The overwhelm/underwhelm cycle, that is.
Here’s what I mean.
You’re really trying to be healthy and active. It’s not that you lack motivation, it may actually be the opposite: you’re even taking the time to do some research and… errrr… it gets confusing, doesn’t it?
Every single week, media headlines are competing for your attention, telling you which one is the *definitive* method that will finally get you to be effortlessly thinner/desirably stronger/forever happier/noticeably sexier/appealingly leaner/etc.
Who cares if they were saying something completely different just a few weeks ago?
And you keep hearing different things from the people around you too: your sister-in-law is really into CrossFit; your best friend absolutely swears by Barre class; your colleague is a staunch Paleo proponent and tells you all about it every time you eat together (although you still fail to see how Paleo brownies can really be a thing).
Information is thrown at you from everywhere. It’s getting honestly stressful. Which approach is the best one???
Finally, facing serious overwhelm, you pick something—anything!—just so you can get on with your life. Let’s say it’s running. Or it could be spin class, whatever.
You start with gusto: you’ve found your activity, this is fantastic! It makes you feel badass. I mean, it’s hard, but you are doing it!
The weeks pass. It sucks a bit. I mean, not every day, but there are moments where you’re really asking yourself why you’re doing it.
See, you kind of hate to admit it, but you’re pretty underwhelmed with the results.
You thought you were making good headway at the beginning: your pants got a little bit looser and then… nothing. No more change.
Granted, you’ve gotten a little bit better at running (or spin class!): you can go longer without believing that you’re going to die. And you get less winded when you’re going up a flight of stairs.
But still, it hasn’t changed your body in the way you thought it would.
You keep going, but there’s this nagging voice in the back of your head asking you why you even bother. Maybe you’re doing it wrong. Maybe there’s an intrinsic flaw with your body. Maybe there’s something better out there.
So you start looking for something else. And BAM! Overwhelm strikes again.
I spent a lot of time stuck in that cycle, going from overwhelm to certainty—because I was convinced that this time had to be the right time: I’d found the thing, the end-all of solutions, the magic trick that was going to make me better!—and then to underwhelm, confusion and discouragement—why do I *still* look like that?
I now know—although it literally took me decades to figure it out—that I was missing a crucial component. I may have been working out, and even working out a lot at times, but there was something that I was absolutely neglecting: working in.
WORKING IN & OUT
I used to be rather staunchly skeptical about the whole idea that working on my mind could produce any physical results. I mean, exercising is about gaining muscle and losing fat, right? What does the mind have to do with it?
Except something unexpected happened. Someone challenged me to work on mindset for just a couple of weeks, and I begrudgingly agreed to do so.
I had just promised myself a few months prior to that to say YES to more experiences, in the hopes that it could potentially make me happier, because all evidence pointed to the fact that saying NO hadn’t served me very well. Also, shying away would have made me a bit of a loser in my own eyes, and I don’t actually like to think of myself as such.
And so I did. I’ll spare you the exact count of eye rolls that went into the process, but I stuck to it—I don’t back down from a challenge.
After the first 10 days of consistent mindset work, let’s just say the eye rolls were a thing of the past. After 20 days, I realized that my stress level had gone way down, and that I was definitely better in touch with everything that was going on in my life.
And after 30 days? Everything was feeling much lighter. In my heart, in my mind… and very surprisingly to me, in my clothes too!
Was mindset the tool that I was missing all this time?
Years later, I still believe it to be the case. Talk about an about face!
PAYING IT FORWARD
My journey was a bumpy one, just as I suspect yours may be. I get emails from women all the time who share how much of a constant struggle this is for them.
With so many mixed messages thrown at us, we end up not knowing where to pay attention, and working on mindset—or working in, as I like to call it—often doesn’t make the cut among all the noise, especially when we’re focusing on our body.
I get it.
And this is why I decided that I had to pay it forward. That I had to do my part in cutting through the noise and confusion that lives around food and exercise. That I had to draw on my own experience, both personal and professional, and create a comprehensive system that would allow simultaneously working in and out, in order to help others create this lasting positive change in their life as well.
And thus, #ChooseEASE came to be!
There’s nothing like it out there: a 12-week Fitness & Mindset coaching program, that will work your mind and soul just as thoroughly as your body!
#ChooseEASE isn’t about quick fixes, restrictive diets or rigid workout schedules. You’ve tried these. They didn’t work in the long haul.
What I want to do instead is equip you with tools and strategies so you can navigate exercise and food with joy and ease, instead of struggle.
What I really want, is for you to commit to yourself, let me teach you how to do this introspective work, and give yourself the opportunity to embrace life fully—body, mind and soul!
IT’S TIME TO STOP THE OVERWHELM/UNDERWHELM CYCLE.
IT’S TIME TO RECLAIM JOY AND EASE AS CONSTANTS IN YOUR LIFE.
IT’S TIME TO INVEST IN YOURSELF.
Registration is only available until September 19. Make sure that you get in now as this course won’t be offered again until 2017. Click here to get all program details and secure your spot.
