Get Uncomfortable

Every year when January comes around I take time to reflect on the past year and set huge goals for the new year to come. I follow those goals up by making plans, getting started and hold myself accountable to achieve them. For the past few years, I’ve been crossing off my goals, left, right and centre! It’s exhilarating, satisfying and rewarding to achieve scary goals… but it’s can also be overwhelming when you try to bite off more than you can chew.

If you are anything like me, striving for great success means filling your days from start to finish just to squeeze it all in! Along with the constant need to succeed often comes pressure to continuously push ourselves day after day… it gets exhausting.

This year, instead of setting goals that I believe are generally achievable and within my abilities, I’ve decided to not put as much pressure on myself (inhale, exhale) to achieve certain goals by a certain date. This doesn’t mean that I will stop any of my fitness, career or personal ongoing goals or change my current lifestyle… it means I will go with the flow, be more relaxed, be open and take opportunities as they come.

That being said, after talking it out with Faith, we both decided that this year would be the year to #getuncomfortable.

We both sat down and discussed our goals. Some just haven’t been as easy to accomplish as we’d envisioned (my main three = fitness, stress-reduction and career). We’ve been doing the same process over and over again, expecting the same results.

It’s then that it hit me!

If what I’m doing right now is not working and I’m stuck in the comfort zone, it means that what I’m doing is clearly not working. If I want to see great success and achieve great things – I need to get out of my comfort zone and change what I’m doing.

I fully believe: “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

With that being said – Faith and I have decided that 2014 won’t consist of us putting pressure on ourselves – but to challenge ourselves to step outside of our comfort zones, do things we’ve never done before and see what having a positive and open mind can allow us to achieve.

Plan: Do 12 things or make changes that we’ve never done before. We will be aiming to attempt one change a month for a total of 12 by year’s end.

Are you stuck, frustrated, or are interested to see what getting uncomfortable could mean for your life? Feel free to join us! Tag your commitments to change on twitter, or post in our comments sections to let us know you are on board.

#getuncomfortable challenge #1 is soon to come… any suggestions for me?

The secret to change and why you’re focusing on the wrong thing

I looked in the mirror this morning and noticed that the lower part of my back was missing a distinctive roll (okay, section of body fat) that I’ve had for YEARS. I mean this particular roll has been with me through two half marathons, a super Spartan Race and my kettlebell certification – and stubbornly been refusing to leave my body for y-e-a-r-s.

Unlike many things that leave our lives, this is one thing I’m not at all sad to see it go!

It’s sometimes hard to appreciate small successes when all you want to see are major results – but it’s really the small changes that add up to the big changes. It’s time we stop being hard on ourselves and put an end to ignoring the small wins!

When it comes to seeing results in many areas of my life, I’ve realised nothing worth having or sustaining comes easy. From your career to your relationships to your level of fitness – everything worth having takes time. When I get frustrated and feel like I should already have everything I’m working so hard for right now – my Dad always brings me back to reality and teases me by saying, “you have to put your time in Amanda – you aren’t going to be a  CEO overnight.” He’s right and I’ve realized that this advice also transfers over to my fitness goals.

(Current shots.. something I NEVER share on my blog.. but I need to start celbrating my successes and not just talking about them!)

Instead of focusing on the scale or on my waistline – I focus on my strength gains as a way to measure my success. Sure, it’s frustrating when my pants aren’t getting any looser after I’ve been eating clean for months and I literally work out 6-days a week… but when I can push press 2-24kg kettlebells overhead (something I’ve never been able to do) – that’s a small, but mega, success to me!

When I can do 20 burpees without stopping where as I only used to be able to do 10-12… that’s a major success.

It’s so important to give credit to the small wins. The pyramids weren’t built in one day, multi-million dollar companies didn’t reach success overnight, and fitness models don’t look like this:

(Crossfit competitor, Camille Leblanc-Bazinet)

in 90-days. They put in many hours of relentless training and hard work. They don’t “cheat” on their clean diets or need to indulge in alcohol every weekend because they “had a hard week.” They are dedicated, disciplined and consistent in every aspect of their lives.

People ask me why I’m doing a 90-day challenge? I’m “already fit” and “already eat strictly” and I’d have to agree with some of that – but we are all a work in progress and I have goals I haven’t reached yet. You need to make change to see change. Whether your goal is to cut fast-food from your diet, stop eating that little bit of chocolate every day, to lose 10 pounds or to lose 100 pounds – everyone needs to start somewhere. That somewhere is making a consistent change that you haven’t made before – and sticking to it!

And while you think someone who has 10 pounds they want to lose has it “easier” than the person who wants to lose 100 pounds – you are wrong. Change and success might be measured differently by different people – but all come down to making lasting changes that you can stick to – and keep building on those new changes.

No matter where you are right now, choose some kind of change – even just a small change – that you can implement in your life and trust the process.

Some suggestions on how to keep yourself accountable to your goals:

• Make it public – if you tell all your friends, family and even strangers, you will be more apt to stick to your plan.
• Write out your plan – from a vision board, to blogging, to writing it down – make sure you have your plan in clear view on a daily basis.

• Find a partner in crime – find a friend, family member or co-worker who you can do a challenge with. It will cause you both to be more accountable and add a little bit friendly competition – which always conjurers up motivation!
• Follow a plan – there are SO many places to find help and plans. From free workouts, to structured diet plans to professionals to help quit addictions – there is always someone out there who has just experiences the exact same struggle you currently face. Go find out how they did it!
• Stop self-doubting – the biggest obstacle most of us face is ourselves. Let’s face it – that little voice inside your head that tells you not to get out of bed in the morning or to skip that workout you planned to go to – is your highest barrier for success. Don’t listen to it!

If you create a plan, trust the process and stay focused, I guarantee you will see a change. Commit yourself to making change and remember to celebrate the small changes, because you might as well enjoy the process, it will make reaching your goals that much richer.

Need motivation to get you out of bed in the morning? Here’s what I use: