The Falsehood of Overwork

August 19, 2017 1 Comment

We currently live in a society where we’re OBSESSED with being overworked. We wear it like a badge of honor. I’ve had close friends in various programs such as veterinary school or law school competing about who has it “worse”. Who is more tired? More exhausted? Putting in more hours? Who has a bigger work load? Who is putting in the most hours? Oh you worked 12 hours today! I’m on my 12th day of 15 hour shifts… TAKE THAT!

We take this obsession with overwork and bring it into every area of our lives. Yoga and dance are seen by people as being for the “weak”. We’ve developed military style workouts – “boot camp” – and managed to convince people that they need these in order to be healthy. Instead of focusing on making people enjoy what they’re doing when they manage to find a few hours in their days to focus on self-care… we’re basically making people beat themselves to a pulp and hate every second of it. More misery? MORE POWER!

Moms are competing as to who has it worse every day. Arguing over whose husband is messiest, or how much harder it is to be a stay at home mom, or vice versa.

So you go from over worked in the office, to doing unnecessarily intense workouts, to arguing with your friends during your down time over how awful your husband is.

Why the actual F*CK are we competing for who has it worse? Why are we so excited to be bragging about things we should be complaining about?

Any one who has been at all looped into the science coming out of exercise studies will tell you that there is no dramatic difference to your health if you workout just enough to get your heart rate into the aerobic zone for 30 minutes a day, versus being ready to throw up at the end of your workout. I’m willing to bet theres quite a difference when it comes to your mental sanity.

We can expand this to nearly every single facet of our lives.

Instead of focusing on all the ways we’re miserable in our lives, and making every aspect of our lives a competition for being more over worked than the person next to us. Why don’t we step back and realize that none of these things are making us fulfilled.

That’s a word we don’t talk about enough. Fulfillment.

How many of the things you’re doing in your life are actually making you feel fulfilled? How much of your lifestyle is actually feeding your soul?

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Word of the Year: Purpose

December 13, 2016 Leave a Comment

maxresdefault

I spent too large a portion of 2016 absolutely hating my job – large Broker Dealer bank world will do that to you – shout out to Merrill Lynch for being a complete sh*t hole! Then I spent an even larger portion finding a company that does Finance right, learning all the ins-and-outs, finding my groove, and am finally at the point where I love what I do 45+ hours a week. YAY ME!

I also spent a good portion of the year becoming a real “health” expert. Whatever that might mean to you. I’m a certified health coach thanks to IIN and on top of that I’ve taken course after course about eating to heal various disorders, eating to lose weight, eating to gain weight, eating to compete in figure related competitions, eating to fix imbalances in the body and ultimately, eating to be our own best selves – it certainly looks different for everyone and it’s been an amazingly fulfilling learning experience. I’ve even been fortunate enough to coach some amazing people and watch them transform. Pretty amazing stuff. YAY ME!

One thing down and the rest of my life to go.

Somewhere along the way I realized that although I absolutely love what I do – both full time and part time for work, I don’t have something I’m doing on a regular basis that would feel my soul.

I love helping people organize their financial lives and I love helping people solve their health and life problems in general. And although it is ABSOLUTELY a form of soul food to help others, it is entirely a practice dependent on having others to help. I felt for a while like the gaping hole was growing bigger because I was doing nothing that depended on me and only me and helped me to feeeeeeeeel goooooood!

Even though I’m a health coach, I’m not a big fan of working out. I loathe the gym. I’ve worked with personal trainers, some of which charged way too much for standing around at the gym and watching me jump rope while they texted, I’ve taken classes, I’ve done the whole gym shebang… and it’s just not fun for me. I just can’t spend the few free hours in a week doing something I absolutely detest.

Finance is not really something I can do in my free time. I definitely help others around me organize their finances and coach and teach them elements of finance every chance I get… until they’re likely more tired of hearing it than I am of saying it. But, as I mentioned, it’s hard to make a pass time out of this.

At some point I realized that a life filled with wonderful work that I love is not quite enough to satisfy my heart. Here came the thinking part; a list of things I enjoy, things I’m good at, and what I love:

  • Helping others
  • Reading
  • Buddhism
  • Yoga
  • Dancing
  • Being silly and childish
    • (Think swinging on the swing set at a playground and you’ll get the right idea)

I haven’t FULLY figured out what this means for my next year. BUT I’ve taken up Zumba classes on a regular basis and I’m doing Buti Yoga ( a form of Yoga that incorporates tribal dance, letting go of negative energy, and obviously.. yoga ).. I actually signed up to become a 200 hr RYT certified instructor in Buti Yoga, Vinyasa, and Bikram (hot) Yoga. I imagine I’m somewhere on the right track to feeding my soul.

A friend introduced me to this concept of doing a word of the year instead of a resolution so I chose the word “PURPOSE” for 2017. It seems to fit well with all the things I’ve managed to do this year to set myself up for a good next year, as well as all the things I’ve signed up for as we kick off the next year.

I’d love to hear what your word might be!

 

 

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What Are You Willing to Suffer For?

December 4, 2016 Leave a Comment

This question was asked in an interesting book I’m almost done reading and it got me thinking about all my past “efforts” that didn’t quite pan out the way I initially thought they would.

And the simple truth was that they weren’t significant enough to my life for me to suffer for them.

If you think about your past relationships, there were probably ones that you seemingly fought hard for, and others you walked away from. There were probably those that you felt absolutely tortured by but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave. Perhaps it was the quantity of time that you had already put in, or perhaps (like I have often done), you held on to the memories of good times that were long gone.

It’s interesting what we are willing to suffer for. If you think about the torture you probably endured in college, and then maybe in grad school, you’d be shocked to know how many people still stick around at jobs they hate after-the-fact. We suffer through decades of schooling to suffer through even more decades of awful work-life. And somehow, this isn’t considering insanity.

When it comes to our self-care we often neglect ourselves and then complain about the consequences of that neglect. Often, we’re simply stunned and amazed by the people who put hours upon hours of effort into their bodies at the gym – the truth is that they are willing to suffer for it, and we are not.

I’ve coached hundreds of people over the last few years and most have tried several different ‘diet’ programs, but most went back to their old habits. Why? Because they were only willing to suffer for a short time. Lifestyle changes take a prolonged amount of suffering before they become enjoyable and let’s be honest – eating cupcakes is easier and more enjoyable than doing burpees and eating kale.

Not that this is accurate or representative of anything large-scale study in particular but I polled some Facebook friends and some ladies in a group and asked what they did for themselves in the last year that made them the happiest. Most answers were like “finished college” “got a new job” “had a baby” “got certified in ____”. All of these things include suffering. In some way or form. But here’s the thing, it’s often the things we suffer for most that become the highlights of our lives. They become the shining stars and benchmarks against which all future efforts are measured. They often bring us into growth and change our lives in ways we could have hardly imagine when we started.

So next time, when someone asks “what do you want…”.. the real question should be “What are you willing to suffer for?”

Good question to ask while you ponder your New Year’s Resolutions for 2017!

Filed Under: Life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Complacency is Death

August 13, 2016 Leave a Comment

This morning one of my close friends told me that she can’t open up her store in SoHo this morning because the “Body Acceptance Movement” is protesting outside her business.

Okay, before this becomes a rant on everything that’s wrong with “BAM”, I have to say that I believe that all people should love their bodies at every size. I believe, more specifically, all women should love themselves so much that it doesn’t matter what size they are.

That being said.. BAM.. which is essentially the Fat Acceptance Movement.. angers me like very few other things in this world. The fact that my friend is losing income and her beautiful clothes can’t be sold today because 20 morbidly obese people are SITTING outside her business, is unacceptable.

I make a living helping people. As a Financial Planner, I help them improve their money situations – I have helped people get out of debt, buy homes, grow their assets, send their kids to college, and even retire comfortably. As a Health Coach, I help people improve their health – I have helped diabetics minimize the effects diabetes has on their lives, helped countless people lose weight, helped people with eating disorders to gain weight in healthy ways, and helped people live better lives with Crohns, MS, and a wide variety of other illnesses with terrible symptoms.

All of the people I have helped have had one thing in common: they all want to improve their current situations.

I don’t understand people who get to a place in their life where not only do they give up on themselves, but they’re encouraging everyone to give up on them too.

My weight has fluctuated my whole adult life, I bounce around somewhere between a size 2 and a size 8 based on how I feed my body and whether or not I’m on a health kick. It’s been pretty stable the last 2.5 years since I found a lifestyle that works for me. I have loved myself at a size 2, and I have loved myself at a size 8. But I loved myself enough to get healthy and always try to make it better. If i wake up tired for a few days straight, I must be lacking something, I must not be getting enough Vitamin B in my diet, or I need to get to sleep sooner. SOMETHING. Something has to improve and I need to change something in my life. That’s the thinking process that I go through. When I’m at a size 8, I also get not-so-subtle nudges from my family members that I need to stop eating pasta and start eating kale.

But the Body Acceptance Movement is a different beast. It says that not only should we stop improving ourselves, it suggests that the people in our lives should also stop trying to help us improve. When you stop loving yourself, the ONE thing you should want is for everyone in your life to love you SO much that they don’t let you continue hurting yourself. Obesity is painful. It is painful to live in a world where everyone judges you, judges everything you put in your mouth, judges what you dress, judges how much space you take up. Obesity is MORE painful on the inside. Obesity makes people immobile. Obesity makes it hard to sleep, hard to move, hard to eat, hard to LIVE. If you are Obese, I honestly hope you have people in your life who love you so much that they help you get healthier. If you give up on yourself, that’s the moment you stop loving yourself. And by asking your family and those around you to “accept you” or rather give up on you, you are asking them to stop loving you too.

I believe that loving yourself at every size stems from loving yourself to better health. Size aside, there is clearly nothing healthy about being obese. All studies indicate that despite all possible issues, diseases, and illness – thyroid, diabetes, MS, etc., you can still control what you put in your body and how you treat it and that you can absolutely lose weight. Studies also show that because of obesity, we will literally be the first generation to not outlive our parents. Your “Body Acceptance” may literally kill you.

So this is essentially a plea. Please stop being complacent in your situation. Instead of asking your loved ones to accept you. Ask your loved ones to support you, help you, and love you so much that they force you to make better decisions, and help you improve your health. Ask them to be your accountability partners. Or ask a stranger or a co-worker or anyone you think will actually keep you honest.

I realize this is easier said than done but: Love yourself more than any challenge that presents itself in your life.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Growth… It Often Looks Like Failure

May 17, 2016 1 Comment

I’ve spent the last two years or so of my life working on growing and developing myself. In particular I really wanted to get good at a few things:

  1. Staying positive no matter what is going on.
  2. Not letting negative people bring me down.
  3. Not negatively reacting or being bothered by other people and what they do/say.
  4. Waking up every day excited for the day.
  5. Going to sleep with a grateful heart.

Of the last two years, I can honestly say that there have very few days where I have accomplished all five things. However, I have steadily gotten better at doing all of them, in on way or another, and I am VERY good at noticing when I am not doing one of those 5 – and stopping to reassess my behavior.

It took me way too many negative nancy moment, way too many tears, way too many arguments with people on Facebook, and way too much frustration to realize I had a problem. I used to constantly argue about politics -and feel like banging my head against a wall when I couldn’t make every single member of my friends list agree with me. I used to argue all day about one thing or another until I realized it was eating up my life and a complete waste of energy. And more importantly – all the negatively, arguing, and frustration was getting me nowhere fast in terms of my life and my goals.

I’ve learned that growth involves a lot of failing forward.

I’ve gotten really good at being focused on my goals regardless of what my day is looking like, what obstacles come about or what random project gets thrown my way that throws off the next 87 days that I had planned down to 30-minute intervals. I’ve gotten good at focusing on what I need to get done, and gaining that “I’m accomplished” feeling. That feeling just feels so damn good #amiright?

At first, my approach to not letting negative people bother me was to simply block them all away. If I can’t see it.. it’s not really there, right? Yes, that’s right. But I’m also not learning how to deal with the negativity in a way that doesn’t affect me. So a few weeks ago I unblocked everyone on my block list and let pandora’s box be what it may. I must add though, that the unfollow button is a true blessing. No one likes a constant complainer… and I no longer need to see them whine about how awful it is that their Barista can’t get their name right ever or how TERRIBLE the MTA is every.single.day.

Now, I rarely argue on Facebook – there are a few special characters that can bring it out of me, but I always notice it and I always try to end things – make peace and move on with my day to being more productive. It used to eat up hours, now it eats up minutes (most of the time).. we’ll just call that growing because this one was particularly hard for me to do.

I finally have a job, work environment and all around life where I am excited for each of my days. I feel like I’m constantly helping people and feel like I’m growing personally and professionally. Both my day job – being a Financial Planner, and my evening personal gig- being a Health Coach, are personally rewarding in a thousand different ways. It’s frikkin’ awesome (and I am eternally grateful every single day)!

I have also gotten in the habit of writing out my gratitudes. I don’t do it everyday, but whether I do it before bed, when I first wake up, or dead center in the middle of a client meeting.. it still gets done… and it brings my entire perspective right back to what’s really important.

So fail forward. Fail forward every day to get closer and closer to whatever your personal goals are… I sure am!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happiness is a Moving Target

February 26, 2016 Leave a Comment

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what leads to true bliss and happiness in relationships. What the magical combination of ingredients is that leads to true everlasting love.

Now I realize that many people will say that there is no such thing as everlasting love, but I’m going to adamantly disagree with the sentiment upfront and disclose that I am your typical romantic. I fully believe we can fall head-over-heels in love at first sight and make it last a life time. I believe in high school sweet hearts. I believe in all the mushy gushy lovey dovey movie stuff. Feel free to judge.. because honestly, in the world of Tinder and Thrinder (is that how it’s spelled?) – it just keeps getting harder and harder to believe it. But for now, I’m not a love skeptic.

I think one of the most important things in a relationship is to have an attitude of gratitude. Be thankful for all the wonderful, lovely amazing things that your significant other does for you – and encourage the same in return. Thank you for picking me up from xyz, thank you for being there for me, thank you for listening, etc etc. Yes, all of these seemingly simple things are part of your normal healthy relationship, but expressing gratitude for those things.. just encourages more of them.

Secondly, and more importantly- don’t apologize all the time. Yes, sometimes we make mistakes, but other times the things we say “sorry” for were actually intentional actions. Sorry is a word that quickly loses its value when it’s overused. This goes for all your relationships! I used to be the constant apologizer “Sorry for canceling tonight, something came up” .. no I just want to sit home and not see anyone and I really shouldn’t have to apologize for that.

Part of not apologizing for our possibly awkward but still intentional actions is being ourselves. Every relationship is just a pre-qualification test for marriage (or whatever your long-term commitment variation of marriage might be) and the truth is that if you’re going to potentially spend 60+ years with someone, you might as well know that they can’t handle being social all the time, or that they leave their socks on the floor for 3 days. Don’t fake it until there’s a ring on it… or make excuses for your significant other if they have behaviors you can’t handle.

Be wholly unapologetically yourself!

Lastly, someone said something to me that really clicked home. Happiness is a moving target. What makes you happy when you’re 18 will be different than what makes you happy at 25 and 30 and 45 and so on. You will change. Your significant other will change and in order to stay happy in your relationship, you have to be able to effectively communicate those internal changes. And you have to accept whatever internal changes your significant other will go through during your lives together.. there will be many and you have to be prepared to deal with every single one of them. Or be subjected to a lifetime of arguing which is well.. miserable. I have many things to say to those people that think consistent arguing is a ‘normal’ part of a relationship.

The largest part of ALL of this is being happy with yourself and accepting all the internal changes that come your way. Spread the love people! Even Facebook has started encouraging it!

 

XOXO

Filed Under: Dating world Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Don’t Believe in Compromise

February 16, 2016 Leave a Comment

… I bet you’re like.. did this girl just tell me never to compromise? She must be batshit!

Webster Dictionary defines Compromise as the following: an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions..

“Each side making concessions”… sounds like we’re all willingly signing ourselves up for disappointment. Why in the world would you want to sign up to be in a relationship where you’re constantly disappointed and so is your partner? Who wants to give a little all the time? Why wouldn’t you want to live in the ‘extreme’ and just be happy as often as possible?

It is my honest opinion that we need to redefine compromise and how your typical relationship works. 

Let’s try this on for size: If something is MORE important to your significant other than it is to you.. go with what your significant other wants. The opposite is, of course, also true. If something is extremely important to you.. more so than it is to your partner.. don’t battle over it.. just make it clear how important it is.

How many problems are created by both partners being somewhat disappointed ALL THE TIME? Based on this new definition, disappointment would briefly occur for the one partner that doesn’t get his/her way. However, you will be rewarded with a partner who is not disappointed in any way and is instead, hopefully, very happy.

We need to give up on the idea that you’re always going to be happy with every single thing your significant other does, but your ultimate goal should be to make each other as happy as possible. Wouldn’t it be better if we agreed to base our “compromises” based on priorities? You’d be happiest on the things that matter MOST to YOU!

Obviously, your significant other would have to agree to this otherwise you’re forever giving into things and getting nothing back and that will leave you in a very disappointing one-sided relationship.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Consistency is Everything

January 24, 2016 Leave a Comment

Happy New Year!

Alright, that’s all you get. Mostly because you’ve probably long forgotten about all your wonderful New Year’s goals and ALL the changes you’ve promised yourself you’re going to make in #2016. (This is your super sweet reminder to refresh those goals before it’s November!)

Thinking about New Year’s resolutions and how so many people have already let theirs go down the drain, I started thinking about everything else we probably promise to do on a regular basis and quickly forget about.

Eating healthy, exercising, cooking at home more often, calling our friends and family members, spending more quality time, reading, writing a blog, keeping our closets organized, and maybe even showing love and affection.

All of these things that we aim to be better at – to do more of. They seem to slip into the cracks of “life”. Complaining about our jobs, about our bosses, focusing on everything our significant others don’t do, drama with friends – these are the things we tend to draw our attention to. The things we seem to focus on.

A brilliant and favorite author of mine – Rod Hairston says the following:

“What you Focus on you Find, What you Focus on Grows, What you Focus on Seems Real, What you Focus on You Become.”

So before you forget about all those things that seem to fade away quickly after January 1st of every year – ask yourself who you want to become?

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in places we never actually aimed to go. Does the alcoholic take a sip of beer and decide he wants to ruin his life by becoming a slave to alcohol? Probably not. I’ve coached hundreds of people who wanted to lose weight and NONE of them ever set a goal to gain it in the first place. They just “ended up” there.

So much of who we actually become has to do with our daily habits. Our unconscious choices. Our day-in and day-out actions and inactions. They’re the ones that actually create our outcomes.

So let’s actually make #2016 different. Let’s change our every day. Let’s figure out who/what we want to become and get there through consistent daily action.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU! (I really feel like this is an appropriate way to end this)

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Never Stop Giving

December 7, 2015 Leave a Comment

I didn’t grow up in a family that was big on charitable giving – we gave old clothes and such away to family and friends and whatever was left went to the salvation army.. but that was about it.

Somehow, I ended up being a person that might be borderline obsessed with finding ways to give back. Partially because I honestly believe it’s my obligation but also because I think it’s just the good person thing to do.

I’m not here to patronize you about how you should donate toys to homeless children, volunteer at soup kitchens or anything else. Although, if you’re sitting in a warm place somewhere, reading this on your laptop or computer.. you should probably consider what you can do to give back.. even if it’s only dropping $1 occasionally in the bucket of a random homeless person.

I am here to tell you that giving isn’t about how much or how little you do. It’s not about how often you do it. It’s about giving yourself to as many people as possible (presumably those who deserve it) as much as you can. I really do think the world works in some sort of strange karmic way and although we all make mistakes, we can undo those errors simply by being better humans whenever we get the chance.

Giving doesn’t only mean donating items, time or money. It means giving in every sense of the word. Giving your heart, fully and completely to those you love. Providing value, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear to your friends when they need one. And ultimately, giving everything you are as a human being each day to the world.

The world needs you – it needs your heart, your mind, your soul – every day. It needs you to give yourself to make it a better and more beautiful place.

The world needs you.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Settling is for Wussies

December 1, 2015 1 Comment

I used to think that there is always something in life that we have to settle for. How many people do you know that stay at a job they hate? Stay in a relationship with someone who is “fine”? Stay in crappy apartments because it’s a process to look for something new?

We all know someone, maybe even ourselves, who is settling for something in their lives. I will be very open and tell you that I used to be that person in almost every aspect.

I went to graduate school primarily to appease my family who thinks a regular college degree is not enough. I had a really stable, safe, boring job where I wanted to blow my brains out every morning going to it, but I also knew I’d never be fired and it was really easy. I had some pretty mediocre friends, the ones who would be awesome at parties but don’t actually care about your wellbeing.. a whole large circle of them. And lastly, I had a relationship with that guy that was really good on paper, except he excited me about as much as watching baseball does (read: not at all.. what a stupid boring sport…but hey.. hot dogs!). And mostly, I was settling on me, I had accepted that I would never achieve exceptional things, that I would never have the dream life for myself, and that I was done growing.

Boy, how silly that was!

I started with making small changes – a diet change, a life style change, exploring and doing new things, meeting new people through a new business pursuit, dropping one “friend” at a time (or sometimes three in a day.. because why not?), ending the relationship, moving out on my own, meeting someone new, falling in love with someone incredible, and then changing my job. The entire journey (which is still not even close to being over) has taught me that I absolutely love growing and changing. I’ve fallen in love with the unknown and fallen in love with being unsettled.

Of course, I’m still finishing graduate school, and honestly, a part of me wishes I hadn’t spent the time doing it. But I also realized that no one ever regrets getting an MBA degree.. so whatever! I’m now extra over-qualified!

But the point of this post wasn’t to tell you to get a graduate degree to make your parents happy. It was to tell you that you can create whatever kind of life you want. No, it won’t happen over night. It took me well over a year to about 40% of the way to what I envision.. and that’s where I am now. But that’s okay, I’ve fallen in love with the process. I try new things and explore new options all the time. I don’t shy away from new experiences the way I used to, instead, I welcome them and see if the new experience can fit into the life I want and the person I want to be. Today, I choose to be happy and cheerful. I’ll probably choose the same tomorrow. But it’s a choice for me. Just like it’s a choice for you. So if you have something in your life that’s maybe just “okay” – whatever that may be – go about changing it! Start now.. like right now.. GO!

 

We’re all a work in progress… be the best damn work in progress you can be!

Filed Under: Dating world, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»

I'm a bit popular

  • 9,388 hits