You walk into the studio with your workout wear on, your water bottle in hand and hopefully an attitude to put up with me and my music.  This might be the place you’ve called home for the past five years, or you might still be trying to figure out how to read my handwriting on the wall.  Making your way down to the studio may have been an easy decision, and confidence carried you through the door.  Or you may have struggled to get out of your car and every muscle in your body was convincing you to go back home.  Finding the right class and the right fit is hard.  It can be discouraging and humbling, it can be frustrating and embarrassing.  But it can also be rewarding and fulfilling.  Finding your inner reasons to show up and work hard is the key to your fitness success.  

At first I was trying to write this with the general population in mind.  I was thinking about how the weekends pull us off track.  How our weekends lead us down the path of temptations and overindulgences.  The more I wrote, the worse my writing sounded.  I actually have no idea if anyone else struggles with their weekends.  Maybe your weekends lead you the relaxation and recharge that you so badly need.  Maybe your weekends give you time to meal prep and schedule for the upcoming week.  Maybe your weekends are spent in your pajamas drinking coffee and doing anything you please.  Not me, my weekends are leaving me exhausted.  They are leaving me off track and with the feeling that I am treading water in most things life.  

Some days I sit at my computer trying to figure out the most important things to write about.  Sometimes it comes easy and other times I struggle to put words in front of me.  Today I am not struggling with what to say, I am struggling with how to say it.  I keep thinking about how consistency is what really matters.  How sticking with something for the long haul is so hard to accomplish that most people give up before they have reached six months.  I am trying to say that life is what it is and if we want to set goals that are achievable we have to first believe that we can do it and then put one foot in front of the other to accomplish them.  

It seems like lately social media is filled with success stories.  People who are wearing their sports bras and short shorts showing off their new bodies, their new lives.  It is littered with the flashy side of their success and a lot of times leaves out the darker side of hard work.  These stories are meant to motivate people to change their eating habits or fitness routines.  But a lot of times, these stories do the opposite.  They can make people feel like the hard work they are putting in at the gym isn’t enough, or the cake they ate over the weekend is a failure, or a night out with friends shouldn’t have happened.  Taking out others successes, what drives YOU?  What makes you the happiest version of yourself?  How do you tap into your own success and strengths to make the changes that will last?  I wish I had the answers.  My biggest starting point is to not compare yourself to others.  Look in the mirror and own the person looking back at you.  

Life is really hard sometimes.  I have written a bit this year about some of my own struggles but today is not so much about me, and yet it is all about me.  We all have hard times and for some, the hard times keep rolling in without much of a break.  As a coach I get a glimpse at some of these times.  I get conversations about the struggles, I see the tears that come from loss or frustrations.  I watch the anger and disappointment that accompanies the lack of control most of us have over the things that affect us most.  And yet these people give themselves the gift of exercise.  They take the time away from their stresses and frustrations and anger to focus on themselves.  

Train like an athlete because you are an athlete.  At what point do we finally lift enough weight, run fast enough or jump high enough to consider ourselves an athlete?  My simple answer: the point when you show up and push yourself to be a better version of the person that walked in the door.  Seriously, the fact that you show up and work hard, is enough.  The fact that you push yourself into the discomforts of both physical and mental places makes you enough.  And it is about time we start looking at the athlete in the mirror and realizing it is us looking back.  

The other morning I was leaving the studio with about eight different things on my mind.  I felt rushed even though I didn’t need to.  I pulled up to the stop sign and pulled out in front of a car.  I was distracted and not paying attention.  And just to clarify, I was not on my cell phone.  The other driver was not happy but reacted in a way that diverted an accident.  I immediately felt horrible.  I almost caused a car accident and could have hurt another person in the process.  I was lucky, lucky the car slowed down and lucky no one got physically hurt…emotionally is a different story.  As I drove home, feeling sick to my stomach, I was also thankful that I was still driving home.  Being distracted and rushing to get somewhere almost cost me a lot more time, an undetermined amount of time depending on the severity of the accident.  Slowing everything down might have take another two minutes, but in the scheme of things, that’s nothing.

There are moments in time where perspective can define the experience.  There are times when all it takes is a different point of view to change the entire story.  I had an experience that gave me this opportunity, and here it is.  Over the weekend my car broke down in Bellevue, which is about two and a half hours away from my house.  I was stuck in a parking lot far from familiar.  I didn’t know where to take my car and I didn’t know how I was going to get it there.  I felt completely helpless.  I wanted to cry and feel sorry for myself.  I wanted the universe to know how unfair this was and I think I needed some sympathy to justify everything that was happening.  But fuck that.  I learned a huge lesson this weekend.  I learned that I am never alone.  I learned that my friends will go out of their way to help me and strangers will offer a helping hand, even though they don’t know anything about me.  

I just returned from an amazingly beautiful and fun weekend in Alaska.  I have been home for about 36 hours and have a feeling that I need to go on vacation again.  Life can be so much easier when our problems are far away.  

It was about 1:30pm on a Monday afternoon.  I had a great morning workout and was finishing up teaching at the studio.  All of a sudden I got hit with a horrible feeling, I felt like shit.  It came on fast and furious.  One moment I was feeling great and the next all I could think about was going to bed.  When I got home I made myself some tea and it hurt to swallow.  I still had an afternoon with the kids and another class to teach.  And all I wanted to do was check out of everything and just get under the covers.