Think of your favourite song, or band.
For most people, your favourite music is related to when you went to middle and high school. It’s when music had the most influence and life was less complex than it became after college, work and family life. So for me, that means the 80’s, which brings me to my topic today. Journey put out a song called, “Be Good To Yourself” in 1986. I was reminded of it as we enjoyed a party for our ladies program; “The Girls Night Out Experience” recently. The program was about fitness, meal plans and recipes - but even more so it was about being good to yourself.
I think that has to be what fitness is all about. Being good to yourself. Often people think fitness is about pain, ridiculous workouts, or diets that require starvation and Spartan eating of the nasty foods you choke down. None of that is true at all in my experience and I see it first hand all the time. Yes, some workouts are challenging so you can teach your body to adapt, but the rewards are powerful.
What if the whole time, you kept reminding yourself that you are investing in your number one resource: your health, instead of thinking of it like a ‘beating’? Further to that, food does not have to be awful either, in fact, it can be and should be quite amazing and healthy. We live in such abundance, and with a few choices we can not only eat in a way that is a total treat to the body, but to the taste buds as well.
Life is hard sometimes and these days it seems harder than I can ever remember. I feel like we are all going flat out all the time at a relentless pace and while that is necessary in some ways - I think we need to spend a little attention being good to ourselves.
Like the Journey song says:
“Runnin’ out of self-control gettin’ close to an overload up against a no win situation
Shoulder to shoulder, push and shove I’m hangin’ up my boxin’ gloves I’m ready for a long vacation
Be good to yourself when, nobody else will oh be good to yourself you’re walkin’ a high-wire, caught in a crossfire. Oh be good to yourself…….”
So many of us are so hard on ourselves, myself included. For many of us this year has been a war zone and I for one look a little battle weary. I hope that at this time of family giving and celebration we can remember to be good to ourselves. Look in the mirror with gentle eyes and a forgiving heart instead of judgment and all that other stuff.
Yes, I think we all need to do something about our fitness and our health. Yes, I think exercise and nutrition matter. There is no better thing to focus on. At the same time, I hope we can do it by understanding that caring about our health is not a punishment, battle or anything nasty, but rather a fantastic gift!
During our recent celebration a professional photographer was taking photo’s of the ladies and he said something very profound. One of the ladies was being hard on herself, trying to give credit to the photographer for ‘making’ her look good. Saying that it was the lighting or something external, as she tried to brush off the compliments. The photographer said to her, “The camera only shows what’s there. You look amazing, because you look amazing.”
Beyond that surface stuff, no matter what you look like compared to whatever ‘standard’ you judge yourself by, I hope that you can look at the entire human being you are, and be good to yourself.
Happy Training!
Scott