I’m gonna be totally up front with you today (actually, I always am, you know that, but I feel like I need to emphasize the point today) – I wrote this blogfour separate times over the last week. I’m also going to be totally up front and say that was annoying as hell. I hate it when I write for hours and still can’t quite get to the press publish version.
I drafted and then drafted again. Actually uploaded a piece onto my website and into ConvertKit. Unscheduled both. Wandered around my house distracted and frustrated, thinking about it lying in bed before I fell asleep. And then getting frustrated at that because it’s just a freaking blog.
You know what though? Sometimes, it’s more than that. And many times, the weekly email you read from me is an expression of my purpose, something bigger than me. This idea felt like that.
As usually happens when I know I’m meant to talk about something, it kept coming around in multiple and varied interactions. A meeting with another fitness professional. A conversation during a mastermind group call. A coaching call with a client. Another meeting with an entrepreneur in a totally different industry. Finally, an article. All kinds of different expressions leading to one, big, central tenet:
It starts with you.
Sub-tenet:
Think about why it hasn’t before.
I think I shied away from writing about this because it has such high potential to be misconstrued. If I tell you your life starts and ends with you, your decisions are yours, you come first and always – that could easily be interpreted to mean it’s OK to be a selfish, uncaring, ruggedly individualistic jerk.
Not the case, and don’t get confused.
Understand it to mean you self-reflect early and often in everything you do.
There is no substitute for knowing yourself deeply, for going inside first, and for trusting yourself always.
This is something a lot of us struggle with, in a lot of different areas of our lives. We just get bombarded with so.many.messages. from everywhere and everyone that we don’t ever know what the hell we’re talking about and have no idea what’s best for ourselves. It’s why the big tenet, and the sub-tenet, kept showing up repetitively in all these different iterations for me, just in the last couple weeks – not to mention the last five years with clients. Like…
Business Owner #1: After two hours spent talking about how all the business coaches she’d hired, all the programs she’d went through, all the money she’d spent on them had been a total bust with negative ROI and no results following their formulas, she was still thinking about doing it all over again – even knowing that the one and only thing she ever got out of any of that stuff was to trust herself.
Group call: God is calling you to be exactly who you are, and you only need to listen.
Client call: Life, career, partnership, and family are feeling overwhelming and stuck, and she’s feeling a distinct lack of confidence to find direction with any of them. I asked her what the one main priority was she needed to take a step on that day. Her answer? I just need to take care of me.
Business Owner #2: Caught up and frustrated and overwhelmed by the “requirements” of digital courses and marketing and email sequences and agghhhh! I offered a different perspective that you can actually build a business based on exactly what works for you, taking what feels right, disregarding what doesn’t make sense. Next day? Sends a single email about owning your shit.
Article: Thinking for Oneself.
The article tied it up for me. That’s when I knew this was worth one more, final final draft. (And if you don’t want to read another single word of mine, go check out the article. It literally labels itself a one-minute read.)
Listen, I know starting with yourself can be tough. Going inside is scary as all get-out. There are so many squishy bits in there! Icky!
But every single thing you’re struggling with can, and will, feel even a little bit better if you start with you.
Business? Career? What works for someone else may never work for you, no matter how closely you follow the system. And maybe you don’t even need six figures and a million followers anyway. Why not get clear on your values, your unique talents, your skillset, and connect the dots in a way that makes sense for you and your mission and your market?
Life? Relationships? Someone else’s wants and desires do not have to be yours. Nobody else’s wounds have to be yours either. And the American Dream or whatever other societal or cultural BS seems to put pressure on you? Screw that. Why not get clear on your values, what matters most to you, what’s enough, how you want to feel, and connect the dots in a way that makes you feel like every day is your best day?
Fitness? Body image? Every body is different, and marvelous, and also the least interesting part of each of us. The thin ideal is a patriarchal, racist, hurtful, totally unattainable concept rooted in supremacy culture that completely distracts and detracts from who we are and who we can be in this world. Also, quite simply, good God, if you don’t want to run or do yoga or eat vegan or low carb, then don’t. Why not get clear on your values, how you want to feel in your body, how to listen to it, how to be comfortable in it, how to move in ways that support those things, and connect the dots in a way that makes you appreciate the fact that it’s living?
Sounds like a nice transition, right? Probably also sounds like something you’ve been trying to work on for a while now. I’ll tell you right now, though, I can nearly guarantee you haven’t been doing much work. Not really, anyway.
Because, the squish.
It’s hard to get to know yourself. It’s deep. It’s emotional. It takes time. So much time! Like, forever, actually.
And you cannot find yourself in other people’s books.
But people think you’re weird when you do things differently, when you don’t take the quickest or easiest route though. I get it. I get those shocked looks all the time. Hell, sometimes we think we’re weird when we do things differently or take a lot of time to make decisions, because we’ve been told for so long we all need to hurry up and be the same.
That’s the part where the sub-tenet comes in. Why haven’t you gone inward before? Why have you typically spent time searching for external solutions? What has kept you from self-trust?
Figuring out both those things, though…wow. It’ll change everything. Make every single struggle feel a little easier to get through. And no matter where you start – body, life, or business – starting with you will have these incredible, unexpected, exquisite ripple effects everywhere else. When you begin to choose actions that actually feel like you because you know, like, and trust yourself? Watch your fricking whole life transform.
If you feel like a good starting point for figuring out where and how to start with you might be with fitness and body image? Fitness Unraveled is, well, a great place to start.
It’s guided, it’s collaborative, it’s ridiculously high-touch – yet it’s not a step-by-step formula, it leaves you with extended time and tools for self-reflection, and it will never push you or tell you exactly what to do. This program, nor I, or anyone else in the group, will ever steal your ability to trust yourself. We’ll only foster it. You’ll be able to join the next group starting Tuesday.
If that’s not your starting point, just make it this, anywhere:
Start with you. Uncover and unlearn why you haven’t before. Unleash who you really are and live your life that way.
If you really want to make sure you get one of the eight available spots in FU, start early by signing up for the waitlist right here. You’ll get access to registration on Monday. If your starting point looks a little more like life or business, email me or schedule a call anytime and let’s talk about starting with you.
