f e a r L E S S
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Fear was a subtle guide for much of my life. Sometimes the impact was as minor as passing on the high dive at the pool, or as major as missing out on the cool experience in the great unknown. If we let it, fear can permeate every facet of our lives, both personally and professionally. Tell me if any of these sound familiar:
- Being too timid to introduce yourself to someone, whether it be a valuable business contact, a potential friend, or a good-looking stranger for fear you'll seem annoying/desperate/pathetic
- Not signing up for a class/workshop for fear you'll appear incompetent/uncomfortable/lacking
- Foregoing a party/event for fear your only friend will be the chip dip
- Not pursuing a promotion/growth/career change opportunity for fear you'll fall short
- Not traveling for fear you'll get lost/get robbed/kidnapped with no Liam Neeson to save you
- Passing on going solo to an event/movie/etc for fear you'll look like a giant L O S E R
- Staying stuck in your current rut for fear of putting yourself out there and taking a risk
Maybe, possibly, perhaps at least one of these hit a little close to home? You're most definitely not alone. I consider myself a pretty independent person, and I can tell you...I identify with every single one of those, to varying degrees. Absolutely.
“The fears we don’t face become our limits.”
The thing is...fear actually kind of pisses me off. Or at least it used to. I hated feeling weak and restricted and...CONTROLLED. I hated feeling like fear was manipulating me, because it was! I mean, it was nothing extreme. It's not like I stayed locked up in my house and never ventured out into the big, bad, scary world. No, I still got out and lived life...but not to the depth and breadth that was possible.
Much of this fear also stemmed from my upbringing. Now please, don't get it twisted: I LOVE my parents, and they knocked it out of the park with raising my sister and me. I'm in awe of the exceptional job they did. Truly. But there has always been - and continues to be - a strong undercurrent of fear. I mean, to this day, whenever I embark on certain outings - especially road trips - I'm met with a fair amount of attempts to persuade me to not go. And of course, I recognize and appreciate this demonstrates their love and concern for me, and I'm so grateful for that. However, I finally had to just claim my own life, assure them I was taking necessary precautions/being smart about it, and just G O. Let me tell you, that was quite the breakthrough for me when I stepped up and called the shots for my own life. Snaps for Whit!
One of my biggest fears was my fear of heights (or falling, if you want to be technical). The acrophobia was real for me. Lightheadedness, heart palpitations...ooohhh yeah. I loved roller coasters because I felt secure and contained, but I was NOT a fan of peering over the edge of a high bridge, or peeking over the side of a cliff. No way.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
So I decided to face that fear and conquer it in the best way I could think of: SKYDIVING. I finally checked that off my bucket list a couple of days ago. The shocking part?! I WASN'T NERVOUS AT ALL. Not from the minute I signed up to the minute I jumped. No heart racing, no adrenaline. Just...calm as can be. I mean, to be fair, I'm glad I had a guy strapped to the back of me who jumped for the both of us as I stared out the tiny open plane door to the earth 13,000 feet below. And it didn't hurt he was one cool dude, with remarkably calming energy and a fun personality (Cody Butikofer at DZone is the man). Everything about the whole experience was...smooth. Effortless. Easy.
“The quickest way to acquire self confidence is to do exactly what you are afraid to do.”
And I feel...EMPOWERED. What an incredible sensation.
Also important: I am surrounded by phenomenal, inspiring people. People who lust after life and get out and MAKE IT HAPPEN. Two such people come to mind: my friend Rachel, and my friend Julie. Two of the raddest experiences of my life were with them, when we refused to hold ourselves back. One of those experiences was skydiving this past weekend, when Julie and I took the plunge (literally) and had the time of our lives.
Another was a couple of years ago when Rachel and I took a girls trip to Arizona, where one of our adventures was climbing Humphrey's Peak outside of Flagstaff. Before we even set foot on the trail, while still in the parking lot, we met two men (one of them apparently ex-Special Forces) who proceeded to tell us alllll about the significant risks and challenges of the climb. Cool story, bro. We politely nodded and set out anyway. A few steps in, I experienced my first panic attack. Let me tell you, it came in fast and FIERCE - like whoa. Determined to not let it stop me, I did my best to breathe my way through it (much easier said than done, if you've ever experienced one!), and rode it out. Then, along the trail, it started to snow. Soon, we encountered a ranger who was descending, explaining he deemed it too dangerous to summit, and urging us to turn back. We looked at each other and...continued on. Ultimately, we reached the top and experienced that high specific to a summit. As you can imagine, the success was that much sweeter, having continued past those obstacles undeterred. Take THAT, fear!
Reflecting on it later, it struck me how similar it is to life: people along the way preaching doom and gloom, reasons for why you should stop/turn back/avoid risk. The scared ones trying (some innocently and lovingly, some selfishly and maliciously) to hold you back. And sure, you shouldn't be so rigid and arrogant that you are immune to reason and sound advice but...with great risk comes great reward, yeah?
It's taken awareness and mindfulness, but now my reaction to fear is to lean into it. If it scares me, it actually motivates me to confront it. It's ALL about perspective. I've trained myself to perceive fear as a friend, not foe. It revs my body up to stay alert, focused, energetic, and agile. Plus, it's a great indicator you're doing what you should do to evolve and grow, baby, grow! Once you learn to frame it this way...you're SET. You eliminate all of its negative power. You allow it to help you.
How are YOU letting fear serve you?
xx,
-w-
DO IT TO IT
Images by Brooke Richardson Photography
“Be stubborn about your goals and flexible about your methods.”
Have you ever had a task you know you need to do, but you just cannot find the motivation to do it? You have a chore to check off, or an errand to run, or a call to make, or a paper to write.
Or maybe it's not yourself you're trying to motivate - maybe you're trying to prompt someone else to do something. You're trying to encourage your kids to do their homework, or your husband to start a garden with you.
Wanna hear a cool motivational hack I found?
To give credit where credit's due, I'll start by saying I heard about this neato trick while listening to one of my fave podcasts: The Tim Ferriss Show. Tim was interviewing Daniel Pink, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author about work, management, and behavioral science so...bro knows his stuff.
Here's how it works:
Let's say you're trying to talk yourself into getting your bunz off the couch and working out. Start by asking yourself: on a scale of 1 - 10, how motivated am I right now? Let's say you rate yourself at a solid 2. So you then ask yourself: Why am I not a 0? (Maybe a different direction than you thought it was going, right?) In response, some of the following reasons may come to mind: "I know exercise is good for me"; "I want to be healthy"; "I want to lose weight"; "I want to tone up"; "I want to be healthy for my kids"; "I'm training for a race and want to be ready."
Boom. You just articulated your own, autonomous, intrinsically motivated reasons for doing it. Not someone else's reasons. YOURS. It elicits and spotlights why you recognize it's something you ought to do. It can realign you to your initial motivation for committing to the goal.
The key here is whenever you're able to prompt yourself/others to articulate your/their reasons for doing something, you're/they're more likely to follow through.
Powerful, right?
In a later post, we'll discuss intrinsic (internal; originating within the person) vs. extrinsic (external) motivation.
Peace and blessings!
xx,
-w-
C H A N G E
Images by Brooke Richardson Photography
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”
C H A N G E. Depending on your mindset/circumstance, change can be welcomed or dreaded. Accepted or resisted.
If you're stuck in a job you hate and are suddenly offered your dream job, change is pretty great. If that dream job is across the country in a completely unfamiliar city, away from family and friends...it might seem daunting and stressful.
“LIfe is about change. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s beautiful. But most of the time, it’s both.”
Some people naturally thrive on change - even seek it. Some avoid and resent it. And some fall somewhere in between. Where are you?
However, no matter where you fall on the spectrum, change is inevitable. As they say, the only constant is change. So since we know it's a given, let's talk about tips for accepting it.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
1. View it as a developmental opportunity.
As Socrates advises, the trick is to stay forward-focused. Try to minimize time spent reflecting on how great things were pre-change. Try to emphasize the positives the change will bring - or at the very least, the opportunity for you to incorporate positivity.
Decide to make it as beneficial and enjoyable as possible. It's happening - and it's ENTIRELY within your power to make it a good thing. Instead of focusing on loss, focus on gain, particularly regarding your power. Change can leave us feeling powerless, so spin it and focus on the power you DO have - and how you'll use it to your benefit.
Change is a fantastic opportunity for us to step into our full potential and become a better person than we were before. If you reject change, you'll deny yourself - and the world - the chance to become all you can be, thereby denying the world your full talents and gifts. Please don't do that!
“Sometimes our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed, and rearranged to relocate us to the place we’re meant to be.”
2. Trust everything happens for a reason.
Know the universe is conspiring for you, not against you. Think back on every significant change you've experienced thus far. If you're anything like me, the changes that sucked the most to endure were the changes for which I was ultimately most grateful. They taught me the most/improved my life the most.
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”
3. Know you are not alone.
Everyone feels doubtful and uncertain sometimes. These feelings are 100% normal, and the sooner you recognize and accept this, the sooner you will reach peace. Acknowledge your emotions, feel them without repressing them, and let them float on their way.
4. Allow others to support you.
Let others help you. Please don't enable pride to prevent you from doing so. If you lack supportive friends/family, seek out other resources to help with what you need, whether it's a moving company, support group, etc. Chances are, you're not the first one to go through this change, so there are likely established resources to ease your adjustment. We're all in this together!!
“Sometimes the place you are used to is not the place you belong.”
5. Take care of yourself.
Now more than ever is a crucial time for you to practice self-care. Eat nutritious food. Move and stretch your body. Ensure sufficient rest. Practice meditation, or at least incorporate down time into your days. Take care of you, so you can meet the change(s) with your best self.
“Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.”
xx,
-w-
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Investing Your Time vs. Spending Your Time
Images by Brooke Richardson Photography
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
Time. The true luxury in life. A resource we can never recover, or re-generate. It is our greatest and most precious resource. We all have 24 hours in a day (even Beyonce!), yet how many of us actually use those 24 hours optimally? How many of us get the very most we can out of each day??
“Time is what we want most but what we use worst.”
It's not easy! Especially on those days where you're exhausted from working/parenting/adulting. Some days you're 100% spent and just want to park it on the couch and lose yourself in the TV or a book or - lezbehonest - your Instagram feed.. It's completely understandable. However...it's key to remember how you spend your days is how you spend your life. "Just today" turns into "just this week" which morphs into "just this month" and on and on. Pretty soon five years have blown by and you're not any closer to your goals. Your life isn't how you envisioned it would be at this point.
And here's where our individualities come into play. My goals are likely different from your goals. While one person's goal may be to start and run a successful business, another's goal may be to get healthy, or to spend more quality "unplugged" time with their kiddos, or to cultivate a stress-relieving hobby.
How you spend your time is a reflection of your priorities. Pure and simple. If you value something enough, you make time for it. If you don't believe me, what if you were offered one million dollars if you worked out every single day for one hour, for a full month? Would you magically discover you have some time for fitness? Or what if you were promised an all-expense paid trip to the country of your choice if you meditated twice a day for a week straight? Would meditation suddenly get a bump up to the top of your priority list? Think about it...
“Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it, but be intentional about it.”
A good rule to live by is no matter what you're doing, BE ALL THERE. If you're working out, go all in (no matter if it's an intense lifting/cardio sesh, or restorative yoga, or whatever). If you're meeting with your boss/colleagues/church members, laser in. If you're playing Barbies with your littles, drill down.
It's alllll about the quality, baby. If you're in the same room as your family/friends/partner, yet are more concerned with peeping your Snapchat than actually connecting with them, you're merely spending your time. If you get to the end of your day and realize...you really have nothing to show for it, you're simply spending your time. It's just like with money! You get your paycheck, and if you simply spend your remaining money (after handling bills/groceries/etc) on "fun stuff" like dinner out with friends, or movies with your lover, or new clothes/gear/whatever...it's gone. It's spent. However, if you [wisely] invest it...you more often than not will receive a return on your investment, and have something to show for it later (hopefully more than your original amount). Same concept.
To achieve true success, true balance, true fulfillment in your life, you must invest your time in the people/ventures you know will bring you true happiness. It is entirely possible to attain a real work/life balance, and (spoiler alert!) it doesn't involve working less and playing more, or even splitting it 50/50. It's about being intentional about how you spend your work time, and how you spend your personal time. I'm definitely not one to judge on what unwinding looks like for you, but chances are if you spend all weekend zoning out to The Real Housewives of OC, when Monday rolls around you don't feel re-charged and ready to take Monday by storm. Right??
MOVE YA BODY
Let's play a game of true or false. You in? Okay, true or false:
- You've ever felt less than motivated to work out
- You've ever forced yourself through a workout, hating every minute but determined to get that summer bod on lock
- You've ever talked yourself out of exercise and talked yourself into Netflix instead
- You've ever blasted yourself for being lazy...yet somehow that tough love failed to translate into a regular fitness regimen
- You've ever critiqued your body and wanted to change it yet...the thought of doing something about it leaves you feeling hopeless/overwhelmed so you just...don't
- You've ever been too exhausted to work out because LIFE
If you answered "true" to one or more then...welcome to the human club!!! I feel you. I'm a driven and disciplined person and yet...there are days i realllly don't friggin' want to work out. Like really. And the more I try to bully and convince myself I need to, the less I want to. I always feel better after I do, but overcoming that initial hump is brutal, amiright?!!
Want to know some tricks that have been game changers for me?!! They trigger such a mentality shift for me, and work every single time, whenever I'm hurting for motivation.
Simply focus on M O V E M E N T
That's it. Forget about aesthetics and trying to look a certain way. Forget about forcing yourself to lift as heavy as last time because you're so consumed with progressing. Forget about burning a certain number of calories or achieving a certain number of steps. Forget about leg day and chest/back day and working a certain muscle group. JUST MOVE.
Go for a walk (I love walking my dogs and zoning out to music - it soothes my soul like nothing else). Do a Fitness Marshall dance video on YouTube (total blast). Do a few yoga vinyasas. Take the stairs at work. Stand up every 10 seconds at work (more on this later). Eliminate the pressure on yourself and just focus on simply moving. THAT'S IT. [Re]discover the joy in it.
Next:
Grant yourself permission to quit after 10 minutes
If you're lobbying hard to convince yourself you need to go to workout but you just don't wanna - then tell yourself all you have to do is ten minutes. That's all. You can quit with dignity after logging 10 minutes. You can actually get an excellent workout in (hello HIIT!!! hello lifting heavy for low reps!!!) in that amount of time. And IT'S JUST TEN MINUTES. That's about the time it takes you to shower, or eat a snack, or start getting sucked into the social media vortex. JUST TEN MINUTES. You've got this!!!
If you need workout inspo, peep Alexia Clark on Instagram (my fave!) for ideas for quick but effective circuits. What I love about Alexia is her variety of workouts. She posts at least a couple of workouts daily - via both her feed and stories.
Or message me, and I'll happily shoot you a quick workout to do!! If you choose a cardio machine, make the most of your time by avoiding steady-state cardio (unless you're just focusing on movement - then by all means, you do you!) and incorporating intervals by adjusting time/resistance/incline/speed throughout those ten minutes.
xx,
-w-
Images by Brooke Richardson Photography