On Fridays I like to share experiences I’ve had during the week with patients and in my personal life that I’ve found significant. I like to share them in hopes that you might find value in them and have something resonate with you in your life.
Something I notice often. Whether it’s dealing with patients, nutrition/exercise clients, or people in my personal life; I encounter what I call “easy way-out researchers.” These are people that will spend hours looking for articles that provide justifications for poor behavior. For example, they’ll search high and low for a blurb that exercising too often is bad, vegetables aren’t great, it’s alright to eat unhealthy food, and so on. In other words, they find reasons for avoiding something that would undoubtedly help them. Worse, people like this spend no time looking into how their existing poor habits may be harming them.
I believe deep down; you know whether something is to your benefit or not. If it’s not, seek to change it. Don’t waste time trying to justify it with some poorly sourced article online. Self-education is great but spend your research time on acquiring knowledge that makes you a better person physically and mentally. Be honest with yourself on what you could use help on and then start looking to acquire that knowledge.
A question I’ve been getting. After dealing with a recent tragedy, I’ve been asked by so many how my habits have changed. The implication being that dealing with grief would cause me to eat differently, stop exercising, sleep more, adopt a different attitude, etc. This is common for some in these circumstances, so I understand why they’re asking.
Everyone that knows me, understands I am someone that is extremely positive, high energy, driven, and willing to push through even the most difficult of situations. If that were to change due to grief or any other reason, I feel as though I would be a fraud. I will not allow myself to be a person who preaches something and then does another when times get tough. How you act when things get tough is all that matters in my opinion.
I have trained myself to get comfortable being uncomfortable in every physical and mental way you can imagine. Going through a challenging time now, I refuse to forget those lessons and give up. It is precisely now that those experiences matter most, serve me well, and are put to their best use.
Something I loved. As most of you know and have seen on my social media, I run with the American flag on Memorial Day, July 4th, and September 11th. It makes me proud to pay tribute to our country and I always feel like I am promoting something positive in my small corner of the community.
After posting about my Memorial Day flag run, I heard from an old high school friend. He reached out to me, to tell me that I inspired him to go out and run with the flag, something he’d never thought to do before. The experience he had and shared with me was amazing – people saluting, honking horns, cheering, etc. This has always been the case for me too, so I wasn’t surprised, but I was beyond thrilled to hear him explain it to me. He thanked me for the inspiration, and I told him how happy I was that he started a new tradition and had such a memorable experience doing so!
An observation. Through my business and personal interactions, people often tell me about their goals. These can be personal, business, financial, athletic, you name it. What I have found through experience is that these people will fall into one of two distinct groups.
Group one often has the most detailed plans. They tell me lots of specifics, research what they’re doing, vision boards they’re creating, and all sorts of wonderful things they have planned. However, often when I speak to these same people months later, they have done nothing. No progress has been made, and nothing has been set into motion. These people will usually produce an even more detailed plan on to how to proceed from there, and then the process repeats itself. Great ideas with zero implementation.
Group two usually have an idea of what they want to accomplish and then get started. They don’t have every detail ironed out, often make lots of mistakes, and then learn as they go. This is the group that usually attains the best results.
I believe that we can often get “paralysis by analysis” where we gather so much information that we psych ourselves out of going after our goals. Having an idea of what you want to achieve is vital, but nothing ever goes as planned, so I feel it’s best to just get things underway. Accept that you will make mistakes, but those mistakes will lead to a form of growth that you cannot get any other way. Acquire the basics you need to start, and then actually get started!
Some quotes I love.
“A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” – Muhammad Ali
“Effort and consistency will get you more results than a perfectly crafted plan that’s still waiting to be executed.” – Bedros Keuilian
“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.” – Dale Carnegie
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn
Want more?
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