Changing Country, Changing Lives

I seldom give billboards any conscience thought but one did recently catch my attention. It said the top ten jobs in 2015 don’t exist today. Usually the thought of such significant change in so short a time period would have more of an impact. But today with the economic turmoil and an historic election on the horizon change is the norm. I’m not an expert on economics or politics but I have opinions like everyone else. Joe the plumber/Pam the trainer. We’re thinking, weighing the impact of world events on our immediate lives.

On a different level my profession is all about change. Take someone overweight and help them get lean. Take someone injured and help them get stronger. Slow to fast, stiff to limber…you get the idea. After working with over a thousand clients over the years I recognize what a huge leap of courage and faith it is to decide to change and to enlist some help.

The final push that causes my clients to transform is often a major life change: divorce, illness, new baby, wedding, death in the family, etc. Sometimes something will jar us into realizing that if we continue to do things the way we always have we won’t get the results we dream of. Whether the impetus is happy or devastating it has empowered us to at least take the first step in a new direction.

Resistance to change is a classic sign of the aging temperament. A sound mind must simultaneously hold to some truths that don’t change while being open to new ideas and new directions. Identifying these unchangeables is part of the challenge. Letting go of what no longer serves us or the greater good is an art.

We face fundamental questions about our country’s future and about the way we choose to live our own lives. What will we fight to keep, hate to lose, be relieved to be done with? As always I hope you’ll share your thoughts.

the parents made me do it

I taught two fitness classes in the early am today. As I'm shuffling myself from a cycle to yoga it begins to pour. At that moment I notice that my seat belt isn't fastened and as always I think of my mother who didn't believe in seat belts and refused to wear them during my impressionable years no less. Yes, my mom has been dead for almost ten years now but when I neglect my own safety there is a part of my
mind that is blaming my mother. Then I sigh because I am a mother and I wonder what I'll be on the hook for years from now.

It's not rational or charitable to blame her I realize but there it is. She had a fear that she'd be trapped in a car after an accident and be unable to get her seat belt open. She was also part of that last generation where it was more common for women not to drive and she never did. During the car pool years when my sister, who also has six children, and I would get together and commiserate about our packed schedules we wondered if instead of being a coward maybe mom was a genius.

Is anything more unproductive than blame? I have a triathlon this weekend. Sometimes I catch the blame for a potential bad race spinning around in the back of my mind. Nothing compelling, just the usual list of work, injuries, global warming... you know. The list is on standby just in case. In every rational moment, of course, I know I am solely responsible for the outcome of that race just like I'm responsible to remember to fasten my seat belt.

Maybe it's best to not even acknowledge those half formed thoughts that we'd never speak out loud unless of course we're blogging. But I suspect they affect us more than we'll ever know. So for today I'll fasten that seat belt, prepare for the race, think fondly of my mother, and try not to give my own children too much material for the back of their minds. By the way they do all wear their seat belts so there's hope their children won't place any blame at all. But I doubt it.

Priorities

Oswald Chambers is one of my favorite authors. Put me on an island with the proverbial two books and My Utmost for His Highest would be one of them. I even like the word utmost. It implies draining every bit of energy you have for a worthy goal. In our society many, many people are draining every bit of their energy but sometimes I question the goal that compels them to do so. Stephen Covey made the notion of being sure you are leaning your ladder against the right wall a commonly understood concept. But understanding it and practicing it are really two different things.

I’ve recently had a shift in the amount of time I spend working and the amount of time I spend with my family. I know getting that equation right has kept many a mom and dad up at night. But knowing it’s a common problem really doesn’t help because these are my children, my life, and my choices and as Truman said “the buck stops here”.

I know I digress here but being able to quote Truman just reminded me of disturbing moments at work. One occurred when a co-worker referenced the fact that “we all learned power point in high school.” Really? I think I saw my first computer in college and I think it was larger than my automobile. The other came on Sept. 11 when in conversation with a co-worker who was my age I said that 9/11 is to today’s generation what Kennedy’s assassination was to past generations in that people will ask you “Do you remember where you were when the twin towers fell? Indeed, my pastor posed that question to the congregation just this week. But a younger co-worker overheard our conversation and exclaimed “the Kennedy assassination!” You’d have thought I’d said Lincoln.

So maybe I don’t digress as much as I thought because when the hour glass is emptying we are even more likely to second guess our choices. I guess as a blogger that qualifies me as a continual talker but nonetheless I really appreciate these words that Chambers wrote: “The people who influence us the most are not those who detain us with their continual talk, but those who live their lives like the stars in the sky and ‘the lilies of the field’-simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold and shape us.”

So here’s hoping we both spend our day doing something worthwhile, something that serves others, something that we truly enjoy, and something that will have eternal value. Failing that here’s hoping at least one person’s life is better today because we share the planet with them. Here’s hoping that maybe that person is a child.

Holiday Fitness Challenge

I think Halloween was announced in the stores sometime in July. Seems the holidays are upon us and with them challenges to staying active and lean. Sometimes setting a fitness goal within the parameters of a time limit helps people stay consistent. The most common attempt is the New Year’s resolution. But why not go against the stream? We’re sitting about eleven weeks out from New Year's when everyone else will start to focus on weight loss and fitness goals. Wouldn’t it be great to have already reached your goals by New Year’s Eve?

Consider having a holiday fitness challenge. Pick two holidays and see what you can accomplish between them. Last year we made such a contest available at Blue Springs Fitness where I work between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. About sixty people became involved and logged their workouts for those ten weeks. We rewarded participation to help people establish new habits and to navigate their way through the typical holiday eating frenzy. Every day people eagerly checked the leader board to see where they stood compared to the other gym members.

It was fun to do that with a big group but you don’t have to have an entire gym to do something similar. When my oldest children were still very small we started a tradition that we still do today. This is despite the fact that four of my six children are now old enough to vote. Since our family loves to follow the Olympics and I knew that that would involve a lot of sitting around watching T.V. I wanted a way to balance that with activity. So we instituted the Olympic Challenge.

Every Olympics from the time the torch is lit at the opening ceremony until it is extinguished at the closing ceremony our family competes to see who can do the most push-ups, jumps with a jump rope, and some agreed upon abdominal exercise. Some years as they have grown older we have also added miles run. We award gold, silver, and bronze in these individual events as well as an all-around award. We post our daily progress on the refrigerator so you always know where you stand. Those standings have motivated many a late night push-up that otherwise would never have occurred. Often I was the one doing them trying to keep up with a seven year old or a teenager.

So the take home message is fitness with a group is fun. A little friendly competition is motivating, and the time to do it is now. You don’t have to wait for New Years. Find your own excuse for a fitness celebration. With a little help from your family and friends you may need a different resolution this New Year because your fitness dreams may have already come true.