Monthly Archives: March 2010

Move It!

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Dave & Lindsey - ING Georgia Half MarathonThis past weekend I was in downtown Atlanta for the ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon. I’d love to tell you I was there competing in the race but I wasn’t.  Honestly I’d rather lance a boil than run a half marathon.

But my daughter had been training and this was to be her first one…so naturally I was there to cheer her on.  There were over 16,000 runners partaking in the morning’s activities with 14,000 in the half marathon and another 2500 sickos running in the full marathon.

What I saw surprised me…my expectations were that I would see a bunch of skinny malnourished people looking like they hadn’t eaten a good meal in a month.  But that wasn’t the case at all.  Ok – honestly there were a bunch of people with bodies resembling rake handles around but I also found a sea of humanity in all shapes and sizes.  And get this – they were all happy!

It’s true! All of them smiling, high-fiving, slapping each other on the back!  Now keep in mind that it is 6:00am! And it is about to rain!

“What is wrong with these people” I said to myself.  And then it occurred to me. They are out here “moving it”. Exercising.

It doesn’t take very much investigative digging to find the benefits of exercising. You see it on the list of ways to reduce stress, relieve anxiety, maintain good health, build self –esteem, increase immunity, lose weight, lower anxiety, improve sleep, inrease alertness and mental sharpness…the list goes on and on!

All these people had tapped into one of the greatest secrets around. Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes.  But the key is, no matter what your body type – move it.  You deserve the benefits!

Free Your Cares and be Carefree

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The older I get (the half century mark is approaching very fast and that older looking man in the mirror won’t leave me alone), the more I realize just how much “stuff” I tend to hold on to that really negatively impacts my quality of life. In fact, I am starting to feel more and more like Rocky in his last movie.  Did you see it? I think it was called “Rocky 18”. Not really. It was “Rocky Balboa”.

In it, an aging Balboa is drawn back into the ring, as he puts it, “To get the ‘junk’ out of his gut.”  You see Rocky had been holding on to some stuff in his life– cares and concerns that were dragging him down. And these cares were preventing him from moving forward and truly enjoying life.

I find the same thing happens to me if I am not careful.  Here are 5 strategies I have learned to help me live with fewer cares and be more carefree:

  1. Free your mind from worry. When we worry, we borrow cares and concerns from tomorrow and we drag them into today.  Once we get them here, they just ruin our present.
  2. Free your heart from hatred. This one is very similar to the first strategy only in the opposite direction. When we harbor anger, resentment, and bitterness toward someone for something that happened in our past, it is like handcuffing ourselves to them and pulling them around with us all the time so they can continue to ruin our present.
  3. Free you life from complexity. Simplify. Look for things that can be pruned out of your life. Are you so busy doing all those “good things” that you are killing yourself? Cut some out.
  4. Free yourself from greed. Many people tend to get caught up in two twin syndromes: the “get as much as I can” syndrome and the “hold on to it as long as I can” syndrome. When I fall prey to these two, I find myself going through life clutching tightly to all “my stuff “and worrying about it. Giving is a wonderful antidote to battle greed. It helps us take our eyes off ourselves and focus on helping others.
  5. Free yourself from expecting perfection. To put it more simply, expect less. No one is perfect. People are going to mess up—including you. My bride is going to disappoint me…so are my kids…so are my colleagues at work…so is the gate agent at the airport and the kid washing my car. When we expect perfection, we can only be disappointed (or neutral at best). But when we don’t expect it and we get it…it’s GREAT!

Implement these strategies and set yourself up to live a life full of pleasant surprises…it is way more fun.

Be a Thermostat

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This has been a very different winter in Georgia. We have had more instances of snow than I can ever remember (and I have spent 40 winters here).  It’s been very fun!

As a result, I have paid more attention to two very different tools than ever before: the thermostat and the thermometer.  Honestly, I haven’t given these two tools much thought in my life.  I always kind of put them in the same camp…you know, they have something to do with temperature.  But in actuality they are quite different…almost opposites.

A thermometer is used to measure the temperature. To passively “observe and report”. To not interfere or influence.

But a thermostat is just the opposite.  Rather than measure the temperature, a thermostat determines what it is going to be. Rather than passively “observe and report”, a thermostat actively engages and creates. Rather than stay in the background and not interfere or influence, a thermostat fully engages and influences.

Do you realize people have the same abilities as these two tools? We can sit back and measure everything that is going on around us and have no influence on the situation or we can get in there and make the changes that we want to see.

Reality Check: it is easier to be the thermometer, but much more rewarding to be the thermostat.

What is cool, though, is that we can be both!

Learn to “see” what is going on around you: the atmosphere at the kitchen table, the environment of the office, the climate of your relationships—this is being the thermometer.  Then, if you don’t like what you measure, change it—this is being the thermostat.

Here are two questions to help you:

  1. What kind of an environment would I like (in the office, home, relationship, etc.)?
  2. What do I have to do or be to help move things in that direction?