"Prem, I need your help..."

 "Prem, I need your help..."

...I messaged a school friend at midnight a week back. We had never spoken or chatted one on one till that moment. But we are connected via our school whatsapp group and on Instagram & Facebook. We have met on a few occasions at the school reunions.

Like many of you reading this, I have had my episodes of joining gyms only to drop out after a few months/years in the past. Before the pandemic hit, I had begun a morning routine & it was a bliss. Come March 2020, Covid ensured the routine stopped. I never quite managed to go back to it then - though it was replaced with some light evening routine, it clearly wasn't enough. I knew I had to do something more towards my fitness and health but wasn't sure who to reach out to.

That's when I thought about Prem. I have been watching images of him training his clients on his social media. So I finally took the step of reaching out to him for help. We discussed the situation and he offered me to join one of his morning drills at a beach near my home. Having always loved beaches I immediately agreed to give it a shot. We start off later this week.

However, just the act of typing it out to someone was enough to egg me on to visit the beach this morning for a run (ended up more being a walk/jog) . I always believe if you write down your challenges/issues (even if its just on a chat window) you do a better job of acknowledging it & better the chances of working on it. So here I am today - a nice run & it felt absolutely great to have done it (to have restarted it) finally & so I decided to pen this down right away from this wonderful morning beach.

There are primarily 2 reasons why I am sharing this:

1. I know there are scores of people out there like me who have been procrastinating that much needed move towards their mental/physical health. Even if one person gets inspired by this, it would have been worth penning this down.

2. A more selfish reason - now that I am putting this out here in the open, it ensures I don't trick my mind into stopping this abruptly. Since I wrote about this, I know I will feel more committed to continue with this. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes when you write it down, you make a better commitment.

If you are in the same boat as me, today/tomorrow is a good day to start/resume - as you may have heard a zillion times in your life - "It's never too late". Go to that gym, hop on that bicycle, get those running shoes on or do whatever you can to take accountability of your wellbeing & health right now (maybe open your to-do list right away and jot it down along with a start date, even before you react to this post or scroll down to the next one).

Find your Prem - text them about your wellbeing/health concerns and it might help you too.

Wish you a great week ahead!

P.S.: Unfortunately, Prem doesn't have a profile on LinkedIn yet (so I am unable to tag him) and I just told him he had to come aboard to help his cause and that of others like me.

Click here to read this on Linkedin.