__ Let's step away from overused metaphors like glasses being half full and such and break it down as straight forward as possible.  How do you see the world?  Some people know instantaneously that they are positive or negative people and to those people, well, you got something pretty big figured out.  To be honest, I can respect a bit those people who admit to being really negative; at least they are honest with themselves and with everyone around them as to who they are.  It allows for people like me, and others who don't much care for over-negativity to not hang out with them on a regular basis.  The other type of person is one that doesn't really know where they stand.  Perhaps they are both?  Perhaps they think they are positive in general, but are really pretty negative.  This is a tough one because how is someone supposed to be honest about who they are if they have no clue they are lying to themselves, or, they just don't care?

Here's a go-to test.  Take one day and decide to make note of the first thing that comes out of your mouth.  Interestingly, what will inevitably happen is you'll either not say very much (and still, the things you say, pay close attention to them), but what you CAN do now is really see what it is you wanted to say.  When you get cut off, do you want to say something to express your frustration?  Did you actually say something?  Or did you just pay no attention?  Or did you notice something really cool the person cutting you off was wearing?  The fact is people, while it is a choice to act on your negativity and/or aggression, for some people it is much more deeply rooted than simply being able to just stop.  If your natural inclination is to think negative thoughts most of your day, there is something deeply struggling inside of you.  Its funny, I know by writing this I am going to get a lot of blood boiling in negative people.  But that right there is perfectly proving my point.  If my post here annoys you, pisses you off, gets you all defensive and you find yourself making excuses, or throwing stuff back at me, either in your mind or maybe in email, or to my face, well, simply put, you're a negative person!

If it IS your natural inclination to exude negativity, I can only offer my advice on some things I have found work for me.  I am obviously not a therapist or anything like that.  So, that being said, take my thoughts as merely experiential and based on my young years of learning from people, myself and over-analyzing pretty much everything.  Here's one my Mom used to tell me when I was a kid.  I always found it cheesy, but when I tried it, it worked absolute wonders for me.  I still use this method to this day when I feel negativity taking over in my head, and it still works so well.  When something happens (let's use the getting cut off scenario again) and you feel those negative thoughts and angry feeling bubbling up.  Take a second and try to find something unique, or cool, or interesting about the person.  Perhaps they have a cool hat, or a shirt that you relate to, or a sweet pair of shoes on, or an interesting hair cut?  Tell yourself this.  And for added effect, say it aloud to yourself so you can hear your own voice.  If you really want to feel the full effects, tell the person who cut you off the positive thing you found about them and watch what happens.  A positive thought usually leads to other positive thoughts.  You see someone with cool shoes and you begin to think about your own shoes.  Then you remember an awesome pair of shoes you had as a kid and the time you and your mother or father went shopping for them and had such a fun experience.  And just like that, the tiny little “being cut off” thing vanished into a wonderful daydream of a happy childhood memory.

Maybe you can take that little shift in thinking, and ponder about how stressful wasting your time on feeling negative towards everything really is.  How, if you are always putting other things down, it’ll be pretty damn hard to look at yourself, and the things you want to love in a positive light.  Negativity begets negativity people, and it is powerful enough to strongly affect the people you surround yourself with.  

Oh, and one last thought for todays post: when was the last time you smiled for no apparent reason, someplace in public? 

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

_ I don’t mean you should become some obsessed fitness junkie like me who can do nothing but think about all things health and fitness.  Quick tangent on how bad I can be sometimes: I even thought a large steel frame holding contraption at the damn Holocaust Museum would be the perfect addition to my gym… yeah…

Anyway, back to the point.  I find it increasingly frustrating to see how many people either don’t exercise on any sort of regular basis, or, make it a very low priority in their life.  Ironically enough, most people out there have some pretty serious issues, like stress, high blood pressure, hypertension, sleep issues, anxiety, depression and then a whole slew of other serious medical conditions.  And these same people will sit all day and bitch and moan about how crappy they feel, yet instead of taking the greatest dose of anything they could have (um, exercise), they opt for helpful little drugs.  Caffeine to wake up, sleeping pills to go to sleep, aspirin to make their twinging knee pain go away while walking around in horribly designed shoes and sitting at a desk all day. 

If you want to see one of the coolest videos I have ever seen on the best drug you could ever take for pretty much any ailment, click on this sentence NOW.

Besides that, just take a minute or two and think about your priorities.  You must work, you must be social, you must watch your TV shows, you must take your kids here and there, you must eat certain foods, you must drive a fancier car, you must wear specific clothes; the list goes on and on.  And to make sure those things are taken care of you just don’t have time for regular exercise.  

Simply put people: regular exercise will make the good priorities in your life better, and the bad priorities in your life seem less important. 

I had a guy tell me yesterday that he knew he wanted to workout more but just lacked the motivation.  He came and worked out with me today and told me, while beaming from endorphins after an awesome session of flipping tires and hitting things with sledge hammers: “that was fun!”  You see, fitness to so many people means a slow trudge through an impersonal gym, hitting a set here and there and then heading home.  But there is more out there people!  Fitness can be something you crave, something you look forward to every day.  Health and fitness can be something that wakes you up in the morning bubbling with energy and excitement for what you are able to do that day.  Fitness can be a driving life force in anyone and everyone’s life.

But you must want it.  It’s out there, always, without fail and without judgment.  All you have to do is take a step or two in the right direction and your life will forever be changed.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

I have always been one to advocate the importance of taking good care of yourself, physically AND mentally.  But recently it has been on my mind more than normal.  Perhaps it’s been the attention of the CrossFit Games process where I ate like relative crap, skipped workouts and moved across the country while training to compete as one of the “Fittest In The Word” (obviously didn't work out so well).  Perhaps it was my near death experience a few weeks back when I flipped my car.  Perhaps it’s been connecting with a whole slew of young athletes who have no idea what health actually means (generally not their fault at all on this one...ahem...parents...).  Or maybe it’s being around a decent number of people who just let things slide, over and over again until all of a sudden one day it all comes crashing down on them.  Whatever it is, I have been reading, researching, studying and talking more and more about what it takes to be a healthy person, and I have come to find that it’s all about a shift in perspective if you want good and lasting results.

First things first: I have never, and I repeat, NEVER met a human being who truly knows how to take care of him/her self both physically and mentally (myself included here!).  I have talked with a good deal of people who are on the right track (serious CrossFitters are the closest I have seen), and I have met a real lot of people who think they know what they are doing, but this is so easily the most difficult thing to recognize in life.  If I had a nickel for every time someone explained their “healthy” lifestyle to me to get my opinion and it involved sneaky amounts of complex carbohydrates, sugars, alcohol, lack of sleep, high stress, imbalance, and splotchy activity I'd be a millionaire!  So often do I wish I could just violently shake these people while screaming, “just read a book on health and fitness and your life will be 100% percent better!  Seriously, like any book!”  Shoot man, I'll buy it for them!

But, who am I to define health?  I have my opinions; I have my beliefs on the best ways to live if you want to have a life filled with activity, not too much body fat, general happiness and fun relationships.  But I am not everyone else and it’s not up to me to dictate how you want to live your life.  Unless you ask, unless you want help, unless you are doing something that is clearly detrimental to yourself and others around you, I have come to the realization that there is nothing I can do.  All I can do is whole-heartedly believe in what I passionately know to be true, support the people who want to get better, and not talk down to and alienate myself from those that don’t.  I say this last part because I also believe that a person who chooses to do something unhealthy will eventually be motivated to make some form of change.  And when that change is wanted to be made, they, like everyone else in the worked, deserve help and support from others.  So, to all you people out there striving to be healthy, wanting so badly to fight the craziness of bad food and inactivity in the world; don’t be a source of fear and conflict to those who are not like you.  Rather, be a source of inspiration and motivation.

I little piece of cheesiness I like to share with people when talking about how to lead a healthy lifestyle goes like this:  When we are born we are given nothing but two guaranteed things: our bodies and out minds.  We are not guaranteed family, friends, wealth, food, cars, houses and on and on.  If we get those things, they are all additional gifts that we are lucky to come by and have.  If you can take a step back and see that the only two things we enter this world with are usually the things we take most for granted, your life will instantly become that much better.  Make a priority of giving both your body and your mind the most care, and it will be impossible for things to be bad in your life.  Every pesticide, every bite and sip of processed poison, every lazy day in front of the TV on your couch in the blasting AC, every car ride (you get the picture here) deteriorates your body and mind just a little more.  Take the time to take care of them, and you will be rewarded with a truly healthy, happy, positive life.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage