My goal is to see just how amazing I can feel if I do everything as close to “best for me” as possible. I didn’t decide on this initiative until a few hours into the morning so the first few hours of this day definitely don’t reflect my very best.
5am: Wake up. Coffee (black). Start responding to emails and doing morning work.
6:30 – 8am: Gym for workout #1 (this includes drive time)
I’m not much of a protein shake drinker. This might have been the first protein shake I’ve had in a few months. I did a full episode on protein shakes to explain why, but the bottom line is that I prefer to eat my food than drink it and I prefer whole foods to processed ones. With that said, I haven’t been to the grocery store for veggies and it’s super hot & humid here today, so a shake sounded nice. Into my Vitamix I put:
1 inch fresh ginger (I had to have ginger today since today’s podcast is all about it)
1 cup cashew milk
1 cup frozen cauliflower rice (in lieu of ice – it has no flavor)
Hi! Guess what? Today I’m kicking off a new series on the blog called, “How Amazing”.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
This idea came to me about an hour ago while I was warming up for my workout. Per usual, I got to the gym about 20 minutes before my workout so I could do some mobility & stretching. As I finished up my workout I thought, I wonder just how amazing I could feel if I did absolutely everything right.
How amazing could I feel if I did everything right with my training?
How amazing could I feel if I did everything right with my hydration?
How amazing could I feel if I did everything right with my nutrition?
Mindset? Sleep? Meditation? Journaling?
While I know perfection isn’t possible, there’s certainly a lot of room between perfection and where I am now that I can explore.
Just how amazing could I feel? How much happier would I be? How much better would I sleep? How much less stress or negativity would I have in my life?
Why not try?
So, I am. I don’t know if this will be a week long blog series or a month, but I know I’m starting today and I’ll post daily.
I intend to share when I wake up, how I spend my time, when I stretch, meditate and workout, what I eat, and surely much more.
The goal here isn’t to suggest that my way is the right way. It’s certainly not the only way. And how I structure my days certainly would only work for me. But I think this is something we can all benefit from pursuing.
Getting out of debt changed my life. I had no idea that working towards a financial goal would have such a profound impact on health, motivation and fitness, but it did. Some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life came from getting out of debt.
The same is true of working out. Building a habit of going to the gym and embracing fitness has taught me lessons about hard work, consistency and stepping out of my comfort zone. Many of these lessons have come directly from CrossFit and while they were learned in the gym, they’ve changed my life outside of the gym!
One of my favorite parts of my 12 week coaching groups is when I get to chat on the phone with people, talk about where they are at and collaborate on creating solutions.
Last week I had a powerful conversation about how our thoughts & words are like a compass – the point us in a given direction. We can really accelerate our progress when we consider the direction in which a given thought or declaration points us.
In this conversation, my client shared that she was often writing in her journal, “The day is already off to a bad start.”
Given that all declarations are directional and that declaration is a compass – which direction does that declaration point to?
Certainly not the way she wants to go…
I think you’re really going to enjoy this conversation!
Not long ago, I started taking guitar lessons. Left to my own devices, I fill my time with work, so I decided to get intentional about adding in activities that bring me joy & challenge me. I certainly wasn’t going to drift to joy! Plus, I love to learn and when it comes to guitar, I have nothing to do but learn!
Right out of the gate, it felthard.
My forearms and fingers would get tired. Every single note took so much effort, coordination and attention.
It felt like my fingers were too small & the guitar was too big.
Nothing came easily.
My teacher encouraged me to practice every day. It was a chore.
Every minute of practice took effort. There wasn’t any part of it that felt easy.
There are only two approaches to this kind of situation:
You put in the work when it’s hard & it eventually becomes easy.
You avoid the work because it’s hard and it will remain hard.
The more I practice, the easier it gets.
The more I practice, the faster it becomes easy.
I am in control of what feels hard and what feels easy.
So, I practice.
There is true in every area of change.
It’s hard until you earn easy.
I thought of this last night at adult gymnastics. Walk-outs to a push-up on the balance beam felt hard. I thought, “I can’t do it.” Then I quickly thought, if I practiced regularly it would feel easy. The more I practice, the faster my progress to easy!
I get it: eating well can feel hard.
Resisting temptations can feel hard.
Consistency might seem hard.
But it’s only hard because you haven’t done enough work for it to be easy.
Easy is earned.
These things aren’t inherently hard. They aren’t permanently hard.
They are only hard because you haven’t practiced enough.
There are tons of things in my life that once felt hard that are now so easy I do them without thought:
Publishing a podcast
Driving
Push-ups
Explaining the relationship between insulin & fat loss
Power cleans
Flossing my teeth
I did them so often that I got good. Efficient. Proficient.
I want you to think of this the next time something feels hard.
It is only hard because you haven’t earned easy. There are only two approaches you can take:
Put in the work when it’s hard & it eventually becomes easy.
Avoid the work because it’s hard and it will remain hard.