Gettin’ uncomfortable left, right and centre

Even though I haven’t been blogging a lot, I’ve been getting pretty uncomfortable these past two months and I thought it was due time to share a few uncomfortable situations.

Uncomfortable situation #1: The big move

Faith and I like to plan and are pretty organized – but there are times when we choose to let some decisions happen spontaneously… and moving around Vancouver just so happens to be one of those decisions. In typical fashion, we decided with 13 days left in the month of February to move to a new apartment March 1.

Decision = best ever.

Our new place is in a heritage building right downtown Vancouver, within a few minutes walk from both of our work places and two blocks from the harbour/seawall. It has hardwood floors, high ceilings, exposed brick wall and huge picture windows: in other words, gorgeous.

My living space is very important to me and this has hands down been one of the best moves we’ve ever made :)

Uncomfortable situation #2: A new man

Without going through the extensive details… I’ve finally found myself a good-hearted man with many similar interests in the city of Vancouver! It’s very new, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been a situation where I’m sharing my life with someone… and I like it, a lot. When someone can make you laugh more in a month than you have in the past year.. you know you have a good thing going! :)

Uncomfortable situation #3: My first kettlebell competition

A few weeks ago I competed in the Vancouver Open Kettlebell Competition. I signed up after being encouraged by one of my fellow Element Athletic-ers who asked if I’d enter with her, and because I love a good challenge, I of course said yes.

After agreeing, I had to choose my element. Since my snatch isn’t perfect (I can snatch a good amount of weight, but I still don’t jump properly and tear my hands up) – I decided to do the long cycle. For females, you only need to do one side at once (males need to do double hehe) – so I said, hey why not?

Long cycle consists of a clean and jerk, locking out at the top, for each rep. The craziest part? I’ve never trained the jerk. Ever. until three weeks before the competition.. so the fact that I got the technique down and powered through the five minute set was actually crazy.

So how’d I do? I placed FIRST in my element and weight class! According to the club’s ranking tables, I got to second rank – not bad for my first competition!

It was a great day filled with some amazing people. I can’t wait until the next competition!

Uncomfortable situation #4: Bungee jumping

Shawn came up to Vancouver for a week and his only stipulation was that we needed to go bungee jumping. Instead of being nervous and freaking out.. I decided not to think about it. Mentally blocking out what was about to happen worked right until actually getting to the bungee spot in Whistler. Shockingly.. not thinking about it up until that point helped! I wasn’t scared.. but I wasn’t overly excited either haha.

Let’s DO THIS!

For some reason, they suited me up first so without question I continued to not think about it and got ready to launch myself off a bridge.

See, I was happy:

Once I got to the edge, they truly know how to keep your mind from freaking out because they talk to you the entire time. Before you know it, you are on the edge and they are counting down… five… four… three…. two…one…. JUMP!

So what else could I do, but jump? That’s me wayyyyyyyy down there at the bottom!

We all did it! Post jump, surging adrenaline, group photo:

After all of these crazy things in the past few months, I also turned twenty-six this past week… that means I’m OVER a quarter century now!
I’m no longer in my “early twenties.”

My birthday was spent with the people and in the places I love – and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Needless to say, the experiences (albeit many terrifying as hell) have been incredible. I feel like a different person and more prepared than ever to tackle the next items on the list.

The morning after my birthday, the new man in my life was walking me to work (I know, cute, right?) and he looked at me and said “you know, you have some pretty amazing people in your life right? You are one very fortunate girl.”

This I know well and having someone new in my life recognize that, made me smile.

What amazing feats did you accomplish last week?

Friend: “How was your week?”

Me: “Well (pauses to think), ummm… amazing, actually now that I think about it, pretty amazing.”

Hold that thought…

Before I get to why this past week has been so great, I have to voice my apologies to those who follow this blog (the handful or two haha). In recent months I’ve found myself not exactly uninterested in writing, but have simply chosen to spend my time soaking up reality versus glued to technology. Spending time with friends, teaching and working out at the gym, reading and just being disconnected… in order to be more connected to my life.

It’s one of those problems us Gen Y’s face on a daily basis. Be connected, create content and share your life socially… but be careful not to be too connected.. or create too much…or share too much.. where are we supposed to draw the line?! It’s a fine line and for those of you who have mastered it, kudos to you. For those of us still searching.. don’t give up!

Switching back to this past week…

If you’re new to The PR Life, you should probably know the my day job consists of working in a high-stress, work-with-a-constant-sence-of-urgency, media relations/crisis focused, PR agency. It’s great and I love it, don’t get me wrong – but I often care too much about my job… I know, hugeeee problem to have right? Some days when you have five upcoming deadlines (three of which are past-due), three clients emailing you with requests that need attention immediately (all of whom are made to believe and feel like they are our only client of course) and a call that a crisis is just about to break for another client… you may experience your pulse start to race, your head spin and your chest tighten because you have no idea where to start.

Okay, this may have been a tad of an over-exaggeration. The five-deadlines are usually only two… but everything else is legit!

As tough as this can be, it’s all worth it when your client’s story (that you conceptualized, wrote and pitched to the assignment editor) makes the front page of the local newspaper you secured the day before. It’s worth it when your colleagues are just as excited about a two-minute radio interview, as you are (even if the client really doesn’t understand how hard you worked as a team to make that happen). And, it’s worth it when you send over a coverage report to a client and their minds = blown. That’s amazing.

Now let’s jump to spending quality times with friends, social commitments and second jobs.

*Raise your hand if this describes you.*

Greattttt – we’re all over-achievers. Glad we settled that. So imagine this: you see a tweet a few weeks past from a local woman’s entrepreneurial-philanthropic networking group saying: “only ONE spot left for our next all-male-staffed, hottest-bar-in-the-city, event!”

My reaction: Well, I haven’t been to a networking event in a while… and I’d have to go alone (#getuncomfortable)… sign me up!

Two weeks later I find myself chatting with a lovely young lady who I had the pleasure of meeting once over coffee nearly a year ago. We were catching up and she was telling me all about her new exciting job (which she loves) and when someone joins the conversation and asks how we know each other she jumps in “Amanda was the reason I quit my job, changed my career goals and found something I truly love. She basically changed my life.”

Me: Ughhhh… what?

So that’s not awkward or anything to the person we just met. I’m sure they were thinking “Who the hell is this girl?”

Not only that, but the friend who insisted this girl chat with me – also met up with me this past week for a catch up. Funny enough, her and I had a similar conversation this past fall. She too decided at that time to quit her job, take time to re-align herself with her passions, travel the world and come back to land an incredible new opportunity of a job (seriously mind-blowing, congrats again lady – well deserved)! She told me that a large part of her decision was because of our conversation about being passionate about everything you do in your life. Through that conversation, she found courage to take the leap.

I am simply humbled.

Okay, let’s really talk about second “jobs”

I used quotations because my second job is really not something that I consider a job. I consider what I do with my personal time actually a gift.

How I got so lucky to find such a supportive, driven, motivating fitness community still baffles me. Over the past eight months I’ve been training at a functional fitness gym called Element Athletic. I fortunately was thrown into it while taking my kettlebell certification back in March of last year and immediately realized this place was exactly what I had been looking for, for years. Who doesn’t want to be surrounded by motivated, friendly, go-getters who enjoy kicking their own butt just as much as the next person?

*Crickets*

That’s what I thought.

As of recently, I’ve been given the opportunity to put my ass-kicking motivational teaching style to the test. Again, I’ve been blown away by the support, excitement and acceptance from my peers (many of who can out-burpee and out-pullup me like pros, I might add) – who are thrilled to get some female instruction into the already wicked culture.

Although they are appreciative of my whip-cracking motivation, I am more appreciative of the opportunity to lead such awesome, hard-working, fitness nuts (I say that in the most like-minded, endearing way of course.. as I’m one of them)! I feel selfish in some regard because the motivation, contentment and positive energy that I get out of the entire experience is something unequivocally amazing.

So this is all great, right?

Right… so why, when my friend asked how my week was, was I about to start complaining about things I still haven’t achieved or that I still can’t do a pullup (I’m working on this and I have a plan that I will be posting about soon – check back if you want to do it with me!) or start talking about where I envision my career in three years? WHY? Because I get too wrapped up in constant pressure to do more, be everywhere at once and be further in life than where I am now. All this stress, for no reason.

I am grateful for my friend’s question because he reminded me the importance of reflection. Reflecting back to those experiences and aspects of life that make you happy is something so important that often gets overlooked, but is immensely valuable for your mental state.

So, when you’re feeling stressed or as if you have bitten off more than you can chew – think about how many tasks you accomplished in the past week. How many hurtles did you clear? How many people did you help inspire?

I bet know it’s more than you think.