Connect your head and your heart!

Have you ever wondered why you do what you do? Well over these past couple weeks that has been on my mind. A life and wellness coach that spoke to our running clinic gave me a little direction as to how you can get to the bottom of this with specific question. These questions work to connect your head and your heart.

What do you want to do?

You wouldn’t think this is a hard question but really think of it.  What do you want?  I thought it through and there are a million material things that I would like… At the moment a puppy is number one but we won’t go there. What I truly want right now is to be fit, strong, fast and happy.  But what does that really mean?  Well fit is more focused on my cardio, I really do not want to lose the progress I have made here.  So realistically my goal is to maintain my fitness level. Strong is pretty self explanatory.  Fast is all about running.  I love running fast and I want to keep that up and keep improving.  Now for Happy… I want to be able to look at my life on a daily basis and know I am doing the best I can and am surrounded by people I love.

Why do you want to do it?

I feel like everyone wants to be happy, however the other things are more specific to me.  I want to fit because I want to live long and enjoy my life.  I feel like being fit makes me feel confident and capable of handling anything that comes my way.  I also know the journey to being fit has taught me I am stronger than I give myself credit for.  I want to be fast because I love the feeling of running fast.  I am also ultra competitive and love beating my previous records.

What will you have when you are finished?

This took a lot of thought. I actually went for a run and thought this one through. When I am finished I will have a rewarding career, an impenetrable home life, a goal crushing running streak (full of PR’s and Medals) and a happy healthy body.

What is the mantra that you run your life on? What is your person tag line?

This mantra is going to be the tag line building the foundation of my journey to a rewarding career, an impenetrable home life, a goal crushing running streak and a happy healthy body.

As a marketing professional I love the power of a tag line and understand the importance of consistency.  When making marketing campaigns which are essentially foundations to achieve goals you need to find a message and stick to it.  As I put more thought into my own mantra I decided it should be something that I not only believe but need to work on.  Kind of like a guide to success.

In the hustle and bustle of life it is easy to lose yourself and take the easy route. I know some days it so easy to do things the path with the least resistance because it takes less time than what you know is right.  Its also so easy to leave little pieces of information out that may hurt someones feelings or easier on you.  I truly believe leaving information out is the same thing as lying and this is something very important about who I am.  Honesty is key!  Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.

Breathing is essential to life.  I am not sure about the rest of you but when I get nervous, stressed or angry I tend to hold my breath.  Even in running I had to constantly work on my breathing.  The first 3 months of running I paid attention to every breath to make sure I was taking it.  Now that I have my breathing under control I have improved substantially with my running. Heck I ran two marathons last month! Now in life I think if I can keep myself breathing when I would usually hold my breath I will improve in the same way I did with running.  Yoga is an excellent example.  Breathing is one of the main teachings in yoga. Yoga not only calms the mind and body but also creates clarity in life.  I know there is more to it than breathing but for this purpose I think the reminder I would like in my mantra is Just Breathe. To top it off this is a great Pearl Jam song.

For the last part of my mantra I wanted to focus on something that is so important… being yourself.  There are days I need to remind myself how important this is. I am also really blessed to have an amazing best friend who reminds me as well. I am a people pleaser which some days doesn’t work in my favor.  I like to make everyone happy, which is a very impossible task.  I am not perfect but at the end of the day I will do whatever I can to make things easier for others.  I lose myself in this some days.   I forget that I deserve to be happy too and need to take care of myself.  It is great if I go out of my way to make sure everyone else is happy as long as I am not losing myself or going against what I stand for in the process.  I need to remember to Be Me. I am amazing just the way I am and so are all of you!

It has been quite the journey over the past couple years already and I am so excited to see what my goals and mantra has in store for me.

What are your goals?  Why do you want them?  What will you have when you achieve these goals?  What is your mantra/personal tag line?