Who do you want to BE?
Guest Blog by Heide Lindgren, Whole Foundations
I used to really hate myself for how my interests were so "diversified," beating myself up endlessly for not pursuing fully or mastering any one or two things. As I've gotten to know myself, however, I've come to realize what a useful thing it can be to have so many interests. In fact, there's tons of overlap to be discovered, and concepts from one area can easily be applied to the next - and a great example of that happened to me recently.
One of my interests is always wanting to understand finances and how money works, and recently I have been looking at improving my attitude around money (yet another foundation that's important to lay if you want to grow in that area). So, although it pulls away from my ability to study other areas of interest (neuroscience, nutrition, etc.), I have learned that it can actually benefit me in broader ways that will help me in all areas of my life if I pay close attention.
In order to work on laying this foundation, I began reading books about money and money mindsets and was given Robert Kiyosaki's book "The Cashflow Quadrant." What I took from this book (and this is what will happen when you begin to identify your own joys and interests - you'll find you can apply so many other things to what you love in order to expand your experience with what you love) was something that I could immediately see applied to anyone's fitness life: his concept of "BE-DO-HAVE." For Robert, this concept is about being someone who has a specific money mindset but in fitness, this couldn't hold more true as well.
See, the main reason so many people fail to reach their fitness goals is that they skip the first part. By skipping the "BE" part of the equation and jumping immediately into the "DO" component, you're setting yourself up to fail because you haven't become the type of person who actually wants to do that thing. It's just some arbitrary goal at this point. The goal HAS to be about becoming the person who wants to do those things in their life and is willing to do what it takes to get there. As one of my mentors, Dr. Kim Foster, says, "Information is not transformation."
This is why I'm about so much more than personal training and why I design and incorporate so much journaling, vision work, and reflection into my 90 Days to You program - because you can DO the workouts I've designed for you, but if you haven't decided you want to BE someone who incorporates fitness into your daily life...well, the hard truth is that the change you're seeking is just not going to happen. And this goes for any change you want to see in your life. Anything.
The work of getting to know yourself deeply and getting to know what you want and who you want to be is absolutely essential to living a healthy, fulfilled life. There are truly thousands of ways to go about reaching any goal and it's "easy as pie" to figure out the logistical steps to take. But before any of those steps have even a chance of being effective, you must first ask:
Who do I want to be? AND: Am I willing to make the necessary changes to be that person?
Journal tip: reflect today on what it is that you would like your daily life to look like. Is it eating dinner with your family every evening? Getting to the gym before work in the morning? Being able to grab a ready-made meal for lunch because you meal prepped on Sunday? Even stretching for 5 minutes when you wake up. Brain dump anything that comes to mind. Meditate on what it would feel like to be the type of person that actively engages in that activity day to day. What would it look like logistically? How would it feel? How would you feel different than you do now? What's at stake if you don't make these changes? Try it on mentally like you'd try on a piece of clothing. Think through - and write out - what a day in your life would look like should you become this person and practice what this person practices. How would it feel deep within if your days were to look like what you've written down? This practice will help to begin building the foundation of you.
You can do this.
All the loves,
Heide
PS - I KNOW that this is far easier said than done. That's why I built my coaching company, Heide Lindgren Fitness Coaching (formerly Whole Foundations). If you want to be able to make this leap and tackle the hard things, my 90 Days to You signature program is designed to help you do that. You can learn more about 90 Days to You as well as check out my other offerings right here.
If you have any questions about the program or how it works, don’t hesitate to drop me a line: heidelindgren@gmail.com.
Heide Lindgren
Whole Foundations
heide@wholefoundations.com
www.heidelindgren.com