Necessary Attributes to Achieving Personal and Professional Success can Include:
I would remiss if I did not mention that there are inherent emotional risks when you reach for your goals and dreams.
Inherent Risks of Striving for More in Your Life
Exposure
Being vulnerable
Being wrong
Failing
Unintentionally hurting others
Being seen differently from the way you see yourself
Reaching for Your Dreams
We all possess dreams, but reaching them is not always easy. However, it is always rewarding. The act of reaching for them will strengthen you, enlighten you, challenge you, broaden you, help you realize more of who you are and show you who you are not.
If you don’t reach for your goals, you are doing yourself and the world a huge disservice.
Within you is a unique voice. You have specialized gifts. Keeping these gifts hidden helps no one, especially you. The choice is either to reach for them or to resign yourself to being less in your life.
Your commitment is what allows you to face and overcome the risk of reaching for your dream Every moment of your life can become an amazing opportunity to learn more about yourself. You can make the word “mistake,” mean anything you want. I, long ago changed the definition of “mistake” to represent “challenge” and have embraced every challenge as just another way of seeing what works and what does not. The goal is to learn the lesson.
The opportunity of embracing each of these “negative” feelings is they already exist in your body/mind. They already have an effect in your life everyday. If you don not acknowledge them, their affect remain underground and unseen.
Be aware - when you practice positive behaviors, it causes the negative ones to surface. This is the opportunity for growth, healing and empowerment. If you allow the negative ones to surface, they will eventually clear leaving a space for you to fill up with your new positive ways.
Within this space is where you begin linking your personal and professional goals to your exercise so your workouts become a metaphor for your life.
What Kind of Exercises Should You Do?
To answer this question we turn to your vision… what attributes do you need in order to realize the goals you have set for yourself?
How we get better at these attributes is by practicing them and becoming more familiar with how they fit into our lives. If you have no opportunity to practice them, how can you get better? The following realization is the key to the specific attributes you’re interested in developing being integrated into your workouts.
Whatever your body goes through is indelibly impressed upon your subconscious. When you consciously choose to practice a specific attribute with physical activity, what you are doing is creating an association.
This association is, “Whenever I focus upon my body and I exert myself I will also focus upon feeling and having the attribute I have chosen to practice.
The more you workout with this intention, the more you will strengthen this association between your body and your chosen attribute.
Imagine you have just spent the week practicing running with good posture. You discover your ability and form improved because of your commitment to yourself. You have learned you can maintain good posture during a stressful situation. One day you are in a situation where you are really tired but you have a presentation to do. You remember your experience of maintaining good posture during your running. Instantly your body also remembers as inner reserves of strength come forth to energize your posture. You have no problem making your presentation and you look good doing it.
Successful Personal Attributes:
Intimacy
Be with your body as you move and use it. During your workout focus on having every moment be yours and yours alone. Feel every movement. Make each one count. Being good at intimacy begins with your connection to yourself. Use every workout as a practice of how to feel your body as you would a lover’s. Put aside for the moment any misgivings, shame or embarrassment this thought brings forth and simply view your body as something wonderful. Even it you only do it for a couple of seconds. If you keep at it, a couple of seconds will grow to a minute and beyond just like strengthening a muscle. As you become more intimate with the movements of your body during every exercise you will find your connection to yourself improves and deepens. After all, if you cannot be intimate with yourself, how can you be intimate with another?
Improved Sexual Performance
If you really want to improve your ability to have sex I suggest taking the time to feel your body from the inside out. (Intentional Relaxation on page 56 and the Feelings Mediation, page 99 will help.) Sex does not just involve the genitals. Your entire body has pleasure receptors all over it. Dancing can be very erotic. So can a bath. Engaging in any activity or form of exercise that deepens your connection to your body and its sexuality will enhance intimacy with another. Masturbation is a wonderful way of connecting to what excites and pleases you.
Personal Comfort Levels
This is the comfort you have with yourself when you are alone and is challenged when you are in close proximity to others whom you do not know. Practicing being at ease with your body, as it is when you are alone, will enable you to maintain this same degree of comfort when you are not alone. Use Intentional Relaxation (page 56) and Feelings Meditation (page 99) to become more comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Your personal comfort levels will rise the more you practice staying calm and relaxed in their presence. Comfort and discomfort are a natural part of life. Learning to be comfortable while you exert is an extension of this ability.
Self-Connection
Learn to listen to your body as it speaks to you. Listen to the nuance of its moods and needs. Learn to recognize any patterns of behavior your body habitually performs. Notice how your mind distracts you from what your body is doing. Use the sensations and feelings in your body as the focal point of your attention. If you become aware you are dialoguing with yourself you know your back in your head. Gently but firmly bring your attention back to what you are experiencing in your body. Listen when you’re unhappy, sad, glad, mad, angry, happy, and fulfilled. Don’t ignore any of it. The more you listen to yourself the more awareness you develop and therefore the more information you have about what you are going through and what you need.
Sensitivity and Empathy
As your self-connection, self-acceptance, personal comfort, and intimacy improve so too does your sensitivity and empathy. Practice listening to your body during exercise and listen for what is needed and balance it with what the goals are. For example, if you are in the gym working out and you are feeling exhausted, maybe you should go lighten up on your intensity. Maybe, if you’ve had a long week you should go stop and go home. Alternatively, if you have not worked out for a while and you’re tired, maybe you should push forward. The point here is to have your mind present with your body during every moment of exertion. As you strengthen this association your connection to your body will deepen. The greater your listening is, the greater empathy and sensitivity you develop, not just for yourself but for others as well.
Understanding
Once again this involves listening to your body. Practice listening for what is needed in that moment. Learn to discern the difference between laziness and true fatigue. Understand when your body needs rest or when it needs to be pushed. Allow yourself to be where you are when you are there. True understanding requires true honesty.
Appreciation
Learn to take the time to celebrate when you have completed something that is difficult or challenging for you. Appreciate that you have been true to your commitment. Appreciate that you have two working arms and legs because there are those who don’t. Appreciate the fact that your body works as well as its does because there are those whose bodies don’t work very well. Appreciation is all around you. The challenge is to take the time to realize what you truly have and be grateful for it. Taking the time on a daily basis to appreciate your body will generate more health and balance within your body and mind.
Expression
Learn to express yourself through body movements. Dancing is great for this! Let yourself go as you dance. You can also try different ways of exercising traditional exercises and movements (be sure to keep it safe). See how it feels to allow your body to lead you. Enjoy the feeling and keep trying something new. Be free with your movements and refrain from creating too much structure.
Loyalty
Practice staying true to yourself and your goals. Be loyal to your needs. Devote time each day to giving your body time to be “center-stage” (your mind usually takes center-stage). Learn what loyalty to yourself means to your body. This practice will empower you to be loyal to others.
Successful Professional Attributes:
Drive
Once you find a rhythm or comfort with one form of exertion, push yourself to higher levels of intensity. See how high you can go. Don’t stop until your reach your goals. Don’t fall into a “routine”. This leads to boredom.
Intuition
Intuition resides within and is a valuable resource. It can be tapped through learning to listen and tune into your truth. Intentional Relaxation (page 56) and Feelings Meditation (page 99) can help. Intuition is a very real thing and exists within your body. Practice listening to different areas of your body to develop your ability to connect to your inner world. This will promote your intuition to surface and provide you with clearer communication. Open yourself up to hearing your intuition. Ask yourself out loud to have your intuition speak louder than the rest of the voices in your head. Allow your body to move with less structure and more freedom to express.
The benefit of multi-tasking in our modern world is valuable. It is true anything you cannot place your full attention on loses quality but nonetheless multi-tasking is an attribute that makes a big difference in performance and therefore, future success.
Practicing multi-tasking – try to perform these things while remaining calm
While these specific tasks may be more than you’re willing to attempt, the point is to physically perform two activities at once. You can lift one foot while using a cable column or hand weights. You can make circles with your arms while doing squats. You can have one arm circle in one direction while the other arm circles in another direction while doing walking lunges. It’s based in your ability to physically imagine.
Now these things may seem to be unrelated to the kind of multi-tasking you need in your day but what you are doing during your day but if you practice these things with intent you will develop:
Strength During Adversity
The concepts I am offering are intangible. They are on a page of written words and not in real life. When you physically practice something it becomes an anchor for you to remember. Here is a real life situation. Your job is to handle many roles at once. When it’s quiet and calm you are fine, but when many things start to happen all at once you quickly lose your composure and worry, fear and anxiety set in. Maybe at first this stress helps to sharpen and strengthen you, but eventually you become worn down. You may get sick or maybe you need to spend your weekends doing absolutely nothing until you recover.
If you start applying multitasking to your workouts slowly and with a certain degree of fun you will slowly discover something about yourself. You will know you can handle it. “Hell, if I can balance while on a balance board in a held semi-squat position while throwing a ball, and if in that situation I can remain calm, then I can handle my job and this moment.” Slowly it will dawn on you… you can handle a great deal more than you thought with much less energy. There is a great difference between thinking you can do something and actually doing it.
Confidence/Strength and Power
I define power as clarity of purpose. The more your purpose is clear, the more power you will have. Maintain your focus on your purpose and no one or nothing will get in your way. Let nothing distract you. After all, this is your life.
Walk into the gym with the intention to pick a degree of intensity and commit to it. Pick a time by which to finish and LET NOTHING STAND IN YOUR WAY. Do every rep, set and run with as much focus and dedication as you can. Have perfect form. Feel the power of your commitment. True power is strengthened when you see you can achieve that which you set out to do.
I define strength as the ability or means to achieve your purpose. Your strength flows from your commitment of purpose. Your strength increases as your ability to channel your power improves. As you experience your strength and power, your confidence in these areas will grow. Because this confidence stems from your body - this body that is with you all day long – this confidence will flow into all areas of your life.
Perseverance
Pick a day and detail out your workout. Pick a level of intensity for the entire workout and a time you will be sure to finish. Then do it. Don’t stop until its finished in exactly the form you intended. Be fierce. Persevere. Overcome your own resistance. (Even if its only two minutes, that’s a start.)
Endurance
Pick a piece of cardio equipment and commit to a certain number of minutes, at a certain intensity and do not stop until you fulfill this commitment. When you hit that point where you don’t think you can go any longer, DO IT ANYWAY. Practice extending your ability to endure, for longer and longer periods of time.
Acclimation
This is one of the most important attributes of both worlds: exercise and inner improvement. The more familiar you are with how to acclimate to any situation, the better off you will be with regard to exercise and in your daily life. Every exercise is an opportunity to adapt to the stresses involved. Learn to harness the power of adaptation inherent in the cells of your body.
Commitment
Let’s say you want to improve your ability to commit. Maybe you have problems committing to others. Well, the first place to practice commitment is to yourself.
Commit to getting yourself to the gym twice a week. That’s it. Just learn how to fulfill this commitment. You can even walk in and walk out. Now, you might say, “that ridiculous”, but if I say try this and already you’re thinking “ridiculous”, I’d say this is the voice which prevents you from committing. It is this voice that talks you out of doing something because it seems to be ridiculous. Don’t let this voice win. Treat this walking in and walking out as a success. Take the time each day to practice fulfilling small commitments. As you get better and increase your comfort with fulfilling these commitments, you can up your ante and raise the stakes.
Next, commit to two minutes on the bike. Anyone can do two minutes. Slowly you will realize you can commit and it can be successful. Keep adding higher levels of commitment to your workout. Eventually you will reach the point where committing to working out will not be difficult. Beyond this, when you are in a situation that requires your commitment you can always say to yourself in that key moment, “If I can commit to 30 minutes running on the treadmill at 6.5 m.p.h., I can commit to this...” Your commitment confidence will improve along with your physical and cardiovascular strength. There is nothing like feeling physically strong along with a mental concept of inner strength and fortitude.
The concept here is you can make any exercise mean anything you want. If you want more power in your life, you can practice it in the gym. Lift weights and feel what physical power feels like. Work on pushing yourself harder not because you have to but because you choose it for yourself. Start by committing to a challenging number of minutes (whatever is challenging to you) on a piece of cardio equipment.
Stay on it until you fulfill your commitment. After you finish, write down what your intention was and what your action was. At that moment, commit to the next day/time and number of minutes you will do for your next workout. Make sure you increase the number of minutes from the first day to the next. This can be applied to any exercise. Pick one exercise and a certain number of reps, sets and weight and then follow through and do it.
Tolerance
We all need more tolerance of each other and ourselves. As you exercise, what you are doing is tolerating or accepting the feelings and sensations of exercise and how it affects your body. Once you begin tolerating the sensations exercise produces in your body the more tolerant you become. This is also linked with intimacy or staying connected to what is happening to your body as it is happening.
Creativity
Learn to move and use your body in new ways. This will help promote you to think in new ways. Dance naked in front of a mirror. Try to create a new exercise or a new way to move. Walk differently. Try to figure out for yourself how to run more efficiently. Applying yourself to being physically creative will promote creativity on all other levels.
Willingness to Change
Change happens whether we like it or not. Instead of dealing with it when it comes, choose instead to create it in your life. Change not because you have to but because you want to. Change the way you eat, sleep, move, sit, walk, and talk. Seek change out. Embrace it when you find it.
Integrity
I think of integrity as a structure. Integrity is what holds things together. Integrity is the ability to hold a form constant. Practice being true to your word and your commitments. Pick an exercise or a whole routine where you practice every aspect of the routine as perfectly as possible. Declare out loud your intentions. Make sure each form is as it should be according to your vision and commitment. The more fully you feel the structure you chose to impose upon yourself, the more you will know what integrity feels like, not as a concept but as an actual physical reality.
Honesty
Pick your intensity level before you workout. When you are finished ask yourself, “Did I stay true to my intensity level?” Then ask yourself, “Could I have worked out even harder?”
Self-Motivation
Get to the gym/yoga or exercise class without relying upon anyone. Just go. Commit to a week’s worth of going regardless of who is there or how you feel. Practice doing things on your own. Venture out on your own.
Show Initiative
When you set for yourself a goal for a workout, after you attain your goal do an extra set, mile, or rep. Go to the park and run. Go help a stranger. Do something above and beyond the goals you set for yourself.
Open to New Things/Ideas/Experiences
Whatever exercise modality you are used to, take one week and try something you usually never do. Try yoga, spinning, hiking, biking, dancing or anything that challenges you to open to something else outside of your comfort zone. Going outside of your comfort zone in the exercise realm opens you to new opportunities that will expand your overall horizons.
Respect
When you complete a goal, honor yourself for the work you did and acknowledge yourself. Respect where you have come from and where you are now. The more respect you have for yourself, the more you respect you will have to give others when you feel this it is appropriate. (Note- it is almost always appropriate to show others the respect they have to make their own choices about their lives just as you would want them to show you respect for the choices you make for your life. No one likes to be told what to do or how to live. Give them this freedom because you give it to yourself.)
Courage
Courage is the ability to act in the face of fear. Go to the gym by yourself. Try a weight you have never tried before. Run faster than you have before. Reach for something you have always told yourself you could never have or do.
Focus
Ignore everything around you except for what you are doing. Focus on every sensation of every motion. Do not let anyone take you away from what you’re focusing on. Try working out next to the most beautiful person in the gym and never once look at them. Try focusing on NOT looking in the mirror for your whole workout. Resist temptation.
Assertion
When you are exercising and you reach a point where you feel like you need to stop, assert yourself and finish what your commitment. You will deepen your presence as you command your body to obey.
Grace
As you do your run or take your exercise class, move your body with as much grace as you can. Feel your grace in every step and in ever gesture. Play with your movements and feel grace within you. This will enable you to become familiar with the feeling of grace so you can integrate it into your day-to- day activities.
Adaptability
Adapt to the conditions in your gym. If it’s crowded, work out around people by focusing on not getting in anyone’s way. Challenge yourself by making sure you get all the specific aspects of your workout completed as planned. Another way to practice is to change the way in which you work out. Change the order of exercises. Run for 10 minutes, get off and work with weights for 10 minutes and then run for 10 minutes again. Switch things around and live a little. This new way of being will teach you how to adapt to what life throws at you.
Remaining Calm
Exercise is a stress. As you exert, stay calm. After you exert, return to the calmest state you can.
Trust
Trust your body. Trust it can handle extra weight, an extra rep, an extra mile, etc. Trust that you can do what you say you can.
Self-Listening
Pick one day to listen to your body and give it what it needs even if it seems to be contrary to your goal (however, always use your discernment. If this need involves something harmful to yourself or others, don’t do it). If your body does not want to work out, don’t work out. If you need to workout and press more weight, press more weight. If you need to eat something that tastes great, but may not be the healthiest for you, eat it and savor it. Give yourself permission to do what you truly want not based upon fear of repercussion but because you simply want it. An additional benefit of this practice is it improves your ability to listen to not only yourself and your body but to others as well.