It's A Lot More Uncomfortable Around Here

Today is day 3 of the #blogeverydayinJuly challenge - thank you so much to everyone who is participating so far... I love reading everyone's posts!

For those of you who are new around here, or for those of you who have been around for a while, I challenged myself at the beginning of the year to REALLY step out of my comfort zone in 2014 and do things that I would normally say NO to. I honestly have said YES to more things than I ever would've thought, and it has been great. Unfortunately, do to injuries, and illnesses, and having a lot less time to myself (excuses, I know), I haven't really lost weight this year... definitely not like I did last year. I'm choosing not to be hard on myself about this because despite the fact that I'm not losing weight, I'm still staying consistent with getting uncomfortable and trying new things.

When Amanda and I first created this challenge for ourselves, it was honestly pretty daunting. We decided that we each wanted to commit to getting 'uncomfortable' at least 12x throughout the year (one per month). I've honestly lost track, and I probably won't document all of the moments that I've done something big to 'get uncomfortable' this year, but I'm going to try and remember a few of them. I did a recap at the end of January to show what I had done in the first month, and I had already accomplished 4 accomplishments, and the day after I wrote that post I accomplished one more super embarrassing moment of getting uncomfortable for a total of FIVE accomplishments for January.

After January ended, the rest of the year has basically been a blur, but here are the accomplishments that I can remember so far:

Bungee Jumping
In April, I went bungee jumping with three of my best friends - Justin, Amanda, and Shawn. It was completely SURREAL, and something that I was both terrified and excited to accomplish and check off my "list". Due to weight restrictions, this is something that I wouldn't have been able to do a year ago, and the fact that I was able to do this now was just HUGE for me.


Me, Post-Jump, with a TON of adrenaline pumping.

Vancouver Sun Run - 10k
I never ever ever in a million years thought I would run, but last year when I started losing weight, running quickly became my favourite exercise and the best way for me to destress after a long day at work. In January, I decided to go balls to the wall and sign up to do the world-famous 10k race that 50-60 THOUSAND people run every year. This was absolutely TERRIFYING to me because I have an irrational fear of working out in front of anyone, and the thought of running around people gave me the nervous shits make me nervous. I injured myself a month before the race and couldn't finish training so I ended up walking the majority of it (at a quick pace) and sprinting intervals whenever I could. But, I did it - and I was honestly so proud of myself.



Heart & Stroke Big Bike
This was an accomplishment that was SO MUCH FUN... but Faith a year ago, two years ago, or five ago wouldn't have done this AT ALL. Doing anything physically active (no matter how small it may be) terrified me, especially doing said thing in front of people. I love that I'm actually saying YES to everything this year, and this big bike fundraiser for the heart and stroke foundation was so much fun... I'm hoping to do it again next year. Essentially, it's a 30-person bike, so I hopped on there with 29 of my colleagues and we biked 1 or 2km around the city and waved at people, cheered, made noise, and so many tourists stopped to take pictures of us... it was hilarious and amazing all in one.

Love
Now before you all completely roll your eyes at this one... hear me out. My entire life, I have never thought I was worthy of love and never really gave it a second thought. I allowed myself to be treated like a doormat by any guy that I've dated/talked to/interacted with(romantically.. as in more than friends). I made a promise to myself in the beginning of February that I was going to step back from dating guys because it wasn't really going anywhere and I was allowing myself to be walked all over. A week or two after I made the decision that I wanted to take some time off, Justin strolled into my life. Giving him my number, going on our first date, saying I love you - these were all things that were extremely 'uncomfortable' but oddly so comfortable for me at the same time.



Grouse Grind
Since I moved to Vancouver I have been asked by numerous people to do the Grouse Grind... and my response has been the same for every single person: "HAHAHAHAHAHA you're joking, right?". But, in honour of getting uncomfortable this year, my dear friend Kate-Lynn forced encouraged me to do the grind with her and prove to myself that I could actually accomplish something this difficult. Well, ladies and gentlemen... this is probably a once in a lifetime thing because I don't think will ever really feel the need to do this again... but I'm glad that I checked it off my list and put my big girl panties on and got it done. For those of you interested in knowing what the Grouse Grind is, click this link.


Pre // Post Grind


Kate-Lynn snapped a picture of me reaching the top // here's the view from the top of Grouse Mountain. Breathtaking.

Taking an exercise class
As I've mentioned a few other times throughout this post, working out in front of people is extremely hard for me. Last week, two of my friends/colleagues forced me out of my comfort zone and made me take a class (Fab Abs) at the YWCA with them. It was uncomfortable, but we made the best of it and laughed lots. It definitely helped me to continue working towards getting over my fear of working out and being sweaty in public.

I feel like I have a few more things that I'm just completely forgetting to mention here, but if they come to me I'll just include them in my next 'Get Uncomfortable' update! What are you doing in your life to get uncomfortable? How can you challenge yourself to step out of that comfort zone? Link up and tell us!

Even though we don't like rules, every fun thing in life has them. So here are a few of ours:

1. Please only link up a post if it matches with the day's topic.
2. Make sure you either grab the button code and put it in the HTML portion of your post, or link back to at least one of the hosts.
3. Go make some friends. Comments=Love

<div align="center"><a href="http://causeyougottahavefaithy.blogspot.com/" title="Allieology"><img src="http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/u554/toatsblog/BlogEverydayJuly_zps27fb90b6.png" alt="Allieology" style="border:none;" /></a></div>