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No, that wasn’t a typo. You read it right. Wait training…it’s a thing. Well, if it’s not, it definitely should be! So I’m officially making it A THING! So let’s get to work on our WAIT TRAINING! If you want to be successful in anything you need to master Wait Training.
What is WAIT TRAINING?
Wait training involves developing consistency through patience and persistence. This requires you to wait and go through the process, instead of trying to rush it. I said all that to say: actually doing the work and allowing that work TO WORK.
The truth is, most people need wait training more than anything. Advancements in technology have only increased demands and decreased our patience and understanding of processes. Machines can be spead up, bodies and minds… not so much. At least not in the same mechanical way. Our growth comes through improving our habits, thoughts and actions. These things done on a regular, consistent basis lead to change.
TIME + PATIENCE = WAIT TRAINING
Making a change in your life, especially when it comes to health, fitness and wellness takes time – again, we are NOT machines. Contrary to what you see on social media, get-fit-quick infomercials, and cookie cutter workout programs designed by genetically gifted or surgically altered socialites, there is nothing that’s going to get you to the finish line any sooner. If it does, trust that not only is it NOT sustainable, but it will likely come with some nasty and costly side effects. That’s right, forget what you’ve seen, heard and possibly already wasted money on. There is NO
Magic pill
Flat tummy tea
Cream
Overnight hack
10-minutes a day workout
All-in-one fat smoother/blaster tool
Squeeze your guts waist trainer
or any of these other heavily socially promoted tools and hacks that bombard us that’s going to get you to the finish line any sooner.
It takes work and time. So work on your WAIT training. Accept that whatever you want is going to take time and it should if you want it to be sustainable and maintainable. Learn to wait, work and earn what it is you want. Only then will you be able to get and keep your gains.
By now you all know about my transformation. The physical aspect is what you and see, and that’s where it started, but there’s been so much more to it. When I say my entire life has transformed, my entire life is a complete 180 from anything I ever thought it would be AND I FREAKING LOVE IT! The best part about it is that you too can achieve change and create a life that you love. So I want to share with you, five secrets to help you get over the hump or slump that you may feel trapped in so that you can achieve your own body, career or life transformation.
Time = Life. If you are wasting your time, you are wasting your life. The time is always NOW. Most people don’t get started because they are waiting for a better time or an easier way. Newsflash: there will never be a better time and there will never be an easier way. So break free from what’s holding you back and get started. Your future self will thank you for making the most of your time and your life.
2. There’s no magic pill and when it comes to success, very little has to do with “luck”. EVERYTHING takes work. There’s no instant or overnight successes. Even the things that seem lucky had a bunch of little elements put into place ahead of time to set up those “lucky” circumstances. The only way to get what you want is to go after it and do the work. Will it be easy? No, not always. BUT, it WILL BE WORTH IT!
3. Investing in yourself is not an expense: It is an INVESTMENT. There’s nothing in your life better or more worthy of your money, time, attention and love than YOU. Take a chance on you, because if you wont’ nobody will. Invest in you and it will pay off (but it will take a little bit of hard work as well).
4. Make yourself a priority. Yes, that means putting yourself FIRST (Gasp!) and taking time out for yourself. When there’s something you want to do: vacation, go to the doctor, get your nail or hairs done you set time aside and/or make an appointment for it. Do the same for you and your goals. Want to get in shape? Finish a book? Complete your degree? Learn a new craft or trade? Make a reoccurring appointment with yourself daily/weekly/monthly…whatever the time required to achieve that goal. Then schedule everything else in life AROUND that YOU TIME. Life, the people in it and the other things that need to get done will adjust to your priorities only when you do.
5. Change comes from habits. The way to achieve change (or not to change) is found in your daily habits. Write down your goals and what you want your life to look like. Then take a look at your daily habits, actually, write those down too. Then see if your daily habits are leading you towards or away from your goals? If they aren’t helping you then they are hurting you and it’s time to change those habits into ones that will get you closer to what you do want.
So there you have it. These 5 secrets have been my own personal goldmine and I am happy that I can share them with you. Now, it’s time to get out of your own way and start getting what you want out of life and for yourself. Make note of these secrets, refer to them often, ask for help, share with others and let’s make change happen!
I interrupt our regularly scheduled program to have a much needed chat about age. There seems to be this ridiculous notion surrounding age that implies that 30 is the end, and that all the things worth doing should and have to be done before 30. Where in the hell did this even come from? Why is it that people, especially us women, think that once we hit a certain age that life is suddenly over? This premise is beyond flawed. What is it about 30 that makes people think that life just suddenly comes to an end? Like somehow you are a modern day Cinderella and at the stroke of midnight your whole life turns into a pumpkin begins to decay and what remains of you just withers away over the remaining years. This is just another part of the outdated narrative of someone else’s view on life.
And ask yourself why the age 30?
It could just as easily be 35. Why not 40 or 45? How about 50? Why was this age chose and better yet, why does it seem to be set in proverbial stone?
Some say it’s the beauty industry. It’s true, the nonstop imagery and threat of wrinkles, crows feet, under eye bags, receding hairlines and thinning hair is more than enough to force us to open our wallets in hopes of preserving our youth and reversing the effects of age. This scare tactic is part of marketing. The earlier they can hook us, the longer they potentially have a customer. Well they are right about one thing, start a beauty care regimen sooner rather than later is great because like the medical field, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure!
Others say it’s the medical industry. We hear things like have kids young in your 20’s because you’re high risk pregnancy after the age of 30…but is it really? The chances are, if you are high risk at 30 you were likely already high risk at 25 and will be at 35. That risk is more often associated with your overall health, medical and family history, wellness and lifestyle. Age is only ONE factor. It is one factor amongst many many other factors. It is correlation, not causation. There are and have been plenty of women over the age of 30 that have hand had children without complications, just as there are plenty of women under the age of 30 that have had complications.
And what countless other ages and false narratives that we blindly allow to dictate our lives? It’s time to let those go!
You aren’t too old to go back to school
You still have time to learn a new craft
You do not need to own a house by a certain age or ever
You don’t need to be married by a certain age
You don’t have to have a baby by a certain age or a total of 2.5 kids for the perfect family
Other than driving age 16 – vroom vroom, legal age – Aye 18, and drinking age 21 – whoot whoot, everything else really is just a number with an adjustable timeline. And in reality, the only the weight and merit that these other ages have over us is what we allow it to control and dictate in our lives.I think Aalyiah said it best, “Age ain’t nothing but a number”. It can be a general guideline, but it is far from law. If you are going to affix a timeline or an age to a goal, milestone or destination in life then let it be because you chose to do so because it keeps you from procrastinating or it lights a fire under your ass to get shit done, and NOT because someone somewhere in drunkin history said it should be that way.
So where did this idea of “by this age” come from?
Honestly who knows. Although, it’s actually far more likely that most of these age notions are based off of outdated history and tradition. Times like the 1900’s, Renaissance England and other patriarchal societies (and even still today in some cultures) where women were mere dependents that had parents who wanted to marry them off to the highest, most worthy bidder and then married and bore children young.
Ladies, we are soooooooooooo far beyond this time and limiting beliefs to continue to bound ourselves to these ideas and allow them to dictate our lives.
Hell science and medicine and our pay grade is so much better now! Times have changed hunty! So quit letting strangers (and hell even people you know) dictate your life and where THEY THINK you should be in it. They have their own lives to live, ruin or flourish in. Let them focus on them and you do you. We’ll all be much happier that way.
Let’s not fear age or aging
With age comes growth, wisdom and a better capacity for handling life. I don’t know anyone that has regressed in intelligence and wisdom. As the years pass, we continue to learn and grow. So wouldn’t we want as much growth as possible in our corner backing us before jumping into a big life altering change like buying a house, having a baby, getting married, etc.? You often see posts on social media that say something like: What advice would you give to your 20-year old self? Or to another young lady or young man to help them?
I know that any of use, myself included, could come up with more than a handful of things to share with another person and about a billion things we would tell and warn our younger selves about to change the outcomes of past decision and situations. Now, if you can sit there and honestly say that there is nothing you would do differently, nothing you would tell yourself, then congratulations you are the exception. However if you’re like most people, you can think of at least three key things, pieces of advice or warnings you’d tell your younger self that would have drastically altered your life. And it is those very things that are the reason why making BIG life choices so early in life isn’t ideal and why we shouldn’t bound ourselves to age.
Doing things younger isn’t always the answer let alone the best answer. It is with age that we get experience and wisdom. Somethings are better when you’re older and we all truly need to take as much time as we individually require to grow, explore and figure ourselves out. Do you even know who you are and what YOU want in life? What can you really do with kids, a mortgage, a spouse when you haven’t finished learning, growing and figuring yourself out.
School is back in session and it’s time to major in YOU-Ology. If you really want to be good at something you have to learn it, study it, practice it, become invested in it. The same is true of yourself. If you want to master your life, you must first master you. When you study yourself, you can understand yourself and then reconnect with yourself. Why is this necessary? Well, if you aren’t clear about YOU then how can you really be clear about anyone else or anything else you encounter in life? How do you know that you are moving in a direction that’s best for you and actually what you want? If I had to guess, I’d say that the majority of us are walking around as fractures of ourselves and don’t even know it. We have an idea of what we want, we may even know who we want to be, but we’re afraid to reveal our truth… not just to the world, but to ourselves. This lack of selfawareness is NOT serving us. So let’s get back to the basics.
Studying YOU
It’s’ time to become a student of yourself and rediscover (or recreate) who you are and want to be. I want you to think about and then answer the following questions. Don’t just read them, actually think about them and write down the answers.
What do you like?
What don’t you like?
What do you want in life?
What don’t you want in life?
What will you tolerate?
What won’t you tolerate?
Do you find yourself tolerating things that you said you wouldn’t or that require you to compromise yourself or your beliefs?
How do you want to be seen? Do people see you that way?
How do you want to be treated? Do others treat you how you want to be treated?
What are your goals in life?
What motivates you?
What demotivates you?
What is standing in the way of where you are now and where you wish to be? How close are you to where you really want to be?
If you could wake up tomorrow living your dream life, what would that look like? How close does that resemble your current life?
There will be much more self-reflection and personal surveying in the near future, this is just our starting point!
Understanding YOU
Once you finish, go back to review your answers and then answer them again. Dig a little deeper this time. Look beyond the initial answer and explore the reasoning and the why behind it. For example: You might have said: “I like to be treated with respect and not talked crazy to.” (That’s reasonable!) However, you find that others don’t treat you the way you want to be treated.
Now, is that because they are mean, not understanding or disconnected from your needs? Possibly, but the most important answer (and the only one that matters) is that you allow them to treat you that way. Everything starts and ends with you. Once you realize this and set the course to change you’ll find that new doors in life open up. To help get you started, I want to share some of the most common root issues I’ve identified about what we need to understand about ourselves and what is keeping us from getting what we want out of life:
You don’t speak your truth.
You fail to establish rules or requirements.
You fail to enforce those rules and requirements.
You are scared to set boundaries.
You settle for what is offered/given instead of demanding what you want and are worth.
You may not even realize your worth.
You may be scared of being judged or not liked.
You may be worried about people and things that honestly don’t matter as much as we think they do.
You aren’t really sure or clear on what it is you want and the things we think we want are usually what society has convinced us we need (more on this topic later!).
The truth is, that we (especially women) most often just accept the treatment we are given. That is the root of the issue. And what is what needs to be understood in order to invoke change.
Reconnecting with YOU
So now that you’ve started to dig into the YOU of things, it’s time to really ponder what you’ve identified and start a course for your truly desired life destination. Take the answers and insight from the questions above and use them as a tool to help you understand yourself better. These are the positive and negative triggers and influences in your life. What changes can you start to make to create better situations and outcomes for yourself. What can you start doing or stop doing so that you can better connect with yourself? Use this insight to help you navigate relationships, friendships, environments and situations that you face each day so that you can live a better life thats focused on you, your goals and what’s best for you. Learn how to check in with yourself, listen to yourself and make decisions based on what’s best for YOU.
As always, write these exercises down in your journal, comment below or share with me directly.
Each year I give myself a mantra, theme or area of focus to help me stay grounded and goal focused. “It’s Me Time” was one of those themes. And it was during that time that I really learned to be selfish and to put me first. Though it was one of the most challenging things I’ve done, I am amazed at the immense value and impact it had on my quality of life and happiness. This wasn’t an overnight change. Rather it was a series of choices, experiences and lessons that helped me change my life into what I truly wanted it to be. These are lessons that I want to share with other women who feel stuck, so that you too can get to a happier place in life.
“It’s Me Time” is a ladies truth series that will explore the areas of life that we routinely and historically tend to let ourselves down in. I want to help you focus on Self-Care and Mastering Your Life. These are areas that we must reclaim to build ourselves up and become the stronger, happier versions of ourselves that we were always meant to be. Some of these topics will be uncomfortable for you to read and reflect upon, and just as uncomfortable for me to write. But, they will be truths that we much face, address and come to terms with if we want to change our lives. I will address the many excuses that we women give ourselves, and others, for not living the lives we desire and instead trying to adapt to an OUTDATED blueprint of life.
I’ll tell you now that this series is incomplete. Why? Because it is still developing. Each day brings new challenges, experiences, insight and growth opportunities. I invite you to follow along in the way that is most comfortable for you, whether it be silently on your own, directly with me or engaging socially by joining in on the conversation and sharing your challenges, experiences, questions and helpful advice. So if you’re not doing so already, follow me on instagram, email me directly at: flexyfitnews[at]gmail.com or connect with me on Facebook.
Your first lesson is that of SELFISHNESS
This is probably the most important lesson because it is the root of our success and failure. When we fail to realize our importance and value in our own lives, it has a skewed rippling affect on everything else in our lives. Whether we realize it or not, the way others treat us is typically a reflection of how we treat ourselves and what we allow. (Now, I’m not referring to racism or other economical, systematic injustices….let’s table that for another day.) I’m talking about those interpersonal relationships with our so-called friends, family members, co-workers, boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife that either contribute positively or negatively to our lives.
When we think of the word selfish, it typically comes with a negative connotation. When you read the definition below, does it make you feel like only caring for yourself is bad?
For many it does, but the thing is, it shouldn’t! I think the misleading feeling is created by the word “only”. It almost makes it seem like you have no regard for anyone else, but that is not the case. Being selfish is not about only caring for yourself, it’s about caring for you FIRST. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact there is everything right about that! So let’s rethink this. Being “Selfish” is about being devoted to caring for yourself and having your primary concern be with your own interest, benefits, welfare. Primary, means put you first. After you learn to successfully do that on the regular, then you will truly be prepared to care for others in a healthy manner.
As women, all too often, we spend time focused on everyone else instead of taking care of ourselves.
This has become an expected way of life that we are all too aware of, see the detriments of, yet still feel disempowered to change. The truth is, we can not adequately care for others without really and FULLY caring for ourselves FIRST. We are not invincible. Our bodies are aging and facing breakdown each day. The things we do (and don’t do) only further contribute to that aging and breakdown process. So we must start practicing better self care – physically, emotionally, mentally, financially and spiritually to help make positive deposits back into our life and wellness – this is what being SELFISH looks like. We have to learn to be selfish, with our time, our minds, our energy and our lives in order to have better self care. It is time to start really living our lives, instead of just tiptoeing around it.
Next Steps
So now that you know the truth about being selfish (that it’s not just okay, but it’s a necessity) what are you going to do to start making it a daily practice? Many of us want to do better, but have no idea where to start, how to start or how to make it stick. Well, that’s why you have me! I AM HERE TO HELP. So let’s get started. Grab a journal where you can keep a collection of your thoughts and notes. I want you to start by making a list of the things that you don’t currently do for yourself that you know you should be doing and also think about why you feel you don’t or aren’t able to do those things. Write it down in your journal, comment below or share with me directly.
