The perfection of Children- A good example for us!

Sorry for the delay in writing to all of you.  I have been heavily involved in working at the fire station as well as getting prepared for the month long visit from my children which I have recently started!  It has been an amazing beginning of the trip and I have found myself observing, watching and looking at my children in different light this trip as their roles in my life continually develop, change and grow.  

My kids are 12, 10 and 8- Nicole, Jared and Jacob respectively.  I have never seen more perfection in a soul or in actions as kids.  As I have watched over the last few days I have paid attention to mood, communication, stories, actions, excitement, drama, temper tantrums, blwoing up, hurt feelings, and all of the above.  And it ALL made sense to me.  Let me use their stories to help us identify what we can do as people to recognize our own challenges. 

You see, I have said this before, but we are born perfect as kids.  As I watched my kids here are the qualities I see: 

• Fearless
• open to communicate in the LOUDEST way possible
• Curious
• Inspired
• Determined
• Playful
• Engaged in life
• Emotional
• Not closed off
• Loving
• Open to affection
• Able to act without thought
• Unaware of danger
• not in tune with the bad stuff in the world
• Open to lessons
• Learns lessons easily

When we start to examine our own lives and how we have gotten to where we are, sometimes we have to look at what our actions and our lives we lead are like.  I would venture to say if we were half as fearless as we were when we were kids, we would accomplish so much more in life because we would not care about the outcome, nor would we care what others thought. You see, so often we work so hard on pleasing others, we forget what it truly is that we want or desire.  We sometimes forget what our dreams and goals are because we are so focussed outwardly on what other people think of us. 

You see, our dreams, our goals, our visions of what we want in our life, they are ours.  they don't belong to anyone else.  Kids get this.  They understand that it is everything to be able to communicate, it is everything to be able to just exist in the moment.  They don't worry about tomorrw.  They very rarely regret the past.  They simply exist for what it is in front of them at this moment, at this time.  It is with age, we gain "Wisdom" which sometimes can hinder our greatest achievements because we are worried about who will say something or what will people think if we do.

You see, we need to be more inquisitive, more trusting, more willing to put ourselves out there, more able to dream, more open to others, more communicative.  If we all did this as adults, could you imagine what this world would be like and how much we could accomplish as a human race?  The only limit we would have is how fast we could come up with resources for anything we wanted.  It is up to us on a daily basis to live the way we choose to live.  I am choosing to live in the moment.  What are you choosing?   Today is all we have..take lessons from those who know how to live in the moment the best, our children. 

You have the choice and the "Responsibility" for your own life

Lately, I have been around people in my own life whom have been stuck where they are in life, in being "scared" of being vulnerable, "afraid" of the future and what it might bring and "have fear" of the what-if's in life.  So I have thought a great deal on this fear, the reactions we have to life and what our lives are to become.  And as I was thinking and coaching my last seminar, i starting speaking a great deal about the choices we make in life.  You see, we have the responsibility to live our lives any way we choose.  What do I mean by this?

Let's break down the word- Responsibility into it's components:
Respond Ability- Yes, the ability to respond.  You see, we all have the ability to respond, or essentially the "Choice" to follow our hearts desires, or not to.  We all have challenges placed in front of us all the time.  it is how YOU CHOOSE TO RESPOND to these challenges and situations that will dictate the outcome.  Let's use an example.

Let me use as I often do, the choices we make regarding our own health and wellness.  You see, we are all given 24 hours in a day.  We are all given the time we need to accomplish the things that we need to do.  Here is the challenge.  Are the choices you are making allowing you to progress towards your goals.  In the event of fitness, I spent a number of years working for a large globo-gym style gym convincing people they need to work out.  Wait a second, I had to CONVINCE people they needed to move their body in order to be healthy and well.  And here is what I thought about as I was doing so.  isn't it a choice to move your body?  Isn't it a choice to do what it takes to stay healthy.  Isn't it a choice to do the things that inherently we know are going to be good for our body?  How often in yopur own life, have you made the choice to put your own health on the back burner and go do something OTHER than take care of yourself.  Let me put it another way.  If you were given the choice between all natural food that you had to prepare and food that was already prepared for you, what would you choose?  (those of you whom are close to me know how I choose to live about 85-90% of the time)

It is your ability to respond to the hours given to you in any day that help to dictate the choices you make.  Let me also take this from another angle.  The choices we make to be emotionally attached to a situation, a person, or a feeling also are dependent upon YOUR CHOICE.  Let's say for example. someone close to you does something that completely destroys the trust you had in that person.  You now have the ability to respond in any way which you see fit.  You see, most people tend to carry that with them between themselves and that person forever.  But it is YOUR CHOICE to be open and learn to trust again.  You have to be willing and make the choice to put that past you.  You can make the choice to forgive and maybe not forget.  The ability to make a choice to get beyond an incident or situation comes down to personal responsibility.  the ONLY thing we control in life is our own thoughts, feelings and actions.  I once heard that change the things you can, and for those you can't change the way you look at them.  What great advice!  This can be true of our own emotions and feelings.  Choose to look a things differently when you are challenged.  Choose to change how you feel, choose a different emotion.  Choose a different path.  It is your responsibility!  It is your life!! MAKE IT WHAT YOU WANT!

Sometimes I see people who make a choice not to make a choice.  Realize this is again exercising your ability to respond to a given situation.  You are now choosing NOT to make a choice which inherently keeps you right where you are.  If you are comfortable with this and the storyline you tell yourself (your emotions) are copasetic with that "Choice" then by all means, don't make a decision.  One of the hardest things we do when we make a choice is face our own fears and stigma's associated with it.  It means things may be uncomfortable.  It means we may have to get out of our comfort zone and make progress or stay right where we are.  It means we may fail... but that is all part of the process.  It is all part of taking responsibility for who we are and what we want out of our lives!

The past is done, so live without regret, the future is tomorrow, so don't worry about it, Today is here and now, that's why it's called the present.  Open up the gift you have been given and choose to live the life you want.

Next topic... how to accept and create change in your life.

Everything else is just an excuse!

It has been said before that "You'll go after what you want, everything else is just an excuse".  This couldn't be more true.  As a coach, a mentor, a friend, an educator, a motivator, a father, a son, a brother, I have seen so many people in my life create excuses and not go after what it is they want.  Today, we want to break down the excuses and take a look at what is really going on and why it is we continue to create excuses in our lives to go after what it is we really want.
You see, there are many things we want in our lives and many things we want to go after.  I will use today as an example to you of what I ALMOST used as an excuse.  You see, I just got home from a Rescue Class this week.  In fact, it was an awesome physically demanding and challenging class.  We were completing some shoring yesterday (stuff to hold up structural collapses ) and in the VERY last event of the day, I decided I no longer wanted my thumb, so destroyed it with a hammer while I was holding on to a nail.  Immediately it swelled up, became purple and is EXTREMELY tender to the touch.  Now, if anyone has had this happen, it can be excruciating.. and in fact it IS excruciating.   So i almost let this stop me from doing what I love to do... Working out.  I had to stop, listen to what I was telling myself, and change the path I was going down to ensure I was on track with what I wanted and stop allowing myself to make excuses that it would hurt.  There was one point in the workout in which I hit the tip of my thumb.  Yes, it hurt, but my will to endure the workout was greater than the will to stop.
What's the point of all of this?  The point is, for what we really want in life, our fitness, our health, that dream career, that dream person, the dream car, whatever it is, we will go after it if we REALLY want it, otherwise we will find our own way out of it.  Let me use another example of this with the gym, in particular, CrossFit.
Most of the CrossFit Affiliates post their workouts the day before or the day of the actual workout.  Here's the great opportunity for you.. you can "Cherry pick" the workouts you want to do right?  But is that staying true to your ultimate goal of fitness, or is that you "picking" what you are good at and focussing on that?  If you TRULY wanted to become over-all better at fitness, then wouldn't you come in as many times as it takes to get there?   Wouldn't you pick the weaknesses as much as the strengths to work on?  If you truly wanted to improve over-all, wouldn't you not make the excuse of "eh... well, it looks like a tough workout today" and come in any way?  What is it that you are afraid of?
If you look to others for motivation and inspiration and they are achieving what you want to achieve, follow what they are doing, or at least ask them how they get through without listening to their inner excuse.  We all have it, that inner excuse.  It's just a matter of over-coming it.  It's the same with nutrition, with all other areas of life.  We all have the same 24 hours in a day, it;s how you lay it out and what you CHOOSE to do with it that will determine the outcome of what you want to do.  How good are you at making excuses and listening to them?  What is it that YOU want and how are YOU going to overcome those excuses?  Later, I will post on getting out of the comfort zone again and how to stop listening to those inner excuses.  Remember....

You'll go after what you want,  Everything else is just an excuse!!  (thanks Koshi for the quote)
 Jason had a pretty good fall during the West Sac Standoff, but got up and kept going.. after only CrossFitting for 3 weeks!!!! What an animal!  Thanks for your inspiration!