Are you a lion or a lamb? Goals.

If you are a certain age you remember the Counting Crows song, "Round Here". There is one line that has always stuck out to me....

"Round here we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs"

Do we do that with our goals and dreams? I think we do.

We talk about our goals and we make plans to achieve them. We are all pumped up and excited

and then

a stumbling block appears.

And we bow our heads and quietly give up.

Maybe that goal is to get in shape so we buy a gym membership and new clothes and we go a couple of times. But then we have a meeting at work that runs late so we skip the gym. And the next day our to-do list is just too long so we skip the gym and run errands. We vow to get up early to hit the 6:30 AM class, but we decide not to wake the kids up early to go with us because it's too much trouble. And before you know it, the goal of getting in shape is long forgotten.

Maybe that goal is to organize our closet and keep it that way so we spend money on hangers and boxes and bins and pin lots of great looking closets on Pinterest. But then we purchase five new shirts and don't remove five so it gets a little crowded. And then we try on twelve outfits and none of them are right so we throw them on the floor. A friend shows up with a box of clothes for us to have and out of misplaced obligation we take them all. And then we can no longer see the floor nor shut the door of the closet.

Maybe that goal is to brown bag our lunch every day for 30 days. Week one we go to the grocery store and stock up. Week two we don't remember to get the bread so that throws our plan off and we decide to order in "just today" until we can stop by the store. But we forget. And then everybody is going out to lunch on Friday for Susie's birthday and we can't hurt Susie's feelings. And by day 9 we either feel like a failure or we are full of excuses why we can't complete our goal.

What happened in all these situations?

 Lion turned lamb.

ENOUGH PEOPLE!

Before you get all excited about your goal and roar, decide how bad you really want it. Are you ready to fight for it? Are you ready to put yourself and your goals high on the priority list? Can you comfortably and confidently explain to someone why you are choosing to be different? Because if you can't, you won't and you will sacrifice your dreams quietly.

But if you can, you can do anything! When faced with adversity you will behave like the lion, calmly observing the obstacle and calculating your best move. Option one, scaring it away with a core trembling roar or, option two, destroying the obstacle with ferocity. Either way, the lion wins.

Stay strong y'all.

R&R is a necessity!

What I love about my current career is that I get to work out. I get to help people reach their goals. I get to help kids develop a lifelong love of fitness. I get to meet really cool people like Jillian Mull and I get to learn from and get coached by greats like Donny Shankle. It's so exciting to learn and grow and ever day has something amazing happen!

The downside of this is that I know my body. I know I need 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night or else I'm cranky, I'm weak and I want to eat everything. But when you have all kinds of cool stuff going on in your life, sometimes it's hard to get that 8 to 10 hours.  The last time I got a good eight hours was about six days ago. So I was dragging yesterday, big-time. When I went to bed last night I was super excited because I had a window of being able to get a full 10 hours! I looked at my clock and it was 11 o'clock and I knew that if I got up at nine, I would have ten glorious hours knocked out! And I'd still have time to do everything on my to-do list before it was time to leave for the gym.

I only had a few things on my to-do list this morning which included sitting down and writing out the checks for this months bills, looking over my nutrition coaching athletes' weekly logs and studying for my nutrition certification. As I leisurely drank my coffee and ate my breakfast, I  watched Guy's Grocery Game. I did get up and write a few of the checks and I folded a load of laundry and then put a new load in. Then it was already time to get a shower and head to the gym! As I was walking through the living room, I expressed to Jeremy that I really didn't get anything done on my to-do list and I was frustrated. His response was great. 

He knows that I get easily overwhelmed and full of anxiety when I have too many things on my to-do list. He knows that I can't stand feeling like I'm behind on my tasks. He said, "Yes, but you slept for 10 hours. You recharged yourself and that, sometimes,  is more important than the to-do list." 

 I needed to hear that this morning and so do a lot of us because we feel like our "needs" list is not as important as the rest of the things we have to do. We all need rest, but we don't prioritize it. We run around all day, taxing our bodies mentally and physically and then neglect to recharge ourselves. Or if we do, we feel guilty and feel like we've wasted time. Folks, time spent resting is not a luxury, it's a necessity. 

How many hours of sleep do you need, honestly? Do you allow yourself that?

Stay strong y'all!

A random day in my life

5:30 AM Alarm goes off (Simple Man- Shinedown plays gently)

5:35 AM Coffee

5:40 AM Shower and ready up for day

6:45 AM Out the door with a Kill Cliff bar, vitamins and a bottle of water

6:45-7:15 Drive to the box while listening to a podcast (LOVE TO LEARN!)

7:15-8:45 Coach

8:45- 10:00 Answer emails, phone calls, messages, plan rest of day

10:00- 11:00 STUDY for nutrition certification!! Today it's Glycogenesis, glycogenolysis, glycolysis and a     whole bunch of other big words! And a test! (And FYI, that 39/40 bugs the crap out of me! I misread the flipping question!)

11:00-11:30 Lunch and peruse my favorite blogs.

11:42- 12:25    (Ooops! I let perusing my favorite blogs get a little out of schedule!) Bookkeeping work. Yay..You can see why I let reading blogs go long.....

12:25- 12:45  Putting the final touches on the activity for tomorrow's Murray Maneuvers event!

12:45-1:15     Working on a few details for tomorrow's weightlifting meet!

1:15- 3:00 LIFTING!! Great snatch day! Barely cried at all!

3:00-3:30 PWO treat and last minute email check!

3:30-6:45 Coaching our awesome athletes. Food break at 5, veggie burger and guacamole! Yum!

6:45-7:30 Calling one of my nutrition coaching athletes to discuss her goals and nutrition plan.

7:00- 8:00 Running around town gathering last minute supplies for tomorrow's events

8:00- 9:00 Back at box setting up for tomorrow

9:00- 9:30 driving back home inhaling Taco Bell (IIFYM FTW!)

9:30-10:30 Biscotti, decaf & prep for tomorrow!

10:30 BED!! Night night Eleiko!

Stay Strong Y'all!

Bulky girls

I had someone tell me last week they were afraid to increase the weights they were using in workouts because they didn't want to get bulky. Well, don't worry. It won't happen. If I'm "bulky" it's because I've worked my ass off watching my diet like a hawk and lifting heavy, heavy, weight everyday. General physical fitness from CrossFit 3-5 days per week will NOT make you bulky. Rant off.

Setting goals and kicking ass!

At the beginning of the year I wrote down goals for myself, both personal and professional. Some of them seemed silly writing them down, but they were important to me. I have them hanging up in my office so that I see them every single day. And anybody that walks in the office sees them as well. I have put them out there and the weird thing is, they are all happening.

Well, it's not weird really. I learned a lot from working with Dawn Fletcher of Mentality WOD and Fletcher Fitness while I was working in her Mastermind Team. She taught me about setting SMART goals and breaking them down into steps. I have yearly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals and, often, daily goals. The weekly goals are my favorite as they are very manageable and give me really sharp focus. As long as I take care of the weekly goals, the yearly goals take care of themselves!

My weekly goals vary each week. As I am planning my week on Sunday, I spend a few minutes thinking about what I want to accomplish that week. Again, this is a direct result of homework from the Mastermind Team! The goals last week involved stretching 5 minutes every day and drinking at least one water before I drink anything else (i.e. coffee, tea, bad things :)

 I've already marked off two of my five big goals, totaling at the Arnold and qualifying for the Pan-Am Masters. Not only that, but because of those two goals, I also qualified for and will be lifting at the USAW Regionals Meet in May! The weekly goals leading up to this were all directed at enhancing the big goals. One week my goal was to do 25 pvc snatch drills at least three times per week. One week the goal was to accumulate 500 repetitions of abdominal exercises. The week before the meet was really focused on hitting specific macro and micro nutrient numbers.


My fourth big goal (Yes, I know I skipped the third, it's below) was to eliminate the word "tired" from my vocabulary. I noticed that I just used that term way too much. Yes, I was tired, but so is the rest of the world! Why am I special? If I'm tired, it's because of a whole lot of blessings keeping me busy! Saying that I was tired was a way of complaining about my life and that was silly. I have a great life! To meet this goal I make it a priority to go to bed. I know what time I have to get up so I know what time I have to go to bed. There are no surprises there. I don't always get enough sleep though, but I am still trying to not say, "I'm tired". Instead, I just think about how lucky I am to be living my life, put a smile on, and rock on. While I can't officially check this one off because of the ridiculous way I worded it (really, ELIMINATE??), I feel like I am gaining major ground on this one! Weekly goals for this one included getting at least 8 hours of sleep 4 days a week, limiting caffeine consumption so my sleep quality is better and even getting some sunshine in the system.

My fifth goal is close to being marked off because I put it out in the universe. I wrote it down and things are snowballing.  It is a personal growth goal (and I'm not telling you right now what it is, sorry!) and should be halfway finished this week and completely done by June or July. I'll tell you all about this one later!

Basically, the beauty of having specific goals is that it allows you to narrow your focus to what is really important. It allows you to put brainpower and effort into making your goals happen. And my favorite part is that it allows you to give yourself a break if something is not going well and you don't have to feel like you are chasing too many rabbits. If I do a workout that has running in it, I know I'm not going to do well because I've been focusing on weightlifting only. Mentally, I can be ok with not being good at it because that is not my focus. The CrossFit Open just finished and most of us walk away feeling like we have a million weaknesses. And we immediately decide to get better at ALL
THE THINGS. But it's really hard to get better at everything at the same time. If your goals are already set and your course is set, stay the course and just make a mental note that those things could be a part of your next goal list.

For me, I'm already thinking about my next goal list because it looks like I'll have most of my 2015 goals knocked out by mid-year. Being a better runner and finally learning to butterfly are lingering in my mind as options. So are some ideas about developing the branding of CrossFit Murray and Doodleturtle.

But for now, I'm going to continue working toward goal three, qualifying for the American Open. They released the new qualifying totals about a month ago and they are challenging. I may not make this goal, but I will spend this year trying! And on that note, I need to go work on my weekly goals!

If you want to really learn about goal setting and having a purposeful life, I highly recommend you check out Dawn's site.  It is written for the athlete, but anyone can benefit from her training.

Also thank you to HookGrip for the awesome photo!

Hot dog jerky puppy treats!

If you haven't noticed, the title of this blog implies that you are going to get random posts and today is one of those. Eleiko has some allergies and we are trying to reduce the number of carbs in his diet. More proteins and healthy fats, less grains. But have you ever tried to find carb free dog treats? Ummm....can you say expensive?! 

So redneck treats it is! Hot dog jerky baby! Yes, I know hot dogs aren't healthy, but they don't have "enriched flour" as the first ingredient so it's an improvement. I mean, he eats dead birds, so hot dogs can't be much worse! 

I bought the el cheap I hot dogs at 98 cents and then sliced them in half.

 Using my handy dandy egg slicer gave me perfect hot dog coins (genius, I know).

Then I put them in the oven at 250 for an hour and a half. The Google says you can microwave them as well, but somehow, that feels like cheating. I am a serious chef here.

Let me tell you, he LOVES them. Doggy training has improved greatly because he knows I have yummy treats in my pocket!

 They even got him to pose for this picture! But because I was dangling treats it seems I couldn't hold the camera still, smh. 

Stay strong y'all!