Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. —Matsuo Basho

Are you fast forwarding through your life like Adam Sandler’s character in Click?  For those of you who haven’t seen the film, his character, Michael Newman, a workaholic, and absent husband and father, is given a Universal Remote. Among the many functions, he has the power to pause, fast forward or mute his life. Things go wacky when the remote starts to work on automatic as much of his life is skipped over and he is left with sadness and regret about not being more present.

Many of us do the exact same thing with our health and fitness goals. We aren’t focusing on the long-term journey and taking daily action towards those long-term goals. The point is not whether we achieve the goals but it is who we become on the journey towards those goals. 

What we tend to do is focus on the short-term benefits or finding the magic pill like “the 7-minute abs solution.” We want to get the results now as opposed to putting in a constant effort day in and day out.

If we aren’t getting the amazing results in only weeks or months of effort we usually give up.  Our focus isn’t on the long term. Using an exercise analogy it is equivalent to you doing an exercise, squat jumps for example, and as soon as you feel the burning sensation in the legs you stop as oppose to embracing the burn! Sustainable results aren’t waiting for the person who stops when they start to feel the burn.

What can you do to make a shift towards loving the burn and achieving more worthwhile sustainable results?

1. Make A Long-Term Plan——“Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss you land among the stars.” (Norman Vincent Peale)

Set big audacious goals that could take you years to achieve and then work back from there with more short-term goals.  This gives you something to consistently work towards and when you lose your way(motivation), you have a “true north” to realign your compass towards. Use journaling to help you figure out the goals and time lines and spend some time planning all the amazing things you would love to achieve and the person you want to be.

 2. Be Curious—“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” (Albert Einstein)

Being constantly curious keeps us in the “now” as we are constantly observing, questioning, noticing everything that is going around us.  If you apply this you will enjoy each moment of the day especially the time dedicated towards your goals.  It will also help give you feedback on what is working and what isn’t so you can better course correct along the way.  Journaling will also help you question and review your days so that you can better prepare for the next day.

3. Believe In Yourself—“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Without belief in yourself, you will have a hard time doing and enjoying the work needed to achieve your goals.  If you don’t believe in yourself no one else will.  You can cultivate this through small daily action steps to give you momentum and then praise yourself at the end of the day.  Take one step towards each one of your goals on a daily basis and the cumulative effect of that in 6 months, a year, 5 years will be Huge Heffner (a little wordplay for you 😉  Writing in a journal will help you plan the action steps for the day and in the evening write down your review of the day and pat yourself on the back for those actions steps that you did take.  Those you didn’t do, be curious as to why you didn’t do them and use that information to change course and improve the next day. 

Small daily action steps utilizing these three tools will help you find more bliss and enjoyment on a daily basis as you are striving for those audacious goals or shooting for the moon, which is not to be confused with shooting the moon 😉

Embrace the Burn!