Coffee Talk #139: A Mindset Shift

It’s Tuesday! Grab your cup and let’s get chattin’.

If we were having coffee together today, I’d dish all about our amazing trip last week to three National Parks. We flew into San Fran and visited Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks. There’s more dish about our trip in this week’s Coffee Talk video on facebook (including a correction after a chat with husband)!

If we were having coffee together today, I’d tell you that we’re in the process of creating a scrapbook that includes photos and anecdotes from all of our trips. Facebook informed me that husband and I have visited 30+ places together (basically whatever we’ve tagged) in the last 6 years. We’ve worked to recall our trips, including National Parks and more, and we’re slowly selecting photos, printing them, and adding to the scrapbook. This is quite the task.

As I’ve been looking through photos, I’ve stumbled upon all kinds of gems, including old fitness videos, workout selfies, and more. My phone has photos on it from the past 6 years (any guesses on the number? It’s embarrassingly large), and I have all kinds of pictures. This walk down memory lane made me realize how MUCH I’ve changed in even just the past 6 years. Like, total change.

One major change: a mindset shift. This did not happen overnight; it’s a process. Our bodies, our minds, our emotions change over the years, as we develop new interests and as we experience different life lessons.

Related,  I made this “Transformation Tuesday” post, about a year ago. While you can easily identify the physical difference, you can’t see the mental and emotional differences. At the time of the photo, I was battling my own demons. I thought I wasn’t good enough, fit enough, (trigger) thin enough. I pushed myself to stay in a toxic environment because I feared what would happen if I tried to leave it, if I tried to be my own person and learn my strength. I was scared. I can identify a real smile in photos, and I know when I’m faking it. I even remember how I felt and what I was thinking when that first photo was taken.

This got me thinking — why do we condition ourselves to look backwards? (I saw a meme that was like “the only reason to look back is to admire the booty” and I felt that.) Why do so many clients come to me with a goal of “looking like I did in high school” or “looking like 2008 me” or something along those lines?

Let me ask a question – do you ever catch yourself saying “I need to get back to this version of myself” or something similar (usually physical related). I’ve 100% caught myself doing this, too, so please don’t be afraid to admit it. Have you ever tacked an old high school or college or 20-something photo of yourself on the fridge as ‘inspiration’? I think motivation is great and images can be inspiring, but I’m proposing a mindset shift.

Instead of “I’d love to be the high school/college 20-something version of my body” what if we could think and say “Dang! There’s that version of me. I know SO much more now, I’ve seen more, I’ve experienced more. I want to be a NEW version of me.”?

Like, if you could really be that older version of yourself, would you even want it? I can confidently say that I do not. I remember that girl in the “before” photo, and even though I got so many compliments on my slender physique, I’m much happier now when I get comments like “do you lift?” — that makes me so much prouder, and it recognizes the work I’ve been doing for me. There’s NO WAY that former version of me could do 100 push-ups, or hold a headstand, or rock teaching barre moves without the barre (my party trick).

Why don’t we start owning who we are now, and if we want to make changes, look for new ways to change, instead of reaching back for a version of ourselves that no longer exists or serves us? My focus as a fitness instructor is to help people get strong, confident, to build balance, and endurance in our current bodies–not to chase dreams of being who we were physically in high school. My hope is that these sentiments get through to my clients– we’re here to change the world with our strong bodies and confident minds! Who’s with me?!