Tag: connection

Hold Yourself Accountable

When you hold yourself accountable, then regardless what you do, it will be OK.

If you say you want to eat healthy and you decide that eating healthy is eating a cup of spinach everyday… When you do that, then you are accountable.

Wanting to get out and move more, make yourself a deal that for the next two weeks you do (blank) for (blank) long, (blank) times a week.

Do that and you practice being accountable.

Maybe you decide that you need to eat chocolate cake every other Saturday.

Do that and stay accountable.

See the magic? It is all up to you.

You decide on the details and just follow through.

Give Yourself A Break

Maybe you are half way through a new training cycle and miss a workout.

What can you do instead?

Are there stability and mobility exercises you can do, no matter where you are, that support your training?

Are you mentally worn out and really need a day to recharge?

No matter what it is, the point is to give yourself a break. Then the next step it to get back to what you promised yourself.

If you give yourself mini-goals, it is easier than the overwhelming must-do-everything goals.

Maybe you made a goal that was a little too ambitious.

Step back and make it simpler, then get going again.

Make It Fun

Make it fun and you will feel rewarded.

It will be easier to keep going, because you will more than likely look forward to it.

Fun does not mean less challenging!

It just means you get moments of joy out of what you are doing, or who you are doing it with.

Rinse and repeat accountability, breaks, and fun.

Enjoy your training and getting a bit better each day. Cheers!!

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Not Knowing

Knowing that you do not know something is amazing.

It leaves you open to gain more information, any way possible.

In spite of the insecurities you may have, if our desire to learn is stronger you will get better.

Insecurity can block your ability to take in new information.

Then, being right and not feeling like you did something wrong often becomes more important than gaining knowledge.

This is a real bummer.

Unknowingly closing off to new input can stifle your growth and if you help other people, not let you serve them to the best of your ability.

Plus when you know more points of view, and more facts about a subject, it gets easier to see what is missing.

Filling in The Gaps

If you do not know what you do not know, then it can be hard to fill in the gaps.

Listening to what you already know just reinforces those facts and experiences.

Coming across something that is new can help you look at the old in a new light. It lets you shift and maybe make something new.

Art is not the only place where collaboration is king.

In most areas of learning and teaching that collaboration will allow a person to grow faster.

It requires more critical thinking and checking back to evaluate your truths and the fact based truths.

Plus, collaboration can be a lot more fun.

Getting a bunch of people, who are interested in the same thing, together generates great conversation and new ideas.

What is your experience when it comes to learning? Is it true that the more you know the more you realize that you do not know?

How?

Try something new in training and see if it works for you. Cheers!!

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Going Direct to The Facts

Facts can help you get a message across directly.

One real nice thing about facts is that they just are.

There is no opinion, it just is.

A fact can be as simple as something you quoted, or wrote earlier.

Then later on, someone asks you can I have this because something did not happen.

You can go back in time/your archives and pull from what you had originally quoted.

That becomes a fact. With a timestamp and witnesses, it becomes even more solid.

Facts Matter

Facts matter because they give weight to a point of view.

In the health and nutrition industry it is common to quote a study.

A sensational part, or one sentence, of a study can be used in a popular article as the supporting fact.

If you dig deeper and look at the study, you may find the advice that they are giving to a middle-aged female reader is based of what was found to be true for an early twenty-something man.

The article tries to apply something to a general population, but it may only be true for a few.

The age of the subjects and audience are way off.

In most cases with health and nutrition, gender makes a big difference.

Thst headline, catchy and provocative, really cannot be applied to the people the article was written for.

But only those who care to, and know how to, will read the actual study to learn this.

The rest will be duped into believing, maybe even making choices, based on information that does not really apply to them.

Be Your Own Study

That is one reason why we suggest that you be your own study.

Granted, your study cannot be for only a few days. A little time and effort needs to go into it if you really want to understand the possible outcome.

You do not have to become a complete science geek.

Figuring out a few things that you want to measure is all you need to do.

If I run for 15 minutes will I breathe easier two weeks from now?

What can I measure to determine if I am breathing easier?

If I take the stairs everyday for a month, will I run better?

How will I know that I am running better?

Keep it simple and stick with it.

Experiments are another way to bring a little fun into your life of training. Cheers!!

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Curiosity As Kindess

I have been thinking about how to relate to ideas and people you do not agree with.

Finding their humanity may be one way to do so.

What is it about them, as a human, that you relate too.

To discover this, try being curious about why they hold the point of view they do.

Understanding Their Logic

Asking questions to help you understand their logic and how it resulted in the conclusion that they arrived at.

This does not mean that you have to agree with it, but it is enlightening.

There seems to be a fear that if you can see the other person’s point of view, it means that you agree with it.

Is that true?

Just because you can understand how someone came to a conclusion, it should not automatically mean that you agree with the conclusion.

Empathy can mean “sympathy with” or “identification with”.

But it can also mean “understanding of”, “sensitivity toward” and “sensibility to”.

Or, colloquially, it means “to walk a mile in someone’s shoes”.

A lot of debate today circles around the outcome, or proposed solution to a situation, or problem.

Nutrition science has many such cases.

Talk with anyone who believes and focuses on one diet, and they will point to science that backs up their point of view.

If you take a close look at the science, there can be reasons as to why it applies in certain cases.

But there are also cases it doesn’t apply directly to…

“What is the goal, or the outcome”, and “Who is trying to achieve the goal/outcome” are two very important questions to consider.

When Thomas and I explored eating Paleo after reading Rob Wolff’s book, we both experienced it differently from each other, or friends of ours.

Each Story Is True

Thomas did not care for it when we were following the diet in the Rob’s book.

For the amount of exercise he was doing it was not enough calories to recover well and maintain the needed energy for his activity level.

We read the diet chapter over again. It made us realize the diet was for people who were just getting back into fitness and looking to quick start to a new way of eating.

That was not the case for us.

For me, Paleo also fed into my need for control.

It wasn’t a good thing…

It took me down a rabbit hole that I would have been better off missing. But, instead, my project lasted a year and half.

A friend of ours felt so horrible she only lasted 3 weeks!

By then she had been physically impacted to the point where her chosen path was interfering with work and everyday family life.

She decided Paleo was not for her.

I spent most of my free time making sweets and treats, the Paleo way.

That this mindset wasn’t going to help me in the long run didn’t hit me until later.

On the other hand, some people live by it and feel great!

Who am I to say that they are not experiencing what they claim, because of my own outcome and conclusion?

I could tell them what they claim is not real…

This approach would probably result in alienating them.

Exploring why they have the experiences they report together will help me understand their point of view and what matters to them.

I will still be honest. I can let them know that even if I understand why it apparently works for them, this understanding doesn’t change anything about my own experience with the style of eating.

Hopefully this will help them see the humanity in me.

What issues do you discuss where finding humanity is more important than insisting on a conversion to your point-of-view?

Think of training conversations you may had too. Cheers!!

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What is your favorite way to celebrate…anything?

This is a big year of celebrations in my family.

There is a 50th and an 80th birthday, plus a 25th anniversary.

Big milestone numbers.

There has been a bit of discussion around how to celebrate.

My goal is always to help make the day a little special.

Do not want to forget, but do not want to go crazy overboard either.

I like to gather and hang out.

Maybe have a nice meal, a toast or two, and cake.

Love the cake!

Does it Matter

Does celebrating matter to you?

In some ways it matters to me, in other ways it does not.

For me, it does not make what is being celebrated better…

It is fun to do something different, but I know that regardless of what celebration happens, time keeps on turning and those days will come and go anyway.

Doesn’t matter if I am on the couch watching TV, or with my family hanging out.

The anniversary or birthday will come and go.

I like to celebrate other people, but find celebrating myself a bit hollow.

My expectations are never meet, even when I try not have any.

Being the center of attention is very draining for me.

Maybe, if I get to an age that I did not expect to achieve and feel good in my body, a celebration might feel right for once?

Enjoy The Positive Today

Celebrate every day with a little positive moment.

Dance a little, laugh a little, share time with those you care about.

Why save up a celebration for a certain time or date?

Celebrate a little everyday.

Cheers too getting in a training session. Doing a little dance!

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Finding Self Acceptance

The importance of self acceptance can be misunderstood.

We all want to have days where we feel great and joyous.

How can we do that without self acceptance?

Finding the headspace to be thankful, happy, and hopeful requires negative self-talk to be at a minimum.

I think this is why I enjoy novelty and adventure.

When being caught up in the new of an experience, it is easier to be in the moment and out of my head.

Not that it always works…

I remember being at a Muse concert and being more concerned with a family member we invited to the experience than I was with my own.

There were moments when I got up in the music with fellow “Musers”, but then I would return to “I hope they like it”, etc.

Giving Away Responsibility

It is important to recognize that you can give a recommendation, create something and share it, or express an opinion.

But, if someone else chooses to do, or believe something based on what you said, that is their choice.

Letting go of the responsibility ends there, correct?

Unfortunately, this can be debatable. Just look at vaccinations.

Plenty of people hold strong beliefs that vaccinations are worse than the illnesses they are trying to prevent.

Then there is science, with repeated studies stating the opposite.

Now that we have outbreaks of illnesses that were once under control, the question of requiring vaccinations is coming up.

How much responsibility lies with those who have more power, celebrity, and social weight for the outcomes resulting from them sharing their belief (coming out against vaccination)?

What about a healthy, unvaccinated child’s death from a preventable illness?

Does the individual parent hold the responsibility for listening to a source that they believed credible?

Accepting Yourself

If you do not take on the weight of the world when you share something about yourself it is easier to share.

Wanting to share something can help you uncover what is important to you.

Accepting those thoughts and behaviors can provide space to experience positive emotions.

What do you think? Is it complicated, or simple to accept yourself and share yourself with others? Why?

When training today think about which thoughts about training you would care to share with someone else. Cheers!!

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Taking a Little Break

Take a little break by hitting the pause button.

Sometimes, in order to move forward, you need to slow down.

Take a breather, see if what you passed by comes up and smacks you in the back of the head with inspiration.

It is easy to get in a groove and blast by other parts of life.

Focusing so much on one part, you miss the other parts.

Sit Down and Look Around

Feel your surroundings, let them pull you out of your head and into the real world.

As someone who lives with self commentary non-stop, one of the only ways to not hear my own thoughts is to feel what I am standing on, how my clothes feel against my skin.

Sitting in a quiet place and consciously relaxing my body from head to toes can stop the noise inside my head.

Give it a try and see what happens. Maybe you do not need to stop the noise, but have something else that being in the now will give you.

Get into your movements while training and see if it gives you the same result. Cheers!!

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