You know how sometimes a really simple statement hits you so hard that it seems like your world is turned upside down for a moment? It’s statements, or stories, or even visuals that “blow you away” and make you see things completely differently. Well, this happened to me the other day and it made me view a problem I have had for my entire life in a whole new light. The crazy thing is that I have no idea where I read this, but it was only a few days ago (yeah, I’ve been reading a real lot of articles lately) and it hit me hard enough to put the article down, mouth open, and my brain going: “yeah, totally!”
It basically said that when you are down with your day, sitting on your couch at night, watching TV and letting the old habits creep in like, “I need some snacks to go along with my late night TV watching”. If you see yourself as a helpless, out of shape, sad, stupid, and whatever other negative view one could have type of person, you’ll probably head to the kitchen and scoop a bowl of ice cream. Or, in my case, run down to whole foods for a bag of chocolate covered almonds! But, if you see yourself as a fit, healthy, happy, good person, you’ll turn the TV off and go to bed a little early knowing that the extra sleep and avoiding a late night insulin spike will get you even better.
I realize this isn’t some new concept, I have written over and over again tat if you want change in your life, you have to change from the inside. You can’t just force yourself to all of a sudden be a healthy, happy, fit person. You have to become a different person, with different views of yourself and life so that those changes can become a PART of your life rather than a part of your life's’ schedule. Perhaps this hit home foe me the hardest because it touched on the aspect that I personally struggle with the most. When I am roughing through things, I tend to stay up later and later at night, watching TV. I do this because I feel like it’s a distraction from all the crap I don’t want to deal with. If I can watch an episode (or 4…) of Family Guy I convince myself that it’s healthy for me because I can escape a little into the show and just let my mind go free.
But that is not happening. That would happen if I got into bed, maybe wrote a little on a pad of paper and tried closing my eyes. Then I wouldn’t be straining every system in my body. Then I wouldn’t allow my problems to sneak up on me while I was distracted by the TV and all of a sudden I start to feel sorry for myself and justify eating something I know I don’t need or want. I know all of this to be so strong because when I am on top of the world, I am in bed at 10pm, the TV is rarely on and thoughts of self-pity never go through my head.
And what I also know to be true: if I want to overcome all this, if I want to get better sleep, eat better, become happier, become healthier and let those healthy habits positively effect the rest of my life, I need to change the way I view myself and my life. I can’t just sit back and hope it goes away. I can’t just put a Band-Aid over the problems and issues and then claim myself healed. No, rather than becoming really good at suppressing my issues under false strength, I need to become good at overcoming my issues. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t want to see something I am dissatisfied in, something I am ashamed of and angry with. When I look in the mirror I want to feel GOOD. I want to feel confident that the person looking back at me is understanding first, strong second. The order of this is key because if you are strong without understanding, you have no control over yourself. This is mentally AND physically. I must understand why I am deadlifting and how to deadlift perfectly if I ever expect to become great at deadlifts. And I must understand why I feel something and how those feeling work if I ever want to have any control of my emotions.
When I look in the mirror today, I am not happy with what I see. So do I avoid the mirror, distract myself with things like negativity, TV, food, pity and so on? Do I pretend it’s all OK and try to force myself to be what I think I should, be? I mean come on, I’ve been there before so it should be that easy, right? Hell no. It’s time for a perspective change, a self-induced paradigm shift, a deep look within.
Go look at yourself in the mirror. Really, really look; soak it all in. What do you see?
Forgive the depressing aspect of this post. I know that I can sometimes be a little too open here, but I find it extremely helpful for my process. Interestingly enough, after writing this, I feel so much better. I feel like I have taken a HUGE step forward! I hope, if you are feeling in any way off or down, that this might be a little inspiration towards the right.
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
It basically said that when you are down with your day, sitting on your couch at night, watching TV and letting the old habits creep in like, “I need some snacks to go along with my late night TV watching”. If you see yourself as a helpless, out of shape, sad, stupid, and whatever other negative view one could have type of person, you’ll probably head to the kitchen and scoop a bowl of ice cream. Or, in my case, run down to whole foods for a bag of chocolate covered almonds! But, if you see yourself as a fit, healthy, happy, good person, you’ll turn the TV off and go to bed a little early knowing that the extra sleep and avoiding a late night insulin spike will get you even better.
I realize this isn’t some new concept, I have written over and over again tat if you want change in your life, you have to change from the inside. You can’t just force yourself to all of a sudden be a healthy, happy, fit person. You have to become a different person, with different views of yourself and life so that those changes can become a PART of your life rather than a part of your life's’ schedule. Perhaps this hit home foe me the hardest because it touched on the aspect that I personally struggle with the most. When I am roughing through things, I tend to stay up later and later at night, watching TV. I do this because I feel like it’s a distraction from all the crap I don’t want to deal with. If I can watch an episode (or 4…) of Family Guy I convince myself that it’s healthy for me because I can escape a little into the show and just let my mind go free.
But that is not happening. That would happen if I got into bed, maybe wrote a little on a pad of paper and tried closing my eyes. Then I wouldn’t be straining every system in my body. Then I wouldn’t allow my problems to sneak up on me while I was distracted by the TV and all of a sudden I start to feel sorry for myself and justify eating something I know I don’t need or want. I know all of this to be so strong because when I am on top of the world, I am in bed at 10pm, the TV is rarely on and thoughts of self-pity never go through my head.
And what I also know to be true: if I want to overcome all this, if I want to get better sleep, eat better, become happier, become healthier and let those healthy habits positively effect the rest of my life, I need to change the way I view myself and my life. I can’t just sit back and hope it goes away. I can’t just put a Band-Aid over the problems and issues and then claim myself healed. No, rather than becoming really good at suppressing my issues under false strength, I need to become good at overcoming my issues. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t want to see something I am dissatisfied in, something I am ashamed of and angry with. When I look in the mirror I want to feel GOOD. I want to feel confident that the person looking back at me is understanding first, strong second. The order of this is key because if you are strong without understanding, you have no control over yourself. This is mentally AND physically. I must understand why I am deadlifting and how to deadlift perfectly if I ever expect to become great at deadlifts. And I must understand why I feel something and how those feeling work if I ever want to have any control of my emotions.
When I look in the mirror today, I am not happy with what I see. So do I avoid the mirror, distract myself with things like negativity, TV, food, pity and so on? Do I pretend it’s all OK and try to force myself to be what I think I should, be? I mean come on, I’ve been there before so it should be that easy, right? Hell no. It’s time for a perspective change, a self-induced paradigm shift, a deep look within.
Go look at yourself in the mirror. Really, really look; soak it all in. What do you see?
Forgive the depressing aspect of this post. I know that I can sometimes be a little too open here, but I find it extremely helpful for my process. Interestingly enough, after writing this, I feel so much better. I feel like I have taken a HUGE step forward! I hope, if you are feeling in any way off or down, that this might be a little inspiration towards the right.
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
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