behaviour – Never Give Up PT

Changing The Past Means You Have To Change The Present

The past has gone. For all the good bits, the bad bits and all the bits in-between, you cannot change your past.

But what if you could by living the present by one simple rule?

Psychologist Victor Frankl will be able to explicate my introduction with this quote…

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”

When I first read this I had to replay it through my head several times to truly understand what Frankl meant by this. My brain chewed through it like a sticky toffee glued to my teeth but eventually I tasted the essence of its flavour. It was sweet.

Frankl is inviting us to understand that the past can still be changed and corrected as long as we acknowledge that the present is the past.

Without knowing of this revelation let alone understanding it, I could not live by this several years ago. A mixture of immaturity, pig headedness and selfishness meant that I am now left with a string of regrets that I wish I could change.

For example, the way I have spoken to a friend or relative that was unkind. I have felt, in moments, that they were trying to hurt my feelings or in some way ruin my day and piss on my parade. My emotions heightened and out of control, I have said things that I know would hurt them too.

I have never made a habit of this but there are moments in my life which stand out in my mind that I wished had never happened.

What if I had acted differently? What if I had considered Frankl’s advice before becoming irrational with someone who I love?

What if, in that moment, I had taken a deep breath, considered my options and chose to act in the right way?

Because, when you strip back the quote, all it means is to think about your actions before doing or saying something you will regret. You can’t go back in time to correct mistakes so take extra care to get it right the first time.

There’s no time machine, but we do actually possess something much more powerful than that. We have the ability to perceive what is right and wrong and control, evaluate and execute our actions. We have a conscience.

Looking back, from a selfish point of view, had I reacted differently in certain situations I would have felt better about myself. Making someone else feel rubbish does nothing for the soul. It can turn you bitter.

Before the past becomes regrettable, make some good choices in the present while you can. Seize that moment to make yourself and others around you feel better. In your head, consider the different outcomes of the actions you’re about to take.

Be kind to others. And yourself.

Quote Of The Week

Hello my friends.

Today I have just a short message of inspiration for you to think about and it comes from author Napolian Hill. He wrote…

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Now, it is important to remember that this is about what the mind can conceive and believe, therefore it refers to realistic outcomes. Within the fitness industry the acronym SMART is used. Which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time. But actually, this can be used in any life goal.

I want to play for Liverpool FC but no matter how much I think about it I doubt Herr Klopp will be calling me up. So creating realistic, time bound goals is extremely important.

The other day I wrote an article about doubt and how this behaviour can cripple our future goals. We put far too many blockers in the way of our own journey instead of actually believing in ourselves.

There is a universal principle that states you will attract into your life whatever you focus on. It is something that I touch on regularly in my meditation guides. The impact over the course of a few sessions is very encouraging, enabling those who attend to realign their thoughts into a much more structured, positive outlook.

So conceive it, believe it, plan it and act on it.

Let’s see what you can achieve!

Imagine You Could Be Anything Or Be Anywhere In The Universe

A very interesting piece of information struck me the other night. Sometimes, actually getting 10 minutes peace and allowing our mind to focus on something other than the daily grind is extremely difficult. Meditating or visualising positive outcomes is not always an easy thing to do especially with a busy lifestyle or a generally anxious mind.

When somebody approaches me and tells me about their anxieties I will often recommend meditation, but their response is mixed. It appeals to many people but there are also those who will say to me that they have tried but find it very difficult, even with a meditation guide such as myself.

And recently I have noticed my eldest son wanting to choose his own theme when it comes to meditation. For those of you who have read my blogs for some time you might remember me telling you that he has suffered with anxieties in the past which could have been caused by previous lockdowns. And I think this might be fairly common for many other children too. For our children, we decided to try short meditations with them during their night time routine which went really well.

However, just in the past couple of nights he has been requesting his own different scenarios in which he can enter during his meditations. This made me think. A beach setting, walking through a meadow, floating on a cloud or just visualising sitting in a favourite quiet place might seem like the perfect destination for a meditation, but if it isn’t where you want to be in that moment, then it won’t be as effective. Why can’t we become a superhero for the night? Why can’t we play the part of the pebble as the waves of the sea ebb in and out? Why can’t we be the rain drop that descends through the atmosphere? You can be.

For many of us, it’s a stretch of the imagination, but with a guided meditation together we might be able to unlock the potential in your mind and, as I have recently discovered, if the meditation guide knows exactly what a person would like to discover then it becomes a much more personalized experience. A kind of bespoke meditation designed specifically for that one person. Nobody else’s. It’s just their experience.

So, although completely in the early stages of development, I aim to provide this new service to those who wish to try it out.

And if it’s anything like the past two evenings for my children then this bespoke approach to meditation might be the key to releasing other children’s anxieties too. It’s like choosing your own adventure where only good things happen in your own safe space, being the character that you want to be, being satisfied with the ending and waiting for the next episode with imagination, enthusiasm, excitement and calm.

The channel on YouTube will be called Tranquil Youth Meditation. Click the link to discover more about it!

https://www.youtube.com/@TranquilYouthMeditation

If you have any questions about your meditation or how you might be able to help your child through meditation, don’t hesitate to ask!

They Told Me I Couldn’t

Let me start with a quote from the movie The Pursuit Of Happiness. Smith’s character says to his child…

“Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you’ve gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they’re gonna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

And whether they mean it or not, it is quite often those closest to you who are the ones who might be holding you back. They’re giving you your limitations. Smith’s character even warned his child, “Not even me.” Parents, partners, friends. They’re all capable of telling you that you’re not able enough.

But don’t blame them. Certainly not if they are misguided. We are all guilty of blocking a loved one’s ambitions. Just realize that every time they tell you that you can’t, they’re just showing their limitations, not yours.

However, you should try to surround yourself with as many people who tell you that YOU CAN as much as possible. My wife and I seem to work well at this. She knew that I was desperately unhappy in my previous career and, even though it meant less income and with a new born baby, she allowed me to follow my dreams of becoming a Personal Trainer.

Likewise, after being a stay at home mum for our two children for a few years, I encouraged her to go to college to qualify as a Massage Therapist. Financially it became a challenge, but we could develop a lifestyle that worked for our family and it made us happier.

Now, we are telling each other every day that we can take our business ventures to Portugal, despite some days the whole universe telling us that we can’t.

Along with the misguided people who don’t mean any harm, I can guarantee that you will have those people in your life who do. They will thrive off of your misery and failures. Yes, these are the toxic ones. Most of them won’t care about your problems and some will be even glad that you have them. Stay clear. These aren’t just the doubters, but these are the ones who will go out of their way to trip you up. They’ll look friendly, but I think that you know who they are. Insincere people are easy to detect.

So much of our success in life is determined by those we have around us. You need positive people to support you. As for the rest, just say to them, “You told me I couldn’t, so I made sure that I did.”

Priming Your Environment

This week’s quote of the week comes from the Dutch motivational speaker and author Alexander Den Heijer.

I have read lots of his work based around our environment and how to prime it to suit our needs in which to meet our personal goals.

He encapsulated this message perfectly when he said…

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

If you now focus on a specific goal that you have struggled with lately, you might find this quote useful to you.

We often put ourselves in the firing line when we don’t meet our own expectations. Perhaps your gym goals have stalled and you feel demoralised by the process. Firstly, the process is something that you must believe in for you to get successful results. So a full overhaul of all of your foundations isn’t what ‘fixing your environment’ means. After all, a flower doesn’t need a tropical rainforest to grow, it might just need a little bit more sunlight at the other side of your desk.

To ensure that you create the proper environment for your gym goals I’ve added a few tips below that should become your positive habit forming actions moving forward. AKA…priming your environment.

* Pack your gym kit the night before. If you’re in two minds on whether you attend the gym today, when your kit is ready to go in the boot of your car then you are far more likely to stick to it than rummaging the drawers for your favourite vest or sports bra during the morning rush.

* Prep your favourite nutritious meals. Batch cook sauces that can be frozen. Defrosting it and making a bowl of pasta or rice is a better alternative than starting from scratch…and if we really can’t be bothered to cook after a long day at work, we resort to takeaways. But you are more likely to stay within your calorie goals by prepping your own meals.

* Be around positive people. Whether it is in the gym or people you hang out with, if you are getting negative vibes from them then ditch them. This might seem like a big decision, after all, this could be a friend you’ve known since childhood or it could be your wife or husband. Talk to them, tell them how you feel, but if you still feel like crap because of what they say and do to you, then move on.

* And on the same theme as above, if it is a job, a gym, a pub or a social group that is holding you back then find an alternative. Find the places that allow you to be you and not what your environment demands of you.

And on that note I’ll finish with a final quote from Alexander.

“You often feel tired not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.”

A Beautiful Failure

Let me be clear right now about your latest derailing of your goals; it will not define you.

The extra food that you ate, the missed fitness class, the duvet day or the excessive alcohol that you drank will not define your success or your failure.

You have simply experienced a moment in time that didn’t fit in with your goals. Fuck it. Move on.

I like to give the occasional quote by some literary genius or scientist to emphasize my point in my blogs, but this time I present to you a football manager… Liverpool’s Jürgen klopp. This week, in the same week that I lost the sale of my house, thus waving goodbye to a very nice house in Bem De Fe, practically having a none existent exercise routine creating an appetite for poor nutritional food and Liverpool facing knockout in the Champions League against Real Madrid, Klopp gave me a golden piece of wisdom.

“Just try. If we can do it, wonderful. If not, then fail in the most beautiful way.”

Fail in the most beautiful way. I love that sentence. We fail all the time. And when we do, we have two options. We can either crumble and give in, or we can learn something from it and go again.

How do we fail? In our daily lives we get situations that let us down, we divert from our personal goals, we forget something important, we are disappointed in our behaviour or don’t give a good account of ourselves. These are all things that we have to deal with. Managing this and responding to it is where the real success happens.

Failure does not define you, but your reaction to it will.

So when you fail, do it in the most beautiful way.

Everything Flows, And Nothing Stays

We are all in a constant process of change. How you choose to adapt and evolve is largely down to you as an individual.

Your thoughts and feelings are probably very different to those of 20 years ago. Or 10 years ago. Or one year ago. And even less.

In the time that you click onto this page and read up to this point, your brain has inputted, stored and refreshed this information and it will keep happening every 15 seconds of your life. This continuity field allows the brain to call upon past experiences, snapshots and perceptions and use it in present situations. And because the brain is constantly collecting this information and storing it, we adapt our beliefs, thoughts and feelings along with it.

Once we know and understand this, the quote by Soren Kierkegaard starts to make sense…

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

The brain is constantly traveling back in time to recall each moment that is relevant for the present experience of the individual. Collecting stored data to form appropriate actions. This is how we are able to scan words when we read.

But, despite these most amazing things happening to our brains, we are the director of change and evolution. This is how habits can be broken and how past experiences can be used for strength, positivity and future happiness.

Heraclitus said…

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

What did he mean? My interpretation of this is that once you step into a river the water is displaced with new water and the nature of the river is changed permanently. You are also changing.

Just because you have experienced a moment in your life does not mean that you must replay it. It just needs a little rethink, or in the case of your brain, a rewire. We can train our brain to do as we want. We can change what we don’t like, but your brain needs new material to process.

Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe the brain’s ability to adapt to different circumstances throughout your life. Affirmations, which is a technique to instill a positive mindset through repeated words and sentences, is the most popular way of achieving this brain rewire.

Affirmations are often short sentences that can be easily remembered and stored in your brain. And as we have discovered, once your brain has inputted this into its system, it will roll it out when needed.

Governments and ad companies use them too! So it’s not some hocus pocus stuff that some people want to believe.

I’m lovin’ it. Just do it. Get Brexit done. Build a wall. These are just a few examples of successful catchy earworms that are/were repeated to us constantly but there are actually thousands and thousands of other examples of clever affirmations that are instilled into our brain in order for us to act how that particular campaign wants us to act. Well, the good news is that it is actually YOU in control as long as you can counter the influences from around us.

You just need to keep telling yourself and reminding yourself of your aspirations, needs and life goals. If a burger company can make us keep going back to eat burgers with the same texture of cardboard and a government can instruct a whole nation to strip themselves of their rights and leave the EU whilst they titter all the way to their offshore accounts, then I’m sure that we can all manipulate our brains with our own affirmations. Positive affirmations.

When you stand in the river, it changes. Make sure that you change what you want to change too by giving your brain positive things to process. Because when it comes to it, your brain will be using this information to enable you to make those changes.

Continue to remind yourself who and what gets you out of bed each morning. Keep telling yourself how well you could do the new job that you have applied for and repeatedly remind yourself of your health and fitness goals. Write stuff down. Put it on a white board or on the fridge door. Keep your favourite affirmation as a screen saver. Anything at all to allow your brain to compute those words and keep them.

Everything keeps changing. You don’t have to be the one thing that doesn’t.

Worrying About What Others Think

I must have spent what equates to years of my life worrying about what people think about me. Certainly as a teenager I wanted to feel accepted by my peers in some way. And then in adulthood along came social media, where ‘likes’ and ‘thumbs up’ became far more important in my life than they should have. In job interviews, social settings and on social media, I wanted to be liked and wanted.

But then it stopped.

I didn’t suddenly turn into a person who didn’t care about what others thought about me, but I did become very aware of my change in attitude on whether or not somebody liked my personality, accepted my dress sense, my political opinions and my interests. I care, but don’t cry about it if somebody doesn’t like me for whatever reason. I do me. They can do them.

My ‘resting bitch face’ can be a hindrance. Maybe I can look angry or disinterested when actually that’s just my face! I don’t just walk around with a smile. I need to be approachable in my profession, whether in the gym or in my future projects. Yet I can only continue doing me, otherwise people wouldn’t get me, they’d get fake me.

Did age change my attitude to being accepted or not?! In my experience, older people tend to have less of a filter. Am I just getting old?!

My appearance is deceiving. I’m bald, so I shave whatever bits of hair grows on my head. I weight train and eat a lot, so I am of a larger size. I have tattoos including flags of communist countries, guerilla warfare leaders and football club badges. People might judge me on this. Also, I’m open about my politics. Just the other day a parent at my son’s football match asked me why we chose Portugal to be our next place to live. Without hesitation I said it was because Portugal is in the EU and we want to get out of Brexit Britain. I could have just said ‘For the weather’, but then it wouldn’t be me.

Yes, if I make friends, I can lose them pretty quickly. I just can’t say what I think people might want to hear. And I appreciate transparency in a friend. They can call me a dick if I’m being a dick. No hard feelings. It’s the people that can’t take it when I pull them up on something. It needs to work both ways. I don’t need them as friends. They can fake it elsewhere.

Remaining calm and focussed when I get labelled, misquoted or misrepresented is something that I still have to learn to deal with. After all, I am human with all the same sensitive emotions as the next person. I’m not a robot. But a piece of good advice from author Morgan Richard Olivier is something that I always refer back to.

She said…”Letting people be wrong about you or a situation while keeping your peace and focus is the most misunderstood power move you will ever make.”

You see, becoming comfortable with yourself is one of the greatest super powers that you can possess. You can spend a lifetime trying to impress people. How we look, think and behave are being judged all of the time, and yet, by whose standards?

Will my life be any different if Graham from Dudley gives me an angry face emoji because I am happy to refer to Sam Smith as ‘they/them’ on the internet?

Would I feel any better if I were to explain to Sally on the Co-Op till that I’m not a far right football hooligan, just a follicy challenged lover of Liverpool FC?

I don’t need to explain myself. And you don’t have to explain yourself.

Children And Food

My two boys love going to their grandparents for an overnight stay. Their granddad, a professional refurbisher of bar billiards tables, often has a finished table in his garage so the boys can take their pool cues that they got for Christmas.

They also get to stay up later on an evening than they would do if they were at home. Staying up later is always a treat! But the biggest treat of all for my 6 and 9 year olds are the meal times at Granny and Granddad’s.

An overnight stay will usually consist of a takeaway or a meal out for burgers or pizzas and a dessert afterwards with a fizzy drink to wash it down with. Basically, lots of foods with very little nutrition.

But I can’t pin this all on their Grandparents, absolutely not! The boys also have occasional takeaway meals or frozen pizzas and chips at home too. The boys have been invited to friends houses for tea, they’ve gone to Macdonald’s for birthday parties, they receive toys for buying ‘Happy Meals,’ supermarket meal deals involve crisps and chocolate, going to the movies encourage us to eat buckets of popcorn lager than my youngest child and reformed chicken comes in the shape of dinosaurs. All of these things appeal to adults too, so we cannot ignore the fact that children will be drawn to such inviting foods.

As parents and grandparents we can’t avoid it, but that doesn’t get us adults off the hook.

I have previously written an article about children being ‘The Great Imitators’. As much as parents believe that their children often do the exact opposite as of what is asked of them, their brains are gathering all of this information that they see and hear and then used as a survival mechanism for when they need it.

How we interact with our partners and colleagues, what we watch on TV, our language, the way we dress and what we eat are all closely observed by the young mind.

As my role as a coach for children during half term, I’m fully aware of how I talk to my fellow coaches. Children listen. Children copy. I’m also very careful about what I eat at lunchtimes with the children. I wouldn’t eat a Greggs steak bake in front of them after having a talk to them about healthy eating. There’s a time and a place. Even for a Greggs steak bake.

So how do we get our children to be more mindful about what they eat? Firstly, it is important to not criticize or ridicule any meal choices that they make. Food should never make anyone feel anxious or ‘bad’. Food should be enjoyed, yes, all food. If a child enjoys chicken dippers then ask them what they enjoy about them. How does it feel and taste to them? Talk to them about what you can add to the plate alongside their dippers.

At home, the boys know that if they ask for fish fingers or chicken dippers it will come with wholemeal wraps, mayo, ketchup and a good sized portion of vegetables. It’s a compromise. For about two years and especially for our youngest who looks like a celebrity doing a bushtucker trial when he’s eating broccoli, the veg wouldn’t be touched without having tears. Now, because we continued putting the vegetables on his plate consistently and he sees his older brother and his parents eat the veg on their plates, he eats his veg without any prompts. He watched and he copied.

We can’t expect our children to choose better options with anything in life unless they see the grown ups doing it too! Sure, their teenage brain along with other teenage peers and influences will challenge their decision making. It is one of the most feared periods for a parent and one I’m yet to experience, but if we can promote the right messages into their young brains now then at least we are giving them a fighting chance as young adults.

My message is clear to the adults that I train and the children that I coach, you can still enjoy all food types and be mindful about what we need to enable our bodies to grow strong, to be healthy and happy, to excel in what they enjoy and to survive. The balance is something that is important to find and it is my job as a parent and coach to help people do that, whether for adults or children. After all, what age group doesn’t like to find the letters of their name with a plate of Alphabites?

10,000 Steps

I don’t have a device that tells me how many steps I do each day, but if I did, this past week would’ve been off the scale.

During the half term holidays I have been helping out at a sports club for children aged from 5 to 10. The idea is to get the kids as active as possible and to encourage teamwork, movement and healthier eating. And of course if the kids are moving, the coaches are too! One of the coaches did wear a gadget to track his steps and they were over 20,000 by the time the kids had gone home for the day.

During half terms my usual training routine of gym work gets out to one side. This is fine as I schedule these events into my annual training plan. In effect, I know that I don’t need to use the treadmills in the gym for my cardio if I have a productive NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) regime. And whether it be staying active with my own children or being active with 50 other children, I am comfortable with my activity levels. So I don’t particularly need a device to tell me that.

However, just like tracking my calorie intake, it’s good to check in from time to time and keep myself on my toes! So using such a device is always a credible way of keeping on top of things.

So if we take a look at what 10,000 steps a day can do for your body, hopefully we can all achieve a healthy and balanced lifestyle without slogging it in the gym every day or feeling depressed because we haven’t managed to get to a fitness class this week.

According to research, 10,000 steps a day can strengthen your heart and keep blood pressure under control. It can reduce body fat and maintain a healthy weight (with a sensible eating plan). It can improve stability, muscle tone and strengthen the core. Getting your steps in each day can also improve brain function and help with lowering anxiety and depression.

And we don’t have to panic if we only manage 5,000 steps on some days. We all need to sit and binge watch the new series of You, right?! But it just means that we average out our steps throughout the week. Some days you’ll probably hit the 20,000 mark if you are generally active.

So have a think about how you can achieve more steps into your week. Also, check out a device that will count your steps. It doesn’t have to be expensive, a free app can give you an idea of your activity levels.

And once you find the activities that you enjoy, you’ll find that you don’t even need to be running with 50 kids every day to achieve your steps!