Fulfillment Friday - AKA Personal Development

As you all know I have been reading The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson and have been trying to apply these principles to my daily life. The one thing that really stands out to me in this book is " What is easy to do, is also easy NOT to do". Today I had the distinct pleasure of being a guest at the Colorado Springs BBB Small Business Week Awards Luncheon. Their guest speaker was Weldon Long. A gentleman that before today, I knew nothing about. He has an amazing story.

Incarcerated for 13 years until the age of 39 with a 9th grade education, he decided while in prison to change his course of thinking and start living his dreams and aspirations that he had written down in his mind until he got out and could fully go after them. He talked today about how when you continually think positive things and live those future goals as if they are in the present, you will attract those things to you. This aligns itself with my personal philosophy of the law of attraction but also with what Jeff Olson says in The Slight Edge. Weldon talked today about how our "box" or our minds are filled up with the ideas and beliefs of others and it gets crowded with junk. When we can fill our box with positive notions and ideas of our own, we will reap the benefits of that. What goes in the box, eventually comes out of the box.

It is amazing to see the result of what small changes over time can be. This man who had every reason  to believe that he'd amount to nothing, made the CHOICE to change his thinking and do small things daily that would eventually change his life. He chose to do whatever it took, every day, to get there. Once I read the books I will be sure to blog about him again.

 I am excited to read his books after the others that I have in line in front of it! If you are looking for a good personal development book, pick up his book, "The Power of Consistency" and

The Upside of Fear. As I have said, I haven't yet read them, but after listening to this powerful speaker today, I will be sure to pick them up.

Know your WHY!

Today I have really been thinking about something "deep". As a Beachbody coach, I am always talking about knowing your "why" and sometimes people don't know what that means. So, here I am to explain it to you and tell you all about MY WHY!

So everyone is going to have a different definition of what their "why" might be. It might be that you want to lose those extra 5 pounds before your wedding or a friend's wedding, or that you want to be able to keep up with your kids better and run around with them, or maybe that you want to get back into your one size smaller jeans....Any of this sound familiar? Maybe you just want to feel better in your own skin? That was me. That is my why. I wanted to match my outward appearance to the person that I know is inside of me. I wanted to show everyone that the person I am inside who is loving and caring and giving, supportive, encouraging and a good friend and now...a good COACH. So, I set off on my fitness journey to match those two things up. And now, I am on a bigger journey with no end in sight, to help as many people that I can on their own journeys. I won't say that I am done working on ME because I still have a ways to go, but I feel better about me now. I feel like the inside ME, matches the outside...better. Reading personal development books like The Slight Edge keep the inside ME on track and doing the workouts and drinking Shakeology, keep the outside ME on track.

One thing to note is, coaches fall off the wagon too! We aren't perfect! Sometimes we have to start back at the beginning, the basics to ground ourselves again. I know for me as soon as I saw the # on the scale go down I felt a little invincible and like my journey was over and I could NOW, FINALLY eat and drink whatever I wanted...... UMMMMMMM  NOT. THE. CASE. That my friends is called LAZINESS! So what do we do? What should you do? You GET. UP. and GET. MOVING. that is what you do. You stop making excuses, you confront your demons. You WORKOUT. Because that is how progress is made.

Because one bad meal won't make you fat, and one good one won't make you skinny. Same goes with working out, skipping one won't put you back where you started but compounded over a few days, weeks, months...You better believe it will! So.... thanks for reading my blog as always and feel free to leave me some love, some comments etc. Have a great night!

Learning is uncomfortable.....

After powering through seven chapters of The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson in one night, I figured that this picture was appropriate for today. Creating a life that feels good on the inside is just as important as working on your body to make it look good on the outside. Jeff talks in his book about how if you do one small thing each day to better your life, the compound effect is going to equal the big end result which is what we are all trying to work towards. 

People who know me know that I love to read and I do read fast, I read seven chapters in one day but it's because I want to immerse myself in the concept. I love the hard copies of books because I can highlight and write notes in the margin. I have a Kindle and I still use it but for this kind of personal development I really felt like I needed the paperback.

One of my favorite quotes so far in the book is, "Often, in the beginning, the success path can be uncomfortable, even scary."

This quote in particular is one of my favorites because it reminds me of one of my favorite professors in college Dr. Stein. She always told us that learning is uncomfortable and it should be. When you're changing and your brain is developing it's just like any other muscle in your body that is tearing and repairing and re constructing. Learning should be uncomfortable because that's how you know you're learning. It makes you aware of the situation. 

If we all just went along, day to day, never feeling uncomfortable then we are just a bunch of drones, living unexciting, dull lives that are meaningless. 

By feeling uncomfortable we acknowledge the process. We recognize that there truly is more out there to discover and that this journey we call life can continue to be exciting and new and adventurous as long as we feel uncomfortable! Have a great Thursday! 

Personal Developmenet

Look what came in the mail yesterday! If the leaders in the company and on my team have read, recommended and reference this book often, they must have done it for a reason!I started reading this last night and can't put it down! I am on chapter 4 already!

When on a journey to change ourselves we must do it from the inside out. How can we ever expect changes in our environment, bodies and life if we aren't pushing them past their abilities then we are letting ourselves be stagnant! DON'T BE STAGNANT! Go against the grain, work your muscles! (To include but not limit, YOUR BRAIN!)