Listen To Your Own Music
Last Saturday I went to the gym to work out. I turned on my Ipod and found that I must have left it running the last time I had used it. The battery was completely dead. I always listen to music when working out, so, this was quite disappointing to me! I stuck my head into the office and asked Colleen, the Fitness Consultant on duty, if she had an Ipod charger. “Nope”, she said. Then she said something very cool. She said, “Hey, I guess you’ll have to listen to your own music in your head!”
I loved that statement! What a novel idea, listen to the music in your head. Listen to what is inside of you. Listen to your thoughts and ideas. Listen to your soundtrack, not AC DC, Aerosmith, Kanye West, The Killers or Britney Spears.
I took her advice. I got on the rowing machine for my standard 10 minute warmup. I beat my personal distance record for a 10 minute row! Wow, that’s interesting. It seemed I was actually more focused on what I was doing when I was listening to myself, listenting to my body. I hit my weight machine circuit next. I thrashed ‘em! I squeezed out a few more reps on almost every machine and added 5 more pounds to my normal weight lifted on almost all of them.
Many people will say that listening to music helps “pump them up” for their workouts. And, I think it can. But this experience last Saturday made me realize that sometimes we may be too focused on the beat or the words or the memories we have of the first time we ever heard that song, and we take our focus off of the objective: getting a great workout.
This idea obviously extends into the business world, our personal life, and our spiritual life. Could we be more effective in these other parts of our life if we listened to our own music in our heads? Do you even have your own music list in your head, or are you following someone else’s list? Can you get in touch with your own music? Try it, you just might find you can get more done when you Listen To Your Own Music!
Thanks Colleen!
June 16th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I don’t even own an IPOD. Nor do I turn the radio on in my car. Ask the kids…I still have a CD that has been stuck in my car CD player since the last time my non-driving son (at that time) put it in there (so we are talking 4years ago?). I never listen to music when I drive. And weirdly enough, I don’t listen to music at my office. I find it distracting. So, I guess what I am saying is…I MUST have ALOT of my own music in MY HEAD. The closest thing I care to listen to when I am drawing all day/all night, is a baseball game on TV/radio, or a golf game. Wonder what that says about me? But oddly enough, when I work out…just like you…I wanna have some music in my head. Guess all that “going no where” on the treadmill, eliptical, row machine etc where the scenery stays the same….requires me to have some sound in “my head”. Something along the lines of tuning out the “pain” in my lungs. Ha! Enjoyed the blog, love you Marty, Aunt Carol
April 19th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
This is interesting to me. The time when I |must| have audio is when I’m driving. If I’m not returning phone calls I’m listening to a podcast or book.
And yet,
recently,
there have been a few times,
when I wasn’t going far,
that I just let myself be.
No music. No words. No thoughts. Just be.
Wish I’d had a metric, as you did with time and weights, to determine if I benefited.