Category: motivation

Mood swings can happen because of events and upsets or great things happening to us or to others we care about, ups and downs are part of life. But what about the self-inflicted mood swings?

If you had a few drinks and it got a bit heavy, then today you will suffering “the monday blues” and write everything else off for the day, instead of sweating it out and automatically lifting yourself out of it. Plenty will say “look after you”, but sitting on the settee contemplating too much is not looking after yourself, getting some fresh air, and moving your body is much more like it.

If you try to “cure” irritability, feeling low with food from takeaways/convenience stores, then that may indeed give you a sugar lift for 30 mins, but ultimately pushes you into a slump of sometime epic proportions for the rest of the day.

Continue that for days, weeks and months and it’s no wonder you will get depressed from all the weight you have put on, all the stress that is now on your joints and accompanying pain. You find yourself in a hole that seems very hard to get out of, physically and emotionally.

As a society, we are told we must do these things regularly and often to excess, to make us more “fun” when the reality is those closest to us have to pick up the emotional pieces, when we find ourselves at our lowest ebb.

Drinking too much and eating too much all the time leads often to “fake moments of happiness” which we do just to please other people just to look as if we are having “fun”.

Be yourself, take care of yourself really and properly, take care of your body and your mind, get some fresh air, get a decent workout, eat well and healthy, have a treat now and again and get the balance right in your life-now THAT would really be fun and keeps you much happier and fulfilled when NOBODY else is looking and you don’t have to please anyone else, which is your most important time.

Exceptional people are few and far between, but training with or next to exceptional people can be contagious, and turn around your own habits to take you from a trainer/exerciser who trains and now and again, sometimes hard sessions sometimes easy, into an “all in” trainer yourself that people not only look up to, but want to train with often.

I believe we are blessed with many exceptional athletes at the gym of all ages. They didn’t start like that though, they became like that because of repetition, showing up when often they didn’t even want to.

They wanted to learn new skills, and with it came resilience, grit and quicker and faster recovery from sessions. 

This became a way of life after a long period of grinding it out, and also the mindset of never quitting even when they have bad days in their personal and work lives, the grind continues no matter what.

This leads to a body of work that they can be proud of, high levels of performance become the norm and making sure they get the right fuel in every day becomes something they do without thinking about it.

This is in no way obsession with exercise, this is a state of mind physically and mentally that becomes so good that you want to maintain it, and keep improving on not because nothing feels so good and life never looks better, when your awareness is that good, your alertness and motivation hits new highs and the past lifestyle you may have had in the past of eating poorly, drinking a little too often, and no exercise is a very unattractive option to return to.

We are all getting better by the efforts we put in or falling off because of the lack of effort we have succumbed to and somehow call that “normal”. All a choice and your decisions always start fresh again tomorrow.

There are some incredible trainers with us at the gym, some bust their gut each and every day, and I am always full of admiration.

They have in their heads their personal bests, and it maybe weeks until they beat them, but they get their eventually.NO MATTER WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR LIVES-no complaints, no excuses, never looking for anyone to feel sorry for them.

They don’t wait until the world is just right for them, they don’t wait until they have a perfect night’s sleep, they don’t wait until they have no problems, they don’t wait until they “get their mojo” back, they long ago decided that enough was enough, if it was to be, then it was down to them, and that’s it;We can set the environment up perfectly, world class equipment, a great positive and encouraging atmosphere, we can urge you to be your best and believe in yourself, but ultimately you have to step forward and take your chance.

You encourage your kids, grandkids to have a go and do their best, but maybe its time for you to re-discover what YOU are really capable of again, and maybe it’s YOU that should stop making the excuses you used to hate others making in the past.

Life only gets better when you take action, have a go and get your confidence and self-belief going again-TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY and do yourself proud.

Who has been told we can’t do something before in their life?Who has been written off and been told you could “never do that”, “no chance”, “grow old gracefully”, “what would so and so say”?!!!!

Two things then happen;a. We go back in our shells and “know our place”orb. We quietly go back to working hard, getting a bit more out of ourselves, hit the gym more, eat a little better, get to bed earlier because tomorrow is another chance to prove those doubters/dream crushers wrong.

You can see mindset is everythng, our minds and confidence levels can literally collapse or soar to new heights, there’s usually not in between.Our “collapse” phase can last a day or a couple of years or more and feel its ruined our lives, to at least had a major detrimental impact. Down times can lead to a deep rut in our lives.

Our “soar” phase can lead to unexpected new highs, not through luck but through pure hard work, perseverance, and consistency when the chips often seemed way down, we surprised many others and perhaps most of all ourselves.

The fight required to get out of that dismissal by others can be monumental, but we are ALL capable of it.

Use all of that negativity and those who dismiss you as fuel to the fire you have been building up inside and which is absolutely necessary to achieve anything worthwhile in life.We all will have criticism. name calling and a lot of negativity at times thrown at us, its how we handle it that makes our now and future so much more positive and exciting.