I am writing not to brag because if you know me well I struggle with being my own cheerleader but I love doing it for everyone else. I am constantly reading books to keep my perspective in check and my focus on the right mindset. Maybe it is why I do what I do, other than I love it 🙂 Maybe it is about using my go to “cheerleader” for others which serves as a voice for myself? Transparency is something I can work with when helping others in health and wellness goals, in friendships and in my family so this is me being transparent which I don’t think is necessary on social media but I hope it shows what is possible if you tell doubt to “hush it” and keep pressing on with the right people who know how to not just encourage you but guide you to your goals. This just happens to be about health and fitness goals but I have goals in all aspects of life.
I have this quote in the picture saved as one of my favorite reminders that doubt kills a lot of dreams and goals. I needed the reminder today as I am working through last year’s herniated disc injury in my shoulder and neck from a chiro adjustment again. Just as I was hitting PR’s in the gym, I tweaked my shoulder and neck during strom cleanup because I wasn’t taking the time to be careful in how I lifted things. Thank goodness for my friend and Coach Jenna Larson with Peak Human Performance and her husband Tom with Base PT for helping me modify my workouts to strengthen the discs back in place again. I loved the below from my morning read from an awesome book, “Pound the Stone”. I hope you find something in it that resonates with where you are and where you want to go. I know I did. It is what I believe and work to coach and live.
Doubt sometimes tells me not to share my struggles because as a coach I am not suppose to have any in health and fitness, doubt is a liar. Everyone has a battle to fight. Another favorite quote of mine is “Some battles you have to fight more than once.” The below is so good.
From the book: “You know, a wise man once said, perspective is the only thing that can dramatically change the results without changing any of the facts. In goals and in life whether you win or lose is not controllable. You want to believe it is. Everything you’ve been taught and led to believe tells you that it is. But that’s a lie. Our society is obsessed with winning and losing, but you can’t control that. Our society is obsessed with natural ability, which people love to call “talent,” but you can’t control that either, which makes it incredibly overrated.
It takes no natural ability to:
Show up early
Stay late
Ask for help
Give your very best
Study game film
Train hard Work on mental training
Treat people really well
Focus on getting better
Use beneficial and constructive self-talk
Keep pounding the stone in the face of adversity
Be coachable Communicate
Be a great teammate
Bring great energy
Always hustle
Do the little things well
Be patient
Persist
Natural ability is one small piece of the puzzle and you can’t change it, so there’s no use wasting energy worrying about it. Winning and losing are uncontrollable so it makes no sense to spend time worrying about those things outside of my control, when I have a list of things that are inside of my control that I can focus my energy on. “You have greatness inside of you, but you have to choose between it and excuses. You can’t have both. The greatness inside of you is buried underneath all your excuses and rationalizations. Even though you have legitimate excuses and rationalizations, it doesn’t change this truth. Everyone comes to a point in their life and they have to decide in that moment who they are going to be. Who they are going to become. You can’t allow anyone else to decide that for you. Most people lose because they are trying to take shortcuts. But there are no shortcuts to sustained greatness. It takes what it takes. I promise you, building anything that is sustainably successful, whether it’s a great marriage or a career in business or sports, only comes from developing the character to make the patient, long-term choices instead of the short-term ones that are driven by instant gratification. Most people will take shortcuts instead of doing the work.” -Pound the Stone, 7 Lessons to Develop Grit On The Path To Mastery. Joshua Metcalf
Made in the Middle 