Watch Your Language!
This post is not about what goes into your mouth, but what comes out it.
We’re talking words today, folks. Sentences, phrases and automatic verbal spew that we might not even be aware of.
The way we refer to ourselves and the world around us informs our reality and can make our daily grind a demeaning, victimized chore or a vibrant, empowering journey.
Read on and answer the questions below to determine your approach to life:
- Is it about losing weight or gaining strength?
- Are you making yourself smaller or more powerful?
- Do you think you’re fat or are you a work in progress?
- Are you denying yourself food or fueling yourself for optimal mood, energy and workouts?
- Is your vernacular filled with whiny phrases like, “I can’t have dessert because I’m trying to eat clean…” or would you put it more like this: “I’m going to have the salmon—I feel so much better when I eat healthy.”
- Do you ask others how you look to a pathological degree or are you comfortable with those inevitable weight fluctuations, choosing instead to focus on your companion?
- Do you relentlessly and unfavorably compare yourself to models, actresses, friends and people on the street or do you value and celebrate your own personal fitness achievements, knowing that everyone has their own unique metabolisms, body compositions and personal challenges?
- Is it about suffering through or kicking ass?
- Are you constantly feeling knocked down by set-backs or fired up to meet challenges?
- And finally, are you a victim of your fitness routine or are you a committed warrior who understands what a luxury it is to devote yourself to optimal health?
If you identified more strongly with the former lingo examples, I urge you to rephrase your thinking and reshape your personal paradigm. Because you are being mean to yourself, baby.
Know this: embarking on a health and fitness journey is one of the kindest, most responsible and wonderful gifts you can give to yourself, not to mention to your friends and family. Own every sweaty second of it. Figure out a way to embrace it. Reality is not always kind but you get to decide: is life something that happens TO you, or FOR you?
Tweaking the simplest, smallest of habits—mere words—can take you a long way towards health and happiness. You have the choice to be a miserable wretch, and the power shine as brightly as you dare to dream.
Which will you choose?