If you read my books, newsletters, or articles or go to my website at straightforwardfitness.com, you quickly get the gist that my central message is about living a healthy lifestyle. I give tips, encouragement, advice, and, hopefully, inspiration that will help you to live a more authentic and fulfilling life.
I like to think we are put on this planet to do more than merely exist and survive. I don’t know about you, but I endeavor to live more joyfully and thrive every day. And it’s my quest to help you do the same.
One of my most significant challenges has always been trying to stay out of my own way. Anybody who truly knows me can testify to that. I read self-help books like a kid eats candy. I work out daily and try to make healthy nutrition choices. I focus on my spiritual connection with the Universe, All-that-is, God, whatever you want to call your higher power. I do all these things, yet still, I struggle sometimes. I am human. I have weaknesses. Who doesn’t?
I read somewhere in one of those gazillion books that I love so much, that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, and that throughout a lifetime of learning experiences, we may at times seek guidance as well as give guicance. This profundity gives me great comfort on occasion when I am writing and become overwhelmed with a sense of unworthiness. When that little voice in my head asks, “Who am I to think I should or could teach this? I am still learning it myself.”
However, many times I find that through the research and the consequent writing, I am refreshed and inspired anew. I am learning and growing along with all of you. It’s a call from the heart to share as I go. Hence, the creative projects I feel so inclined to generate are born, and hopefully, we all learn as a result.
I am thankful for the platform of the World Wide Web and the freedom it provides for people like you and me to connect and grow. I am excited to be alive in this day and time in history to experience the phenomena of the digital age. What fun!?
One of the most challenging things for me about staying on a daily fitness regimen is when I find myself caught up in one of those struggling days. One of those days where I am so much in my own way that I feel paralyzed and stuck. The only way to get past it is to realize that, in truth, it’s all in my head. None of it is real. It’s just stuff I am making up as I go along.
Think about this: Let’s say you are talking to your workout buddy and she tells you how fat she feels today. She says she feels so unattractive that she doesn’t want to go to the gym tonight. She’s depressed and embarrassed and hates how she looks and feels in her gym attire, and she essentially bails on your workout for the night.
You were both just at the gym yesterday, and she was fine. I’d say the chances are that in reality, she did not wake up today suddenly huge and hideous. But in her mental reality, she did. Why? Because she allowed the ugly self-image and negative self-talk to take over her brain, which subsequently hijacked her actions and deeds.
She did not go to the gym. She stayed home and ate ice cream instead. This behaviour can create a vicious cycle. When we allow ourselves to get caught up in this stinking thinking, it is easy to not show up for our own lives. Hiding out at home instead of getting out into the world where opportunities and people abound will only ensure our worse fears become a reality.
Keep skipping the gym and eating ice cream instead and see what that manifests! It just so happens that very night at the gym your friend’s soul mate (whom she hasn’t met yet) was there and your friend was home feeding her false misconceptions and missed out big-time!
That’s why it is so important to get our heads in the game. It’s why I read so many self-help, personal growth books. In a world where we are entirely inundated 24/7 with negativity and bad news, especially these days, we need to do all we can to counteract the depressing garbage with good stuff: positive, soul-nurturing, books, movies, music, art, people, and activities.
It’s why I write. It’s my hope that something I write may help lift someone up who is feeling down. And in doing so, it lifts me up too. In truth, when I sat down to write today, my energy was low. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.
I had to take a break and go to the gym to train a client. I wasn’t really in the mood for that either, but I went, and that helped a lot. Just getting out and changing my headspace was sort of like hitting the reset button in my brain. When I got back home, I began to write again, and now as I am about to finish up this particular blog post, I am feeling 100 percent better than when I first started writing it a few hours ago. My energy has wholly shifted!
I knew that I wanted to write a post entitled “Get Your Head in the Game,” but when I sat down to write, my head was anywhere but in the game. I was in a super low-energy mood. But I persevered and began writing the article anyway. The trick was not giving in to the negative self-talk. I moved through it. Sometimes you just have to fake it til ya make it!
In the process, the teacher became the student and I am changed because of it. I love it when life works like this!
Here’s the thing: Life always works like this when we get out of our own way. When we get out of our head and dispel whatever delusions may live there, we allow ourselves to connect to something bigger and miracles occur. The Universe (God) wants us to see the truth, to make the connection and get in the game. That’s when the magic happens!
I am so happy to announce that I am working on recording my eBooks for audible at Amazon. In the meantime, you can still get them super-cheap in digital form at Amazon and most online bookstores. Best of all, the fitness advice in The Now What Fitness series is timeless. It works if you work it! Try it and see! But you have to show up! You have to get your head in the game and play!
This is my promise to you: I will make a daily effort to keep my head in the game, and I will make it my mission to help you do the same.
Thanks for playing. 🙂