Written by jmeacham on March 7, 2012

Posted in Lifestyle | 10 Comments

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Now – Where Real Life Finds Fitness Success

This morning at about 7:30am I had just finished my arm workout, downed meal #2 and was getting my day started by answering emails to online clients and getting my mind right for the business of the day.  I don’t typically have many moments where I can’t find the right thing to say but as I responded to one client’s email I just stopped.  You see she’s been dealing with some legitimately serious life-issues and has been struggling with motivation for a couple of weeks now.  Today she sent me an email that was so filled with reasons for falling off the dietary and exercise wagon that I couldn’t even keep track of it all.  I wasn’t upset with her, just concerned by all the reasons she was presenting.  I knew instantly that she’d (like all of us, me included) lost focus and was struggling to find a firm mindset.  Just so you know, I asked her (and she agreed) if I could use her as an example in my blog article because not only did her situation fall right into something I love writing about, but also so she can use it as a way of recognizing when she’s falling into this pattern the next time and save me the trouble of sending her an e-hug/e-kickintheass.  Someone should make that into an app – seriously!  To me they are one and the same.  I’m pretty good at saying, “I love and care about you, now with all due respect get your shit together.”

I’m the first to admit that life gets in the way sometimes, things happen, issues arise, emergencies throw us for a loop, but goals, reality, time and living keep on trucking.  This is where we find those annoying little things that have to go a certain way in order to live a fit lifestyle – choices.  They annoy us because we are always in control of them.  We always have choices and at all times, we determine what path our fitness lifestyle takes.  That kinda sucks!  It’d be really awesome if someone else could be the reason I ate the #6 extra value meal from Taco Bell after drinking 2 margaritas on Saturday.  Oh wait!  I didn’t.  I went and met some friends, drank water, had a couple diet cokes and went home to eat 5 egg whites, 2 whole eggs and 1/4 c. walnuts.  Choices are a real bitch!  Walnuts and eggs may give me six-pack abs but they sure don’t taste like some Taco Bell and I love junk food – gotta be honest.   Choices!  What’s more in-line with the life I want to live?  You got it!

We try to blame other people, we convince ourselves things are out of our hands, but they’re not.  We know they’re not because of the shame and guilt we feel when we do something contrary to our desire to live fit.  If something is out of your control why would you need to feel bad about it, to punish yourself and to go through the trouble of making excuses about it?  Why would you give it a second thought?  You wouldn’t.  But because our fitness lifestyle is completely under our control, we do feel bad, dejected and guilty when we do something we know we probably should not have.  For some reason I couldn’t find the words to communicate with my client that she had already taken a number of vital steps toward achieving her fitness success.  She had made a commitment to herself, she paid me to guide her process and she needed to get off her ass, follow the plan I designed for her and get her mojo back.  Let’s be real.  Motivation can be found in success.  A couple of days following a meal plan and training smart make you look and feel better, both of which motivate you to continue.  We’ll always have times where motivation lags, we make the wrong choices and when things in our lives cause us to act in ways contrary to the lifestyle we want to live.  But this doesn’t mean all hope is lost because there is always one piece of understanding that is essential to achieving and maintaining your fitness lifestyle.

That little piece of knowledge is understanding the power of NOW. 

Now is the only thing in this life that you control.

Now is when you make the right or wrong decision.

Now is where you begin gaining positive momentum or gaining negative momentum.

Now is when you take ownership of your life or make excuses for it.

And now is when you choose to live fit, or choose to let another day slip away moving you further and further from your goals.

Now, this moment in time, this very instant is where real life exists.  The past is a memory, the future unknown.  Now is tangible, it’s powered by you, it’s a brush filled with paint and it’s in your hand and your life is the canvas.  What will you paint?  Excuses for being less than you were created to be, or greatness in achieving the lifestyle you long to live.

One thing to always keep in mind my friend is that your life, my life, all life is built by a series of now-moments.  Those now-moments are followed by another, then another.  Living the fitness lifestyle requires the right choices to be made during the vast majority of those moments.  The cool thing is, you can be very fit and still have one hell of a time!  But knowing your boundaries at any given moment is a key to lifelong fitness success.

Now is a moment you can’t afford to waste my friend.  Now is simple, but vital.  Now is something we all have but so few of us use wisely.

Here’s to you my friend and here’s to using your now in a way that blesses and enriches your life and the lives of those you love!