Redefining Strength Podcast

There is one thing I think really is what success boils down to and I want to share why I think this…

It actually came off of seeing a variety of responses to posts over the last week and thinking about the commonality in some of the responses across topics.

It’s always interesting to see how people interpret the videos and tips you put out.

I find it especially interesting the range of responses I get - from victims to victors.

The victors always pat themselves on the back for making changes. Finding a way forward.

The victims always use those same life situations to state why they can’t move forward.

And then even if they do pull out a positive, it’s linked to a comparison about how something isn’t as good now as it used to be.

Life happens.

Changes happen.

We lose ground. Lose momentum. Things slide.

But comparing to what was, does nothing to move you forward.

I won’t lie to you even.

You may NEVER get back there.

But you can still move forward.

I think that’s always what I want to focus on.

It’s always what the underlying message of “it’s not your age,” “you can come back stronger from injury,” “menopause doesn’t mean you’re doomed to never have the body you want”….really is.

It isn’t that with age your skin won’t change. Or that it doesn’t become harder to build and retain muscle.

It isn’t that with an injury you may not have to avoid certain movements, especially to start.

It isn’t with menopause that what used to work won’t work anymore.

BUT with all of these things, you can always improve your current situation to move and feel your best.

It may be DIFFERENT than what was. But things can ALWAYS get better if we choose to find a way forward no matter what.

Life constantly throws us events and situations that can easily be seen as obstacles. Because they are.

But ultimately we have the CHOICE to view them as opportunities instead.

Only when we do this can we ultimately move forward.

And honestly, this is the biggest secret I see of people who are successful and get results.

So if I could give you one tip that will allow you to start this mindset of moving forward, it would be…

STOP COMPARING TO WHAT WAS.

I’m telling you this as an incredibly stubborn, at times very pigheaded, person that definitely likes to learn by doing…and failing.

However, over time, as much as I value those learning experiences, I’ve come to realize it’s ok to want a little “cheat code” to get better results faster and skip over the mess.

There will be plenty of ups and downs along the way even having that guide.

Honestly, I’ve begun to really question my previous beliefs about starting from scratch and having to make the mistakes myself.

I mean, why start from scratch when you can learn from the mistakes of others and leap frog months or even years past where you would be if you had to do it on your own?

That isn’t admitting you couldn’t do it on your own.
 It’s being smart enough not to waste time and even find ways you could improve upon those helpful hints and such to get further than you would have otherwise.

And it’s not only about using the experiences of others…it’s using your own previous knowledge to build off of versus feeling like you have to start over each time.

So because I’ve found that the more I avoid trying to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch to be so helpful in getting better results faster, I wanted to share 3 specific insights I hope will benefit you as well.

PODCAST: Struggling With Your Age? These 5 Tips Will Help

I’ll admit, there is nothing I hate more than when someone asks my age on a photo…because I know their goal is to give themselves as an excuse as to why they can’t look that way.

They’ll say no they’re just curious or whatever, but I know…because I’ve done it myself.

And I get it. There are new challenges we face as we get older.

Changes we have to make.

But these changes don’t have to limit us. They just require us to shift how we are doing things.

Never give yourself the excuse to give up.

Because guess what? That doesn’t help you ever live your healthiest happiest life!

Not to mention, I have to admit that I pride myself on not only achieving something personally. I think what we can personally achieve honestly doesn’t even translate well to how we coach.

Now the fact that I can help CLIENTS achieve their goals? Well that is what matters! Being called the menopause whisperer may be one of my proudest life moments ever.!

Now what are 5 tips you can use to overcome the AGE hang up?

Often when we talk about creating a lifestyle with our diet, we act like we’re going to do one thing for the rest of our life.

Which is interesting because we don’t just do exactly the same workouts forever.

Heck, if you look at your current lifestyle it probably isn’t exactly the same as it was just even last season.

I know personally my schedule and even activity level slightly shifts from Summer to Winter.

So if our lifestyle is constantly adjusting and flowing, even due to family obligations and work, why would our diet ever stay exactly the same?

The thing is it shouldn’t.

Your diet should evolve over time as your needs and goals change. Your lifestyle should evolve as you get older.

Menopause will change things.

Injuries will change things.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We just have to be open to the changes.

And it’s why creating a lifestyle doesn’t mean you’re doing one thing forever.

And honestly, it’s why I love teaching clients about macros.

No one macro ratio works for everyone. And even when you find ratios that work for you, they’re going to change and adjust.

But the key point is, you have a solid foundation off of which to build.

Macros is like having the house frame set up and laid out.

You can adjust the paint colors, the decorations inside, anything else you want whenever you need or want based on what you want at the time. But you have that solid foundation off of which to build and tweak to suit your needs.

So instead of running from macros and letting the learning process push you to seek out a quick fix, embrace the learning process knowing that it will give you that solid foundation off of which to create a true lifestyle.

Because a fad diet and quick fix isn’t that. It may get you fabulous results, but you can’t keep doing it often which is why you fall off.

Results don’t come from doing something then going back to old habits.

Results come from evolving as your needs and goals change.

And remember evolving doesn’t mean what you were doing was bad or wrong. But if systems are mismatched, you’re not going to see results from them even if they are good independently.
 What worked for you when you were training hard 6 days a week for hours, may not work now when training 3 days a week.

What worked for you at 20, may not work for you at 60.

It doesn’t mean you’re doomed. But you have to meet yourself where you’re at. And that’s why I wanted to share these 3 tips to help!

So often we are our own worst enemies. Not intentionally but we are.

We’ve all been guilty of this…fighting the process.

We start a program but we keep trying to do things we’ve always done. We keep fighting against the new changes. We find reasons NOT to do them or to keep doing some of the “safe” things we’ve always done.

Why?

I’ve asked myself this multiple times.

Why do I struggle to embrace certain changes more than others? Why, even when we’ve invested time and energy and money into something do we fight against actually doing it even though the other isn’t working?

It’s definitely a weird quirk of us humans… repeating the same thing we’ve always done expecting a different result while KNOWING that is the definition of insanity.

But if we want results, we’ve got to STOP fighting the process.

I know letting go of control is hard, I know making a change is uncomfortable…

But isn’t being stuck and frustrated while working hard worse?

Isn’t it better to at least have HOPE and try the suck and pain of change?

I think so.
 So here are 3 tips to help you stop fighting the process and better embrace change.

It’s a Monday. A new month. A New Year.

We tell ourselves we’re “starting over” yet again.

But we aren’t starting over.

We’re just moving forward.

Life doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pause…unless you’re dead….

Everything we’ve done prior is still there and still impacts our current situation.

Starting over hints at a clean slate.

But that isn’t the case.

I mention this because so often we sort of dig ourselves a deeper hole over a weekend or a week or an extended prior of time because of plans to “start over,” only to ultimately make it harder and harder on ourselves to move forward.

We need to stop this horrible cycle.

We need to remind ourselves that life doesn’t pause.

That the only way to get results is to find a way forward even when times aren’t ideal.

If we aren’t doing something to move forward, we’re losing progress.

And the thing is…that only makes where we’re “starting over” from worse.

That’s why I wanted to share 3 tips to help you get out of that pause and start over mentality to see that you can do something to keep yourself moving forward to RAMP UP when you’re motivated.

Because that is truly what we’re doing…not starting over but RAMPING UP!

What drives us to make a change?

Pain.

Pain is an incredibly powerful motivator.

And by pain I mean also often FEAR.

It’s an odd thing, but we humans are truly more driven by pain than by gain.

We may want a specific outcome, a specific positive…

But we are most likely to actually make a change toward that goal when there is pain not just something to be gained.

The idea of a six pack, the idea of millions of dollars, the idea of running a PR…well…as weird as it sounds…they aren’t really powerful motivators as much as we think we want them.

They only become powerful motivators if there is a great pain with NOT moving forward toward them. Or a great pain in where we are now.

Pain is what drives us to make a change.

Like think about during the holidays….when we feel…well…out of shape, disgusting, clothing feels uncomfortable and tight…we feel like blobs.

We feel “in pain” so to speak.

This is when we most often take action.

However, in taking action often we lose focus on this pain and start to focus on the gain we want.

While you’d think focusing on a positive outcome would be good, it may actually be what holds us back from achieving our goal.

Instead we may actually need to EMBRACE and OWN our pain and use it as a POSITIVE.

Yup.

There is positivity in embracing and truly feeling and reminding yourself of your pain.

While we tend to shy away from fear and pain as negative emotions…emotions to be avoided at all costs, instead we need to find ways to use them to actually achieve the goals we’ve always dreamed of.

And here are 3 ways I think you can do just that.

Did the chicken or the egg come first?

The question really is…does it ultimately matter?

This thought occurred to me because of the cycle I see often going on when it comes to being frustrated by a lack of results from our hard work…

Being brutally honest, often we’ve created our current situation, one we don’t like, because of improper dieting and workout practices. You can try to say you’ve worked hard, eaten clean, whatever you want. But honestly, sometimes doing even too much of a good thing can backfire.

And then we’ve repeated those improper practices to dig ourselves more and more of a hole to crawl out of.

These practices have not only lead to our current situation we don’t like, but often also result in other bodily changes that now make it HARDER to see results.

And we blame these changes when we then can’t move forward.

But we almost have to recognize that while these changes do make it harder now, they are also something we’ve created that only we can fix.

This situation is what leads me to think of the “chicken or the egg situation.”

While yes, the imbalances, mobility restrictions, metabolic adaptions make it harder to lose or improve our lifts or runs, the reason we have them is also our previous improper practices.

So what we need to change is also why we struggle to make a change.

Ultimately there is one solution…

Even though we got away with something in the past…well we can’t keep doing it.

So ultimately changing those practices will reverse both our current situation and what is making moving forward even more challenging.

Aka what came first oddly doesn’t matter, but making a change does.

We need to really assess what we are doing and instead of defending it, find the flaws.

I think so often we say “We are doing that.”

Or find reasons what we’re doing should or does work, over seeing it as a POSITIVE we can improve something…that something is often.

Because if you’re doing everything right and NOT seeing results?

Well then you’re kind of screwed haha

But if you can find a flaw in what you’re doing, there is something you can work on.

Plus, the simple fact of the matter is…

Nothing works forever.

Our lifestyle is constantly changing and therefore so should our habits.

So instead of blaming something for being the reason you can’t move forward, find what may be perpetuating the issue and start to address that.

While there will be things outside of our control, we should work to control what we can control.

And then we can’t get caught up in what used to work.

We need to instead focus on ways to improve!
 So as you work toward new goals, don’t hold yourself back by even trying to defend what you were doing.

Don’t play the blame game. Or feel bad for something now not working.

Realize that the only way to move forward is to move forward with something new!

If you want to reach the highest level, you need to be obsessed.

Obsession really just means you’re willing to do what others won’t even when you don’t want to.

And yea sure, there is a dark side to obsession…honestly, like most things in life, there is a downside to them.

But I truly do believe we feared being called “obsessed” for our actions when those that would call us that are always people BELOW us…not those that have achieved more.

Didn’t know you were going to get even more attitude in season 4 did you?!

And I don’t mean that to sound as negative as it does.

We’ve all been in that place where we say “I can’t believe you do (insert thing here we feel we can’t do or don’t “want” to do).”

We do it even unintentionally.

But the simple fact is, to achieve “greatness” in any area of our life, we have to be a little unbalanced.

We have to sometimes stay up late. Get up early.

Skip a drink at happy hour.

But the thing is…we aren’t missing out.

We’re pursuing what really matters.

Life is a constant balancing act. And if we want one thing, there is ultimately ALWAYS going to be something you’re “missing out on.”

Heck you go on vacation and choose to go to the beach for an hour, you may “miss out” on the chance to see an extra sight. Or go on a specific hike.

We’re always constantly sort of sacrificing or trading one experience, one situation, one goal for another.

The key is remembering what we truly want and not being afraid to go after it.

Some things that help me be obsessed, in a good way of course…

So often the easy decision is just repeating the same habits and routines and patterns that haven’t moved us forward.

If we’re feeling challenged and uncomfortable often that means we are on the right track. That we are doing what we need to do.

If you’ve encountered times recently where you’ve wanted to give up…

DON’T!

Remind yourself of these things as you move into 2022 and plan to rock those results and move forward in ANY area of your life…