This blog post is a current reflection of my own actions, habits and lifestyle; good and bad.

While looking back at my own health & fitness goals I gotta say, I'm on a pretty good path.  At least much better than I was any of the years before now.  I have found a good routine of maintaining my health & fitness which has taken me years to achieve.  Still... currently I don't seem to be moving forwards and I'm not moving backwards.  I'm comfortable; and being comfortable for me isn't comfortable!

I must admit my biggest hurdle for taking my health & fitness to the next level is drinking.  I LOVE MY MARTINI'S and I'm having an issue cutting back on them.  Hell it's taken me a few years to perfect my martini recipe, why would I waste all that time spent?!?  Ohhh they're so good and if you ever come over I'll make one for ya!  I still have the occasional beer or two but for the most part I try to stay away from them after reading this article (http://foodbabe.com/2013/07/17/the-shocking-ingredients-in-beer/).

Now to be fair to my little liquid friend the martini, he's not the full culprit of this story.  It's the decisions I'll make after having one of two of these suckers, usually leading me into some kind of late night crap food fest. It's a sad snowball effect.  Not to mention all of the other side effects alcohol has to your body that we rarely think or know about.


That all being said, one of my goals is to etch off those last few percentages of body fat, and this liquid heaven isn't helping.  I must say I've made some huge strides over the years.  It used to be that I would have 2-3 beers a night justifying my actions by complaining about the stress of my job or life in general.  It was an easy 'out' and it seemed to work, although I know there are much healthier ways to de-stress!

Now I keep my 'partying' to Friday and Saturday nights.  I'm not saying that I don't sway from that every now and then but it's kind of the deal I've made with myself.  So here's the problem, I'm a numbers guy.  If I'm drinking 2 nights of the week that's nearly a third of my week!  What the hell?!? How come the week seems so long and the weekends so short, yet somehow 2 days is almost a third of my week???  It sure doesn't seem like a third of my week is 'weekend time.'

What's also hard is that I love going out with my friends!  If you know me personally or follow me on Facebook you know we do some really fun and unique things almost every weekend!  The problem is many of these events include or have alcohol and I fall into peer pressure far too easily.  Okay okay I'll admit that I'm sometimes even the instigator!

So here's what I've come up with... I've created this card to help me with my goals.  I figure I can keep my schedule of 2 nights a week 2 drinks per night but that's it!  If I want to go crazy one night, I have to sacrifice a full night.  But the best part of this card (at least for me) is I won't want to cross off all the little martini's.  It's now a game and each time I cross one off I'm losing.   Also by having a visualization of what I could be giving up by having my little martini's, I'm hoping that will be enough to keep me away.  I'll let you know who wins!




I challenge you to this, if you're having problems quitting a habit that is keeping you from your goals do the same.  Track it, learn about it, and then come up with a plan to correct it.  You may not always win but progress is progress no matter how small.  In my example I turned my strength of loving challenges against my weakness the martini.  Do the same yourself.              

I don't have all the answers, I just take it day by day.  I look at the progress my own health & fitness has made over the past years and all I can do is be proud.  I know I'm on the right course and maybe by writing about this it will give me the push I need to do even better.  But in the end everyone has to make their own decisions and choices on what they want and what's important to them.

If you're having similar issues what are they?  And how have you found ways to overcome them?

I wanted to discuss an idea I was introduced to a while back in Darren Hardy's book 'The Compound Effect.'  The entire book was a life changer for me (one of the only books I plan on reading at least once a year) and I wanted to share one particular section that I found really interesting.  That section had to do with our WHY.

The reason WHY you do something can be the deciding factor of whether or not you'll be successful or not. I believe when taking on new challenges most people map out a plan on how to get there; makes sense. Sometimes we get there, sometimes we don't.  If we don't, we often go back to the drawing board and map out a new plan.  We repeat this over and over until we either quit or succeed.

What if we don't succeed?  Are we just not capable of attaining our goals?  Or is the reason we failed because our WHY wasn't strong enough?  I'd like to argue that next time you're feeling down because something didn't go your way, consider changing the reason WHY you're doing something instead of changing your methods.  

Here's an example given to us in the book, I just really wanted to add the visualizations to it :)

If I laid out a 50ft 2x4 wooden board on the ground and asked you to walk across it for $100 would you?  I think most people would say yes, I mean what do you have to lose right?

What if I took that same wooden board and placed it across of two neighboring skyscrapers.  Would you now walk across it?  I'm guessing you'd say 'hell no!'

What if I said you need to walk across it or you would automatically die.  What would you do now?  I'm guessing you'd walk across the board now right?

The point of this example is to illustrate how important your WHY needs to be.  The wooden board and the distance didn't change in any of the examples above.  But the reason for WHY you were walking across it did. Sometimes you said YES and sometimes you said NO. The only difference between you saying YES or NO was the reason WHY you'd be walking across it.

So I challenge you to do this... the next time you're trying to achieve a goal and it isn't quite working out for you; instead of coming up with ways to change how to reach that goal, consider changing your WHY instead.

The great thing about having strong WHY's is that you can have as many of them as you like!  I've found the more the better, and some will be stronger than others.  Also multiple WHY's will help out when other WHY's fail. Wanting 6 packs abs will keep me away from McDonald's in the summer but that WHY may fail in the winter when I'm covered up.  But, if my WHY is to have 6 pack abs, not get cancer, and live as long of a life as possible; I'm pretty much covered for not going to a fast food joint.        

Let's face it, life is tough.  And when life gets tough the thing that separates the people who keep going from the people who quit is their WHY.  Make sure yours is strong and I believe there is nothing that can stop you from achieving any goals you set.

I saw this the other day and I just had to write about it.  They renovated my local grocery store and put this in the middle of the store.  This new 'stay healthy' and 'live well' sign is, I'm assuming, their answer to living healthy?  A huge 'stay healthy' and 'live well' sign above the pills, supplements and other various drugs.  Way to go!  Ah... what I wouldn't give to meet the person who designed this.

Now I believe pills, supplements and drugs have their place in the world of health and nutrition but it seems as though that's the first place we turn to now-a-days.  Have an issue?  Hmm maybe there's a drug that can fix it.  I mean it certainly can't be something you're doing to yourself right?  


We all need to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for our actions, and in many cases our inaction's.  Just because some medical minds have come up with a solution to fixing YOUR problem doesn't mean you should  live like it's okay to continue to make the same mistakes.  And remember, you're not just affecting yourself anymore. Many of the people I see making these mistakes have children, and guess who they're learning from?  Telling your child to not do what you're doing simply doesn't work.  YOU HAVE TO BE THE EXAMPLE.

I want to keep this one short but my point is to take care of yourself and lead by example.  Be the change you want to see in the world, don't just sit back and complain about it.  I'll admit I'm not perfect or anywhere close, but I am trying.  Don't continually band-aid problems, start to look for ways to fix the origin of the problem instead.  I think if we all worked on this a little more we would see a lot of positive change all around us.

I want to start by saying this IS NOT A BLOG ABOUT RECRUITING.  I'm not even going to mention which organization I'm a part of.  Of course that information is not hard to find.  Also this blog wasn't written to debunk any common myths related to Network Marketing.

This blog is about the reasons I joined Network Marketing and why I think more people should seriously consider it.  My hope is that after you read this you'll understand why I decided to pursue this lifestyle and hopefully, become a little more knowledgeable on what Network Marketing COULD do for you.

References
Deaths from 9-11 approx 3,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks)
Deaths from obesity approx. 300,000 (http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/calls/obesity/fact_consequences.html)