What do you want in 2013?

A friend asked me why I was so harsh in my last post, and why aren’t I writing about the things you would expect a personal trainer to write about. They really are a good friend and have my best interests at heart. I explained I did not think my post was harsh, I did not send it out with the intention of “get off your behind and do now, or you are toast – you die!”  It is a simple fact of life regarding which direction you are going. Two days after I wrote the post I saw a popular motivational utube short “TGIM”,  he emotionally talks about deciding what you want in 2013 and your will. It is a great piece, but there is one part he did have quite right. He said, “you can choose to stay where you are”.  This is a common thought and the point I wanted to make was, we cannot stay where we are, it goes against a natural principal of life. 

Why am I not writing about the things you would expect someone interested in exercise and fitness to write about? I am not going to write about how many exercises for what goals, or this benefit vs this benefit of exercise, because I believe the motivational self talk part is the most important part of making habitual life changes. That is the way I teach fitness. I have a different viewpoint because I did not come from a place of being physical all my life. It is easy to give a person the right workout for them, it becomes routine after a while.  The difficult part, the motivation, I can’t do for you, but I can tell you what has worked for me and help you to find what you really want, in 2013, and for the rest of your life.

Grow or Die

How is that for a big enough why?  I have been reminded of this three times from different sources in the past week. Spiritual synchronicity.

I know it is true, everything in life is either growing or decaying. There is no such thing as staying the same. We forget sometimes that applies to us and our personal development as well.

I've Got a Never Ending New Year's Day for You ...

Happy New Year and Kudos to all who are focusing for another shot at your goals!

What is a Never Ending New Year? It is knowing that " This thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down -Mary Pickford".  It is life, and we find the joy in the journey. We aim for our goals, sometimes we fall short of the target, but we take what we learned from our last shot and aim again. Feeling better each time, yes, really you do. :-)

Moving to a new habitual state of being takes focus, and it takes trial and error. The majority of the folks you see singing the praises of physical fitness have been in that state for most of the beginning of their life, and when they attempt to "step it up" it usually goes by the wayside just as many other people's goals and desires. I have seen that scenario over and over in the gym. I am not saying anything negative regarding their efforts, I only want to note the experience that I have which helped to form my point of view. Changing habitual patterns takes a big reason why!


Although I have maintained the majority of my weight loss, being able to stay at my leanest has not happened. I have kept a steady fitness progression, but I have always fell back to more fat than I wanted to. Since my last move, and working in an office job instead of the gym, my time training has decreased and my fat has increased even more. I have been disappointed with myself.

To my family, friends, clients, in allowing myself to continue to be less than the person I want to be, I also let you down.  I am making a New Years commitment, that will change now.

Why Do We Do This?

I have been thinking about why we do this, we do we dust our selves off and get back up after Bawhoies?

...Because feeling good is most important to us.  Because we are in tune with that pull to growth and learning.  The later being a double edge sword as that means we are highly sensitive also to our surroundings, and must focus more to know if it us or those around us.  I also think that for must of us, something in life has caused us to need to take control of our consciousness and provide beneficial self talk.  It is similar to what happens to a person who truly follows a 12-step program.  My addiction was the food that I tried to soothe the emotions with, and moving away from that state of being puts you on the road of self growth.  Yes, it is a long road, but that is a good thing.  The road is your life, always going somewhere.  And when a Bawhoie knocks me off, I have gotten much better at returning to my focus and the focus feels even better each time.

Another reason we do this, to give our self kudos, confidence.  Give some praise to yourself today for dusting yourself off and getting back on the road.  :-)

Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot help.

-Thomas Fuller

Bawhoie!

What was that wave of energy that knocked me off focus!?!  Maybe it was planetary?  Astrogloy.com said; “You'll need everything in your arsenal once Mars squares off with Uranus...." That was followed by the full moon on the 13^th, which I know from experience does has an effect on our energies!  

Who knows? Sometimes it is planetary, sometimes it is our own biorhythms, and sometimes it is simply an overload of all the energies in us or around us.  I call it a "Bawhoie", and ultimately, the reason doesn’t matter.  What is important is picking yourself back up. It is a temporary set back! Get this good please; it is not failure unless YOU give up and abandon your goals!

To begin again means that you won't give up.
To begin again means you're trying.
You can either start over and live your life
Or spend the rest of your life slowly dying.

It is never the falling that makes us fail.
It is never the pain or the crying.
You can never fail in life, my friend,
Unless you give up trying.
--Bob Perks

The main problem with mental notes is the ink fades.

Words cannot convey how very important keeping notes are. I know it, I knew it, and I still did not do it. I said, yes, this is a good idea and I see how beneficial it is, but I kept procrastinating. Luckily, a persistence conscience is one of my blessings. (Sometimes it doesn't feel that way.) First stage was just jotting down thoughts, mostly on posty notes and sometimes on napkins or whatever was available. I put all of them in a box, no dates, no order for the thoughts. Next stage was dating the notes and then adding them to a journal. That is good as the second writing to record them, helps to secure their place the in my subconscious. Now it is expanding into this online journal, driven by the hope that others may also benefit from the things I have learned.

"When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge."
– Tuli Kupferberg

What do you want most?

It has been 30 yrs plus, since I stepped upon this path.  I remember quite well the desperate emotion and calling to the Holy Spirit to guide me.  I moved from the obesity that had been with me since childhood.  It took several attempts, leading to my becoming a personal fitness trainer.  After much time of helping others with physical fitness, I fully understood, the challenge was not really the exercise program.

The challenge was and IS keeping ourselves mentally where we really want to be!

The chief cause of unhappiness and failure is trading what you want most, for what you want now. 

~Zig Ziglar