Never whine. Never complain. Never make excuses.
Day 4 of 5 breaking down the “5 Factors of Health”. Changing your mindset, or learning to harness the power of my mind. It change your entire life…I mean it. Mindset matters.
I challenge you to actively search for challenges to overcome.
Never complained about being tired or sore, be grateful they had the ability to workout everyday.
Never made excuses for a poor performance or a mistake at work, just own up to it and immediately began looking for solutions.
Your inner voice could be channeled instead of just listened to. Simple changes in the way you frame conversations could inspire people to work harder and have more fun. Negativity sucks, and has no place in the gym or in your life. Most importantly YOU get to choose what you focus on…and what you focus on, you give power to.
Once you learn that your life is best spent focusing on what you can control (and not complaining about what you can’t), it instantly becomes better. Once you realize how silly whiny and complaining are, you won’t be able to help but notice how silly people sound when all they do is whine and complain. Once you start practicing gratitude and realize all of the amazing things you have, you will become happier and more fun to be around. You’ll probably also start noticing how negative some people are, and how draining it is to be around those people.
Spend some time alone with your thoughts:
This can take the form of meditation (HeadSpace), stretching/mobilizing (TheReadyState / ROMWod), breath work (WimHof), or even a quiet walk around the block. Believe it or not, in the age we live in, you are almost never alone and in silence. We need this kind of time to sit with our thoughts, and deal with things that we’ve been suppressing. We can use this time to challenge ourselves to get to the root of any issues we face, to not sit and wallow in it…but to feel it, recognize it, and then work to find solutions or move on from it.
Practice Gratitude, Open Mindedness, and Positivity:
This is a big one. Practicing gratitude opens our eyes to all the great things that we do have in life. Being positive is a conscious decision to focus on those things instead of the negative things that happen in your life. Do you really want to be the kind of person who lets someone cutting them off in traffic ruin their whole day? Try writing down 3 things you’re grateful for every morning.
Be Nice to yourself:
This one is simple to understand. Self defeating thoughts actually do defeat you. Ever heard that Henry Ford quote? “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t…you’re right”. Another awesome way to bring awareness to the voice in your head is this practice from Ben Bergeron, next time you’re in a situation where your head is filled with doubt and fear think about if the voice in your head was projected over a loudspeaker for all to hear…would you be proud of it? Or would you be embarrassed by the way you speak to yourself?
Turn “Have to” into Get to”:
You don’t have to go to work today, you get to.
You don’t have to drop the kids off at soccer practice, you get to.
You don’t have to the gym today, you get to.
Some people are jobless and homeless, some people can’t have kids or afford to pay for them to play sports, some people can’t afford the gym or are physically incapable of working out.
Clean running water.
Access to healthy food.
A home, a job, and a car.
All of the amazing things you have access to are miracles…start acting like it.
Focus on what you can control:
This might be the most important one. The Stoics would argue that we actually only own one thing in the entire world that can’t be taken from us, and that is our mind and our ability to choose how we respond to situations. Life is not rainbows and unicorns all the time, not even most of the time. Bad things happen all the time. You will get fired from a job, someone will say hurtful things about you, and people you love will get sick and die. This is the reality of life, and we have almost no control over those things.
But instead of focusing on the negative we can choose to focus on the positive. When we look for the things that are within our control, we can start to affect the situation. When we focus on looking for the positive, we see more positive. When we focus on finding solutions, we can actually find solutions. So the next time you’re about to complain how cold it is…don’t. And if it really is too cold, move to where it’s warmer. And if you don’t want to move, then don’t complain about it. Complaining about how much you don’t like burpees doesn’t make burpees any easier (in fact, focusing on the negative probably makes them harder), not only that but now everyone else in class is thinking about the negative aspect of burpees. Be a fountain, not a drain.
“If it is endurable, theN endure it. Stop complaining” – Marcus Aurelius
Here is a great podcast breaking down ten principles of mindset – Chasing Excellence
Ted Talk with Ben Bergeron – Your mind is a weapon
Keep the mind strong my friends...
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