How to Change Your Life in a Year

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Busyness is a death sentence for your goals.

If you sat down with the “you” from a year ago, would they be happy about what you have accomplished?

This is something I ask myself every birthday.

I realized that I have been so caught up in the day-to-day that I have let good habits slip to the wayside, losing my focus on the long-term.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. – Seneca

Putting out fires every single day will get you a mediocre life at best within a year. The problem is, everyone around you is always dealing with their own emergencies.

If you wake up and check your phone, e-mail, or social media sites first thing in the morning, you will be dealt a whole plate of everyone else’s problems.

One habit I have been trying to implement is to not check e-mail until I’m done with the most important things first thing in the morning. It’s a tough habit to break, but after a few weeks of testing, I’m realizing I get far more things done first thing as opposed to the day where I deal with everyone else’s problems.

Deciding What You Want

The hardest part about changing your life in a year is deciding what you actually want.

Everyone wants to find their burning passion in life. The problem is, you will rarely find your problem by thinking about it, you have to get out there in the world and see what makes you feel the best.

Every passion I have in life was discovered by accidentally stumbling upon it. I could have never sat around and just decided that I liked to help people live healthier lives, I had to get my hands dirty with training first.

When people ask me how to find a new goal, I tell them to try new things. As we get older, it gets harder. We feel awkward trying to navigate through new things whereas children throw themselves into the wonder of it all. Remember: a safe life won’t leave a legacy behind.

If you don’t know what you want out of life, list ten things you have always wanted to try but were too scared to try before.

If you already know what you want, you must set audacious goals. They should scare you and excite you at the same time.

Always stay focused on getting out into the world and serving people. You will never discover your life’s calling by thinking about it, you’ll only discover it through the actions you take.

The Secret to Success

The secret to achieving those audacious goals sits within the habits you form. If you want to publish a book, you have to write every single day. If you want to lose weight, you must do something active every single day.

Some people say it’s better to do things 3 or 4 times a week, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It’s much easier to break a habit when you only do it so often as opposed to every single day. It’s easier to keep something in motion as opposed to starting something in motion.

Serendipity comes when we’re working every day toward something we want. When I write every day, more opportunities come my way. When I lift every day, better things happen in my business.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. – Paulo Coelho

You will fall off the wagon. Some days will be harder than others. It’s your ability to get back up that will determine the life you have a year from now.

Most people go through life without achieving any big goals. They think some day this magical life they dream about will fall into their lap. That doesn’t happen.

I fall into this trap myself thinking I can start these projects, goals, and habits later on instead of realizing that right now is the only thing that matters.

What is the most important thing to you this year? Leave a comment!

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My Favorite Fitness Resources

On your fitness journey, you’ll come across a LOT of people who want to give you advice.

Some of this advice will be wonderful, some will be horrible. The secret is to find sources that are reliable so you

1. JimStoppani.com

As my absolute favorite resource, Jim Stoppani has his doctorate in exercise physiology along with a minor in biochemistry from the University of Connecticut. (More of his credentials.)

Basically, he knows what he’s talking about. You can join his membership site for a small monthly fee or follow his free programs and advice all over the internet (primarily Bodybuilding.com). Not only did I see insane results from his Shortcut to Size program, but his supplement line is top-notch.

He’s fighting hard to end the lies that the supplement industry tells all of us, so we can demand better.

If you want the truth about reaching your fitness goals backed by real science, Jim is your guy.

2. Bodybuilding.com

Next in line, Bodybuilding.com. I LOVE this site and it’s where I refer most people who have questions about the fitness world. They give free programs, have articles on almost everything possible, and have the free Bodyspace community where you can meet like-minded people and track everything related to your personal fitness stats.

3. Elliott Hulse’s YouTube channels: Strength Camp and Life

I’ve written posts in the past about the impact Elliott had on my life, but almost any question you have about fitness, life, strength, how to eat for your goals, stretching, meditation, or anything else is on his channels.

4. ChadHowseFitness.com

While Chad’s site is primarily for men, it’s one of the few sites where I read the articles religiously. He focuses not only on health, but what it means to live a legendary life. The philosophy and purpose of your life is just as important as the physical side.

You can have all the physical strength in the world, but if you are mentally weak life will chew you up and spit you out eventually.

5. JazzyThings on Instagram

Jazzy has singlehandedly changed how I cook. There are not enough websites out there that show you how to cook food with VERY few ingredients. The brilliance of Jazzy is that most of her recipes only require a few items and BOOM. Delicious meals. They usually consist of ingredients you probably already have around your house.

Those are my top 5 sources I can’t get enough of so far in 2015. What are YOURS?

What You Need to Reach Your Fitness Goals

Here is something the fitness industry rarely tells you:

YOU DON’T NEED FANCY CRAP TO LIVE A HEALTHIER LIFE.

It’s simple, but how often are we told that?

You don’t need fancy supplements, shoes, outfits, food processors, food scales, or any of that other crap to live a healthier life. You don’t even need a gym membership. The great outdoors is already enough of a natural gym.

The fitness industry wants you to believe that you can’t be healthy without what they’re selling, which simply ISN’T TRUE.

What you need to live a healthier life is already inside you. Tap into your own psychology and get on the path to building better habits.

Do not reward yourself with anything new until you have gone at least 30 days of a new habit. Make that new thing a reward for hard work, not an excuse to delay starting.

Everything can simply ENHANCE your journey, but it can’t do the hard work for you.

Don’t fall for the lies the industry wants to tell you. Anyone who tells you that you can’t achieve your goals without their products/services is full of it. Anyone who simply wants to help you on your journey are the people you should pay attention to.

I’m going to get in-depth in future articles about lies the food and fitness industries want us to believe, but just know that you already have everything you need to get the body and the life you want.

Staying on Track After Finishing A Fitness Program

Finishing a fitness program is no small feat.

To stay consistent over weeks, when your body is sore and simply over the abuse, builds not only your body, but your character.

Finishing a program is a huge accomplishment, and one that easily weeds out the strong from the weak.

Once the program is over, however, people stumble.

They get to the end of the finish line, look around, and go, “Now what?”

I saw this in my past personal training clients along with my own fitness goals.

So, I thought I’d sit down and address the three biggest reasons people fall back off the fitness routine after finishing a program, and how to fix it:

  1. You’re a goal oriented person.

    There are a lot of people who finally get in shape, look around, and go “now what?” This is easily fixed with setting a new goal: competing in something, trying a new sport, aiming for a new PR.

    Need a new goal? Some ideas:

    Gain muscle.
    Lose weight and get shredded.
    Run a race.
    Find a new workout partner.
    Hire a personal trainer.
    Hit a new PR.
    Climb a mountain.
    Take up a new sport (boxing, baseball, football, swimming).

  2. Accountability.

    A lot of people who get in shape don’t always change their friends. Sometimes just having one or two fitness-oriented friends helps you stay accountable and you two can workout together/share meal ideas/etc.

    It’s easy to slip back into old habits being around the same environment/people/etc. I know, I know, some of your current friends will get upset thinking you’ve become “obsessed” with the gym, but if they are not supportive, are they that good of friends anyway?

    You need someone in your life who cares about your goals and wants you to succeed.

    Start talking to people in your gym, find new friends online, and start reaching out to people you want to be around. Having a group of like-minded friends will do wonders for staying accountable.

  3. On a deeper, more philosophical and woo-woo level: you’re still personally identified with your past self.

    It’s hard for your subconscious to accept you’re a fit person who does fit things. This sets you up for self-sabotage because your outer appearance conflicts with your inner feelings. Super woo-woo, I know, but an incredibly real phenomenon.

    To combat this:
    Meditate.
    Visualize.
    Stop referring to your past self.

Of course, there might be other reasons, but those were the ones I almost always encountered with clients and even myself.

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Become Your Own Hero and Save Yourself

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Too many people are waiting on someone else to make them happy.

They make every excuse in the world to do what’s not important to them. They wander around on Facebook, go out to happy hour at the bar every night, smoke weed, play video games, and do every other thing to avoid the hard work of pursuing their dreams.

The thing I’ve realized about becoming an adult is the importance of saving yourself. To look yourself in the mirror every night knowing you gave that day every ounce of passion, work, and sweat equity you could.

My nerd heart was stoked to discover the Nerd Fitness website where Steve Kamb wrote about Captain America and the importance of old school thinking.

Basically, you need to focus on the essentials.

I’ve gotten caught up in my own tidal wave of mindless drivel recently. I got off track and paid the consequences.

Last night I sat down all huffy realizing I am off track and wrote down my three most important areas of focus:

1. Business.
2. Fitness
3. Rocky (my dog).

That’s it. Everything else that seems to take over my days needs to head to the back of the list and never take precedence over those three things.

One of the only shows I watch on TV is Agent Carter. If you haven’t been watching it, I’d highly recommend it.

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It follows the storyline spinoff of the first Captain America movie, picking up with Peggy Carter and her career in New York as an agent.

A constant theme throughout every episode is that Peggy is always focused on what is important and wastes no time waiting to be saved by anyone. The love of her life is at the bottom of the ocean, she’s working as an agent in 1940’s America which wasn’t exactly a welcoming place for women at the time, and people are constantly trying to kill her.

Captain America: The First Avenger

However, you don’t see her moping around wondering when someone is going to save her, complaining about her circumstances, or wishing she was doing something else. She just gets to work.

All of which are attributes I’m trying to strengthen in myself and I wish I saw more of in the world.

Especially around this time of year, with Valentine’s Day around the corner, all of my social network feeds become full of “woe is me” kind of posts about being single. If you want to feel special on V-Day, spoil yourself. Don’t wait for someone to buy you things in order to prove they love you.

The fact that The Bachelor has higher ratings than Agent Carter speaks volumes about our values in this society. The Bachelor is the epitome of victim “waiting-to-be-saved” mentality.

Watch any hero movie. You will see they spend no time whining about their lives. They work harder when times get tough. They focus on the essentials.

1. A mission.

Everyone needs a mission. Maybe your mission isn’t to drive the tesseract (from the movie) into the bottom of the ocean, but it doesn’t make it any less important.

The problem comes when people don’t know their mission. They don’t have that drive, a goal, to work toward.

I would challenge you to pick any goal for just 12 weeks and see it through. Don’t spend any time wondering if you chose the right goal, studying it on the internet, or comparing yourself to other people who have that goal.

Just pick the one you feel a strong pull toward. This could mean writing a page every day, trying out a new bodybuilding program, reading a chapter of a book every day, practicing your interviewing skills daily… Just pick something.

See, the secret sauce lies in the fact that it matters less about the specific goal you pick and more so who you become in the process. You become someone more disciplined, mentally tough, and determined.

What I learned by finishing Shortcut to Size had nothing to do with the muscle gain (although that was nice) and had everything to do with realizing I could finish something I started. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities. “If I can finish this, what else am I capable of finishing?”

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2. Spend less time being comfortable.

Our ancestors would laugh at our complaints today. I know if I was hanging out with Agent Carter and complaining about the snow on the ground she would look at me utterly baffled.

“My generation beat the Nazi’s so you can sit here and whine about the snow?” is what I imagined that look would say. Okay, maybe a little dramatic, but you get what I mean.

The point is, stop seeking comfort. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Suck it up when you’re in the cold. Walk to the grocery store instead of driving. Wait just a little big longer before turning on the air conditioning.

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.” Theodore Roosevelt.

3. Remove complaints from your life.

Generations before us did not sacrifice their lives so we can live in misery.

Nothing good ever comes from complaining. If anything, it only brings other complainers into your life and pushes away the people who want to build you up. We all know those people who continue to complain even though you have tried everything you can to build them up.

Sure, vent about things once in awhile, but after you’re done do everything in your power to change the situation at hand. If you find yourself complaining about something for more than a month, you aren’t working hard enough to change it.

4. Make your own way.

Self-reliance is the most important trait any human can develop. To look at your own circumstances and shortcomings and to decide you want something better in your life. Then to work tirelessly day in and day out to make it a reality.

There will be days when it seems hard and you want to quit. It wasn’t meant to be easy. If it was easy, everyone would be a self-reliant hero.

5. Empower other people.

The true mark of a hero is the sacrificing for others.

“A hero or heroine is a person or character who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage or self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good.” – The meaning of the word “hero”

The world needs the strongest version of you. Your family needs it, your friends need it, your community needs it.

There is a hero within you, and if you’ve read this far, I’d suspect you feel it, too. Quitters already stopped reading this article about 1,000 words ago.

Pick something.
Stay committed.
See it through to the end.
Discover you are capable of so much more.