I was chatting with a couple of you the other day on the circuit about meditation.

Now, bear with me a little because meditation is not what this email is about.

This is about a small comment I made in the process of telling the story of my meditation journey.

What I said was, “I decided to take my own advice and restart my meditation habit”.

And from the reaction of those of you on the circuit, this hit home, so I thought it was worth sharing with all of you.

Changing habits, building new ones, doing something differently to what you are used to…

It’s all hard, at least at some point.

Keeping going is the easiest way, because keeping doing a thing is easier than starting a thing.

But what about when we drift off our path and we get stuck in the weeds?

What sort of input are you getting?

Are you reading, watching, listening to things that lift you up? And I’m not talking happy stories or cat videos that put you in a good mood? I’m talking thing LIFT you, things that challenge your thinking, elevate your thoughts, widen your horizons and increase your self-belief, your motivation and your drive to achieve your goals.

Last week I wrote about the stories we tell ourselves and I’ve had quite a lot of feedback on this. I want you all to know EVERYONE does it, it’s in our nature, what’s important here is to be aware of it and gently call yourself out on it.

Because even if it’s based on previous experience, it doesn’t make it a truth today.

So what can you do about it?

Have you been back to the gym yet? Have you resumed any of your best or favourite habits that got lost over the last month of so?

What are the stories you are telling yourself about that?

I find the stories we tell ourselves are the most significant thing that determine our actions and how we feel about them.

The narrative we build around doing a certain thing will ALWAYS be true.

I truly believe that quality input is vital, not only for quality output but to simply make sure the thoughts I have in between those two events, especially about myself, serve me.

And so, I wanted to share with you something I read in a book recently, and not for the first time. If you haven’t heard of what is referred to as “The Man in the Arena” then you should take a minute to read it…

But that’s not what I want to tell you about.

I want to tell you about disappointment.

Your month in review!

It’s that time again and if it feels like only 5 minutes ago I spoke about “Taking Inventory” that’s because it was!

Sometime this weekend take a moment, with pen and paper. Divide your page in two.

On one side list out your wins this month – grasp for every single small moment, pile them in and don’t get distracted by what you think you should have, could have, or would have done in a perfect moment.

Today we start our 12 Workouts ‘till Christmas Challenge, and of course, it’s as popular as ever with over 120 of you signing up in the first few days (we’ll be up to 150 by the time you read this!).

It’s got all the ingredients to engage and motivate you, but do you know the real reason this challenge works so well?

It’s simple.

As in, that’s the reason, not the reason is simple…

Distractions.

They are everywhere, and this is the time of year it is very easy to get distracted!

So here’s a question for you…?

Would your results improve if you focused on being consistent, reliable and diligent with your actions?

We can spend a lot of energy chasing 10 out of 10

I was so excited to read about how many of you are not done with 2023 – at this time of year, too many people slide off their plans, put their goals to one side or simply start to get so distracted that they lose sight of what is really important to them.

What was missing for many of you though, was plans for 2024.

These are my daily (work!) notebooks from this year. I’m filling them quicker than ever.

Somewhere in here are some ideas of things I wanted to put in these emails and, while I was looking through I found something else that made me think of you.

Last month I wrote my plans for the rest of 2023 and my plans for 2024.
You see, with 8 weeks left of this year, I am not done with 2023

xLast week I sent you a great video (some of you even watched it…) all about how to get really motivated for the things you want to do in life (you can watch it here if you missed it! It’s about 18 minutes long but you can start it about 7 minutes in if you want to get to the really good stuff)

You probably know already the thing that gets you moving is a powerful “why”, but that’s not what the video was about.

It was about understanding the difference between

Your motivation lies in your “why” – at Curves we’ve always called it your X-factor (long before it became a talent show!)

This is probably THE most important part of starting an exercise journey and continuing it, even when things get hard…

Do you know what the most common reason for quitting the gym is?

Life. Just, life.

Life gets in the way, or big life events happen that knock us off.

But, after 14 years of experience this is what I’ve noticed. Not everyone quits.

Too often there is disappointment in the air when numbers don’t move fast enough so I’m here to tell you, ready for next week’s Coaching and Accountability, why you should embrace (and CELEBRATE) your slow progress…

It seems that lots of you discovered something last week when you took inventory (thanks for letting me know how it turned out by the way, I love getting your emails).

As I was lucky enough to get hear what everyone discovered I wanted to share it with you because there was a common theme, and actually it was one I hadn’t considered when I wrote last week’s email.

The theme was …

I was absolutely stuck on what to write about this week.
To get myself unstuck I took inventory of my week to see what themes came to mind. I checked my diary, I looked through my notebook, and I looked what I’ve been reading.

I was looking for was a story to share, what I found were the best parts of my week (and a couple of missed opportunities).

And I’m sharing it with you because…

As most of you know by now, we sent out 2 emails this week to the wrong people!

In case you missed it, here’s what happened, and also what you can learn from it.

When you tune into something good, it gives you the opportunity to connect with yourself and to recommit to yourself.

It reminds you just who you are, and that you’re doing OK. It also reminds you of the things that are important to you.

Having someone who is following the same path as you means your small achievements mean so much more, and someone who knows what it took to achieve them will always celebrate them with you, no matter how small they seem, because they “get it”.