresh air as the sun provided warmth through the cold day. It almost felt like summer had started, but it was really just the lack of snow, the warm temperatures, and the sun’s warmth.

On one of the days, the temperature was forty degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind made it feel like it was 18 degrees. The only thing that kept me from staying inside that day was that I wanted to complete this routine or challenge without giving up, and the sun was there to provide a little bit of warmth despite the frigid wind. I was the only person who went out for a run that day in the hour that I was outside.

I tried my best to jog for the entire hour, but after the first two days, my left leg or hip was experiencing some pain. My body wasn’t used to jogging for an hour daily and needed me to go easier on it before it could get to the level where it’s strong enough to jog for an hour straight without problems.

On the day before the last day, my mind and body were completely ready to blaze out of my house and run like lightning on the path to a hill, and that’s exactly what I did. Once I reached the point where the main path split into two smaller paths, I took a left towards the steep hill and ran up with little to no struggle until the steepest part, where I slowed down slightly but kept my pace after and finally reached the top.

I had done this same run up the hill in the past few days, but I knew for sure that I reached the top way faster than the other days.

I don’t know if it was the cup of coffee I drank that morning or if my body was finally producing enough energy to stay active for an hour every day, but I struggled the least on that day and was having fun by the end of the hour of jogging.

In that one week of jogging outside daily, I discovered so many new places out in nature near my house.

On the last day of my jogging routine, I couldn’t go jogging outside because it was pouring rain, so I didn’t want to get my shoes and entire body soaked with water. Instead, I did a 30-minute home workout training my arms because I realized that I hadn’t worked out my arms in the gym in a while, so now was the second best time to work them out with the dumbbells I use at home.

I wanted to keep the same habit for the entire week; however, I ignored the fact that reality is often different from what you expect or want it to be. Just because I wanted to have perfect days where the sun was shining didn’t mean that I would get them. This is why I needed to improvise and do what I could rather than do nothing for the day just because things didn’t go the way that I imagined them.

Keep it up no matter how difficult or painful it gets

Like managing a struggling business, jogging outside every day for an hour can get pretty difficult when your legs get sore and running becomes painful. The difference is that typically you feel mental pain from managing a struggling business every day and physical pain from running every day.

I kept leaving the house every day for my jogging routine, no matter if my body felt like it was ready to run a marathon or if it felt like laying in bed all day to relax.

When running a business, it’s difficult for most people to get through the hardest times without quitting because failure is looming in their thoughts, and they’re focused on why they’ll fail instead of what they can do every day to keep their business afloat.

Doing the same good habits daily yields a 1% improvement every day

It’s not about how many good habits you make sure to do in one day; it’s about how many good habits you kept in that year.

You can have the perfect day where your productivity peaks and you get everything you needed and wanted to get done finished, but it’s too rare to get those days often.

Instead, you can have good days where you’re productive enough to get some of your healthy habits done and continue doing the same amount for a month or a year.

My legs became way stronger and endured way longer runs than they could have before I started this daily jogging routine. It wasn’t how hard I worked every day of my routine because on some days I had to walk more than jog to avoid an injury; instead, it was because I kept jogging the next way without making excuses and quitting.

Move on from your past victories

Moving on from my past victories was crucial for this jogging routine. No matter how well I did on one day, I didn’t make the excuse that I shouldn’t go jogging or work out the next day just because I did really well the day before.

I could write on and on about this recent life lesson I learned in this story, but I already wrote a story solely focusing on this one life lesson because I thought it was so important.

This life lesson is crucial because it teaches you to constantly seize opportunities and keep reaching higher to accomplish greater feats than you’ve ever accomplished.

You can read more about this life lesson to make sure you use it to achieve greater successes in life that I missed out on when I hadn’t learned it yet.

Summary

This was a long journey for me. It felt way longer than it really was because I started this while on school vacation for one week.

However, looking back on this jogging routine, I miss it, and I want to continue doing it the next time I have the time in my schedule to be able to jog for an hour each day.

I was really happy after every run I did, even if my body was in pain from running. The reason why must’ve been because I finally had the time and freedom to do something difficult that I don’t usually do while getting to see the beauty of nature and of the Sun every day that I went out for a run.

Through this one-hour jogging routine that I did for seven days, I learned firsthand that in business and in life in general, I need to keep up with what I’m doing every day, no matter how difficult it becomes or how much mental pain it causes, because it’s worth it long-term.

I also learned that doing the same good habits daily yields a 1% improvement every day, which shows that staying consistent with your productivity is more important than having a really productive day and then skipping a few days.

Lastly, I learned the most important life lesson of these three (in my opinion) when I was growing as a writer, jogger, and business owner by writing better stories, jogging with ease, and making slightly more money from my online businesses. These three major improvements taught me to move on from my past victories and continue reaching new goals.

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what I can do to make this story better for you by writing me a comment. I’m happy to hear your suggestions so my stories can be more helpful to my readers.

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