Fortieth Birthday Interruptus

My 40^th birthday is coming up and I have no plans.  I did have a plan but it fell through. I was really excited about it, too. Back in November, I made a goal: to be stronger, more flexible and have more stamina by my 4oth birthday. I was going to showcase the fruits of my labor by putting together and performing a pole routine. I pretty much put everything else in my life on hold and trained up to two times a day, six days a week. By February, not only was I totally on track to meet my goal, but I also had choreographed and executed two pole routines! (You can see practice video here, this is not  my birthday routine, it’s the other one.) I was definitely stronger, more flexible and had more stamina.

 

By mid-February, I knew I would be ready for my March 18 deadline.  Then I got injured. My fault. I got overzealous, overtired and, ultimately, overtrained.  I just recently got the ok to start swimming again, but it’s been a month since I’ve been on the pole. It breaks my heart to know I can’t spend my birthday with my beloved chrome stick.  No joke, my eyes are welling up right now as I write this.  But I’ve had a month to think–some of those thoughts weren’t so friendly, but some were really helpful.  My favorite thought is one I borrowed from the late, amazing John Wooden: Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do. It’s really easy to get hung up on the things I can’t do. I can’t swim, I can’t get on the pole, I can’t practice contortion, I can’t perform my routine on my birthday. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

 

This is not helpful and, actually, it isn’t even true. Technically, I could do all of those things, but I would risk doing serious damage to my body and putting myself out of commission for a very long time.  I chose not to do those things.  That was the first thing I had to get right in my head.  Then I could focus on what I could do. Let me just say that I tend to be a very dichotomous thinker, an extreme all or nothing kind of person, so this piece does not come naturally to me at all. I really had to work for this one. Fortunately, I started reading a really good book by sport psychologist Terry Orlick called In Pursuit of Excellence even before I got injured and the book is all about focus and mental training.  I knew I could practice my routines in my head mentally and visualize cleaning up my tricks and transitions. So I did and continue to do so. This breeds other productive action:  I can get quality sleep, I can stay on top of my nutrition, I can get my endorphin fix by laughing with a friend. I can. I can. I can.

 

I also learned that I can choreograph a whole pole routine without getting physical using paper, music and my imagination. And I did. (If you’re keeping track, that makes 3 routines in all. Not too shabby!). I can also perform my birthday pole routine on a day other than on my actual birthdate. And I will. Maybe the training I really needed was more mental than physical. Maybe, instead of thinking about all the things I haven’t accomplished by the time I reach 40, I can think about all the things I have accomplished so far and focus on setting and achieving new goals that actually have meaning for me now. Maybe instead of making a big deal out of one day, I can make a bigger deal out of a whole decade. I can conquer a lot more in 10 years than I can in one day. I can do it while loving the actual getting it done part like crazy while not desperately clinging to the outcome, too. It turns out that I don’t get permission to do whatever I want just on my birthday, I can choose to do whatever I want on any given day.  I can and I will. So can you. Will you?

 

Do You Want to be Fit or Happy? (Don’t Worry, They’re Not Mutually Exclusive)

Playing on the pole provided on the Denver airport tram

I started working on my fitness goal for 2011 back in November 2010.  Actually, it’s a goal I set for my 40^th birthday, which is in March (deadlines are extremely helpful for impulsive and easily distracted people like me!).  My goal is this: I want to pull together a pole routine where I’m actually flowing moves together, so it’s actually a pole dance instead of just a bunch of tricks done independently. I also want my current and new moves to have cleaner, prettier lines than they did when I made the video 39 pole tricks for my 39^th birthday.  In order to achieve this I am working on even more specific goals: improving my flexibility, strength and stamina.  Even within those goals there are smaller goals and so on. But no matter what my physical/material goal is, the real reason I want to accomplish my goal is so that I can feel certain feelings. In this case, as I pole dance my way into my 40s, I want to feel accomplished, powerful, capable and confident. It just so happens that I feel those things when I’m pursuing my goal. Notice, I didn’t say I feel those feelings when I have achieved my goal, I feel those feelings while I’m in the process of achieving them.  In fact, pursuing my goals has landed me with people and in situations where I get to experience more feelings that I like including happiness, connection and motivation.  I am surrounded by athletes and coaches who inspire and support me and I get to work out a lot, training in various sports including swimming, contortion, strength training and, of course, pole. This is my version of nirvana.

Committing myself to a goal that I enjoy pursuing not only gives me the long-term payoff of becoming a better pole athlete, but it also gives me short-term gratification. Just knowing that I put the time and energy into getting what I want makes me feel capable, powerful and accomplished and because I love physical activity so much I feel confident and happy during and after my workouts even though I am still in the process of achieving the end result.  This is not to say that I don’t feel challenged or frustrated during my workouts at times, it’s all part of the process I enjoy overall.

If you are having a hard time getting motivated or excited about your goals, it may be that they’re not the right goals for you. Start with the end in mind: how do you want to feel? Take an inventory of all the activities, situations, people and things past and present that make you feel that way. Those are the clues that will inform your true, concrete goals. Your goals should inspire and motivate you, not drain and depress you. The best strategy is to just start doing something NOW that feels good to you –I don’t mean indulging in anxious compulsive or addictive behavior which is escaping, I mean the opposite, doing something you love which is grounding. When you feel good you are motivated and make better decisions about what else will make you feel genuinely good. Don’t worry if what feels good now doesn’t seem logical, it only needs to make sense in your gut.  Trust that and the goals you come up with will be the ones you truly wish to pursue with passion, intensity and tenacity. Those are the qualities you will need to achieve your goals and get the feelings you want out of them.

Find Your Anchor And Don’t Let Go

The last two mornings I have woken up at 5:30am to swim outdoors in the cold, wind and rain. I’m not complaining. In fact, I couldn’t be happier. I’m not what you call a morning person, so when I wake up even before my alarm goes off to do something, that’s love.

6am: our team is responsible for uncovering and covering the pool this week. The weather is icky, but I don't care, I'm excited for the workout to begin . . .

Physical activity grounds me. I spend lots of time strength training, pole dancing, stretching and doing cardio.  These things trigger my happy buttons: I know exactly who I am, what I want and where I’m supposed to be when I’m using my body. Everything makes sense in those moments and that’s important, especially when I can make little or no sense of what’s going on in other parts of my life. Everyone has something that keeps them grounded. My dad, who also likes to wake up AFTER the sun makes its appearance, will get up enthusiastically at 4am (or earlier) to catch a chartered boat to go deep sea fishing, the ocean anchors him.  My Ex routinely gets up when it’s still dark to design video games—he is anchored to his creativity.  My daughter is compelled to stop and ask if she may pet any dogs she sees out walking with their owners, animals anchor her.

Without an anchor, without something to ground us, we may get by and even thrive when circumstances and people around us are working in our favor.  But what happens when those circumstances and people we have come to depend on for our happiness are not working with us anymore or they disappear? Things can feel pretty out of control in those situations and we can feel completely lost.  We all face challenges, but even on the toughest days, as long as we stay connected to our anchor, it will pull us out of bed and remind us that there is something on fire within us, something we want to show up for no matter what.  In those moments when we feel the most lost, holding fast to our anchor will keep us on our path no matter how slow going and directionless it may feel at times.

What anchors you? If you have lost connection to your anchor, grabbing hold of it again is as simple as asking yourself what activities, places or things make you feel peaceful, powerful and/or capable. When do you feel most in your element? What are you doing? Who are you with? Where do you go? Your anchor is the thing that doesn’t necessarily make any practical sense to anyone else, it may not even make practical sense to you.  That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.  Practicality is not a requirement of an anchoring activity, but the function the anchoring activity serves–to keep you grounded in something solid and real, something that is truly yours–is extremely practical and necessary because it keeps you sane, satisfied and strong.

7:15am: Just finished my workout, it's still cold and rainy out, but I'm happy and content!

 

Stretching Feels Good, Once You Get Past the Uncomfortable Part

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. ~Lao Tzu

Last week while I was practicing a really intense stretch to improve my back flexibility, I got a cramp.  I quickly backed out of the stretch. My body wasn’t used to working in such extreme ranges of motion and my mind’s tendency is to resist against such new and unusual requests. Whatever the mind thinks, the body takes as direction.  Stretching shows me where my current limits are and reaching beyond those limits is always uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable.

I needed to convince myself that I was okay, that nothing bad was going to happen to me and that my body was safe from harm.  I had to earn my own trust, physically as well as mentally. Even though it was totally counter-intuitive, unless I leaned in to the discomfort, relinquished some control and believed that I was doing the absolute 100% correct thing, not only would I miss out on achieving my goal of becoming bendier, but I would also risk injury. With that in mind, I performed the stretch again. Every time I thought the stretch was becoming too intense and I got uncomfortable, I instructed the muscle that was threatening to tighten up to relax and then I waited for it to release the tension.  Once that happened, I was able to move deeper into the stretch.  By acknowledging the discomfort of the stretch and letting go of the resistance to the discomfort and practicing a great deal of patience, I had earned my body’s trust and cooperation. We were on the same team, working toward the same goal and it felt amazing.

I can apply this lesson to other areas of my life as well and I need to. I sometimes hold on tightly to an outcome and muscle my way through the process, even when it’s clear I’m making things worse and more painful by doing so. I lose my patience when things aren’t happening quickly enough and that delays my progress. I let myself get distracted with minor annoyances and forget to focus on the greater goal. Admittedly, once I step outside of my body and into the real world, the scope of the challenges and skills I wish to master can feel overwhelming at times, but they don’t have to. Instead of backing out of the discomfort I feel when I’m challenged, I can move into it. I can find the one issue or area that is most uncomfortable and sticky and be committed to unsticking it without distracting myself with drama.  I can wait for that moment when patience and persistence subdues the resistance and then relax into the solution that has been waiting for me to discover all along.

Annoying Relatives: If You Can’t Beat Them, Make Fun of Them

I’m multi-talented: I can talk and piss you off at the same time. ~T-shirt

Holidays are a fun time to spend with family members and friends.  Except when the crazy, boring and/or cranky ones show up . . . the ones that nag you about being too fat, too thin, too single or the passive-aggressive jerks who generously lavish you and everyone else with backhanded compliments. They are not fun.  Yet there they are at all the big family gatherings co-mingled among the peeps you do like. They’re like those big Brazil nuts (that NO ONE likes) in the cocktail nut bowl mixed in with the yummy cashews, almonds and pecans, only you can’t pick them out and leave them on the end table and hope the dog comes by and makes them disappear.

They’re there and you brace yourself for their annoyingness.  I believe you should avoid annoying relatives the vast majority of the time, but there are times when you choose to tolerate them.  On these occasions, it’s helpful to turn family drama into fun with your family.  But how? My teacher, Martha Beck, came up with a brilliant solution, she calls it Dysfunctional Family Bingo.

Heres how you play: first you will need additional players. Conspire with a few of your friends who are also dreading certain Brazil nut type relatives and friends during the holidays.  Each player creates a 5×5 card and fills in the squares with scenarios and situations that make them cringe and that they expect from the relatives in question. For example, you know your sister-in-law will come into the kitchen every half hour to ask what’s taking so long to get the meal ready, and, without offering any help, she will remind you of the starving masses waiting on your self in the other room for you to feed them . . .your cousin will dredge up the summer you were fourteen and got caught, repeatedly, making out with that boy who was always up to no good and get your mom all worked up about it again. . .Your brother’s science fiction obsessed twins will get stuck in the laundry chute and destroy your blow dryer while attempting to access the fourth dimension . . .These anticipated scenarios earn a place on the card.  Every time a family member does the expected thing that makes you want to fashion a noose just for them, check it off on your card.  Keep your phone handy and text your friends when each event occurs or simply wait until you can claim Bingo! Whatever cracks you up the most.

Now instead of dreading these people and events, you kind of look forward to them because you agree with your friends that whoever gets Bingo first (or has the most spots filled in) gets treated to a lunch by the others. Let the games and craziness begin.

No One Has To Change But You

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. ~Maya Angelou

This weekend I showed my 7 year old daughter, Sara, how to put her hair up into a ponytail. This is a skill I had avoided teaching her because of her extremely low tolerance for making mistakes, her preoccupation over her physical appearance and a low threshold for frustration—favorable conditions to fuel the perfect tantrum. Over the past few weeks, I had become completely fed up with her attitude and drama. Her temper was out of control, she was disrespectful, mean and totally unpleasant to be around. While I was feverishly researching ways to fix my daughter’s behavior, I had flashbacks to several unpleasant exchanges I had with her recently–she wasn’t the only one who was losing it. I was highly reactive to Sara’s volatile emotions and instead of staying calm and neutral, I bought into her emotional experience and spiraled down into an angry and frustrated place with her. Bad choice.  I’m sure if asked to assess my behavior, my daughter would probably say that my temper was out of control, that I was disrespectful, mean and totally unpleasant to be around. I knew there was no way I was going to help my daughter manage her emotions if I couldn’t get a grip on mine. So that’s where I started, where it always has to start: with me.

I used all the information I gathered about behavior modification for Sara and applied it to myself. When my daughter argued that she would never learn how to put her hair up properly, that she can’t do anything right, I didn’t take the bait.  When my daughter blamed me for everything from the texture of her hair to the ponytail elastic falling out of her hand and onto the floor, I met her anger and frustration with emotional neutrality and patience. Admittedly, it took an enormous amount of focus and commitment to stay calm and neutral, but the results were mind-blowing.  After about 20 minutes, with very little drama, my daughter had learned how to put her hair up into a ponytail by herself and she was very pleased about that. More importantly, she learned that her assumptions that she can’t do anything right and that other people are responsible for her successes and failures were completely false.  She would have missed out on those lessons if I hadn’t reigned in my own incorrect assumption that my daughter needed to change her ways without me needing to change my own approach and behavior.

This isn’t a happily ever after ending, it’s an ongoing process.  It requires conscientious and quality effort. I will still be challenged to keep it together when my daughter loses it, I will screw up again, I’m certain of it, but I’m also okay with that because I know I will learn something valuable that I can use to make the next challenging situation better. I can always choose to change course when the path I’m traveling isn’t taking me where I want to go.  It’s hard to teach that concept to others unless I’m practicing it myself.

It’s crazy, but common, to expect other people to change their behavior–something we have little to no control over–to make us happy. The truth is the only behavior we have to change to be happy is our own. Fortunately, it’s also the only behavior we have 100% control over. That doesn’t mean we don’t influence others with our behavior, in fact, when we modify our own behavior for the better, it will often be met with better behavior from others.

Feedback: Separating the Useful From the Useless

How can you tell when you are giving yourself constructive feedback or just maliciously abusing yourself verbally? Easy.  Constructive feedback may or may not sting when it is served up, but you do recognize the truth in it and it motivates you to make improvements.  Destructive criticism just makes you feel bad and you feel completely uninspired to make any improvements because the comment has no nutritional value—it was made for the sole purpose of making you feel like crap.

Here’s an example that I often come across when working with overweight and out of shape individuals who want to become healthy and fit:  they notice that they have excess body fat (fact), they get winded when they climb a flight of stairs (fact), their clothes are too tight (fact). So far just facts, but then they start dishing out comments like I can’t control what or how much I eat (fiction), I’m lazy and disgusting (fiction), food comforts me (fiction), I can’t lose weight (fiction). They are sliding into useless self trash-talk at this point.  It doesn’t help them and the verbal abuse is only a habit that they’ve practiced over and over and over again, but the great news is that they can create a new habit at any time. And so can you.

The next time you find that you are berating yourself, back way up to the facts and if they are facts that you would like to change, put your time and energy into finding a solution. You have the power to change anything in your life and the quality of feedback you give yourself is key to making the adjustments needed to get what you want. Remember that the point of constructive feedback is to help you see where you can exploit your potential and make the necessary improvements to help you express it.

From Procrastination to Productive in 15 Minutes

Mondays can be tough.  We’ve  just come off of a fun and/or relaxing weekend and, for many of us, Mondays mean ramping up and getting enough momentum to get stuff done.  It’s the gaining momentum part that tends to be a challenge.  My to do list for today is not pretty, there’s a bunch of stuff cluttering it up that is normally not on there and it’s bumming me out.  This means if I want to do the other things I normally do, I need to be more efficient with my time today.  This is bad news for someone like me who is impulsive and organizationally challenged. Thankfully, I have learned some strategies that help me function like a productive, pulled together person.  One of my favorite methods for getting stuff done when I start to feel overwhelmed by my to do list is to commit to 15 minutes of doing one thing I need to do.

This may not seem like a mind-blowingly genius idea, but I assure you, it is.  The first time I understood how powerful the first 15 minutes are of any activity or project I was in a spin class. I was tired, un-motivated and very close to ignoring my alarm clock that morning and rolling over to go back to sleep. Somehow I made it to class but I felt crappy for the first few minutes on the bike.  I phoned it in, doing the bare minimum the workout required but then after 15 minutes, something happened: I started getting into my workout. It could have been the combination of good music, my body getting warm and loose and the instructor’s enthusiasm, but those things (except for getting warmed up) were in place at the start of class.  I strongly suspect it just took about 15 minutes to shift my focus (and my body) to what I was doing in the moment. I finished the entire workout and, as is usually the case, I felt about 1000 times better after my workout than I did before I started. It just took a 15-minute period to transition into an activity that I really did want to do.

I find this happens when I’m working on any project.  I’m writing a book right now and if I told myself I had to write so many pages by such and such date, I would probably find a way to freak myself out about it and watch funny clips on Youtube all day instead (this has actually happened to me). However, if I just focus on the bare minimum, those first 15 minutes, I often find I get into a flow and I actually want to continue doing what I’m doing.  I will often write for at least an hour when I intend to devote only 15 minutes of my time to writing. Sometimes I don’t get into groove at all and that’s okay, too.  At least I gave it a go and I feel better about leaving that project and doing something else for a while before coming back to it—and sometimes that means getting back to it the next day.

If you’re having trouble getting a project going this morning, just give it 15 minutes of your time and attention. See how you feel after that, it may be the jumpstart you need to get on a productive streak. If you’re struggling with procrastination, check out my post How To Procrastinate.

Inspired Action

Last week I picked up Laird Hamilton’s book Force of Nature. I’ve surfed exactly 3 times in my life, but it was enough to develop an appreciation for the sport.  I appreciate the athletes who enjoy the sport even more and Laird has become one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to going after what I really want. I am moved by this man’s sense of adventure, courage and dedication to do something he is completely passionate about. I also admire his complete honesty as he reveals the journey he took (and continues to take) to reach greatness in his sport. I mean, this guy dominates —he is THE big-wave surfer.  One of my favorite parts of the book is his list of injuries he’s sustained while learning how to master his sport, I like it because it reminds me that there is a cost to every pursuit, not just physical, but mental, too. Not only is there a cost to pursuing what you want, but there is also a cost to not pursuing what you want and that cost can be exorbitantly high. Laird has sustained some pretty gnarly injuries, and still, he gets up all happy on his surfboard ready for more. That is partially what makes him great: not everyone is willing to get back up after getting beaten down, let alone get up and be crazy enthusiastic about getting back up and out there again.  That’s a weed-out process. If, for example, I took a surfboard through my cheek and it rearranged the inside of my mouth, I might be inclined to discontinue surfing.  That is to say, I’m not that passionate about surfing. However, there are other things I would take the equivalent of getting a surfboard through my face and keep going, and that’s a good thing. There is something out there you would take a hard blow for and get up and say thank you sir, may I have another and actually look forward to the challenge just so you can be in it, close to it and mastering it. If you don’t believe me, you just haven’t discovered it yet, or you don’t realize you’ve discovered it yet.  I chatted with a woman who said she didn’t have anything in her life that she was that worked up about, but then we started talking about her children.  That woman would definitely take a surfboard to the head for her kids and keep going. No doubt.

Mostly, what we fear isn’t physical–it’s mental. Even what we fear will happen to us physically is all bound up in our heads. The initial blow sucks, but the body heals, it’s the mind that has the power to make us suffer. Clearly, I am moved by Laird’s example.  Recently, he inspired me to try something I’ve never done before: pole dancing.  I’ve been practicing pole tricks for about 3 years now, but I’ve never really attempted to put them all together in a way that flows. I know it may sound crazy, but I just didn’t think I was that kind of pole athlete (even though I love practicing pole tricks and I love dancing!).  It kinda scared me.  What if I was clumsy and I couldn’t flow the movements together in a pretty way? What if I didn’t have the stamina to string one move together right after another? What if I couldn’t think of any moves to put together in the first place?! I know better than to let fear stop me, too, but that doesn’t mean I always remember that.  That’s when inspiration and a mentor (even one I’ve never met before) make all the difference.  After reading a quote from Laird’s book, I put on some music, said screw it and got my groove on. You can see what happened next here.  And you know what? It wasn’t technically brilliant, it wasn’t polished, but it was a start and it was a ridiculously good time. This is the quote that got me to show up for it:

If you think about it, the flip side to fear is commitment.  You can spend your life fence-sitting because you’re frightened of something bad that might happen—or you can launch yourself into it with all your conviction and all your intelligence.  Here’s my advice: Meet up with your fears . . .what you’ll find isn’t terror—it’s exhilaration and the moments you never forget.

Amen.

How Not to End Up Penniless and Alone

 

One of the problems we humans have is the tendency to think too much. Don’t get me wrong, not all thinking is problematic: planning, preparing and finding solutions are some examples of commendable uses of our high-powered brains.  The kind of thinking that bums me out is worrying.

Here are some examples of things I have heard people worry about out loud (and the end result they inevitably fear):

If I don’t make X amount of cash soon, I’ll end up penniless and alone

If I don’t get into better shape, I’ll end up penniless and alone

If I blow this opportunity, I’ll end up penniless and alone

If I don’t clear up this ginormous zit by this weekend, I’ll end up penniless and alone

We humans mostly fear being penniless and alone.  You’d think we would mostly be afraid of death, but, no, some people actually choose death as a way to not face the possibility of ending up penniless and alone (think of the stories of people who end their own lives because they think their reputations will be ruined or their fortunes will be wiped out . . .). I bet you have a fear that if you follow it all the way to it’s most negative conclusion, you find that you also end up some version of penniless and alone. It’s not a very fun game to play.   The good news is that when you see it written out, it looks a little silly, doesn’t it? It’s all so serious when it’s floating around in your noggin, but put it on paper and it starts to lose its hold on you.

It gets better . . .when you actually challenge these scary thoughts you start to find that they aren’t absolute or even based in reality.  Most of us aren’t where we want to be in some area of our life, I suspect if we were, it would be game over—which is probably why it takes most of us a lifetime of learning, growing, trying and failing to get to where we are going.   Very few of us take the opportunity, however, to just acknowledge where we are. If you happen to be penniless and alone right now, take a look around and notice that you are still here and I presume out of immediate life threatening danger.  That’s good.  Many more of you have shelter, food in your belly and at least one person in your life you call a friend.  That’s even better!  If you can add more to that list of stuff you’ve got going for you, you are doing quite well.  If you still want more that’s fine, too! Only now instead of worrying about what you don’t have use that powerful brain of yours to plan, prepare and find solutions. There’s no reason to end up penniless and alone, just a slight shift in your thinking can help you start getting what you want.