Just over a week ago Drew and I saw Jillian Michaels speak in Westbury, NY. She began her talk with nutritional information and fitness tips to help everyone understand weight management better and grasp the effort it takes to lose weight. The second half of her show, she focused her talk on "how to maximize your life" being the title of her tour. She began to give advice and suggestions based on her own personal past and experience. She talked about dreaming big and doing what makes you happy. Not only did she push us to think hard about our lives now and what makes us happy but she explained the challenges and difficulties that will occur along the way. At no point does she make it sound easy to reach our goals and dreams. I especially valued this because becoming successful and doing what is right for you can be extremely hard but it doesn't mean we will never achieve them! She reminded everyone how we are to learn from our mistakes and failures. Each moment of our life is a lesson to be learned and we must be present in that moment and take away what is needed to be taught in order to improve and move forward. As we learn and implement the correct changes, we will be more prepared for the great opportunities that await us. Once the goal is set, we must make the commitment to ourselves to follow through with the process. If we believe we can do it, build our confidence and develop our knowledge as much as we can, we are set up for success. Although we are asking you to think specifically about commitment this week, we wanted to give you some broader concepts for you to ponder over in relationship with commitment. Commitment is easy to understand as a concept but often, we neglect our commitments, shrugging them off for one reason or another. This week think about commitments you have made for yourselves and to others. Write them down on a piece of paper and then think about how many of them you have actually stuck with. Just last week, how many times did you cancel on someone or change your schedule? With the prevalence of smart phones and ability to send emails or text messages to anyone in less than a second, it has become more socially acceptable to cancel with little to no notice. How can we be hold ourselves accountable for anything if we continuously allow ourselves to break our obligations as if it were nothing. How often do we think about what our commitment meant to the other person or people or even to ourselves. For example, say you were planning to meet someone after work for a run. You plan to meet at a certain spot at a certain time but right before you leave work, you have an argument with a co-worker putting you in a bad mood. Now, you are stressed and don't have the motivation to run. You take out your phone and text your friend 5 minutes before you were supposed to meet them and cancel. Yes, you apologize and explain the situation but now, your friend is outside with no one to run with and you are now missing your own workout. Did you think about how your friend's day was? They might have had a worse day but they are still ready to run with you. How about your own mind and body - what is best for you? How will you feel after the run versus if you skip? These are thoughts and questions we may not consider in the moment. Our impulses can cause us to do things that we will look back on and regret. Instead, think about the end result that will come from your impulse decision and what is best for you down the line. There are many situations that this is relevant for, not just fitness and there are many situations where you are the only one that you let down like eating the bag of chips at night because you are stressed or not going out to meet your friends because you had an encounter with your ex that morning.
This week we challenge you to think about the commitments you have made to yourself and others and follow through on each one for the entire week unless you actually are unable to do so. This might bring to your attention how frequently we think nothing of it to cancel on ourselves and others. It might also help us recognize how over-committed we make ourselves and rethink about taking on so many obligations we actually cannot commit to.
Get Fit For It,
D & K
"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
-- Joseph Addison,
photos from:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=859vdARkXH3F8M&tbnid=T0JoMiy6xGLOqM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.babycenter.com%2Fcelebrities%2Fjillian-michaels-eats-her-08172012-workout-words-of-advice%2F&ei=Q9d-UYbcEcLi4APM-IDQBA&bvm=bv.45645796,d.dmg&psig=AFQjCNGnnk59MlBBUB9VyedxTwiR90-yiA&ust=1367353502726854
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