Week 4, Post 1; Lean Into It!

I have a great group of friends, cheerleaders, inspirational role models and accountability buddies of my own.  We all need them.  No man (or woman!) is an island and I can tell you now; the greater the group I surround myself with, the easier it is to stay the course, or get back on track, or crank up the effort.

But that doesn’t mean some days/weeks/months aren’t just *hard*.  That doesn’t mean doubt doesn’t creep in; doubt in my commitment, my ability, my willpower.  It’s times like those, when you’re foundering, when you’re really struggling for somewhere to pull it out of, that it’s most important not to take a step back and reassess.  No, at times like these, when the shit is hitting the fan, when the going is getting tough, when you know it’s going to hurt, you need to take a step forward and LEAN INTO IT, BABY.

Here comes the wave!  LEAN INTO IT!  Curve ahead!  LEAN INTO IT!  We’re about to crash; brace yourselves, people, and LEAN INTO IT!

Listen, friends.  Today is not the day you’re going to quit.  Ok, fine, let’s say you’ve really blown it so far and haven’t worked out once.  Why does that mean you can’t start HERE, NOW?  Why do 21 days of successive failures (which we are going to call LEARNING EXPERIENCES, let’s keep that in mind-a failure is just practice for success!) mean that all of the next 21 days have to be failures, too?  Why can’t today be the day things change?  Remember, Today is the first day of the rest of your life; use it WISELY!  You’re driving this bus, folks!  TAKE THE WHEEL!

Every day we get up is a choice we make.  I mean, literally, we make the choice just to get out of bed!  Some people can’t even do that much, they’re so paralyzed by despair!  We get up, we do our duties, we come into work, and we make choices all along the way, every second of every day.  What to wear, what to eat, what to say, what to feel, what to think about…it’s tough!  We have so much freedom, so many opportunities to make mistakes, it can be overwhelming and exhausting!  But those are also opportunities to do ourselves proud; they are opportunities to lean into the hard times, brace ourselves and suck it up, it’s going to hurt but we’ll be so glad it did!  You know what they say; anything worth having is worth fighting for!  Well, anything worth having usually requires fighting for! 

There are all sorts of inspirational quotes surrounding this idea; “Pain is weakness leaving the body”, “A coward dies a thousand deaths; the brave die but once”.  This is all about mental courage, people.  The only thing standing in your way, the only thing you’re bracing yourself for, is the idea of the pain; the idea of how hard it will be to say no to that piece of cake and yes to that damn workout.  Trust me, I fight inner struggles every day SO MUCH WORSE than the 2 minutes of dead lifts I’m going to do later on today, or the 12 minutes of sit-ups, or the minute of bicycle crunches that I CAN’T STAND.  There are days when I look at how much mental energy I put into avoiding the workout and think that I literally could have done the workout TEN TIMES in the amount of time it took me to dread it. 

Granted, those days are few and far between for me, nowadays.  My struggle is usually with food choices-you wouldn’t believe the things I can say to myself to talk myself into/out of a bad food choice!  The energy I expend is ridiculous.  Some of you will struggle with something else entirely; quitting smoking, overcoming the fear of the gym, etc.  Whatever it is, guys, just remember; it’s really not the thing you’re dreading.  It’s the IDEA of the thing.  And just like anything else, the more time you spend AVOIDING the thing you’re dreading, the harder it becomes to face!  The monster gets bigger the longer you fear that closet door!  And who wants to live in fear?  Screw that, guys, come on; OPEN THAT DOOR!  LEAN INTO IT!

So don’t step back.  Don’t reassess.  Don’t spend ONE MORE DAMN MINUTE OF YOUR LIFE THINKING ABOUT IT.  LEAN INTO IT, BABY!  As I always like to say, Don’t THINK, just GO.  You’ll be around that curve before you know it, unscathed, and the next one will be that much easier, and the next, and the next, until looking back, all you see is the line of successes that your “failures” have earned you.

So congratulations to all of you, for making it this far, no matter how well or how poorly you have done.  You signed up, and that in and of itself is more than 5/6^th of the agency even dared to do!  We are all on our OWN journey, at our OWN pace.  Know yourselves, know your place, feel your courage, know you are greater than any obstacle, lean into the hard times, and own your future.

Best of luck to you all; get out there and get yourselves some today!

With you all in spirit-

Lisa