Accountability

My last post I talked about setting goals in a way that allows for the best chance for success.  Having a strategy when it comes to goals and little steppingstones along the way to the overall goal helps keep motivation high.  Knowing that each successful step you take and each mini goal you hit allows you to reach your overarching goal keeps your ‘eyes on the prize’.

What I didn’t mention in the last post was somedays that intrinsic motivation will be low and your desire to even knock off a mini goal could be at a 2 on a scale from 1-10.  That’s okay, because we are humans and not robots.  We don’t wake up every day and have the option to turn our motivation knob up to 10.  So many factors can play into why you just don’t have the motivation to get stuff done like you usually do, and this is when accountability steps in.  Yes, intrinsically motivated accountability is something we all should have when it comes to reaching our goals, but somedays you need a little bit more than your self-talk.  This is where having someone you know will tell you to get up and get whatever needs to be done, done (in the most supportive way possible) is super important.  Yeah sure I have heard the sayings.. “work hard in silence”… “let your success be the noise”… “not all hustle is out loud”… “be quiet about your plans” .. the list goes on.  There is some stock in those statements, one shouldn’t be boastful and put everything on display for the world to see, but you don’t have to keep your life a secret from those closest to you.  Find someone that will remind you to get the little things done and give you that extra push on the days you are dragging your feet.  You can also set reminders on your phone and alarms if you really want to make sure you get things done when they should be done.  But those are easy to ignore and snooze when no one else knows what should have been done.  It is a lot harder to look someone in the eyes (or through a screen due to our virtual living these days) and justify why you didn’t get something done, than it is to justify it to yourself.

I challenged you guys in my last post to create mini goals as checkpoints along the journey to your overall goal; I now challenge you to find an accountability partner(s) to help keep you on track, both on the good and not so good days.  It will be good for all parties involved.  You will be proud of yourself when you make your dream a reality and proud watching your partner(s) make their dreams a reality as well.  When you pick this person you are going to want someone who will be honest with you, this isn’t the time to recruit your friend who is always telling you what you want to hear.  This person should be driven as well, have goals they are working to achieve, and must believe in your ability to reach your goals and be unwilling to let you settle for anything less than you achieving them.

I understand that everyone may not have positive and motivated people surrounding them and pushing them to be their best selves; no worries because Smarter Athlete Fitness and Nutrition offers a built-in accountability partner when you sign up for either nutrition or fitness or a combination coaching plan.  Your coach will design a program that is personalized to your goals and be there for you each week to make sure you are supported on your journey.  If this is what you are looking for reach out via email to paigedavis.wellness@gmail.com to learn more.

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Goal Setting

Setting goals is fun, the work along the way can be not so fun at times.  Setting a goal is like signing up for a race.  You are super excited when you sign up and have this vision of what it will look and feel like when you cross that finish line; then you start the race.  The first bit isn’t so bad, all the good vibes you had when you singed up are still there and keeping you focused.  Then about halfway you start to get tired, people are passing you, and you can’t see that finish line anywhere.  Now you are tired and frustrated because the finish line is farther than you anticipated when you signed up and you didn’t think it would be this hard and you start wondering if you should just stop the race because no one will care whether you finish or not.   How does this analogy of signing up for a race relate to setting a goal you ask?  Think of it like this, most people set a goal when they are happy, have very little daily life stressors on their mind, and they are feeling super motivated.  And when they start working toward this goal the initial excitement one had when setting this goal is still present.  Then life gets in the way.  When you decide on a goal you are excited and motivated but then all the other life duties get in the way and bog you down.  A work project gets thrown in your lap, something comes up in your family, or better yet a pandemic happens.  You put your goal on pause or just toss it completely.  No one will know you say, it won’t matter if I don’t reach it, it was silly of me to make that a goal anyway, unrealistic.  NOPE!  If that is a goal of yours it isn’t silly and you know who will notice if you don’t reach it?  You will, and that is the only person you should be worried about impressing.

So, this is what you are going to do.  Write down your goal, and then bullet below it all the things that need to happen in order for that goal to be accomplished.  Next you are going to set a date for when you want the goal to be accomplished.  Because a goal without a date is just a wish.  Once the date is set, you look at the bulleted list and break the time between now and the date you set up into 4ths.  Put bullet items together if they are related and put them into one of the quarter time dates between now and your overall goal.  These are now your mini goal check points.  Each time you reach one it will serve as a reminder that you are one step closer to your overall goal and will be a rewarding feeling to cross it off the list.  You can even give yourself a list of things you want to do daily, weekly, and monthly as they help you take steps toward your overall goal.  Whatever works for you is what works.

My challenge for you all is to sit down right now and create your goal and the mini goals that are necessary along the way to ensure success.  And if any of those goals are fitness or nutrition related Smarter Athlete Fitness and Nutrition is the place to be to help you reach those goals.  When you sign-up to work with Smarter Athlete your coach will design a program that is personalized to your goals and be there for you each week to make sure you are supported on your journey.  If this is what you are looking for reach out via email to paigedavis.wellness@gmail.com to learn more.

Comparison

I was listening to a podcast the other day during my nice long journey from CT back down to SC and Kevin Hart was a guest for the particular episode to which I was listening.  During the podcast he said something that got me thinking, he said that life is a game.  He is right, life is a game, and in order to succeed we need to play the game right.  This is where the title of this post starts to make sense.  Whether you are playing a sport, a card game, a video game, or a board game you will always have to be aware and mindful of your opponents in order to set yourself up to win.  The issue is when you become overly concerned with each and every move your opponent makes that you begin to forget about what you are doing.  You can’t control other people’s actions and or how they play the game, but you can control what you do and how you play and potentially get them to react to what you are doing.  This is much like life, if you spend all of your time trying to look like someone else, talk like someone else, dress like someone else, you will eventually lose.  You can’t make anyone do something, but you can potentially influence them.  This desire to compare ourselves to others and try to be someone we are not is detrimental to your physical and mental health.  We are all very different and the amazing thing is there will never be someone that looks, walks, talks, and thinks exactly like you ever in this world.  Social media is a big issue when it comes to comparison, it is so easy to open a website or an app and in seconds be flooded with images of ‘the ideal person’.  There is never going to be another you in this world, so embrace that and live every day to be fully, entirely, unapologetically you.  If there is ever someone you should look to be better than it is the you of yesterday.  Wake up each day with the goal to be better than the day before, whether that is in your diet, your fitness, your mental health, your relationship with family and friends, or in your education.  When you become your main competition, you will be setting yourself up for success each and every day, and you will inspire others to live to their full potential as well.  When you strive for your best and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing you will be happy with yourself and give off an energy that draws people to you and radiates positivity out into the world.

Check out my website and get in contact with me to learn how you can work with a personal nutrition and/or fitness coach.

Failure

Often when people hear the word failure the immediate thought is to the definition of “lack of success”, and to be honest I fall into this category.  What we all forget is that failure also means “the action or state of not functioning”.  This second definition is why I am writing this post.  Today’s society puts so much emphasis on being “successful” that people feel inadequate and like “failures” for not meeting expectations laid out by societal norms, but what is success?  How one person measures success is not going to be identical to how someone else measures success.  Is success the size of your house? Or how expensive your car was? Or the number of commas in your bank account?  Is it the brand on the tags of your clothing? Or is it the amount of meaningful relationships in your life?  Is it that you wake up every day excited to go to your job? Or is it that you wake up with a sense of purpose and belonging?

No matter how you define success, there will be ways in which you do not to meet that standard throughout your day or week or month etc.  What I am sharing with you all is that as a human being you are allowed to have off days and not be “perfect” every day.  This innate human characteristic of imperfection does not mean you are a failure.  Failure comes when you choose to not to do something that you are uncomfortable with or not as skilled at, for the sole reason you are scared to “fail”.  Omittance of action or being in a “state of not functioning” is failure.  Choosing to not take a risk, is choosing failure; and you only truly fail if you learned nothing from your experience.  Malcolm Forbes says “failure is success if we learn from it”; and I would have to agree.

So, the next time you think to yourself that you aren’t going to do something because you don’t want to “fail”, just remember you have failed through your refusal to give it a shot.  You will never be successful with something if you do not give it a go. In the wise words of the great Michael Scott [ 😉 ] “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”.  Believe in yourself and remember that every time you “fail”, you are merely learning what doesn’t work and getting closer to discovering what needs to be done to reach your goals.

I will leave you with this thought from Vernon Howard:

“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need”

“An Investment in Knowledge Pays the Best Interest”

I am a super nerd, so I love learning.  Whether it is through formal education, conversations with friends, picking up a new hobby, or enrolling in an online course.  I have found that I have learned the most from talking to my friends about different topics, because it has allowed me to approach these topics with a new perspective.  It is one thing to have knowledge, it is another to admit when you are wrong or less versed in an area than another person.  Some of the smartest people I know are the most willing to admit when they are unsure about something and offer their best answer while leaving their minds open to further explanation and a differing perspective.  The best way to continue learning is to surround yourself with people who see all of the amazing things you have to offer, and then push you to maximize your potential.  It is always great to surround yourself with like-minded people, in that you all have some shared interest and the same desire to maximize your potentials.  Surrounding yourself with like-minded people doesn’t mean to only interact with people who have the exact same opinions and thoughts as you do.  Doing that is how you get stuck and never truly reach your full potential because you don’t have people who challenge you.  Some of my best conversations have happened with friends and family who share the same fundamental view on life but approach this view in different ways because they challenge me to think a little differently on various topics and I love that from them.  I am beyond grateful to have the people I do in my life because they support me whole-heartedly while still challenging me to grow each day and to never settle.  They are also the people that inspire me to put my whole self into learning new things because I want to show them that I appreciate their support and by being my best I hope to show them they can also be their best.

With that said it is never too late to learn something new.  You can in fact teach an old dog new tricks.  It may not be picked up as quickly, but you will nonetheless learn something new.  There have been studies that also show learning something new throughout your lifetime will help slow cognitive aging and help exercise your brain.  Just like it is important to exercise your skeletal muscles and your heart muscle (which comes with skeletal muscle exercise), you need to exercise your muscle in your skull.

So, what I would like you to take away from this post:

1. It is never too late to learn something new.
2. Exercising your brain through continued learning is just as important as exercising the body.
3. Knowledge is the greatest tool you can have.
4. It is good to admit when you are wrong and be willing to listen to/ see something from a different perspective.

Get out there and pick up a new hobby, learn that language you’ve said you’ve been wanting to learn, join that group class that you have been interested in, and have deeper, more challenging conversations with your friends and family.  You will be surprised what you learn about the people around you and about yourself.

Life

Hello, hello, hello!!

Haven’t posted anything in a while, but I am just sitting at a Starbucks(that I walked to from my lovely apartment) trying to do some school work but I keep finding myself drifting focus from my school work.  I keep looking out the window and just thinking about life.  I know I talk about finding what sets your soul on fire and determining your purpose in life, and honestly every time I think I have that figured out something changes.  This is the one reason I don’t like school, and if you know me you know how much I love school and continuing to learn and gain knowledge.  The more I further my education the more people I meet and the more life doors are opened to me.  At the heart and center of what I want to do with my future I know I want to help people and make a difference in the lives of others, but each semester there are more avenues presented to me through which I can achieve that goal.

What has remained the same though, is that I know I want to do something with nutrition and do something with a gym, but recently other thoughts have come to my head about what I could do beyond that.  Another thing that gets me is the idea of having to start over in a completely new place, if and when I get accepted to a PhD program.  This idea scares me a little, unlike going off and starting college and graduate school away from my family, this time I don’t have the safety net of knowing I will have people who are there to support me.  Whether that was my teammates during undergrad or my friends that remained in the area when I started grad school.  Pursuing my PhD means leaving my comfort zone and potentially starting out somewhere where I would have no one I knew, in a place far away from those I love.  That is a really scary thought to me and sometimes makes me question whether this is something I want to do.  But those thoughts don’t last long because, in my gut, I know my purpose is to use the opportunities I have been fortunate enough to experience to help others who may or may not have been afforded the bountiful luxuries I have had in my life.  The way in which I do use these opportunities may change in my mind from day to day, but the core purpose has remained the same for as long as I can remember.

I guess I’ll never really figure out this life thing, but its nice to think I’m doing what I can do it to the best of my abilities.  So I leave you all with this; trust your gut and keep seeking out what sets your soul on fire.  Even if you never really figure it out, you can get very close, and hey you may even do something amazing during the process.

<3PD

Life Lessons

My undergraduate years have come to an end.  I am sad and still in disbelief that I have finished 4 years of college already.  I have learned many things during my time in undergrad, both in and out of the classroom.  So instead of boring you all with the academic things I have learned over 4 years I have decided to share some of the life lessons I have learned.

1. It is okay to not know what you are doing with your life
   • It is unfair to place that kind of stress on yourself upon entering college.  How can someone expect you to have everything figured out the minute you walk onto your college campus, if for the past 18 or so years of your life you have been told what to do and have been treated like a kid?  You do not need to map out your life just because you are now a freshmen in college.  Which leads me to my second lesson
2. It is okay have a plan for your life, and then change that plan
   • So if you are like me, and you like to make plans and set goals and check off boxes from to-do lists, then you may have a plan for your life well before entering college.  I had been telling people my grand plan for my life since my freshmen year of high school and was positive(or I thought I was) that this plan was all I ever wanted in life.  That is until I changed my mind.  It took me until the spring semester of my junior year (yes, my junior year) to realize the path I had chosen for myself did not light a fire inside of me.  I was so worried to tell people that what I once wanted I no longer did because I thought changing my mind (about my own life mind you) would look like I was quitting and that this change would mess everything up.  None of these thoughts were true, and in the end who cares what everyone else thinks.  The only person’s opinion on this that matters is your own.  You have every right leave something if it isn’t what truly makes you happy.  Which leads to my third lesson
3. It is okay to say no
   • Plain and simple, if you don’t want to do something you can say so.  You don’t owe anyone anything and if you want to stay home and binge watch Netflix instead of going out on the weekends, then do it.  Don’t let people make you feel like you have to do something that you don’t want to do, and if there are people like that in your life you have every right to remove them from your life.  Saying no can mean saying no to anything from friendships to parties to dinner plans.  This isn’t a justification to never have fun or to always be studying.  Saying no is finding the balance between enjoying being young and starting to grow up.  As strange as that sounds, saying no is you learning what is important to you and prioritizing the important things.
4. It is okay to do things alone
   • I said above that it is okay to say no, so that means there will be times people say no to you.  That is okay.  If you ask someone to go get dinner with you or go to the beach or go shopping or whatever, and their response is no, that doesn’t mean you should not do what you wanted to do.  Go get dinner by yourself or go shopping or go to the beach.  You will be surprised that you are actually awesome company and these moments alone are perfect opportunities to step out of your comfort zone and learn a little more about yourself.  I love alone time, it allows me to unplug and just think about different things, and recharges me for when I am around my friends.
5. Do something to give back
   • You have something that makes you special and makes you unique.  Whatever that something is, share that quality with someone who might not have that in their life.  Some of my favorite memories from college are the days in which I spent time volunteering.  The past 3 years I volunteered with an after school program that was run through my college for elementary through high school aged students.  There were some challenging days, as is expected when working with middle school students in particular, but the kids I met through this program are all so amazing.  They made me want to pull my hair out and hug them and joke around with them all at the same time.  I will definitely miss them now that I have graduated, but I wouldn’t trade the memories and moments with them for anything.
6. There is a difference between hearing and listening
   • This is something I learned as I began to figure out who my true friends were and who I was as a person.  Listening involves begin actively engaged in conversation with someone.  The best example I can give of this is when you are driving with the radio on.  You are 100% hearing whatever song is playing on the radio, but listening involves hearing the song and processing the lyrics and the instrumental accompaniment.  I learned that if you want to be a better friend you need to listen to and not just hear what people are saying to you.  Listening lets you ‘hear between the lines’.  You never know how much this could mean to someone.
7. Let people know what they mean to you
   • I know for me personally it can sometimes feel like you are not appreciated or that you are an after thought.  So it is nice to hear that you mean something to someone.  You really never know what someone is going through and just reminding them that you care about them and that they make your life better by being in it can change their day or even their life.  Life is too short anyway to keep your feelings locked inside.  Share what is on your mind and in your heart any and every chance you get.  You never know when the next opportunity to tell someone what they mean to you will be.  Live in the moment, say I love you when you hang up the phone and when you say goodbye(only if you mean it though.  Don’t dilute the word love by saying it to everyone).  This is something I can do more of, because I know there are people that I should be reminding and telling how much they mean to me.
8. Dwelling on the negative casts a shadow on the positive
   • First hand experience here when I say this.  There was a good month/month and a half of my sophomore year where I was just a Negative Nelly.  This little period made me realize while I was busy complaining and looking at the negatives I was missing out on the positives in my life.  I couldn’t see the silver lining in anything and I wasn’t taking in good times.  I finally got tired of being negative( I was annoying myself).  I made the choice to stop complaining and start being grateful for things.  This lead me to journaling and to becoming more mindful of when I complained.  This change was one of the best changes I made.  I am so much happier and really don’t complain all that often, if at all.  Someone actually told me the other day that I don’t complain and that made me really happy because it was proof that I was accomplishing what I said I wanted to accomplish.  This is kind of like the Law of Attraction.  What you think is what you manifest and if you don’t want negative things to happen in your life, then stop thinking negative thoughts. Simple as that, lol, but actually of all the changes you need to make in your life, start with cutting out negativity.  It is amazing how much better you will feel when you don’t have negative energy surrounding you.

Anyway, my list could probably go on forever, there is no shortage of things I learned these past 4 years.  My favorite thing (outside of my major) that I learned these past years was who I am as a person.  Not to sound full of myself or anything like that, but I am one of my favorite people I met at college.  I really learned a lot about myself and what I want from life and what my strengths and weaknesses are.  I am proud of how far I have come since my freshmen year and I am ready to embrace whatever comes next for me.

To be or not to be average

This post is a somewhat spin off of my One Year post.  We have all been placed here for a purpose, and life’s greatest quest is finding that purpose.  I had a conversation the other day with a friend about how to live life and the word average came up.  That lead to the discussion of whether or not going through life as average was the way to go, which lead to the argument of if anyone besides your family and close friends will remember you after you die.

My stance on that argument is and will always be that we would not be here if we were meant to go through the motions of life.  We have something to accomplish with our lives and ‘just doing enough’ is a waste of this life we have been given.  I saw a quote this morning that I feel fits this concept well and it said “You are a piece of the puzzle of someone’s life. You may never know where you may fit”.  After reading that it made me think of the lives we interact with everyday(whether we realize it or not) and how being the best version of yourself as often as you possibly can(because we are human and are allowed to have ‘off/bad’ days) impacts those lives.  I want to live a life that makes a difference for someone else.  I  want to use the opportunities I have been blessed with and use them to open the doors for someone else who was not blessed with the same opportunities.

Everyone has the chance to do something great with their life, but unfortunately not everyone will.  If you are living your life in the search of what sets your soul on fire and you are trying to discover what you have been placed here to do, then I firmly believe you are living an above average life.  I can’t promise in your search for your fire/your purpose that you will make an impact on someone’s life, but I really think it would be hard not to do just that.  By being the best you and doing more than going through the motions, who is to say you aren’t inspiring someone to do something more with their life as well?

So in closing never settle for average, or just enough.  You are important, you have a purpose, and you can make a change.   Go out and live your best life.

One Year

It has been a WHILE since I posted something here.  Life gets busy and I had nothing interesting to say…until today that is 😉 I decided to open up my little blog site today and there was a notification waiting for me when I logged on.  The notification said “happy one year anniversary”.  Isn’t that so crazy??  Of all of the days that I could have gotten a whim to login to this blog, and it was the one year anniversary of me creating this blog!  The crazy thing is I opened it up because I finally had something to write about and I wanted to get my thoughts formed into words before I lost my inspiration.  Life works in magical ways my people.  So now on to what I wanted to share with you all.

I started this blog so that I could share what I know about sports, exercise, health/wellness, and things of that nature with whomever was willing to read these posts.  Part of what pushed me to do that was my pursuit of “seeking what sets my soul on fire“.  At first I didn’t really know how to quantify or qualify what would determine if I have found what “sets my soul on fire”, and to be honest this is something that ‘adults’ still say they are trying to do.  But I think I have a good idea of how to make this determination.  I didn’t come to this realization until fairly recently.  I started my last semester of undergrad (*sniffle*) about a month ago and my classes are super cool.  I can honestly say I wake up everyday excited to go to class (even when my alarm goes off for that 8am).  I was thinking about that this weekend as I sat and studied away and so far this semester doesn’t feel like a chore or something I need to get through.  Maybe that is my sentimental, not-ready-to-let-go-and-graduate-self talking, but I truly believe that feeling is how you can know you are doing something that “sets your soul on fire”.  If you can find something that makes you want to get up every morning and crush life then hold on to that thing, hold it dear, because that thing is your passion, the fire that ignites your ultimate self.

And if you read that and thought to yourself that you have not felt that or do not feel that about something you are currently investing a majority of your time into, that is okay.  It is never too late to find your passion and go after it.  Maybe take up journaling and start answering introspective questions, write down little things that make you smile everyday, watch random documentaries, look up hobbies or classes you can get involved in, join a gym, meet new people, go out to eat or sit at a coffee shop by yourself, just do something that places you outside that comfort zone you are currently living in.  When you push out of that comfort zone you will get to learn a lot about yourself and you may even discover a world you never knew existed.  Do what you need to do for you and find whatever it is that “sets your soul on fire”

Best of luck to you all in your pursuit of setting your soul on fire and keep chasing that feeling to those of you who have found that “match”.  You people are amazing, thank you for reading and have a marvelous week.

♥SWSYSOF♥,

PD

Dear Soccer

Dear Soccer,

I really don’t know where to start.  You have been so much a part of my life and who I am for so long.  My parents knew you would be a major piece in my life when, at the age of 2, I asked my dad to go outside with me and play soccer.  I barely even knew what soccer was, but somehow I knew that soccer is what I wanted.

Soccer was my first love, but no love is easy.  Somewhere along the journey I let soccer become less of my happiness and more of chore.  There was even a long period of time where I forgot why I loved it so much.  I let soccer dictate who I was and in that my love for it was lost.  While soccer was a part of who I was, it was not everything I am.  Like any love you can not let the other change who you are, but I did and it became toxic.

With the help of the people in my life and some reflection, my relationship with soccer was mended.  I figured out who I was without soccer and when that happened I remembered why I loved soccer so much.

Soccer was the first thing that gave me a sense of purpose and it allowed me make amazing friends.  It let me travel the country and taught me life’s toughest lessons.  I still refuse to believe that my senior season has come to an end.  It has barely been a week since my last game, but I couldn’t have asked for a better senior season.  My senior class dedicated so much to this program over our 4 years and we were able to make history by being the first team in program history to make a conference semi final appearance.  I would have loved to go all the way with this team and bring a conference championship home, but we were just shy of making that happen.  This was a special season, with a special group and I love them more than I can put into words.

Soccer, thank you for all you have done for me and for allowing me to love you.  You have readied me to enter into the world and prepared me to face every challenge with my head high.  “Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal” .   You have taught me to aim high and never give up no matter what is placed in front of me.  Thank you again.  This is definitely not a goodbye, just a see you later, because I have learned that something this special will never truly leave you.

Forever yours,

PD