What I Learned in 2011
Image source: http://middlezonemusings.com
As another year has gone by, I decided to sit down, give myself some time and look back on what happened during 2011. I stepped back and analyzed some of the things that happened, what I learned from them and how they changed me in some way! So today my post will be a reflection on the year!
1.If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you will always get the same results
I am fond on researching, people’s behavior, why we do certain things, what hides behind our actions, our words and thoughts. Sometimes what we do seems so illogical and controversial that it is impossible to find a good reason behind it!
Did you ever happen to have a goal? A goal you chased, but kind of always slipped off the road, on that sharp, right turn? But you are stubborn, and instead of giving up, you started over again, but your mistake was that you didn’t learn from your last failure, and started walking the same path, doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome! I am not quite sure who said it, but doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome is a total madness!
Tell you the truth I’ve made that mistake a bunch of times! I am pretty ambitious and hard working. Challenges don’t bother me! But sometimes I get caught doing the same thing over and over again even though I know it forced me to fail the last time! I know it is wrong, but I still think that this time it is gonna workout!
Well, needless to say, I failed a hundred times, by acting this way. I am more than happy to confess that this year I finally realized that you need to change your behavior if you want to achieve a goal!
2.Eagles fly alone, sheeps walk together
Ok, that might sound like a cliché, but it is so true! If you want to be successful in life, you will have to take some risks. It is easy to pick a leader and follow him, but you will never go far enough! If you follow somebody, you limit yourself to become only as good as he is! That is why you need to get yourself straight and decide what you want out of life! Then, dare to risk, dare to act! Do something to achieve it, no matter if other people see it right. It doesn’t matter if somebody has ever done it before you! Remember impossible is just an opinion not a fact!
Since I was a kid, I used to be really shy. I might have some talents, but I was scared to show them, because I was scared to stand out alone. Even in situations when I knew I was better, I was searching for somebody to follow, so I could kind of hide behind him! But as it is said, better later than never, I realized that such behavior won’t get me where I wanna see myself in life!
Now I feel strong enough to walk alone, but chase my dreams! And just to add up to this, I do not want you to become anti-social and never consider other people. Collaboration is really important, but you should know better, when you need to follow the crowd and when you need to take your own path!
3.Make things simple
If you could be in my head just for a day, you’d go crazy! 
I think about a lot of stuff, I am always analyzing, planning, creating and so on. I have the habit of making things more complicated than they actually are, just because I put way too much thought in them. It is the same with the workouts. The more you know, the more you realize you do not know anything. You always think what could you add to the workout in order to improve. Well, truth is that sometimes you do not need to add anything, but rather take something out. Simplicity is the key! It is good to have vast amounts of information, but it would be that much better if you could take the most important out of it and apply it to your field!
What did you learn this year, that changed your life for the better?
Stop the bullshit! Listen to real people!
The Fitness and Health industry earn billions of dollars every year just because there are still millions of naïve people to believe them and buy their products.Come on do you really think that if you put a Sauna Belt, sit on your couch, watch TV and eat ice-cream you will have a six pack like the model from the commercial? No way that is happening! What about the Push-up Pro? Why in the hell would you think that works? Where do you put your hands when doing push-ups? The floor seems like a logical answer to me but if you think I am wrong, then go ahead and spend your money for that ridiculous product! I can give you endless examples with stupid products but that is not what I wanna show with this article.
I know that most of you, want to be fit so desperately that they’d try every crazy product just to get there! Think about it! You would give everything to be in shape wouldn’t you? And the models from the commercials only fool you, that by using the product you will become like them! Shut your emotions for a second and think logical! Do you really believe that all these models used these products to become what they are! I highly doubt it!
The companies that produce those products and supplements pay the pro fitness models to hold up the product! They are pretty much cheating you, taking advantage of your desperate desire to look good!
Do you believe that the product above, helped her look they way she does? I don’t think so! What about her workout routine, her nutrition plan and so on. I am almost sure that she has never eaten this in her entire life! So why would you eat it?
Stop the bullshit! Quit giving your money for things that DO NOT WORK! Instead I will give you a better solution!
Go ahead and listen to real people. Look around in the gym. See the guy or the girl that looks fit, go ahead and talk to them. Ask them what works for them and what doesn’t! How they got where they are! You could learn a lot more useful tips to get in shape from real life stories than from plots on the commercials! Real people are the once that will help you achieve your goals! And when I tell you listen to them, I do not mean copy their workout routine and diet plan. There is a rule that the workout which works for me, doesn’t necessary work for you! Learn the principles from them, and use your knowledge to build your own successful workout routine and nutrition plan!
Besides that when you stop wasting your money for crappy products you will be rich and you will be able to give them for real food, for your gym membership and as a whole for things that will actually work!
The mirror in your head…the skelleton in your closet!
The mirror in your head- the false image
Psychology sience teaches us that there are four ways in which people perceive themselves- first, the way they see themselves; second the way they want to be; third-the way other see them and forth, the way they want others to see them. That’s way too much,ain’t it? Or maybe you do not care that much, and you do not see yourself through all four images? Lucky you! I know about people that are literally dying to satisfy all these expectations and come as close as possible to the perfect image in their own opinion and in other’s people opinion, sometimes even go further and self-destroy themselves!
But as you might guess that can be pretty hard. There are close to 7 billion people in the world. All of them have their own view of the perfect image and it is rediculous to think that you could sclupt yourself according to everybody’s expectations. Or so I thought… but people I mentioned, bet on their lives that you could. And who are they? Just ordinary people like us, the difference is just in the way they see themselves. They are so lost in the higly demanding world, in all the information and expectations that are poured on us daily, that they pretty much twist their image, what they truely are, and consider themselves never good enough or beautiful enough. And let’s take the pressure off and finally reveal who they are!…Some call them anorexic, others say they are bulimic…but what they truely are, is beautiful women and sometimes boys that lost control over their lives, over what they truely loved and wanted to be, and started slaving some fashion trends, started living according to other people expectations, left behind their passion and tried to follow somebody’s else passion…and all these things just to satisfy the image that others expected, to finally reach the point where everything just broke down, and they neither satisfied others nor themselves…to finally step on the road to self-destruction.
And let me tell you that road is long, full of traps, torturing and discouraging! The road is so exhausting-it drains all your strength, leaving you there surrounded by people wanting to help you get back up, but in the same time making you feel the heartbreaking solitude, being chained in your own thoughts…being the prisoner of your own thoughts and twisted mind. Eating disorders are diseases of silence. You are silently screaming for something-help, attention, love, escape, understanding . You are always looking to fill different voids, but you never truly ask for what you need. Instead you bury your desires under layers of insecurity, fear and self-hate.And how do I know it? I’ve seen it a couple times. And the sight is hearbreaking- to see the one you love, waste the beautiful personality they have, in the mere goal of perfection. Some of the cases I witnessed had a fatal ending…but luckily others had a happy ending. The eating disorder becomes their sole companion. It is the thing that makes them strong, so they don’t need anything, don’t want anything and don’t feel anything!. It is their cape of invisibility. Feeling like they have control over life but actually never getting the control they long for so bad. It is a struggle with the “ghost” that has haunted your insecure soul. It is a fight so tough. It takes long to find the courage, to stand up, rip that ghost out of yourself and look it in the eyes. To find the will to light the desire in your heart, to live again, to feel again, and to be yourself again! It takes a long time to take control of your thoughts again, and make your thoughts be your slaves…not you the slave of your thoughts!
The image in the mirror, doesn't always reflect reality!
The disorder makes you feel weak and drained. You come to the point where your life becomes bigger than you could handle…where human doing, is not human being! You open the closet, take the dress that would suit more a 5 year girl, not a 20 year old women…but your hands are so limp…you drop the dress and as it falls on the ground you hear the faint rattle of bones as the skeleton you’ve zipped on the hanger is suddenly realeased.That right there is the moment when you decide if you are gonna pick yourself up and fill your “empty” body with some live…or you are gonna give in to the image that the mirror in your head reflects…and that is when there is no turning back!
Don’t waste who you are for the mere goal of perfection. Life won’t change as you loose weight! It won’t get easier! People won’t become better! You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company- a clean, honest, smart, beautiful, generous, magnanimous companion! Break the mirror in your head, and see yourself as you truly are! “The words “ I am” are potent words…be carefully what you hitch them to. The thing you are claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you!”. Make sure that what you claim yourself to be, won’t come back and destroy you!
