Today is the first day of school. I am not a student. I don’t have kids in school, but to me the first day back is a day for a fresh start. I have spent the past few months in “summer mode”.  It’s not that I didn’t do anything but there was a fair amount of time just being lazy – a little too much Netflix, days at the beach and quite a few long weekends eating and drinking too much. These are all good things and I thoroughly enjoyed the summer but there wasn’t much progress on moving toward my goals.

To be fair, my fitness goals remained my top priority. I knew that if I took a break from those, it would be a) too painful to start again (literally) and b) I wouldn’t be able to catch up or reach those goals. So I have been swimming, with the goal of 365 kms this year and running to train for the Ragnar Relay in a few weeks!

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about me feeling bad that I enjoyed the summer. It’s just time. Time to get back to routine, time to get back to my daily rituals, time to make progress on the other goals and dreams. The awesome thing is that I’m really excited to start doing things. As fun as it has been, I’ve had enough. In the past, once I started down the path of laziness it was hard to turn back. This year though I knew the free pass was for the summer only and so this morning I had no issue getting back to making progress on things. In fact I craved it!

Some people might argue that you should always be on, always be moving forward to reach your dreams. And maybe they’re right. But I think that the break helps. It is time to reflect, relax and then when it’s over, time to refocus. And there is a new energy which is even stronger than before the break. Do whatever works for you… just don’t stay in lazy mode too long!