Category: Crushing Life Thursday

Sheepdog Hill

If you follow me on Instagram you saw a picture of me flexing my muscles and bragging about how well I am going to do at the upcoming Ragnar Relay. Ragnar Relay is about 200 miles over the back of the Wasatch mountains run by a team of 12 over about 24 hours. Each person runs three legs averaging between 9-18 miles total. It is fun and weird and stupid all at the same time.

Then this last Saturday my hubby, a friend and I ran what we call Sheepdog Hill. This is a “hill” in our area that is 4 miles from bottom to the top with one thousand foot elevation gain. I was stoked for this run. I was going to kill it! Then we started.

I did not kill this run. I was the last one to make it to the top. I had to walk A LOT! I was so disappointed in myself I started with all of the negative chatter. What is wrong with you? I thought you were doing to do better? I thought you were in better shape. Are you ever going to be able to run this hill?

I was feeling awful about the run and how I was going to do at Ragnar. Then I stopped and asked myself: What would make you satisfied with your runs at Ragnar? This completely changed my outlook.

I am never going to be a crazy good athlete. I don’t have the time or the desire to train all of the time. But I can be proud of the things I do accomplish. I don’t have to be the best, I don’t have to be the one everyone is bragging about. But I can be proud of myself.

As we came down the “hill” I thought about what I wanted to accomplish to feel proud of myself at the end of Ragnar. I want to feel like I worked hard and did my best. This means that I keep running until I can’t. It means that I walk when I need to. It means that I run as hard as I can when I see the finish line. It means I don’t compare my run to anyone else’s. That way when I am done and we are coming home I can say I gave my best.

Go ahead and FAIL

Gymnastics seems to be taking over my life.

For awhile I would go to two different gymnastics classes every Monday.  Now I only need to go to one.  But that class is 2 hours long.  I sit there and watch kids a quarter, yes a quarter, of my age doing things that I have never and will never be able to do.  (I know we should never say never but even as a kid I could’t move like that.  Now that I am considerably older it is not going to happen.)

Anyway,  one of the coaches mentioned that gymnasts mess up 95% of the time. They practice so much to train their muscles to do the correct thing the 5% of the time they are in front of the judges.

It amazes me to sit and watch these kids  for just a fraction of the amount of time they spend each week practicing.  They spend hours doing the same thing over and over again.  Why?  So they can cut down the 95% failure rate.  Because they know the more they practice the less failures they will have.  Because they know the more they practice the bigger the 5% of doing things correctly becomes.

This of course made me think of my own life.  I start something new and I want to be perfect right away.  I don’t want to redo anything or keep trying.  To tell you the truth the only time I argued with my mom is when she wanted me to take out stitches when she was teaching me how to sew.

I don’t have the patience to sit and work and work to figure out how to do something.  However,  I have goals and dreams.  So I may not have patience now it is certainly something that I can develop.  I choose to start now.  Everyday I choose to do one thing that will get me closer to my goal.

Right now that means that I need to learn a lot about the technical side of blogging.  I need to learn how to make changes to my website.  How to add pages and make the content more interesting to look at.

I need to learn about marketing.  How do I use different social media outlets to share my message?  How do I make interesting instagram posts?  Where do people find the awesome quotes from others?  And seriously how do they write such great quotes?

I may keep failing 95%.  But when I work everyday it gives me more of a chance to succeed the other 5% because I am doing more.

And these gymnasts that are on team are seriously ripped!  I want to be the elite gymnast of supporting others to reach their goals!  Do you have an exciting goal you would like help achieving?  I would love to help you.  Contact me for more information.

Habits and Crushing Life!

How to crush life today?! Make habits that help you achieve your dreams.

We all have habits some good and some not so much.  I have always been told that to change a habit you have to break the bad habit and change it to something good.  But that was all.  How do you break a bad habit?  How do you change something that seems to have so much control?  There times you don’t even realize that you do it.

I have been learning about how habits really work in Charles Duhigg’s book the Power of Habits.

For a habit to start there is a cue or trigger that makes you think of the habit.  For example an emotionally taxing experience.  When I get stressed I reach for the candy.  Preferably something with the most chocolate and caramel I can find.

Then the reward.  What you get out of the habit.  Of course I get a sugar rush that lifts my mood for a moment.  But I also feel a sense of calm.  A feeling that life may be crazy but this moment is just me and the chocolate

The habit forms as I start to crave the reward.  As I continue the habit I want that reward of feeling the sugar rush and calm for just a minute.  As the habit continues the craving gets stronger and stronger.

So how do you change this habit once you have a craving firmly entrenched? You have to change the reward.

The new cycle works like this: you have the cue.  The emotionally taxing experience.  Instead of reaching for the candy bar (goodbye Milky Way) I choose to pray.  I take a couple of deep breaths and pray to understand what I am really feeling.

In this case the reward is two fold.  I feel better because I am treating my body in a healthy manner.  But also the prayer connects me to a bigger strength.  Slowly I will begin to crave the new reward more than the candy bar.

According to Duhigg this change of habits works great until life hits you upside the head with a curve ball.  Then most people will go back to the original cue that brought them the reward.  Kind of disheartening right?

Well not really.  Because there is one more thing that we all need to make changing habits permanent.  And that is belief.  Belief that we can and want to make the change.  Belief in a higher power (yes AA has it correct) that can help me change that habit.  Now you see why I choose prayer as my new reward!

Is change easy with the understanding of belief?  No it isn’t.  However, as you believe that changing this habit is important.  As you believe that you have the power to make this change permanent.  As you tap into the belief that there is a higher power that WANTS to help you.  The choice will get easier and easier.  The new reward will get stronger and stronger because you will begin to crave that new reward.  You will need and want it in your life.

You deserve all the good things in your life that you want and need.  Changing your habits to good ones will help you to achieve those good things!

Photo by Kevin Lee on Unsplash

Crushing Life Thursday!

I have run for years.  I was never super consistent until about ten years ago when my husband needed to do something to get his blood pressure under control.  We decided to start running.  Now my husband hated running!  But it was cheap (unless you think about the cost of running shoes!) and easy to do since you can just go out your door and do it.

We started really slow; run 2 minutes walk 2 minutes for about half an hour.  We eventually worked up to running races.  I have run half marathons and a full marathon.  My husband and I have run 6 relay races.  And it took me years before I would say I am a runner.  I still don’t claim that title very often.  I had a friend refer to me as a runner a couple of weeks ago and I said “No I run I am not really a runner.”

Why would I say that?  Because I don’t have the look of a runner.  I am not as fast as I think a runner should be.  I just felt that claiming the title of runner means I should be better than I am.  But guess what?  I run so I am a runner.

So often in my life I put down what I do because I don’t feel I am good enough.  I don’t claim all of the amazing things I have done in my life!  I am a runner, I am a mother, I am a blogger, I am a quilter, I am a speaker, I am a pageant girl, I am a joy coach.  I am amazing!

What amazing things do you do that you haven’t claimed?

This month’s is all about you!  I love the back to school time.  Getting to buy new notebooks and pens.  This time of year, more than January, makes me think about what I want in my life.  What do you really want in your life?  What one thing would you love to try but you are a little nervous, ok a lot nervous?  What habits would you like to break or make?

Join me every Thursday this month for Life Crushing Thursday!  Where we will explore different ways to explode our life into what we want!