“Whose dumb idea was this anyway”?, I grumble to myself as I head out the door to my first Orange Theory Fitness Class! I briefly considered blaming it on my baby sister who had suggested it, but even in my nervous state, I laughed at myself at the absurdity of such a notion. After all, I am the one who wants to up my fitness and to try new things and commit to taking care of myself. I love adventure and resist it simultaneously which makes for an interesting inner dialogue.
I get dressed…..I notice I am saying such ridiculous things to myself, like oh you can’t do this, you are too old, everyone else will be so much faster, stronger, higher, and on and on and on……
I go up to the gym, wondering if at any moment I will bail out on this crazy idea….. go in and I LOVED it.
Freakin loved it. I was fine, just fine on my own little rowing machine, on my own little treadmill with my own little weights and heartbeat monitor, just fine.
So the two things I want to share about this are Commitment and Thoughts! Both are big parts of Life Coaching.
The first thing is I have a Commitment to myself to take care of myself. I have two family members who have serious health issues right now and I have been so focused on taking care of them that I have neglected taking care of myself. So I have committed to taking care of myself. Part of honoring a commitment is becoming aware of the obstacles and getting around them.
So part two is thoughts! Any obstacles I had about going to Orange Theory were my thoughts. It is super important for us to understand our thoughts are just thoughts NOT facts. Thoughts are NOT facts. So my thoughts, Like I am too old, were an obstacle, I had to get around that obstacle to honor my commitment to take care of myself. So I changed my thoughts. The thought that got me out the door and into the gym was ” I am going to go try this”. And I really loved it.
So much of this is what we do in coaching. We identify what you want, identify any obstacles, change our thoughts and off you go.
And this is how we Start Living.