Last year when I decided to go from freelancing back to full time work I realized that if I was ever going to make daily workouts part of my life I had to do it then. It would never get easier to add it in later. In fact, it would only be harder to try to change my habits once they were set, but since my daily habits were about to change for work anyway, now was the time to add exercise in.

Getting up at 5am and going to the gym is not easy, especially those first few months. No doubt about it, you’re tired and your brain is foggy and, if you’re like me and had mostly been an afternoon runner, you move like a sloth that’s carrying all it’s luggage through the airport. All I wanted was to crawl back into bed and forget the gym existed. But I didn’t.

I actually started a fitness instagram account. It sounds super cheesy, especially since almost all of the photos were mirror selfies, but here’s the thing, it actually helped. Not only did I use that account to follow other fitness people who I could look at for motivation, but posting that dangon mirror selfie every day felt dayum good. It was like a little victory lap for my brain. I may seem silly, and heck, it actually is a little silly, but that little mental victory lap definitely kept me going some mornings.

Even in the moment I thought it was just some goofy thing I was doing, but I’ve been listening to the audiobook of “Eat That Frog” and Brian Tracy actually encourages using social media to post about your goals and help hold you accountable. It’s funny how little things like that can make such a difference. For years I wished I could build a healthy workout habit and seriously struggled to come anywhere close to it, but putting myself out there more and celebrating with something as basic as a selfie, I found it a lot easier to mentally push past.

As a society I think we tend to think really poorly about selfies. It’s easy to write them off as something self obsessed teenagers do, but I actually think they can be so helpful for acknowledging achievements and for someone learning to build their self confidence. As someone who’s always had low self esteem I feel a weird unbalance when posting a selfie that is so hard to get over some days, so if you have ever felt the same, I’m here with you. It may feel weird, silly, or just plain strange at times, but forget all of it – post that selfie.