The Strong Within Affirmation Podcast
Education:Self-Improvement
435 I See Past Minor Annoyances | March 2018 Sunday Week 3
Smiling Sundays-#435 March The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast
I See Past Minor Annoyances
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.”
~Jack Canfield
I was having a conversation with one of my personal training clients the other day. She was upset with how she wasn’t the same person she was four years ago. Four years ago, she had the body she wanted. She said that she never had an issue with losing weight ever before. We’ve talked about what she’s eating and about increasing her cardio and resistance training outside of our personal training, but I always bring it back to what I believe is the most important factor in any change we desire for our lives…the change in our stress levels and our mindset.
After she said this statement, I was about to say something to my client about changing her mindset, but she knew what I was going to say and said, “don’t give me any of that mindset crap.” She was half teasing but I knew she meant it too. She wanted the physical answer to help her change her situation. And I get it; we want the answer to be something that is in our control. Wouldn’t it be nice if you ate just these things, or you worked out this amount of time and it would be the exact equation for change? Yes, that would be nice, but being in the industry for over ten years now, I have a different approach.
I’ve seen people doing the exact same things in their fitness efforts—putting in the same amount of time at the gym, and even being on the same diets. Sure, there probably are fluctuations here and there between each person, and sometimes people lie about what they’re actually doing…but, in the end, these people doing the same thing will have completely different results. One person will lose weight, and the other will struggle. Which always begs the question what did the successful person do? The one who is struggling will look at themselves as a failure and will tell themselves stories like I have a slow metabolism, I must have the curse of big boned DNA, or I’m not good enough to change.
And what that does is give us a reason NOT to try anymore. We get our crystal ball out and doom ourselves by determining ourselves as unhelpable or unchangeable. But it also creates a story inside of ourselves saying that trying new things don’t work out for us. I will admit that some people lose weight better than others, whether it be their work effort, or whether they have more muscle than someone else so they naturally burn more calories than someone with less muscle mass. But I’ve come to a firm understanding that it’s more about their belief systems and how much stress they allow into their lives.
We all deal with stress differently, and for me, I actually lose weight when I’m stressed. And yes, go ahead and hate on me for being this way but there are a few reasons this happens. When I get stressed I don’t eat; I have a lot of anxious, nervous energy, so I need to work it off…and so I either walk a lot or I go to the gym to work it out. My stress levels affect me in negative ways that I actually can’t sleep, I can’t stop thinking, I can’t stop worrying, and I have trouble being still. Where for other people when they are stressed and depressed are trying to comfort themselves in other ways such as eating, being sluggish, or any other matter that is not good for their physical self.
But that’s only one part of the equation of change. The stress response I just talked about is the physical actions we take when stressed. So it’s good to know what you physically do when you’re stressed because it will be part of your change in curbing behaviors that aren’t helping you. But I think it goes even deeper than the physical. Stress has been linked with creating more cortisol in our bodies which has been linked to creating more fat in our bodies.
And I believe that when we are constantly stressed, we are taking on loads mentally, physically, and spiritually that is doing damage to our minds and bodies. It’s weighing us down literally and metaphorically. And the world we live in we’ve gotten accustomed to being stressed 24/7. Which is not a productive way to live.
In his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping, Robert Sapolsky talks about the stress responses and what happens to our bodies. When we are constantly stressed it prevents our bodies from doing the long-term building projects that promote wellness within our bodies. We get accustomed to being in emergency fight or flight mode all the time. He says that we don’t get into an exhaustion phase of depleting our hormones, but something else happens. And Dr. Sapolsky states that:
“It is very rare, that any of the crucial hormones are actually depleted during even the most sustained of stressors. The army does not run out of bullets. Instead, the body spends so much on the defense budget that it neglects education and health care and social services. It is not so much that the stress-response runs out, but rather, with sufficient activation, that the stress-response can become more damaging than the stressor itself, especially when the stress is purely psychological. This is a critical concept, because it underlies the emergence of much stress-related disease.”
Later in his book, he will use the example of a Zebra running from a lion. The life of a zebra’s stress is only about 5 minutes as when running from a predator it will either escape or be eaten. During that stressful activity, all the other processes in the body get shut off except the blood flow to the legs to escape. So it’s reproductive system shuts off, it’s digestive system shuts off, and even the salivation in its mouth will be affected. The same thing happens to us, he uses the example of us being nervous to give a speech infront of people and how our mouth will get dry. Our stress-response will shut off the areas it feels aren’t important at that moment.
For that Zebra, the stress response is a very minimal amount of time in its life. For us we spend days, weeks, or years worrying about our mortgages, our jobs, our relationships…and as he stated before it’s not that we run out of bullets (or hormones to be exact) to protect our bodies, but actually the stress response becomes more damaging than the stressor itself.
Now while that is all great info to know that our stress might actually be harming us more than it’s helping us…how do we do something about it? Well that’s a whole can of worms that might be different for everyone, but I think it all starts out with two simple tips and tricks:
-Becoming more aware of your feelings, your thoughts, and what is going on your life. -What minor annoyances are you focusing on?
Now I know the minor annoyances might sound silly, but when I was talking with my client about her weight loss problem that was bugging her we discussed the things that are in her life that add up over time and turn into big issues. Those small annoyances might seem insignificant at the moment, but the more we hold onto the small things that bother us, then the more they build up. That’s why I’m so adamant on being deliberate on what we focus on.
I try to help people pivot from their bad feelings and emotions to more productive emotions and thoughts. It’s not that you can’t look at those bad things, but what I said is we must NOT FOCUS on them. And that’s the key, most people don’t realize that the negative emotion they are looking at actually becomes a focal point for them to target and ruminate over. We see the problem and grip too tight on the problem rather than looking more for the solution.
We get accustomed to looking at and finding the small things that bother us, and soon it gets to be a point where one small thing will ruin your day. Like someone cutting us off in traffic and wasn’t paying attention to us, or how there’s no coffee in the coffee pot at work, or how your coworkers are gabbing and getting on your nerves instead of doing their work, or maybe even how you just can’t seem to get a break when you need one.
I’m sure you have a million things that could ruin your day. It’s not that these things aren’t real, but it’s the power that we ALLOW them to have over us. It’s as if they determine how our day will turn out. The only reason you will have a great day is if you decide to have a great day, if you decide to see the great in the moment instead of finding fault with it.
There will be outside stressors for sure, but you will be the one who decides to let those outside factors influence you, or you can become more aware and find a better truth to be excited about instead of being annoyed by one more thing on your plate. I have come to believe, and science is backing some of these ideas as well, that the more stress we have in our lives, the more we process stress negatively. The more we do that then the more issues we will have with our wellness.
And for my personal training client the issue was with fat reduction. It’s my greatest belief that for her issue we need to get a better handle on her stress levels and how she processes things. Yes, we should move and eat right…but if we don’t get a handle on her stress, her awareness, and her mindset to help her change in the ways she wants to...if she doesn’t change the way she sees the problem, it won’t matter what she does because she’s teaching her body to protect itself in ways that are damaging to herself—physically, mentally, and spiritually. But this podcast is not about her, it’s about you. So what are the ways you are focusing incorrectly, that are keeping you from your goals?
Maybe the only reason you aren’t changing is because of how you’re dealing with your stress. Not all stress is bad; it becomes bad by how we experience and process it. So maybe, just maybe, if you thought and focused differently, if you began to rid the minor annoyances in your life and re-write how they affect you…I bet you would find your goals and your health coming more easily to you…instead of always having to fight for it.
Today’s Personal Commitment:
Go one whole day recording all the minor annoyances you find bother you in that day. Record each one with the time, the location, and what happened. Write down everything during your day that bothers you. If you can’t write it down at that moment because you may have prying eyes asking why you were annoyed with them, just make a tally on a sheet, your phone, or some way to remind you to write it down later.
What this will do is help you see how many annoyances get to you. And it may shed some light on how those annoyances can build up into big issues in your life.
Now I know there will always be things that happen that annoy us, or that we wish didn’t happen. Sometimes we can’t change that fact, but we can change how we decide to respond to it. As Dr. Sapolsky said, it’s not that the stressor is bad, but it’s how we look things consistently that can cause the stress response to become more dangerous than the stressor itself.
I believe the things that ail us are deeper than the physical fix. If we want to lose weight, if we want to have more peace and calm in our lives, if we want to be more creative, if we want to be healthier, along with a whole list of other benefits of reducing our processing of stress…then we have to experience things differently and decide to become a different person—not let the external event control our outcomes.
So this exercise will help you become more aware, and when that happens, you can start devising plans to change your outcomes. And most importantly you will become more successful in your changes.
I See Past Minor Annoyances
Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn
Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247
Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide
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