All tagged consistency

"I have a strong desire to feel supported and feel like I belong." Sound like you? Me too.

When I began my career in fitness, I essentially crawled into the gym for my first day after spending a week drinking on the beach to celebrate my college graduation.

I knew I was passionate about wellness, about how our bodies move, and about how things fit together. I knew I wanted to walk out a journey as a person much like the average gym goer: not looking to compete in a physique show or be the next great Crossfit sensation, but just looking to look a little better, feel a lot better, understand my body, and have more confidence.

But I’d argue that my career choice, at least initially, was as much to heal myself as it was to help others (moderately selfish, I know.), finally putting into practice all the facts and theories I’d learned over years of studying health and exercise, hoping that using them practically would finally make it all make sense.

Because I’d tried a lot over the years, probably much like you.

Embrace the suck (you've heard it before, and I'm here to tell you again) (+ a workout!)

The bench press has taught me what God has been showing me basically my entire life: the dreamers, the doers, the problem solvers, the hippies – we aren’t meant for a life of mundane. We aren’t meant to uphold the status quo, to go with the flow, or do what someone tells us to do just for the sake of doing it. We’re meant to change the world, one step at a time, and to do that, we’ve gotta get in the mud and find out where the pain is and why it hurts. Embracing the suck means more than just acknowledging that it’s shitty; it’s loving every second of it, knowing that it’s useful.

Ultimately, our lives are up to us. We get to choose to be glad for even the things we hate, and we get to choose to make them better, if that’s how we’re so called. The iron can teach us that, and, if we look, so will the rest of life.

Turning Temporary Goals into Automatic Habits: a Shame-Busting Guide

A la Voltaire, being a little less perfect to be a little more consistent is where it’s at. Cutting ourselves some slack, acknowledging that we’re bound to screw up, just like everyone else, and making it no big deal releases the shame associated with perfection. And we all know that shame – a message that tells us that we are this screwup, and we’ll never get it right – is not a motivator, but a prison.

For whatever change upon which we are embarking, this is the key. A lot of us (helloooo, mostly speaking to myself, but hopefully this resonates and I’m not alone. If I am, you’re about to see one of the reasons my anxiety comes out to play, so keep reading for a show) fear change, because the associated pain of changing is really a fear of not being good enough.

We assign super-deep meaning to this change – we know whatever it is will make us a better, stronger, cooler version of ourselves – and if we fail to make it happen, then we are shitty/weak/lame. So, often times, it’s easier to stay where we are, and be kinda okay, than to try something new.

HELLO!!!!

Writing that down for the first time a few years ago made me realize how small and silly that was. Would you say that to your best friend, if they tried something new and didn’t get it exactly right the first time? To your kid? To your dog?

Okay, maybe to your dog. I’m not super lenient, emotionally, when Lara Croft chews something new.  But, otherwise, come on.

Change is admirable. Trying to do better for ourselves is a noble pursuit, no matter the outcome. And guess what! 100% of the time, we become better, no matter what: we either learn something about ourselves, achieve a goal, or are a step closer.

So, how do we adopt this mindset to make change permanent? To move from temporary resolution to automatic habit?