What do YOU want?

No. Really. What DO you want?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately - as it applies to myself, my family, my business. There is a lot to think about. Often times what we want is directly tied to what we feel we need. We need to be healthy - so we can be there for our family, so we can live our lives to the fullest, so we can be productive and provide for ourselves and our families. But where do we start?

When I talk about fitness I usually encourage people to "Do whatever will keep you doing". If you love Zumba I am not going to tell you to stop and do CrossFit. I may encourage you to find a way to incorporate some additional weight-bearing exercise and range of motion training (like yoga) in order to make your training well-rounded. If you love to run I am not going to tell you to stop running and become a power lifter, but a more well-rounded training program will make you stronger, faster and safer by helping to protect your joints from injury. No two people are the same, so no two training styles have to be the same.

How do you set your goals with such a wide variety of acceptable methods of training? Well, you have to have S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound). If your goal is to lose body fat (notice I didn't say weight) you have to know what your body fat is when you are starting. If your goal is to improve your mile time, you have to time your mile at the beginning. If your goal is to be able to complete a 5K you need to know how far you can go when you begin. Many people don't really want to know where they are starting, it can be scary, but you have to stay focused on your GOAL

We have heard it all before right?

But really... It's true. Are there things that you would be willing to give up in order to achieve your goal(s)? For many people (including me), TIME is the biggest issue. It is either really hard to find the time to put in the work right now OR they are counting on "later". For me, I had to identify how much time I was spending doing things that weren't bringing me closer to my goal and how to move those out of the way so I could reach a goal that I have for this year. To begin this blog right here, get out more newsletters, be able to help more people both in the health & fitness world and also the Real Estate world. I considered seriously if I needed to spend time playing that game of Candy Crush (I am sorry if your goal is to develop a game app - they are "time-sucks" in my world). Do I really need to be checking social media every hour? What am I really going to miss if I only check social media 3 or even 2 times each day. What else could I do while I was waiting for my kids to finish their activities? Research how to get this started. Make notes in an old-school spiral about what I would write about. READ - improve MY knowledge base. I had almost convinced myself that those in between times had lost all value - they have NOT. They are valuable.

If you are struggling to find time to workout are you considering these in between times? 10 minutes is better than nothing. 15 minutes is better than 10. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. If it takes you 6 different sessions throughout the day to get to an hour you are doing AMAZING! You got an hour of intentional exercise in! That is SO much better than most people.

When do I start? New Year's Day? Lent? Monday? Next Month? Next Week? After the kids go back to school? Who cares?  I would love to see you start today! You've got 10 minutes right? I am going to go stretch right now... 😉

Let me know if you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future blog post! Leave a comment here & I will do my best to answer your questions!