Why Saving is Like Shredding, part 2
The 30-day Shred exercise plan continues. As mentioned previously, I have found the Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred DVD a great tool to prod me to exercise more. In particular, I’ve found that Jillian’s approach, exhorting shredders to continue and acknowledging that it takes hard work to build up muscle an endurance to be rather effective. In the previous post, I covered some of the relatively positive points of the Shred and how they are similar to savings including how early results can keep you encouraged.
Currently, I’m on Level 2 of the Shred, and it is (substantially?) harder than Level 1. Certainly, by the time I completed Level 1 6-7 times, I felt a greater familiarity with the exercises and ability to continue throught he entire routine. Now, with Level 2, I feel in many ways, like I’m starting over. I have to learn new steps, it’s more difficult, and it will take some improvement before I can work through the whole thing. I see many similarities again to saving:
–After the initial euphoria, longer-term realities set in –In saving, early initial successes, such as paying of a credit card balance, or paying off a loan, are critical to keeping up motivation. But once the initial goal is met, it is often challenging to have the same motivation to maintain a positive attitude.
–New challenges require some adjustments — just as progressing to Level 2 takes some adjustments; moving to another savings goal or another milestone also takes adjustments.
–It helps to have a partner — my husband and I are working through the Shred together. There are some evenings when I’ve wanted to skip the exercise, but the fact that he is participating as well keeps me on track. For savings, obviously the entire household needs to play a role.
–Being a part of a big on-line community is really useful — there’s a large group of people who are attempting to Shred. Reading some of the posts has been uplifting and encouraging. In addition, there are a lot of people blogging about their experiences saving, I’ve also found this to be encouraging.
