Have you changed for the better?

We all know this past year has been nothing short of crazy, to say the least.

Shutdowns. Lockdowns. Suffering on a scale we’ve never seen before.

I certainly didn’t prefer how COVID turned things upside-down over the past 12 months.

However, I’m pretty sure I changed for the better as a result.

We all had to adapt. So as things continue to trend in the right direction and some normal activities resume, I wanted to share some insight I’ve gained and some ways I’ve been able to change for the better.

I’m more resilient than I thought: Running a fitness studio when nobody was allowed to be there for months was pretty challenging, to say the least. What worked for me was always looking for the positives and doing what I could do … instead of wasting time and energy complaining about what I couldn’t. As a result, my gym now has an online training program that’s as good as I had before the shutdown… and an in-person training program that is second to none in my market.

Sleep is high, high, high on the priority list. With my training business turning sideways, virtual school, not being able to go and do normal stuff, the one thing I decided to focus on during COVID was at least 7-8 hours of sleep whenever my body allowed. I decided that, with stress coming from so many different directions, I couldn’t afford to add more stress from lack of sleep. Your body can’t tell the difference between different kinds of stress. This was a way for me to control the stress that I could control … and I’m glad I did. Plus, I know how important enough quality sleep is necessary for a properly working immune system.

Mindset matters. So much of how we behave is dictated by our mindset. What’s a mindset? Basically, it’s what you believe. Your beliefs produce thoughts, which produce feelings and emotions, which lead to actions, which produce results. So if you believe something is going to be hard (or even impossible), then guess what? It will be. I invested some time studying mindset and behavior psychology, and made a conscious effort to decide what I believed (rather than being a victim of my previously ingrained beliefs). What a difference! Which leads me to …

Let go. When things go a certain way … and that’s not what we had in mind … there’s a tendency to despair and fall into the same old trap of, “Why is this happening to me?” It’s much better to accept all outcomes as if they were meant to be (because they were). The magic happens on the other side, when you realize that you never would’ve experienced a certain benefit or opportunity if not for something happening that you didn’t like. Just the other day, my coach reminded me that I was doing the right things and that now I had to “Let go and Let God.” I like that feeling!

I’m curious … in what ways have you changed for the better over the last 12 months? Shoot me a reply and let me know.