Spirituality

Program One…Psychologically Phit!

Anxiety. Worrying. Fear. Doubt. In a time where mental health is running rampant in our society, no time is better than now to stop and take a look at our own inner soul. Sure, most of us reading this article do not suffer from mental “illness”, but honestly, don’t we all have some mental habits that could really stand to being addressed…allowing us to live our lives more freely…and happily?

Personal Discipline is something mostly all successful people have in common. Most are willing to do things that average people won't or are afraid to.

I often refer to the Bible as a source of inspiration and encouragement, as do most success coaches. Many of them either mention a certain scripture or you can easily tell by what they say that they are familiar with scripture. Anyway, a good one for times like this would be:
"God does not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and self-control." 2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)

“Someone once told me that the only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is the will to try and the faith to believe it is possible.”

On April 24, 1998, James DeMelo was in a critical accident. A semi-truck hit his car, and the impact literally left him dead at the scene. There was a paramedic on the corner, and when he rushed to the car and checked James’s vitals, he couldn’t feel a pulse. But he began CPR and James’s heart began to beat again. Through the grace of God his life was saved, but he had broken his neck in two places, his back was broken in four places, his shoulder blade and a couple of ribs were broken, and he suffered various other injuries.

“I wore a halo brace on my head for three months so the neck vertebrae could heal,” explains James. “But even after that, I had a long way to go in the recovery process. Significant nerve damage remained, and a large portion of my muscle mass had atrophied. I had so much to overcome, and I wasn’t sure I could do it.

“But I had to try. Someone once told me that the only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is the will to try and the faith to believe it is possible. At first it was difficult, but I forced myself to go to the gym twice a day. Within the first two weeks I had increased my strength and stamina, and my mobility had greatly improved. I began to see that it was possible to regain my quality of life.

The Story of Bill Arnold

“Try your gimmicks if you must, but I promise you the truth is in the basics. Make it fun. Be creative. Challenge yourself, but also cut yourself some slack.”

My buddy Bill is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. He’s on the road all the time, but he’s managed to make his health and his faith the two top priorities in his life. Here’s his story and advice in his own words:

“I think Allen Konigsberg said, ‘90 percent of life is just showing up.’ That's pretty simple! Invite discipline in (show up at the gym and actually work out) and watch it act like your best friend. Discipline gets a bad rap, but it’s really our pal! Discipline liberates us. If you have the discipline to train hard, you have the freedom to enjoy a strong body. If you have the discipline toeat well, the energy you get gives you the freedom to live life to the fullest!

“I’ll do anything to lose weight — except eat right and exercise!”

My friend Julia has been struggling to get her weight down. She tends to start into things with a little too much enthusiasm, and then she’ll just get completely sidetracked. I think a lot of people share this pattern, but Julia is learning from her experiences and she’s smart enough to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. She knows that her goals are attainable, and she trusts that God will help her find the right time to make them happen.

“I’ll do anything to lose weight,” Julia says. “Except eat right and exercise! That’s too basic. Give me pills, powders, homeopathic remedies, or the latest diet that promises to help me lose 20 pounds in two weeks. But when I look back on the years when I’ve lost weight, put on muscle, and felt great, none of those get-thin-quick schemes could take the credit. I turn to those things in a panic when I gain weight. We all want the quick fix. The only thing I’ve ever found that got the weight off and kept it off is a lifestyle of healthy eating and daily exercise.

“You need to learn to be happy by nature, because you’ll seldom have the chance to be happy by circumstance.”
-- Lavetta Sue Wegman

It’s no secret that the reverence of physical beauty is way out of proportion in our culture today. Everywhere you look — in magazines and catalogs, on television, and in the movies — sex sells. Now, I don’t think it’s inherently bad to appreciate human beauty, but in recent years our obsession with the body has made multi-millionaires out of supermodels, created a huge demand for breast implants and other surgical procedures, and otherwise put pressure on people in our society to meet the media’s current idea of the physical ideal.

Even though I’m a paid, professional fitness model, I believe that our society puts too much emphasis on the body as the definition of who we are as people. I’ve heard countless people tell me things like, “If I could only lose ten pounds, then I’d be happy.” Or, “If only my breasts were bigger, I’d be more confident.” Believe me, I’ve met people who appear to have it all, and yet they’re still unhappy. And I’ve seen people continually reach their goals, only to put off their happiness till they reach the next thing they think will make them happy.