In the past 3 years, I cannot tell you the benefits I’ve gained from being able to self coach. I first noticed this in yoga, then my weightlifting, my skiing, and now in nearly every realm of my life. What is self coaching? It can vary. To maybe help lead you to a point of self coaching, I’ll take you along my journey (thus far).

I have a dear friend who is an avid Bikram Yoga practitioner. She convinced me to come along to a few classes and I survived the temperature and humidity to make it through several. After the shock of the first class, I was able to begin listening to the cues of the instructor: what I should be feeling, where I should be feeling, ways to deepen the stretches, hand positioning, etc. By paying attention to these cues, I was eventually able to remember the cues myself and begin making the minute corrections in each pose prior to being ‘cued’. This led to an increased body awareness: which movements and patterns felt good or were difficult, which body parts were the easiest for me to focus on in order to attain the desired outcome, how did my breathing affect the desired outcomes, etc. It dawned on me that this was the mind/body connection I kept hearing about in yoga.

After having this breakthrough realization, I became more cognizant of my mind/body connection while in the gym. I used it to monitor my positioning and muscle engagement during specific exercises, holistically to determine an overall assessment of fatigue/strength/conditioning, my flexibility and specific muscle or joint tightness, and my comfort/progress with specific lifts. I began being able to take these self assessments and use it to determine when I needed additional periods of rest in my life, when I could push harder or further, when I needed to actually get some more sleep/rest/recovery, when I was properly feeding myself, etc. It’s not to say that I’m perfect at it – I still get regular feedback from my coach when there are deficiencies I’m not cognizant of or when my technique can stand improvement. It has helped me identify when it’s appropriate to ask him questions (i.e. “this isn’t a normal feeling for me – am I doing something wrong, etc”).

The honing of this ability led to some of the greatest breakthroughs in my skiing I have ever experienced. Not having to rely on an independent observer to tell me when I’m out of balance or squaring up to my skis, or bracing, etc has allowed me to dramatically improve my own skiing at a much faster rate than having to hear it from someone else, try and remember what that felt like, and then trying to implement a correction.

I’ve realized that no matter how helpful and amazing and insightful a coach is, they will never be as motivated to improve you as you can be (they just don’t have the time and resources for that to be a possibility unless you’re perhaps taking about the extremely professional level such as Tiger Woods or Ted Ligety and even there you KNOW those athletes are self coaching as well because THEY are motivated. They will also never have the sensory input and knowledge about you that YOU have. So start becoming familiar with yourself. your movements, your strengths, your weaknesses, your tendencies and habits, your motivations. Analyze and assess yourself regularly. Provide yourself feedback and make adjustments as a result. Analyze the effects of those adjustments to determine if the self coaching was positive or helpful and refine from there.

The best part of self coaching is that the more you do it, the better you get at it and the easier you can translate it to other realms (such as other sports/activities or across into professional development, non athletic hobbies etc). If you keep striving to better yourself, you’ll always find ways to do it (and people willing to help).

It’s not everyday I take the messages on a fast food bag seriously, but I do take my lessons when and where they happen. Perspective is a valuable thing. The other day I was happily eating my protein rich Chipotle salad after a workout and happened to glance at a quote on the bag:
“Often in life, the most important question we can ask ourselves is: do we really have the problem we think we have?”
-Sheri Fink

The full article on the bag was also quite intriguing however; for purposes of this blog, I’m going to take it my own route. How many times have you stopped yourself from trying something in life because of a perceived problem? One of the prime examples I hear all of the time are the reasons why someone can’t workout or eat healthy: “Because I don’t have enough time, because I work too much, because I’m too busy, because gym memberships are too expensive, because healthy food is too expensive, because I have a bad knee/back/hip…” The list goes on and on. When I hear this, I simply nod and smile. I never try and confront the person to actually problem solve because I know it’s an excuse. There is always a way to overcome (seemingly) impossible hurdles if the desire/motivation is present. Just ask any self made entrepreneur, college student who was told they could never afford or get into a college, or special needs athlete who is actively competing.

I’m guilty of it as well. There are weeks/months when I don’t accomplish the things I’m capable of at work because I don’t want to put in the actual effort that’s required. I (inevitably) have an excuse or ‘problem’ at the ready to explain why I am not achieving what I can. There’s a way to overcome this, and the answer lies on that Chipotle bag. We need to actually analyze our problem and determine if it actually exists or if it’s an excuse that we can easily overcome with proper planning, effort, and prioritization.

If you’re not sure how to start, my favorite analogy is to treat yourself like a child. If a child said they couldn’t do “x” because of “y”, we would simply walk them through all the ways they could overcome “y” in order to achieve “x” or we would present another approach to “x” that makes avoiding “y” completely possible. For example, if a child said: “I don’t do well in science because I don’t have the time to study for all of the tests” we would quickly problem solve with them. Perhaps we would go the route of: “Well, walk me through your day and let’s see where we can gain an extra 20 minutes for you to study” or we might suggest “If doing well in science is a priority, we may need to determine what else we can stand to cut down/out in order to make time for it” or we might find a way to multitask such as “studying for science while you travel to/from your basketball games.”

In all of these cases, that solution to the problem seems simple to us. In fact, it probably seems like a ‘made up’ problem to begin with, or an excuse. I intend to use the Chipotle bag as a reminder to stop making excuses or “problems” and instead to rededicate myself to achieving the things that I value and find important in life. I hope you’ll do the same. Secondarily, I hope this reminds you that inspiration is out there everywhere (and often in the most unexpected of places).

Well, here it is.  It’s 2015 and I’ve gone and created a blog.  Part of me is screaming “You idiot!” and part of me is screaming “Finally!”.  I’ve always been a bit shy and introverted however; I’ve found over the past several years that my inner-extrovert seems to shine through online.  Social media has allowed me to reconnect with friends and family, stay up to date with people who have moved far and near, and has given my hi-jinx an audience.  Turns out: I like it!

It’s been incredibly amazing to see the amount of support, well wishers, and cheerleaders I have in my life (and in others).  Perhaps more surprising has been the number of people who have told me that I’ve inspired them in some way.  I suppose when I break it down, it’s not that surprising.  Not a day goes by where I am not awed or inspired by someone I know to do better, strive for more, push harder, help someone, or try again.

My hope is that this blog will allow me a place to share the things in life I enjoy, the successes I have, the struggles I face, and the tips/tricks and cheats I’ve learned to help keep me sane through it all. A lot of it will be fitness centered, but there will be a whole lot of ‘life stuff’ too (you all know I have too many interests to limit it just to one). Besides, transference of learning is one of the greatest lessons I have (and continually) learned. I hope you enjoy and if you have any suggestions for topics, subjects, or events you want me to cover: please speak up!