7 Things I’ve learned as a PT/Coach that will help overcome almost any problem – Part 3

You might not like this next lesson, so I won’t drag it out.

Stop complaining about everything.

Chances are you’ve been around someone that moans about even the smallest nuance.

Such an attitude is one where you’re steeped in the mentality of the victim, and while it may indeed be the case that a situation, circumstance or the actions of others aren’t your fault because you had no control over them it can very much be the case that creating a solution falls on to you.

Is it fair?

Nope, not even one bit. However life isn’t fair, it just is.

You might be tempted to resent a situation, person or inanimate object for your grievance.

Please understand resentment is never really justified, and trying to achieve that outcome just wastes your time, energy and life in a fruitless endeavour.

Instead of complaining, or trying to explain how/why/where it wasn’t your fault it’d be far wiser to simply take action over that which you are in full control of, how you respond & deal with things.

The next time you are about to complain just take a moment and ask why that’s your default.

Aim to understand the emotions, beliefs and biases behind it all.

Face them head on, then put them neatly in a box and burn it because you don’t need that nonsense in your life.

Trust me, if you stop complaining you’ll start to rewire how you think and that will change how you act which in turn leads to a more productive life willed with love, joy and positive thinking.

Enjoy,
Ross

7 Things I’ve learned as a PT/Coach that will help overcome almost any problem – Part 2

Now this little lesson might sting a bit, so you’ve been warned.

It’s not unfair to say that the only person who can really change our life is ourselves.

Yet in knowing this many choose ignorance, avoidance and will find any/all excuses not to do what needs to be done.

So my second lesson is a very short one and it in two parts.

The first:

Acknowledge YOU are the only one who can take the necessary actions to change your life.

The second:

Find out what actions you need to take to achieve the solution and go do them to the best of your ability.

It’s really that simple.

While it might not be easy it is the way you will move forwards in life, provided you want to.

Go think about it, seek your solution, the actions that accompany it and go apply yourself.

Enjoy,
Ross

7 Things I’ve learned as a PT/Coach that will help overcome almost any problem – Part 1

There’s a massive caveat here.

You’ve got to apply what I’m going to share.

Often people don’t actually seek solutions when they are asking questions or conversing with me.

What most want is sympathy or confirmation bias.

I get it you know.

We all want someone to agree with us, to share in our hardship and validate how we feel because it really has been a rough ride.

And while this gives us some momentary reprieve, it’s also a beautiful trap we can fall into repeatedly.

This leads to the first lesson I learned based on my own life/experience.

Stop seeking constant validation for how bad you feel as it only serves to keep you stuck.

Instead take a moment and write down the following:

• How you currently feel & why
• What has lead to this (the direct causes)
• The factors within this you can control and deal with
• Which feeling you wish to move towards

With this info you can create a plan that takes you forwards that is focused on finding solutions, not sympathy.

By all means allow yourself to feel shit, low or whatever it is you need to feel, just don’t seek people to validate it because as mentioned above that’s the beautiful trap that will keep you stuck in a vicious cycle of seeking out those that plays to your self created persona of ‘poor me’.

Aim to only seek out those who will offer solutions to your problem.

Keep the pity party to an invite of only one (yourself).

Feel free to reach out to me and I’ll help where I can, or point you in the direction of someone who can.

Enjoy,
Ross

Are you scared?

Fear is a primal emotion.

It’s built into our very being at the core.

Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom gave us this gift so that we would be able to keep ourselves safe and propagate the the species, while ideally having the odd moment of enlightenment before we pass on.

Unfortunately we act and base our choices, decisions and life largely based around avoiding shadows.

Uncovering what lurks under the bed is something we’d rather not risk.

Even though it will more than likely be nothing, it could be something and that’s enough to keep various beliefs alive that would be better off being laid to rest.

I’ve been reflecting on my own fears a lot of late.

This is the main one at the root of it all – getting in trouble.

Many times over the shit has landed firmly at my feet.

Sometimes deserved and always accepted because it was acknowledged as a legitimate fault on my end due to inexperience, ignorance, naivety and making a mistake which resulted in a lesson learned.

Often times though shit has been thrown my way just because it had to go somewhere.

Endless amount of hassle for no apparent reason.

Now while digging through the memories within deep states of meditation and rewatching each of these instances to really scrutinise my role I was able to find those that I could take on the chin as say – “Fair enough, I can take that because in the end it’s a good learning opportunity.”

And then there’s other times that still sit within the void as those that stung because of being a scapegoat or thrown to the wolves.

Obviously I survived, but it came at the cost of trust and overall faith in people.

Sadly many will turn on you for self preservation purposes, that’s nothing to lament though because it’s just their nature (as it is for most folk), so I can’t be angry or hold a grudge aligned with wrath however I do still feel a lot of disappointment.

I knowing the above I can see a lot of times that these experiences and the beliefs born of them have caused hesitation in taking opportunity, stopped necessary actions being taken and generally held me back.

And easy as it is to blame them, it’s all still coming from me.

Because even though we might be ‘unaware’, we’re not really.

We know what is holding us back (ourselves), and often where the seed that this thorny weed came from, it’s just easier to pretend we don’t know and be victims.

I suppose it then begs the question – How much longer are you going to hold yourself back?

In the end you’re the only one that can really do anything of meaningful impact within the life you have.

While you might want to wait for someone to come and save you, giving you all you think you want, it’d be hollow and as a result whatever ‘it’ is that you’d received there’s a 100% chance it’d be destroyed by your own hand because of not feeling deserving of it.

Think of it like imposter syndrome x1000.

You don’t want saving, not really.

You want to be free of the chains that bind you to that which you fear.

The most ironic part.

The chains are attached and bound to the belief at the bottom of life flow, and you’re simply holding on to those chains to keep yourself in one place instead of allowing the energy to carry you towards a better place.

Perhaps picture it as holding on to a tree branch as a raging current tries to carry you downs stream.

Yes the torrents would bash and bruise you for a while but once you come to the end everything would become still, clear, at peace and it’s then you’d be able to see that what you thought was there to harm you (the current) was actually attempting to guide and a take you exactly where you needed to be.

Take some time and reflect on the above.

Find a quiet place to sit and ask the question – what am I afraid of?

Then allow all the noise to rush in, but don’t worry because it will subside.

The noise is merely a distraction from the fear/belief to keep you from the answers you need to know.

Once there is silence & stillness you’ll hear what you need to hear from within.

Trust yourself because you’ve got the answers.

You’ve got all you need within you.

Give it the opportunity to be heard and watch what happens.

Ross

Don’t add load to a body already riddled with tension

While this might sound like common sense, it appears to be forgotten very often.

People are in such a rush to get results from their training they end up hurting themselves.

A modern life leads to a lot of residual tension being stored up within your body.

It’s why you hear of people still in their 30’s complaining about feeling old.

And in addition to that they actually look older than their years because of how the excess tension they carry affects posture, mobility, movement and more.

Despite a large amount of folk waking up feeling stiff, in pain and generally broken there’s very little focus given to the art of learning to relax.

At least from the perspective of breathing through tension so that the nervous system calms down.

As a result people are sympathetically dominant and you might even say in a constant state or fight or flight due to the ravages of daily life.

When you combine this with training itself, it can be quite a potent mixture for causing injury/issue.

Hitting the gym is meant to be a healthy endeavour.

Although given how many complain about how bad their body feels (even if it looks half decent), you wonder what all the effort they put in is really worth if they can’t go a day without some form of comment/complaint about a stiff neck, sore lower back, dodgy knee or bad wrist.

Now we’ve touched on the problem it’s time to look at a solution in 5 easy steps.

• Sit, stand or lay in silence and head inward to ‘feel’ where you’re carrying excess tension
• Adopt a stretch/position relevant to the tense area
• Get to the point of the stretch that is bearable yet has mild discomfort and stay there
• Breathe in a slow, deep and controlled way allowing the tension to ease
• Repeat this deepening the stretch until the excess tension goes

Believe it or not you will be able to reduce and eventually rid yourself of excess muscular tension.

What makes this endeavour difficult is the length of time you may need to sit with it though.

It might be 3-5min of waiting (this is a good place to start, then assess about deepening the stretch and allow more tension to release while breathing through the process).

Perhaps you’ll need to wait much longer.

Regardless the key to success is being patient and this is where people really struggle because they don’t have the attention span to simply ‘wait it out’.

I can promise you that eventually the tension will go.

What can’t be promised is how long it will take.

And in addition, once the tension goes you’ll need to have a couple of mobility movements waiting so that you can now work your body through its full range and begin to rebuild your ability to move well.

Once this is done adding load through traditional training methods can be factored in.

Its worth dedicating 3-4 days per week to the practice above.

I’m aware it’s not overly sexy, nor is it instantly gratifying yet in the end it’ll be worth it.

Enjoy,
Ross