Halftime: Re-evaluating Yearly Goals

It's go time with Dat Hat...

In a sporting event, the players are given a break at the half in order to refresh themselves, look at how they played in the first half, and set strategy for the second half. So as you approach halftime for this year, here are some thoughts.

How did you "play" in the first half of this year? Have you met your GOALS that you established at the beginning of the year? 

Here are a few ideas to EVALUATE where you are at with your goals as you approach the halfway mark.

Take some time to sit down alone and review your goals. How many are you on mark to make? How many have you not even begun on? How many have you achieved?

Three things have happened with your goals thus far in 2012:

-You have hit some of your goals: "I lost x amount of weight." "My Fran is ____ minutes." "I can do x amount of pullups."
For the goals you have already reached, try to set the new goal at 100 percent of the original goal. Congrats, but you have a ton of weaknesses to attack and get better at. 
-You are on pace to hit your goals: "I still need to lose 15lbs for my weight goal." "I off my back squat goal by 40lbs." "I haven't gotten my 1st muscle up yet." For the GOALS you are on pace to achieve do this, stretch it about 10 percent. For example, if your original goal was 10 pullups and you have already reached 5 after halfway, stretch yourself to try to achieve 11 by the end of the year. This will give you a good reason to kick into high gear as the year progresses.

-You haven't even begun: "I haven't even tried to do a handstand pushup in months." I bought the Paleo book, but haven't opened it yet, does that count?"
For those you haven't even begun, my suggestion would be to reset your goal at 10 percent of the original goal. Obviously this goal hasn't been a priority, for whatever reason, and most likely won't suddenly become so. But you can make some ground. Set a small increase for the remaining six months and get ahead a little in these areas.

This time that you spend taking a look back at this year and reseting your goals will help you refocus, adjust, push yourself to a higher level and give you the opportunity attain more than you ever have. 


P.T.S on your thoughts and goal recap to the comments. 

Throw Back Friday's... Just Pull the Damn Trigger...

Don't think too much, Just JUMP, Snatch and Land!

This week's Throw Back Friday's post, JUST PULL THE DAMN TRIGGER, is one of my favorites for those of you that have a really hard time making a BIG TIME Decision for your life to get better. It's hard to a make bold moves to better ourselves, it is easy to make excuses to not go through with them. Learn how to make it happen on this one. Enjoy... And show some comment love:-)

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Walking down the 'mean' streets of Sherman Oaks

Listen Up! I got really fired up last night!!!

We all have goals. We all have dreams and bucket lists. But the problem is we all have EXCUSES! What fires me up is when I watch people (that I truly care about) consciously stop themselves from succeeding through life.

People like to talk...and talk...and talk about what they 'want to do' OR what they are 'gonna do' and end up not doing anything.

If you truly want to get everything out of life (the goals we truly want to attain and the dreams we have for ourselves) you are going to have to step out of that 'comfort zone' you've created. And its gonna hurt, you are going to be scared and nervous, people will question you, you will question yourself, it is not going to be fun for a while.

So lets say you are really ready to go for it and nothing is going to stop you...And then for whatever reason (excuse) you don't.

Why does this continue to happen to you?! 

KEEP READING TO FIND OUT WHY AND HOW TO FIX IT...

How to Stay on a Roll..

Looks like I got some good associations:)

Monday night was the last meeting for our Paleo Posse Challenge at CrossFit 818. The topic was one of my favorites, "Life After the Challenge". Those that complete these types of Paleo challenges see some incredible results, not only physically but mentally and emotionally. The common fear is that we will fall back into our old ways now! The structure, accountability, and the group will not be there when the challenge ends.....Or will it???

The BIG concerns are, "How do I stay on a roll?" or "I'm afraid I will fall back into my old ways." What can I do?!?! Here are 5 steps, when followed, will help you not only survive and stay on track, but THRIVE!

Role model: Being a role model is one of the most fulfilling things you can do in your life. When it stops becoming about you and your pursuit of the perfect body, and starts becoming about others you begin to act with purpose. And if your purpose is to help others, you find you end up helping yourself more than you thought was possible.

Education: Education feeds motivation. Knowledge is power! And when you continue to increase your knowledge you will began to empower yourself and begin to become unstoppable. Armen, Annie, Z and I were all CrossFit students and in your shoes at one point in our lives. We became so motivated and so inspired that we continued to do something about it and that has lead us to the position that we are in today. When you can plan you day, week and year with informative blogs (like this one:-), pod casts, books, audio programs, seminars and
certifications you can become wise beyond what you thought you had in you.

Associations: "The books you read and the people you meet will determine where you are in five years." -- Charlie 'Tremendous' Jones.

Do you ever notice how easy it is to eat healthy when the people around you are health conscious? How about the opposite?

If you want to be a millionaire? Hang around rich people.

If you want to be ripped? Hang around other FIT people.

CrossFit is so successful for a lot of us because it surrounds us with others that are just as motivated (or more), have similar goals and want the best for themselves. It is waay too easy to adapt to what the people around
you are doing. So be careful who you associate with, it makes a BIG difference.

Bring it back to what you know: We all have areas in our lives where we are experts and successful. The hard part about staying motivated is... staying motivated! Especially when it is something new and out of your comfort zone. When we get stagnate, drained, fatigued and we feel like stopping or giving in to our old self...STOP, DROP and revert to what you know. For example, I received an email from one of our athletes last week:

Need some secret sauce. What can I do better? more off? eat better? workout less? more? differently? Feel stagnant. Don't like this mortality stuff.
He was at a point where he was frustrated with everything. It was more about having a tough week with everything vs. what his actual question/frustration was. My response was to take it back to what you know. Being successful in FITness is using the same success principles as in finances, relationships, career, etc... His career is as a financial professional. So I asked him...

How would you treat your business growth? You are not going to make a million dollars over night, especially in the beginning! How would you tell someone to grow their portfolio? Treat your goals in CrossFit with other things in your life that you know (financial) and then translate it. That is your answer.

Success principles: This one springs off the last one. Whatever makes you successful in one area of your life, can make you successful in all other areas of your life. If you are dedicated to your work/career, then you can be dedicated to your health and FITness. If you are consistent with certain habits in some area's in your life than you can be in other areas of your life. It just takes you making it a priority, focusing on it daily, and with time it will transfer over to your goals.

What I recommend is coming back to this list every quarter and grading yourself on the development of each point.

P.T.S!!!

Reverse Motivation???

She keeps me in check

I found this quote I thought was interesting:

“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.”

Everybody starts...

A diet
An excersie program
A business
A relationship

But how does it usually finish?

Are we all exactly where we want and desire to be?

I have often read and said that it is easy to get motivated. Its easy to get started. Everyone signs up. Borrows money. Asks the girl out.

Why aren't we all ripped, rich and happy?

Could we be too relient on motivation? Think about it? Everything is so easy when we are motivated. It is easy to get up early in the beginning. It is easy to want to go to the gym. You get along with everything your partner says in the honeymoon stage.

What happens when the motivation fades? How do you keep up with your goals? How do you continue to move forward when you don't want to?

Post your thoughts in the comments.

Throw Back Friday's... Flip the Script...Be YOUR Own Coach

All you need is a good friend and 'dat hat' to
keep you motivated & moving fwd.

For the next few Friday's I want to start my next theme, Throw Back Friday's. It is going to revisit some of my old posts I wrote before most of you knew this blog was around.

Today's Throw Back Post: Flip the Script... Be YOUR Own Coach

A great trick I would tell someone when they are feeling "burned out" or starting to lack motivation with their FITness and or Nutrition plan is to...

"Flip the Script"

Most of us know what it takes to be successful with our Health and FITness. The problem is...we are human. 

And so much of our success with our Health and FITness rides on what is going on with our lives, family, friends, work, and the normal everyday stresses that life will present you with. Movitation is all about the mental and emotional. 

-So when the workouts are becoming stale...
-And when the PR's aren't happening as they usually were...
-When it's starting to get harder and harder to get yourself to the gym/box...

"Flip the Script" and be your own coach. 

Pretend you are telling your friend who has the same goals and motivations as you do what they should do to snap YOU out of it.

Why? READ THE REST OF THE POST HERE

You Are Stronger Than You Think You Are...

I posted this a last week at my home box crossfit818.com. And it is worth it to share here. 

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Paco proves he is stronger than he thought

With today's post I want us to train our minds and our hearts. 

Recently I have added these quotes into my routine.

"Our mind will quit a thousand times faster than our bodies will."
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."
“Commitment is doing the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.” 

When you feel like quitting... What do you do think about?

When you feel like you can't take it anymore... What do you say to yourself??

When everything seems like too much...What do you do???

Before you answer those questions watch the video below and then post your answers to the comments.

 

P.T.S!

Mental WOD 30: The Golden Rule on Steroids...

stack. Build. ELEVATE.

I was watching the OWN channel last night. For those of you that don't know it is Oprah's channel. She has a series of show's called her master's class where she interviews the top of the food chain celebrity's and entrepreneur's. It is an in depth look at their lives and philosophy's on life.

My mother-in-law had a few episodes on TiVo so we watched a couple of them. The one that stuck out for me was when Oprah did the episode on herself. That show was very powerful and the big take a away I took was here phrase, "The Golden Rule on Steroids".

"You gotta take responsibility for the space you hold here…Understand that the third law of motion which says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? That is my religion. That is the fundamental construct of my religion. And by that I mean, I know that every thought that I think, every thought that I have, that moves into action is going to create an equal and opposite reaction. So everything that I put out into the world is going to come back. It’s the golden rule on steroids. The golden rule on steroids, it’s true.


We are what we focus on (THINK, READ AND WHO WE HANG WITH). If we focus on what we are NOT getting or achieving in our lives. Then that is exactly what we will get. Opportunities will come our way (they may even fall in our lap) and if we are not looking for them, we will never see it. So then how would we be able to take advantage of it?!?!

If we focus on the good things we have and the good things we are striving to achieve then those very same opportunities that come are way, we will not only be able to see, we now have the opportunity to take advantage of them.

There is the old saying, "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity". Opportunity is always there. We have opportunities coming our way all the time. I find opportunities can come as frequently as daily to weekly in our lives.

Three things happen when an opportunity come our way:

-We don't see or hear it! The majority of people on this earth are in this place.
-We see and hear it, but we are not prepared and too scared to for it! A good number of people are in this place.
-We see it, hear it and are READY for it! These are the people you see that are HIGHLY successful.      The people you see on TV (like Oprah). The people you see that are resposible for the good going on in this world. The people that influence you to want to be better.

This week's Mental WOD will help you create the, "Golden Rule on Steroids" in your life:

1-Start Journaling: Once a day is great! Every morning or evening.
2-In this journal, first write what you are THANKFUL for. Family, friends, job, opportunity, etc...
3-Write your GOALS. Follow the suggestions and click on that GOALS' to your LEFT.
4-HELP others achieve their goals.
5-Just DO IT! It is scary. Of course it's going to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would be ripped, rich and happy...DUH!

These are 5 things that you can control in your life. No matter what happens, these 5 steps WILL make your life better. They WILL put you in a position to see all of the wonderful opportunities that are coming your way. And this time you will not only see them, but you can go get them NOW!

Go getta!