10,000 Hours

During my 7-mile walk-run this past Saturday I had the unexpected pleasure of the company of my brother, James Batchelor. Just as a bit of background, James is a very talented writer who is working on his lifelong dream of becoming a successful full-time author and writer, allowing him to support his family with his pen, or keyboard, if you will. As fellow dreamers, James and I have been down a lot of the same roads and struggled with some of the same challenges, doubts, and limiting beliefs along the way. This has led to some very interesting conversations. We are quite the philosophers, James and I, and exploring our experiences together has brought me a lot of insights, ideas, and even a few game changers. Our conversation this past Saturday seems be leading me to another of those game changers.

As we walked, we found ourselves discussing a book James had read recently called Outliers. He told me about the first part of the book where it discusses three divisions that can be seen among the students of The Juilliard School at any given time. I won't attempt to repeat the entire conversation, but there is one point that stayed with me and that I have not stopped thinking about since that walk. The top tier of students at Juilliard always consists of those students who apply themselves to such an extent that they have reached or will reach at least 10,000 hours of dedicated practice in their area of focus by the time they reach age 20. This equates to roughly 3 hours every day for 10 years. It doesn't matter how much raw or innate talent the students have. All that matters is how much time they apply themselves to practicing their art. After 10,000 dedicated hours, they become experts, or masters. They know that thing inside and out--it becomes a part of them.

So here is what I took away from the conversation. First, anybody can become anything they want to be if they are willing to apply themselves. Second, if I want to really master anything, I have to dedicate my time and energy to that thing in a very significant way. I will have to sacrifice other, less important things in order to devote more time to this one, chosen path.

Now I have some decisions to make. I am the type of person who does not do things halfway. I want to be the best at everything I do. But if being the best means devoting so many hours and so much energy and intention each day to that one thing, then I have to make a choice. I cannot master everything. Prior to this conversation I think maybe a part of me thought that I could, and now I find myself in this conundrum as I see that I cannot keep moving down this path I have been traveling. I must choose, but what is the best path for me? What thing am I most passionate about? What will bring me the most happiness and satisfaction at the end of the day? Which choice will bring me the greatest success? What will help me reach my goals for my life? What would you choose?

Decisions, decisions...

February results and recommitting to these eating guidelines

Yes!!! We are not even halfway through this month and already I am posting my results for the previous month. This is amazing! I am turning over a new leaf. (o: And now, without further ado, I submit to you my February results:

	1/1/2014	3/3/2014	Change	% Change
Weight (lbs)	179.2	168.2	-11	-6.1%
Waist	41.5	39	-2.5	-6.0%
Hips	44	42	-2	-4.5%
Chest	42.2	39	-3.2	-7.6%
Right Arm	13.8	13.5	-0.3	-2.2%
Left Arm	14.5	14	-0.5	-3.4%
Right Thigh	22.5	23	0.5	2.2%
Left Thigh	22.8	23.5	0.7	3.1%
Body Fat (%)	42.9	39.8	-3.1	-7.2%

Please forgive me for the analytics. There is still a little bit of accountant in me. In any case, the results are pretty good, but perhaps not as good as they could be. In this post I would like to review my eating guidelines and then recommit myself to them, since I really haven't been following them very well for the last month and a half. I know, I know, as a health coach, I should know better. So let me just remind myself of how I would like to be eating, and then we'll talk.

Guideline #1: Eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods (unpackaged, unboxed, without labels). No-brainer.

Guideline #2: Keep sweets and junk food to a minimum. When you do eat them, eat them right after a healthy meal (ideally, lunch). If you eat your dessert after a good meal, you are likely to eat less of the not-so-good stuff, and you will not have the blood sugar spike that would come from eating the treat on an empty stomach. Win-win.

Guideline #3: Lunch will be the biggest meal of the day, breakfast the second biggest, and dinner the smallest. This is based on the body clock in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The theory here is that the different organs of your body are strongest and most capable at certain times of the day. Your stomach is strongest in the morning (between 7am and 9am) and your small intestine--the primary digestive organ--is strongest between 1pm and 3pm. Those are the times when your body will be able to digest food most effectively. Keep your dinners small (e.g. soup or salad).

Guideline #4: Do not eat after 6pm. Your body  goes into repair mode in the evening, but if it is still trying to digest your latest meal (i.e. your dinner was too large or you ate too late) then it focuses instead on the digestion and skips the repairs for the night. THIS IS BAD! You need that nightly maintenance. It keeps you young and healthy and keeps everything in good working order.

Guideline #5: No snacking. Eating snacks or being on the 6-small-meals-a-day plan forces your digestive system to work all the time. It needs to rest and your body needs to be able to focus on something else for awhile. Also, if you are eating so constantly that you never allow your blood sugar to drop a bit and then to stabilize on its own, you will become (or remain) very dependent on food as your body will lose the ability to regulate blood-glucose levels on its own, as it was designed to do. So stick with the old, traditional 3 meals a day, like your grandma used to eat, and you will be healthier and happier. (For more on this, take a look at the following link.)

Guideline #6: Guidelines 1-5 are not rules, they are guidelines!!! Do not take them too seriously. Do not be rigidly compliant, to the point of refusing to eat the bite of wedding cake offered to you by your new spouse on your wedding day. Do not beat yourself up for not being perfect. Just do your best, pay attention to when you do stray a bit, ask yourself why, and then get back on track.

That's it! And just so you know, I am recommitting to these guidelines here and now, with you as my witness. March will be better! Yes! Go team!

Chi Running Instructor Certification Pending...

Just today I sent an email submitting the last of my requirements to become a certified Chi Running and Chi Walking Instructor. The irony is that about 6 weeks ago, I was ready to throw in the towel. So what happened?

Here's the background. At the end of last March, 2013, my sister, Denise, and I attended a training/workshop that was part of the requirement to become a certified Chi Running Instructor. To be honest, in preparing for this workshop a lot of work and studying had to be done, and I was in the midst of a very rigorous full-time massage therapy program. I almost gave up. I felt like I couldn't possibly comply with all the requirements just to get to that workshop, let alone to actually become certified. So I called my sister up early one morning when I was supposed to be studying, and I told her I wasn't going because I just couldn't do it. Mind you, this was about 2 weeks before the workshop, and we had been preparing for months. Well, my wonderful sis talked me off the ledge, so to speak, and I ended up going to the workshop. As it turned out, the 2 of us were much better prepared than we realized and we passed through the workshop with flying colors.

Fast forward 10 months, and I am staring the one year completion deadline in the face (we have one year from the workshop to complete the remaining requirements). I felt like I was sinking into a pit of complete overwhelm as I was trying to grow my business and manage my time and my stress levels (no, I was not living in the "now" very effectively at that time). In an effort to avoid a complete breakdown, I switched to damage control mode. I looked at everything I had on my plate and found what I felt I could get rid of--and the Chi Running certification made the list. I knew I would eventually get certified, but missing this deadline would mean I would have to go to another weekend workshop, with additional travel time and cost thrown in, and then I would still have to complete all of the very demanding requirements at some future date. But why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, right? So I sat down with my sister and very gently told her, once again, that I wasn't going to be able to complete the requirements and that I would have to miss the deadline and get certified at a later date. We talked about it for a while, and in the end she accepted it with some reservations but also with understanding for my situation.

A few days later, however, I found myself thinking it over once again while I was out on a run, and some very persuasive reasons came up that had me rethinking my decision. When I got back from my run, Denise happened to be at my house, and without my saying anything about my own reservations, she brought up the very same things I had just been thinking about, and then started laying out a plan that would enable me to navigate my busy schedule and get the requirements completed.

To make a long story short, I pushed through, took things one day at a time, did the best I could, and with lots of support from Denise I completed the last of the requirements just 3 weeks shy of the deadline. Phew!

So here is what I learned from this experience:

• When you are stressed out and on the verge of a breakdown, having a true friend in your corner is invaluable!!! I don't know what I would do (or where I would be) without my sister Denise! She has helped me through rough waters more times than I can count. What a miracle she is in my life!
• When you are in a state of overwhelm and can't see any way out, try taking a step back and looking at things from a different angle. Sometimes you get so lost in the midst of the trees that you can't see the forest. When this happens, try climbing a tree. As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn, so don't give up!
• Trust God, open your eyes to your blessings, and take it one day at a time. All you have is today anyway, so quit worrying so much about tomorrow. Just make sure that when you go to bed tonight, you don't have any regrets about today.

So that's that. Within a week or two, I will be a certified Chi Running and Chi Walking Instructor.

Thanks for reading! February results coming soon!