Every day we have experiences that are in some big or small way different than those we have previously encountered. We are not just spectators to those experiences. We thought, felt, and acted (or didn’t act) during them.

Often we are not cognitive of what happened, so we miss out on the benefits of those experiences. If we don’t notice what happened, we can’t learn from them and miss opportunities to improve and grow.

What is Self-Reflection?

Self-reflection is a powerful improvement tool. Reflection is the ability to think back, observe ourselves in action, and to learn from it.

Typically I have this deep moment of self-flection when I feel things didn’t go as planned while coaching a class, having a private lesson with a client or a member, for example, is upset at the front desk, or someone seems confused and asks a lot of questions about something that I just explained at the whiteboard. I find myself thinking about what I did, what I thought, and felt at the time.

How to Self-Reflect

Questions you can ask yourself:

What did I experience during the conversation?

What happened inside me during the conversation?

For example, when someone has a million questions after I explain the Workout of the day at the whiteboard, if I reflect on the situation leading up to these questions, I might realize that it is maybe NOT that the member wasn’t paying attention to my presentation, it is that I did not spend enough time at the board or that I didn’t do a great job explaining what we are doing that day.

When I taught my first class, I remember having lots of questions the minute before starting the workout. To my thinking, the workout is written on the board, I went over the movements, what could I have possibly missed? SO MUCH! Every week, I eliminated little by little all the questions I would receive immediately after. Having the ability to look back and observe where and what you missed is vital. Even when you think you taught a great class, there is always more room for improvement, and always keep an open mind and never stop asking for feedback.

Self-Improvement: Applying What You Learned

Now follow up by reflecting on what you learned. Analyze your experience and compare to the models or principles that you want to follow. And last, you want to apply what you learned to your practice. Also, consider what options you have for the next time you face a similar situation.

We must learn from all our experiences, not just when we receive feedback.

Also Check Out…

The Power of Imagery
How to Use “Noting” in Meditation & Workouts
Failure is Fertilizer

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When I was in second grade, my teacher read us a book called, “Miss Nelson is Missing”. The book begins with the children in Miss Nelson’s class being little brats. They take for granted her kindness. Then one day Miss Nelson is missing, and the class’s new substitute, Viola Swamp, shows up and loads the kids with work and homework and takes away their story hour. When Miss Nelson returns, the children are so happy to see her that they behave well. They learn that they have it pretty good with Miss Nelson.

A week after reading this book, for a single day, my teacher called in sick and was replaced by a teacher dressed like a witch. She treated us very poorly. She gave us time limits on each assigned task. The tasks were way harder than anything that we had learned that school year – multiplication, cursive, some other terrible crap for 8-year olds. As I sat at my desk determined to do my best, I looked around and noticed that some of the other kids started crying and quit. Then the substitute-witch would take them outside, and a minute later they would come in holding back a smile.

I lasted the whole day without breaking, but inside I wanted to start crying and quit, too. Right before the bell rang, the teacher told us the scenario – that she was another 2nd grade teacher from next door dressed as a witch. Then our regular teacher came in, also dressed as a witch because she did the same thing to another poor class. The teachers thought it was hilarious. I remember the kids looking around like we had been hoodwinked. Even though I “lasted” and fought through until the end, I was wrecked from the stress.

How does this relate to your fitness journey? I’ll tell ya. Don’t treat YOUR body how our teacher treated our fragile little psyches. Our witch-like substitute gave us too much work at a level too high and it broke us all whether we quit, or not. Your body is breakable. So is your mind. Learn your limits and work to progressively and intelligently push them onwards. If you push too hard, too fast (like the witch pushed us poor little kids), your body and mind can break or burn-out, or both.

Many of us in the fitness world pursue health, wealth, and personal meaning. This journey that we are all on is, hopefully, a long one. My goal is to move as well or better when I am 70+ than I do now (without robot-gadget-attached-limbs, bio-synthetic soft tissues, or a full-on body replacement – who knows what will be possible in the coming decades). I wish the same for you. Like the children in the Miss Nelson story who took her kindness for granted, I strongly urge you to not take your body’s current ability and level of wellness for granted and push yourself too far beyond your capabilities. You only get one body and one mind. Make them last. Cherish your health!

The post “Miss Nelson is Missing” & Your Fitness Journey appeared first on Invictus Fitness.

Imagine this: you’re at the gym taking a group class. You’re preparing to do a long workout consisting of rowing, kettlebell swings, burpees, and box jumps. You’ve got all of your equipment set up everyone is headed to a rower to begin. Your coach heads towards the front of the room to set the timer and turn on some music. As you see them scrolling through Pandora stations, you pray for your favorite one. Take a moment and consider the question, “what is your favorite type of music to work out to?” And does the type change depending on the task at hand, the length of the workout, the time of day?

But more importantly, what if the above hypothetical ended in Coach playing nothing at all? With only the whirr of the rowing machines, and the breathing of you and your classmates to make up the surrounding soundscape – would you go absolutely bonkers?

As a coach, I find myself in the position of class DJ a lot. Sometimes as I’m heading up to turn on some music, a member will say something like “put on something good!” In this context I presume good to mean “high BPM,” but what if I put on some classical or ambient trans? Would I see a considerable drop-off in performance, and if so, why?

Why are some of us so reliant on music to work out? I think most would say that it provides us with some motivation – good songs make us want to bop our heads and that inherent impulse to move proves useful during exercise. Others might say that it provides a distraction – we can settle into a good song instead of thinking of the pain we’re experiencing mid-WOD.

As I was writing this, I learned that Invictus Downtown manager and coach, Kim McLaughlin, did her Master’s thesis on this very subject. Her results? Music provided no significant boost in performance during high-intensity interval training. As she put it, “basically, people are moving too quickly and intensely to really be hearing the music.”

So if the music is blasting and you aren’t really hearing it, then what does it provide? I posit that the loud music provides a sympathetic nervous system response – think fight or flight – which prepares and sort of scares us at a biological level to get some work done. BUT I think that relying on this for motivation doesn’t set us up well for applying our fitness in any arena other than a tightly controlled class environment where we can blast our favorite tunes. Additionally, I’d say that it can take us out of the moment, causing us to lose our focus on our breathing or our movement.

Personally, I listen to music when I work out, but it’s not always the typical rap or EDM that often gets played in class. I find I’m able to keep my heart rate, breathing, and mind under control if the tempo of my music is slower. I’ll listen to some instrumental chillwave, ambient electronica, or even some of Philip Glass’ more epic tracks (yes, that’s a modern classical composer).

A challenge: Try out some songs with lower beats per minute than you typically would during your next workout and see if it changes your mindset or approach. If it’s the case that you hate it and crave the energy of your usual tracks, could that mean that your levels of intrinsic motivation are low? Is that okay for a day? Sure it is, but I have heard more than one elite CrossFitter interviewed on the subject (OG Josh Everett, and Josh Bridges) to learn that they don’t listen to music because they “don’t need it.” Maybe one day, we’ll all get to that level, but for now, slow down your BPM and you’ll hopefully see a boost in your concentration, movement quality, and mental toughness.

The post Do You Need Music to Workout? appeared first on Invictus Fitness.

I fully believe that the lessons we learn in sport— even the lessons we learn in the gym on a day to day basis— are applicable to life on a much larger scale. Competing in CrossFit, both as an individual and on a team, has taught me several transferable skills that I will be able to take with me through the rest of my life endeavors that go beyond fitness.

I have seen the microcosm of human emotion that is the competition floor bring out the very best and the very worst in people. I have seen it highlight my own best qualities, and put my weaknesses on display for the world to see. And in those moments, specifically in those low moments, I have been forced to evolve as a person. After competing is this sport for six seasons now, I can safely say that I have learned the most when things went the worst.

Here is one of those lessons…

You have the most opportunity to grow from the things you suck the most at.

This lesson was hammered into my being at the 2015 California Regionals, I was 19-years-old and this was the very first time I was competing on a large stage as an individual. There were two workouts, in particular, that year that I was dreading more than the rest, and they both happened to fall on the final day of competition. Event 6 had strict handstand push-ups, and Event 7 had muscle-ups. Now, let’s just say I was by no means sitting in a qualifying spot by day 3 of competition, but I was in a solid position to not get last place.

Event 6 rolled around on that Sunday of competition, and I managed to squeak out 2 rounds of the 5 round workout before hitting the time cap. I spent the majority of the 16-minute event failing single rep after rep on the strict handstand push-ups. I knew that I didn’t have great capacity when it came to strict handstand push-ups, but there was a part of me that hoped the fitness gods would bestow me with a newfound strength come competition day. Maybe adrenaline would magically improve my pressing abilities that I had avoided practicing up until that point. To my dismay, this was not the case.

To add salt into the fresh wound from the morning event, Event 7 was a clean ladder with a 15 muscle-up buy-in and a 6-minute time cap. All I saw when I looked at that workout was 15 muscle-ups. Looming over my head through the entire competition were those 15 MUSCLE-UPS. The cherry-on-top of my not so spectacular performance.

As I had suspected, after the initial 10 reps, I ran headfirst into a cement wall. I hit complete failure. Half of the time I was unable to lockout my dips, and the other half of the time I couldn’t even get on top of the rings.

Everyone in my heat moved onto the cleans, and I was stuck staring up at the rings. There is nothing quite like being in an arena filled with people watching you fail over and over again to make you want to melt into the floor and disappear. At the end of the day, none of those people cared, let alone had any idea who I was — but I was mortified. Those were six of the longest minutes of my life. I remember at one point scanning the floor for an exit so I could end my misery early. I was choking back tears. After what felt like an eternity, the time cap finally hit and I ran off the floor as quickly as I could. I headed straight for the portable bathrooms, sat on the floor dirty floor and sobbed.

Upon reflecting on the event, I knew that I had two choices:

1) Give up competing so I never had to endure that humiliation again, or…

2) Acknowledge the things that I struggled with and strive towards improving in those areas.

Though it was the more vulnerable decision to admit my weaknesses, and the more strenuous decision to work towards improving my deficiencies — I chose to persist. Through becoming better at swinging on rings and banging my head into the floor repeatedly, I learned some very valuable “bigger picture” lessons.

Though the many, many…many, many, EMOMs I learned the value of hard work.

• Though the literal blood, sweat, and tears, I learned that I had the most opportunity to become the best version of myself when I chose to tackle my weaknesses head-on, instead of avoiding them.
• I learned that I could survive enduring my most humiliating nightmare, and come out better for it on the other side.
• I learned to be grateful for my failure.

Fast-forward to now, strict handstand push-ups are one of my favorite movements — I actually had my highest placement ever this year on 19.3, when strict handstand push-ups showed up for the very first time in the Open.

Through my struggles with muscle-ups (aka struggle-ups) I have grown to love teaching them more than any other movement. I spent hours researching gymnastics drills, and watching countless videos when I was trying to improve my muscle-ups, which consequently taught me a lot of information that I have now been able to pass on to others.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am kind of like the Thomas Edison on muscle-ups— “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And with that, I learned how much I enjoy helping other people reach their goals and succeed.

In conclusion, the point of this story is, first, that experiencing failure helped me become a better CrossFit athlete and coach — but beyond that, learning to persist through a setback is something that will carry me through life outside of the gym. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to learn these valuable lessons through competition and challenge everyone to find their own life parallels between what they do in the gym and what they are then able to take with them beyond those walls.

*Also as a coach, my biggest piece of advice if you have a particular movement that you struggle with is to put that movement in an EMOM. It can be as simple as a 10 Minute EMOM of 1 muscle-up on the minute. And then gradually increase the reps as you become more confident in your capacity. Eventually, you can put that movement into a 20 Minute EMOM, alternating between the movement you are practicing on one minute, paired with a conditioning piece like running/rowing/biking/burpees on the opposite minute. This will allow you to accumulate volume while also practicing the movement under fatigue, which better simulates how it will feel in an actual workout. EMOMs are my favorite way to accumulate volume in a lower pressure format, which also allows you to become more confident in that movement.

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July 3, 2018.

That date will forever be ingrained in my memory because that is the day my dad lost his battle with brain cancer. When he passed, I felt a part of me died as well. My dad was not a perfect dad. He drank too much sometimes, had financial stresses, had very little patience, and struggled with anxiety and depression.

He did two things incredibly well though. He loved my mom unconditionally, and he believed in me and my siblings wholeheartedly. I grew up knowing what true love was because I saw it every day. I saw how they helped each other out and gap filled the other one’s shortcomings. His belief in me has enabled me to always believe everything was going to be okay.

I remember a specific instance where I had a hole in the bottom of my shoe from playing kickball. I asked my dad if I could get some new shoes. I can remember them to this day, they were some black and grey airwalk shoes from Payless. I thought they were the coolest shoes. Little did I know what Payless was. My parents made me feel like they were an amazing pair of kicks. My dad told me that he couldn’t afford shoes at the moment, but he walked me to the garage where he repaired the shoes at the workbench with cardboard and duct tape. He said that he was sorry that he couldn’t afford to get me some new shoes but that he hoped they felt better and didn’t hurt my feet anymore. I remember being so happy about this moment.

Seeing how my dad was always able to make what seemed like monumental challenges into bite-size chunks made me really admire him. He always did the little things. I remember running football routes with my brother and my dad was the quarterback. My brother was always bigger, faster, and stronger than me and I would always get frustrated that I couldn’t get open against him. My dad would tell me the truth. He would say “figure it out.” If you run better routes and have cleaner lines, you can take better angles to outsmart him. I gradually applied this knowledge and started getting a few more completions. And then as I got older, I acquired the size and skill necessary to win.

The secret is in the little things he would say. It was always the small daily habits. How you spend your mornings. How you talk to yourself. What you read. What you watch. Who you share your energy with. Who has access to you. He ingrained good habits into us at a young age, but more importantly, he lived them. He would wake up at 6 am each morning and get ready for work. He would wake us up for school and leave vitamins for us. He then defrosted meat for dinner that night and went to work while my mom took over the children duties, made our lunches, and took us to school. He would then pick us up from school after basketball practice. Right when he got home, he would change out of his business clothes, and go workout in the garage. After working out, he would play with us in the yard while grilling the meat and my mom would prepare the veggies and rice or potatoes. This is where the competition grew. He didn’t let us win. He roughhoused with us, he talked smack with us, and he truly believed we could “get it done” in whatever aspect of life we chose.

My brother went on to become a doctor and I went on to become a high-level basketball player. The recruiting process was hard on me and my family. So much travel to play in tournaments and gain exposure all while trying to get good grades, be a kid, and still evolve as a high character human being. My dad took me to every single game and was with me through the good games at the bad. He was with me during the late-night running hills, running stairs, getting shots up, working on my dribbling skills, doing push-ups, and in constant pursuit of excellence. He was there when coaches would make massive promises and then under deliver. He was there when coaches would offer scholarships and then retract them after a bad performance. He taught me the value of hard work and attention to detail. But most importantly, he taught me to never get too high and never get too low. He always taught us to keep our head high and maintain strength through adversity. Through it all, the ups, the downs, and everything in between, he always believed in me.

This belief was something that always gave me strength no matter where I was in the world. When I played college basketball, played professional basketball overseas, or began my CrossFit career, I always had his support. I always believed I had an anchor who would tell me the truth without sugar coating. Even when he was battling cancer, I would call him to ask how he was doing, and he would always ask how me, Invictus, and clients were doing. That was all lost on July 3, 2018. The valuable lessons, the character, the special memories, the love, and the challenging moments will always remain, but somewhere I felt like I lost my anchor.

When that anchor was lost, I felt like I had to whole-heartedly serve the world with everything I had just like he always did. In doing so, I lost my way. I developed some of the same anxiety and depression that he dealt with later in his life. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe it’s caused by circumstance as I am by no means a mental health expert. But for many months I have felt lost. I have been searching for an anchor. I have been in search of someone to tell me the truth and help guide me in the right direction. I have been searching and searching for more and more. Come to find out, the magic isn’t in what you gain, it isn’t in what you lose, but in what you let go of.

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. My name is Bryce Smith and I am a strength and conditioning specialist turned entrepreneur who vows to make a life of helping others.

But before helping others, I have to help me. Sharing part of my story is me saying that the secret towards enlightenment is emotional vulnerability. By sharing your story to others, you allow people to resonate with similar challenges and it creates a safe space. You by no means have to do this, but I have seen lots of success with myself and others by embracing this vulnerable spirituality. By learning to let go of things, thoughts, and habits that no longer serve you, you make room for the things that are actually meant for you or you carry a lighter pack which is also very cool.

So far in my journey, I have learned a lot about empathy, compassion, and mental challenges people face, but more importantly, I’ve learned that just because you are letting go of the things not meant for you, you can still hold on to the things that are.

I truly believe there is power in emotional vulnerability and that the future of optimizing overall wellness is storytelling. With the growth of podcasts and hearing the many stories shared in a public forum, I think it can help create positive growth for the world. If you would like to share your battle with loss, letting go, challenges with anxiety, depression, or simply want to share parts of your story, feel free to email me at bryce@crossfitinvictus.com. Hopefully, this is the start of something special that can help impact the world in an innovative way.

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For many of us, change can be uncomfortable. Meaningful change may translate to being uncomfortable for a long time before the benefits are noticeable.

Lobsters & Personal Growth

I love the use of lobsters to explain personal growth (analogy from Dr. Abraham Twerski). To lobsters, the stimulus for growth is “discomfort”. A lobster’s shell is a fixed size. When they grow too large for their shell, they experience discomfort, crawl under a rock, shed their old shell, and grow a new, larger shell for them to grow into over time. Once again, the stimulus for growth is discomfort. We must also experience discomfort to grow, both physically AND psychologically.

Adaptation is the response our bodies and minds produce to stress and is (ideally) proportional in magnitude to the adversity experienced. For a physical example, run an all-out 5k and your body will adapt to better support similar future stressors by modifying muscle fiber type and increasing mitochondrial density, and with long-term frequent similar stressors, we may also adapt neuromuscularly through improved running efficiency. Ideally, these adaptations allow the body to undergo similar stress in the near future with more ease OR undergo MORE stress with similar discomfort to the initial 5k. To sum it up, after stressing the body, if we adapt to that stress well, we become stronger and more capable.

Adaptation is not only important for physical progress. Psychological growth can also occur. No matter how “good” we are at tackling our current schedule, challenges, relationships, work, personal circumstances, etc., life will constantly and unexpectedly surprise us. When that happens, we rely on our trained responses to help us cope. If we do not have consciously trained strategies, then we may rely on what has worked in the past, which could be beneficial OR detrimental depending on those past habits.

For example, if you have had trouble in the past when big life changes occur, then the best time to train for change is when things are going well for you. That way, you can lay the groundwork of mindset strategies and drive the psychological adaptations before life hits you.

My first experiences as a coach for Invictus were very uncomfortable. The nerves the night before my first coaching “auditions” were intense. Even after getting control of my mind, my motility had other plans (craps were not the best). In subsequent weeks, the newness of learning everything involved in this large and growing gym has been overwhelming. Immersing myself in the Invictus culture, running Invictus’ unique dual-track classes, and learning hundreds of new names, faces, movement habits, and the personalities of each member has been an amazing and stressful endeavor. I have had to constantly adapt and grow since arriving here. Below, I outline two simple (but NOT easy) activities that have helped me and may also help you prepare for the next time life hits you with adversity:

One: Mindfulness

The positive benefits of meditation have been discussed in the Invictus blog before. Mindfulness simply means being aware of THIS moment, right now, here, where you currently are. Begin by sitting quietly and bring your attention to notice your thoughts and breath. Research tells us that even a few minutes each day of this practice can be beneficial! Try not to judge your thoughts. Instead, simply observe them as they pass by. Once you become aware of your current thoughts and surroundings, then you can learn to experience them without judgment, letting them flow through you without bumping into you.

Two: Self Talk

We all have “self-talk” occurring. Constantly. Stop reading right now and listen to your self-talk. It’s there. Through mindfulness, we can learn to notice these conversations. Once we notice the conversation, we can begin to steer, shape, and eventually, eliminate the chatter.

For example, when meeting someone new, if we have trouble remembering people’s names, we may be inwardly focused, with internal dialogues around insecurities. It is difficult to be open and vulnerable in a new situation when we are inwardly focused. The inner dialogue here may swirl around thoughts of “I hope I don’t look stupid”, “Is there something on my face”, “Do I smell bad”, “do my clothes match”. At least these are my thoughts. Perhaps you have your own.
This is ALL self-talk whether we are aware of it, or not.

Mindfulness can help us become aware of the thoughts we have. THEN, we can begin to inject positive self-talk to influence our feelings and behaviors. We can also use self-talk to redirect negative thinking. And over many years of practice, we can even learn to silence that monkey mind chatter for bouts of time.

Back to the example of meeting someone new, when we hear the inwardly focused insecure self-talk, we can then inject our own positive self-talk. Thoughts like “repeat their name”, “look them in the eye”, “associate their name”, and other strategies may help us focus on them and learning their name, taking our focus off of ourselves and placing it on the situation to facilitate success.

Practicing these simple (again, NOT easy) strategies and learning to apply them to increasingly difficult life situations can provide us with enough grit when times get tough to weather any storm that the world or our own minds hurl our way. Interested in learning more about the Invictus Mindset? We have an e-book for that!

The post Mindset: Adapting to Change appeared first on Invictus Fitness.

Competing in the sport of gymnastics and coaching my athletes now, the use of imagery (visualization) plays a big role in what I do – every day in training and before every routine in competition or even before a single Olympic lift. This is one of the most widely used mental skills and also one of the most fun! However, just knowing that most gymnasts or CrossFitters use imagery does not help you get better. Here’s how to do it for yourself!

What is Imagery?

Imagery is creating or recreating an experience in your mind & the end goal. It is similar to daydreaming or having a nightmare, but your imagery is more controllable than either of those. If you have ever thought about and pictured a routine that you completed, meeting, a skill, or even just a talk at the whiteboard (explaining the workout) when you huddle in all your athletes – you were probably beginning to use imagery.

However, what happens if you keep imagining all the possible things that can go wrong in your mind? What sort of end would you have?

Guiding Your Imagery for Positivity & Control

To attain whatever lofty goals you have set up for yourself, you need to practice positive imagery. Always consider how much control you have over your imagery. You want to be able to control everything that you do. If you find that you just see images, but you can’t change how you are performing, your imagery will be as effective. Overall, the more control you have over the images in your mind, the more you can use imagery to your advantage. Keep practicing, you’ll get better at this!

Tips for Practicing Imagery

1. Use both internal and external perspective
2. Experience all of your senses very clearly (what does that look, feel, smell, taste like?)
3. Control all of your images when performing a skill

Once you are able to complete these three things, you can begin using imagery to help you improve more complex skills or imagine yourself doing multiple skills back to back. You can even use it outside of the gym to prepare for an interview, speech, first date…anything!

As with learning anything, break this down into pieces. Pick one of the tips to really focus on and practice each time until you see improvement then add in another piece. You should see gains pretty quickly because of the focused practice but also, just the awareness alone helps and you’ll be testing out different skills to see how you can ultimately gain complete control of your imagery.

Give it a try by setting aside 5 minutes a day to practice for starters and let us know if you have any questions or your own tips!

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Control the Controllable
Written By Bryce Smith

It is not the situation but how you respond to it that makes the difference.

While you cannot always control what happens, you can always control how you respond to it [1]. Being a taller athlete in the sport of CrossFit, this is sometimes a very challenging concept for me to apply. I cannot control my height and the distance I must travel to complete repetitions and so I train my mind and body each day to be as efficient as possible and fight the urge to become frustrated by my size in a small man’s sport. If I allow this concept to frustrate or anger me, it is like holding onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; I would be the only one to get burned. Keep this lesson filed away as you continue to read this blog.

Through observation in life, I have come to realize that too often people play the blame game. Successful people and successful athletes take responsibilities for their actions. We as humans are lucky in that we always have the power to choose. How we look at an event is going to affect how we feel and how we perform [1]. Leading up to Regionals, there was a workout released that had strict handstand push-ups. Well, being six feet, four inches, and two-hundred and twenty pounds, I was not too excited about that event. I could stress about it, or I could challenge myself to improve at that movement and understand that I may not be the fastest or strongest, but that I would give my full effort leading to full victory. I ended up completing those handstand push-ups in a timely manner and we qualified – in the face of adversity – for the CrossFit Games. Successful people take responsibility for themselves and their game. Stan Musial summarized this concept with a baseball analogy in a nutshell, “When a pitcher throws a spitball, don’t worry. Don’t complain. Just hit the dry side like I do. [1]”

This leads me to another short story about a friend of mine who was working at the time as an assistant college basketball coach. He had been there for six years and was absolutely killing it. He had earned the respect of the entire staff for his hard work and dedication to his craft. That summer, the head basketball coach was relieved of his duties and a big name coach took control. My friend was so excited for the upcoming future of the team and so he put together a video compilation of potential recruits for the university. Later that summer, he got a call from the head coach to come in for a meeting. All excited, with a pep in his step, my friend headed on over to the head coach’s office ready to get a nice pat on his back after his awesome video compilation. He gets to the office and the coach begins praising him for his hard work. He mentions how the coaching staff loved him, and the players really appreciated his coaching style, but that he was going to be relieved of his duties. My friend was shocked and stunned in silence. The smile completely fell off of his face and his fists clinched. He later called me and told me that his initial mindset was to jump across the desk and deliver a “This is Sparta,” now referred to as a Holly Holm kick to his ex boss’s face. He caught himself and remembered some of the lessons he had taught his former players. The most important one being that you can’t always control the situation, but you can always control how you respond to it. He decided to take a deep breath and stand from his chair and say, “I think I can help you and the team, but I understand and wish you the best of luck.”

He left that job with his head held high although at that moment, it wasn’t easy to. This story reminds me of that Invictus Poem where William Ernest Henley writes, “Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.” No matter what obstacles may be thrown our way, we are always the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul.

Sources

1) Mack, Gary, and David Casstevens. Mind Gym: An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence. New York: Contemporary, 2001. Print.

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You’ve likely heard this before. “They” say that the most successful people create mini-successes for themselves early in the day – making the bed and flossing are the two that are frequently mentioned. Do those every day and you’ve already had two successes to get you rolling!

But at the end of the day, who really looks back at what they accomplished and says, “I made my bed this morning!” I know I never have, even though I complete that act every morning. I will agree that making the bed does have its benefits – it encourages me to keep the rest of my room clean (I’m a known “non-clothes folder”), for one. And it probably does lead to other good habits but I’m just not able to actually see those.

Actions like this are called “keystone habits”, habits that set off a chain reaction that extends to all aspects of a person’s life. Some habits, in other words, matter more than others and they can influence how people work, eat, play, live, spend and communicate. Keystone habits start a process that, over time, transforms everything because other habits follow suit. (Duhigg)

Though keystone habits may exist in a myriad of forms and may be different for different people, certain habits tend to act as keystone habits across the board. Exercising is certainly one of these (Duhigg). And eating as a family, and doing things like making your bed every morning (Duhigg) have also been shown to be highly correlated with other good habits.

But for me – and even though I do it every day – making the bed is not meaningful enough of a habit to look back upon and celebrate. So I’ve chosen three, keystone habits of my own and I do my best to complete these each and every day. I have over a 90% completion rate with these and I DO feel accomplished – and like I want to complete more positive actions in my life – at the end of the day.

Here are my keystone habits – the things I celebrate accomplishing every day. The actions that lead me to want to create more positive habits in my life:

1) Read the news upon waking each day.
I’m not super into politics but I do like to know what people around me are talking about, what’s happening in the world, and what is happening in the CrossFit realm. Taking fifteen to thirty minutes each morning to catch up while I have my coffee keeps me in the loop and helps me set some actions and intentions for the day. It also frequently gives me ideas for things to investigate and write about for my job.

2) Eat a salad for lunch every day.
No matter what else I put (or don’t put) into my body each day, at least I ate that huge salad! Besides giving me a boost of nutrients and fiber, I physically feel good after eating it. I feel nourished, satisfied and light. Doing this not only encourages me to eat other healthy meals throughout the day (for that same feeling), it also requires me to keep the fridge stocked with a variety of vegetables and fruits. And since I don’t like wasting food, they ALL get eaten throughout the week.

3) Practice something that I’m learning.
This could be anything and right now it is my Ukulele. But in the past, it has been speaking in Spanish with someone or reading about something I’m interested in (not just a novel but something substantive like ‘how to create habits’). Besides the obvious benefit of gained knowledge, I also find that it gets my creative juices flowing for other projects and gives me a short break from whatever I’m doing, especially if I’ve ‘hit a wall’ either physically or mentally. Also, I’m probably less likely to get Alzheimer’s because of this habit. Studies show that continuing to learn and engage your brain throughout life gives you “cognitive reserve” that can ward off this – and other – diseases of the mind.

To me, those are meaningful, keystone habits. I do them, I can see their benefits immediately, and I can also see how they impact my life in other areas – keeping me on the path that I want to be on.

So yes, my bed is made and my room is tidy but who really cares? I’m doing something more meaningful! What are your meaningful keystone habits? What are your favorite salad combinations? Comment below to share your ideas!

Resources:
Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business.February 2012.

The post Using Keystone Habits to Create Success appeared first on Invictus Fitness.

While listening to two of my favorite podcasts I came across a couple of quotes that really resonated with me. The first of the two quotes was, “Do things that make you forget to eat and poop.” Kind of creates an interesting image in your mind, right? All jokes aside, this quote really did get me thinking. How are we spending our time, is it benefitting us, and are we truly invested in the things we’re doing? This then ties into the second quote I came across which was, “If you’re not saying ‘HELL YES’ about something, then you should be saying ‘No’”.

I’m sure all of us have been involved in something at some point in our lives where we get so excited about what we’re doing, or so focused on what we’re doing that hours go by until we realize ‘oh shoot I’m starving’. If you haven’t been here, keep reading because this post is definitely for you.

These two quotes fall into the same category. Establishing our why. Why are we investing our precious time in certain areas of life? There are millions of options out there for us, are the things we’re investing this time so important that we’re forgetting to eat (Ok, this might be a little dramatic but you get the point behind it)? Or, are we just mindlessly moving through our day never really establishing a purpose for what we’re doing?

Deep, I know. Let’s lighten it up just a little bit by tying this seemingly overwhelming topic into our fitness goals.

We all come to the gym to be in shape, to be healthy, and even to look good naked. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we as coaches want to know what’s the true why behind everyone’s story? We’ve all got our own paths, and everyone has their own reasons for where they’re at, but in order to get a better understanding of the individual and their true needs, it’s essential for us as coaches/friends/mentors to know the true root of it all.

Here’s an awesome example…we had a prospective member come in the other day to talk with our staff. He told us his story of how his back had been a mess for years, painful to the point where the most minute tasks ticked it off. Fast forward to when he has a baby boy and thusly insert his new ‘why’. He signed up for a membership on the spot. This individual wanted to make sure that he could be the best dad possible. He wanted to make sure he can always lift up and hold his son. He wanted to make sure that nothing health related would ever get in the way of that. A ‘why’ like that puts him in the ‘HELL YES’ category. He’s now fully invested because he’s saying ‘HELL YES’ to the reason for changing his life.

Do the things that you’re prioritizing your life fall into the HELL YES category for you? Or are they just things you’ve fallen into with little true purpose behind them? Regardless of your answer, I’d encourage you to evaluate your reasons behind whatever endeavors you partake in. Whether it be fitness related, work related, or just life related, I hope these two quotes will resonate with some of you as they did with me.

If you’re struggling to develop or determine a why, please reach out to any of us at Invictus for a sit-down or phone call. Our goal as coaches is to make each and every one of you a happier, healthier, and better version of yourself. You could say that’s our ‘why’ behind the reason we do what we do.

I’ll leave you with some food for thought. If I were to ask you to tell me your name, and for you to tell me your purpose in life in one sentence, what would you say?

For me, my name is Holden Rethwill and my purpose in life is to serve the community by empowering them with the tools to have fun while becoming better versions of themselves.

The post It’s either HELL YEAH or NO appeared first on Invictus Fitness.