I have spent a bit of time reflecting this last little while as you might understand.

We are down to the last three and a bit days here at the old box.

And it has been a really great time here. We have done some cool things, we have made do with what we have here and helped heaps of people get fitter, stronger, faster, feel better and generally be all round better really.

Sometimes though you have to have a bit of a shake up hey?

You need to just do something a little different. Not make wholesale changes that will have you thinking, oh what have I done??!! But just a bit different.

So for us here at CrossFit Armidale it is a move, a change of location, a change of scenery.

We will still be as steady and stable as we have been for the last 14 years, we will just be doing our thing in a different place.

I have been trying not to get too caught up in the excitement of it, not to get carried away so to speak, and this last few days it has all started to become very real. We have moved a few things in, we have started to get things underway to be ready to go Monday the 30th March in the new place. This next step is about building the next 14 years together.

In my reflections I have thought about how much effort everyone has put in here, and how much everyone wants to to get us moved and ready. Something I am incredibly grateful for. And this excitement from everyone is really rubbing off on me.

So yes, I am trying to not be too excited, but at the same time I am excited that everyone else is. 

Because this is about all the members and future members here. We want the best possible place for everyone for Armidale’s premier functional fitness facility.

I came to a conclusion today while measuring where our dumbbells and kettlebells will go that it won’t just be about a new address, it is part of the H in MESH, it is a headspace thing and a bit of a mental reset of sorts.

I am keeping today brief as I have some packing, painting, and shifting to do!

So the lesson today, as I always love to have a cool little lesson I have learnt to help you too, is that sometimes you just need a good spring clean. It isn’t about changing absolutely everything, it is about changing your environment ever so slightly to refresh, recharge and reinvigorate yourself. 

You know what it is like when you clean your desk, or the workbench, the kitchen, or garage. You just want to be there! You want to get in and do something! Anything!

This is where I am at, and it feels like our members are too. A new spot, we will be all so very keen to do more and see what we are really capable of.

So this week, if you can, tidy your desk, clean the loungeroom, clear that work bench and see if you feel like attacking a task more than before!

I talk to a lot of people each week about all manner of things, and usually it is health and fitness related no doubt.

Something that over the years has been a fairly common thing is the ghost in the gym bag.

Look, no one has ever said ‘oh my god Jim there is a ghost in my gym bag!’.

It has been asking me about how to switch off the noise of work, life, and everything from outside the gym when they are here to do a workout. Or anywhere for that matter.

All of us at some point in our lives have suffered stress and pressures from work and life and all that goes with it. And sometimes we really cannot seem to switch it off, it just creeps in when we least expect it right?

Well, that noise in your head when you are staring at the barbell instead of picking it up is something that I looked into a fair bit and came up with some ways around it. 

Now it doesn’t have to be just the gym, this can be for people that do any form of exercise or activity for their health and well-being. It is in those moments of doing something for ourselves when it is a bit quiet and all of a sudden thoughts of that 2pm meeting and what was said pop back in, or that customer that had been concerned about an item they purchased but said they would discuss it with you later, the wrong parts turning up for the job you promised the client would be done tomorrow! 

Yes, the ‘ghosts’ of our work life can end up talking to us at the worst possible times.

The problem with this is that it can really blunt our workouts stimulus. You might find that you don’t get the bang for your buck that you need to really reap the benefits of the workout. Yep, work and other stresses can even interfere with your time that you have allocated for your benefit! So let’s get to work on how to overcome this.

Something I have done here at CrossFit Armidale to overcome them a bit is question of the day.

We take a few minutes at the start of class, after the warmup to ask everyone a fun, thought provoking, or even downright absurd and silly question to help everyone ‘change gears’ from work, home etc, to gym time, or more importantly, your time. 

It might seem silly or not worth doing, but that little mindshift helps us go from full on work mode to putting us in a different, more in tune with where we are at right now, mindset.

I want you to think about shifting gears from time to time. There is a fabulous book called 5 Gears that goes into depth about life having five gears that we need to change through throughout the day.

If we get stuck in a gear we can end up pretty burnt out. So that is part of the reason I try to have people switch their thinking up when they come in. 

Something that can work as well, that I have tried and read up on a bit is box breathing.

It is a pretty simple exercise, you take a spare minute or so, maybe after you leave the office, maybe just before you go inside at home, or at the gym. 

You inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four and do a few repeats of that while you focus on that breathing.

You will find yourself slowing down, becoming calmer and feeling a lot better about leaving work behind at that time. You may even find that the thoughts of work either completely or almost completely subside.

It is about bringing you into the present moment. Most of our lives are spent thinking about what we are doing next, or what we did earlier today, so when we become present and hit the pause button on those thoughts of life outside what we are doing right now we are much better able to focus and get on with the task at hand.

So what I want you to do now is stop. Just for a second. Take a four second breath, hold it for four, let it out for four, then hold that for four seconds. Do this three times.

Now. How do you feel? Are you calmer? More present? Like you might be able to focus better?

If you found yourself going right back to like you were before, do it another three times. Or try four rounds. It might take a little practice, but it will be worth it to just persevere with it.

As with anything new we try it may take a little bit to get into the habit of it, but this simple little exercise can switch you from work mode to training mode in no time!

Let’s get to that task at hand! Lifting that barbell now the ghost in the gym bag has been busted!

From little things, big things grow.

Kicking off an exercise program, nutrition program, learning a new movement, trying to get better sleep, improving your mental health, etc can all seem like huge tasks.

It can be daunting, anxiety inducing, or downright scary!

And for plenty of us that is exactly why we don’t start something. We all know we need to do something, but the alternative isn’t as hard or scary.

You know what the outcome of your current activities is, it is exactly where you are now, because if nothing changes, well, nothing changes.

And psychologically that can be very comforting.

That may sound like I am being nasty, but it isn’t that. It is more that we all get comfortable at times, and sometimes that comfort leads to discomfort long term. But in the short term if the discomfort of change is more than the discomfort of not changing, then that is where most of us sit.

We stay with no perceived change because it is quite simply easier to stick with what we are currently doing. Changing everything would be so difficult right?

Looking at the number of kilos you want to lose, or the marathon you want to run can seem so far away! And yes, they are pretty big numbers to try and achieve. But with the steps in place you can get there.

But what if we broke it down?

When you look at a house you see a building that is solid and is plenty big enough.

But that house is made up of pieces like bricks and windows, etc.

It didn’t just appear there one day by magic. A team of builders, sparkies, plumbers, carpenters, came together and brick by brick, board by board, nails etc were used to put it together to construct a house.

Now, if you look at a health and fitness goal the same, it can seem much more manageable.

If we think of one workout as a brick, one healthy meal as a timber plank, us coaches here at CFA as your builders, then we can put together your big goal together, brick by brick, like the house.

While it might not seem like much even just preparing a meal in advance so you aren’t likely to grab takeaway is a wonderful small step that can help you get towards your goals.

Even something as simple as making an enquiry to a few gyms and coaches to see what is on offer is one of those small steps.

Yes changing everything all at once can be daunting and scary, but breaking it into steps can be much less of an intimidation.

If you haven’t started something then a call to me to set up an intro, to see if I can help you with some of those steps is a great kickoff point.

Same if you have started and are doing something but there is a movement or exercise you would like to master or even just get better at, then I can give you steps to get there.

When we build a house, we never do absolutely every step on our own. And that is where with our health and fitness we can sometimes look at well, hey yeah, I can run, I can lift a weight etc, I can do this on my own!

But that is by far the hardest way to gain momentum and go for longer.

So today, that very next step is to recruit.

Recruit your team of builders.

It needs to be a team that will stick with you, people that want to help you achieve your goals. Not someone that isn’t in it wholeheartedly. If you have to coax, or worse, coerce them to help you, then you will ned to grab someone that says, ‘hey I am here to help you get that goal!’

I am that person, and have been for well over 18 years now here in Armidale.

If you need that bit of help for the next step, then shoot me a message, call or email and I will do all I can to help you be the best you possible.

Us humans can beat ourselves up over some things.

And If you have tuned in to me before, you know I like to use the smashing the phone analogy.

Today, I am a day late for the blog and podcast, and I want to thank you for being patient and still jumping on it.

So that is why I want to talk with you about not beating yourself up.

A fair while ago I would have flipped the table, shouted, ‘well, that’s it, I missed one day!’ and probably not written or published anything this week.

But that was a long time ago, and I have taken on board my own advice about it.

My phone smashing analogy isn’t really a new idea, ever heard of the saying don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater? It is a really old saying, and comes from around the 1600s when people took an annual bath, and all used the same bathwater starting with dad and then the eldest boys, then mum and the girls and lastly the baby. So being so dirty you might not see the baby and throw it out with the bathwater, but really you should be getting rid of the filthy bathwater but not the baby. In other words, we don’t need to throw everything out just because something isn’t right!

So when we slip up and miss a workout, or ate something that isn’t helping us get to our goals, or didn’t stop to decompress and read, or relax a bit, didn’t sleep for as many hours as we needed, it is ok. It is OK to hesitate and think, oh I am not going to get this done.

What is not OK is stopping altogether because of a little bit of a rough patch or one missed day, even one missed activity!

Every single one of us has gone through periods in life where we have had to miss something. It might have even been catching up with friends, something as simple as that!. But did you cease being friends with them just because you couldn’t make the last catch up?

Did you quit your job because you missed a deadline?

Oh you missed the date to get your car serviced! So did you decide to never look after it again?

This scenarios seem absurd right? No way would we do those things.

So why do it with your health?

This time of year it can be hard, the reality of life post New Years has set in, there are regular day to day things to attend to, just the mundane, the routine. And well the motivation hasn’t been there for your health and fitness. This is actually the time to take ownership of your time.

It is time that you carve out for yourself among all the other things you are obligated to do. You can find three hours in a week, maybe more, but three is enough to start. Put those times in your schedule. It could be reading for 10 mins, getting to bed 15 mins earlier, taking 20 mins to make a list of all the meals you would like to have this week, booking in your gym sessions for the next month.

I am asking you today do you consider yourself important enough to make the commitment to you and your own health and well-being?

If you keep putting yourself last because things are a bit tricky to juggle, and well you already missed a session or two, so it doesn’t really matter, then you will struggle to improve not only in your health and well-being, but also in those areas that you are putting first over yourself. 

In time a missed meal, session, later bed time, can snowball. But only if you let it. 

If you have already made the call that this will be your year, that you will make 2026 your best year yet, then why pull up now? Why hesitate now? You have committed to you, stick to it.

Think about if a friend asked you to help them do something, something that took a bit of you helping them over the next few months each week.

If this week you had to take another friend to the hospital at the time you committed to the original friend would you call them up and say, ‘Oh sorry, I am just not going be able to keep helping you as today I have had something come up and have to miss today, so yeah, all the best’? I don’t think you would, you would explain, and let them know you will be there as soon as you can get there.

So why can’t you do that for yourself? Give yourself the grace to err, but just get back on your commitment to you, the same way you would help a friend, relative, spouse, neighbour if you had committed to them.

When you look back on 31/12/2026, do you want to remember the day you missed a session and stopped, or do you want to remember the day you chose to get back up anyway?

New year. New Beginnings?

Another January first has come and gone.

At this point in time there are plenty of people that make resolutions etc to make this year their one!

It is a really cool thing in our minds that we have this mark in the sand, we have a point in time we can use to measure ourselves. And I actually think it is excellent that a lot of us decide that now is the time to make that pact with ourselves.

Generally we see people making resolutions etc in relation to health and wellbeing and wanting to be better in regards to it. This is brilliant!

But there is a saying that the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

In this scenario you can have the best of intentions but if they are not accompanied by some positive action to achieve them then in a year’s time you might be sitting here again thinking where did 2026 go!

The point I am making today is that resolutions, goals, and intentions set in a new years period are fabulous in their intent, they just need some plan and action to make them a reality in the future.

So what can we do about it?

First of all get clear on the goal, see yourself achieving it, really visualise it.

Where will you be when you tick that goal off?

How will it feel?

Will you look different?

How will those close to you react? 

Ask these type  of questions, and get super clear on seeing yourself in these scenarios, really zoom in and see it clearly.

Keep this vision in mind, all the time, write it down, look at it daily, at least twice a day, see it in your mind if you close your eyes.

That is step one.

Next, define the action you can do today to start working towards it.

It might be an extra serving of veggies at lunch, it might be picking up the phone and calling the gym to book in to meet them, it might be 10 mins of stretching on the loungeroom floor, it could be reading 10 pages of a book. Define it and then immediately go to step three. Do not hesitate, do not wait, do it now

Step three, do that action. Eat some more veg, call the gym, stretch, read, whatever that SMALL first step is do it. Don’t let anything get in your way. Do it. Right now.

The idea is to do it while you have momentum, you have that vision in mind. If you take that first small step then, the rest will start to flow well after it.

Now doing this step is easy. The next few may be a bit more difficult. But don’t think you need to go it alone!

A brilliant way to get it to stick this year is to enlist some help. A friend, a relative, a co worker, ME! 

Any of those might be able to help you stick to it. If you know what you are doing to a degree anyone will do, but if you think, ‘hmm, I have a goal, a vision, but no idea of any other steps’, then I can help you with that. I mean it. We can sit down together and come up with your next steps. All mapped out.

So this coming year, you can do the same old and set the goals and vision, but have no clear path, and end up where you are now. 

Or you can set those goals, really see yourself achieving them, really zero in on them, and then give me a call and I can guide you towards them helping you take those next steps that so many don’t.

And if I can’t help you, I will simply let you know.

But if I can I will do all that I can to help you put yourself right into that vision of yourself achieving your goals that you want.

You don’t need a grand makeover, a huge thing that will uproot your whole life. You just need a clear plan and idea of how to get what you want.

It is the night before the night before Christmas.

And well, that might mean for some that time of year when our exercise and nutrition all gets put on the backburner. Or gets hit with a blowtorch!

For some of us it also means the guilts! That feeling of dread, that you shouldn’t be doing this!

Especially if you have been consistent for a while and are seeing things in yourself you haven’t for a long time.

But fear not! There is no need to feel guilty! 

At uni I learnt about the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule has been used to describe it as well.

But we can take that 80/20 ratio and use it to do well. 

Ie if you follow your exercise and nutrition programs for 80% of the time, and the other 20% you are not as compliant and much more liberal in your approach, things will be OK.

Everything you have done this year will not be undone in the next seven to 10 days!

Think about it in terms of work, or family. Most of this year you have spent doing certain projects, doing things with your immediate family. Over the holiday period you won’t be doing those things, but they will be there when you get back to them.

Your exercise and eating regimes are no different. They will still be there. You won’t be starting at square one, you will be AOK.

Yes, I do understand that the first session back, or the first veggie you eat in over a week, will feel like shit, will be a bit tough to swallow. But in a couple of days time it will all feel back to regular programming again.

At this time of year you should be able to relax, have some of those Christmas/New Years treats and not be worried about what effect those things will have on your current regular program.

The thing is this period coming up is not your ‘normal’ period. So if in your ‘normal’ period you are eating for your goals, getting in some regular exercise a few times a week, then you are going to be more than OK.

I used to refer to something I called the fitness bank, and look I then thought, ‘geez Jim, what a load of bullshit, you are just like all the other bullshit fitness ‘gurus’ with your catchy buzzword’, but it wasn’t compete crap. If you are active the majority of the time, a small period of inactivity won’t completely derail you. If anything it may ‘freshen you up’. It might let you not set the alarm clock and be up at ridiculous o’clock in the morning. It might let you enjoy some pavlova for dessert and really savour it.

And then the feelings of inactivity and of a food coma might just have you longing to get bcak to the gym and eating a salad!

The big thing here is that it isn’t much of your year this week. So if you have been doing well, keeping active, and eating all the veg and salad you can, then this next week will be AOK allowing yourself to relax.

If you said 2025 was going to be your year to get fit and healthy, and it wasn’t, it is still OK. Enjoy the downtime etc over the next week and talk with me in the New Year about how together we can make 2026 your best year yet.

Can you replace things? You know? Possessions. Objects. Things like cars, houses, phones, furniture, clothes, etc? 

Of course you can, plenty of us have lived in more than one house, had more than one car, phone, shirt, pants, skirt, lounge, bed.

And you got by alright.

Can you be replaced? 

Oh, now this gets a bit deeper and a whole lot of emotion will flood in here. 

And the thing is there is no black and white here, there is a lot of grey. 

It is very subjective as to if you can or can’t. 

At work? Yep, plenty of other people have done the job you are doing or one like it, and if you quit, then someone else will fill that role (It is irrelevant if they are better or worse than you in the role, the point is you chair likely won’t get cold before they pop someone else in it.).

At your sporting club/team? Again, yep. There are sporting clubs that are over 100 years old. They aren’t functioning with the founding members.

Community club? Think Lions, Rotary, Zonta etc. Yep, they have been around for ages like sporting clubs and keep on going with new members each and every year.

As a parent, sibling, cousin, grandchild, friend, well, no. You are that and you can’t just sub in a temporary brother, mother, sister, father, friend, etc, and jump in and out when you want. These roles are reasonably permanent and you play your role uniquely here. While we can have more than one friend, brother, sister, etc, you are the only one that performs the roles for others that you do. Yes, you are unique. A unique friend, sibling, parent etc.

Well.

Why then when it comes to making sure that that unique person, you, that one that can’t be replaced, do most of us shuffle them down the priority order so that we might do some more work?
Go to the next meeting for the club that is on, make sure that the uniforms are clean for next weekend? Why do we push those things ahead of going to the gym?
Going for a walk?
Prepping some really good quality meals for our week?
Reading an educational book?

Doing some colouring in?

I wrote about if not now, then when, a couple of weeks ago. This is following on from that.

The main point I was trying to make then was we are all guilty at times of saying, oh I will start walking when work settles down.

So what does work settling down look like?

Will you put a date on making sure that it does settle down?

Oh I can just move my gym session if this person wants to meet at that time. 

Can you? Will you?

Why not say? Oh I can’t do that time, I am already booked. Can we do later that day or the next?

Chances are, the other person will say yes.

Every time you shift something on your calendar that is to do with your health you are reinforcing in your mind that you are not your own priority.

I am not saying quit work! Live in the gym! Not at all (maybe because I partially do and it isn’t as easy as we might all think when the gym is too convenient! haha).

Yes we all need to make a living, we all need our social lives and to help out in the community.

But we need to look after the person that does all that, and that is you.

You can always read the minutes of a meeting later. The zoom call will likely be recorded. If you block the time in your calendar you can’t be booked. You can delegate certain tasks, you can’t delegate your exercise to someone else. You cannot be replaced in that instance at all.

So today I want you to look after you.

I want you to commit to that unique person you are and make sure they are healthy long term.

Sometimes work can wait, the other commitments can wait, someone else can pick it up for an hour, or you can get back to it in an hour.

I understand sometimes things happen outside our control and we must get something done. But that is the exception, not the rule.

The rule is, you, you are what is important, and therefore so is that 3 to 6 hours PER WEEK that is dedicated to your health and wellbeing. Yep, just that little time each week.

Now, next time someone tries to book you when your calendar is blocked out to do some exercise, what are you going to reply with?

Optimum. The very best. Perfect.

I am here today to steal from Voltaire, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”.

At this time of year we can get ourselves out of habits really easily, desirable habits, and we can fall into undesirable ones.

And we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to trying to stick to a habit that will benefit us.

I want to talk with you today about movement and how at this time of year you may not be able to do your workout at the ‘optimum time’ or be able to get to the gym due to other commitments.

And at this time of year people can really throw the baby out with the bathwater!

I don’t want you to be that person!

Just because you can’t get to the gym at the ‘right’ time, or can’t get there at all today, does not mean you have to throw it all in and start afresh at a later date!

We need to let ourselves be ‘good enough’ at this time of year a little.

These are the times to hang onto those great habits and really hang in there.

So you can’t go to the gym at your preferred time? That is all it is, preferred. It isn’t an absolute, must go, cannot possibly go any other time gym time is it? You can go earlier or later. It may be a little unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable, but we must get uncomfortable to grow! And you will get that workout in that you need to, it will just be at a different time.

Can’t get there at all today? Well, grab your diary/calendar/planner, find me 10 -20 mins in your day you can spare. Put in that slot, exercise. Then when the time comes do this.

10 MIN AMRAP
10 Walking Lunges
10 Sit Ups
10 Push Ups

There you go, I just gave you a 10 min total body workout that may not be the optimum or best, but it is good enough today!

Because today and well maybe for the next few weeks the goal is to maintain our habits while life gets crazy busy, and for some moderately stressful. So if we can just do what is good enough some days each week, and when our schedule is more like our regular schedule, jump in and stick with what we regularly do we will be all set to just keep going.

Yes this time of year can be tricky, and sometimes downright horrible to try and keep going. But that is exactly what you are going to do, because you have come this far, you have done this much, it isn’t worth calling it quits just because of an approaching holiday period.

I will sign off with another quote, this time Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, ‘Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.’

You can’t escape the silly season, but you can accept that it is what it is and will hinder you a little, and you can do what you can with what time you can eke out, and I don’t just mean with exercise! 

Think of the other parts of your life you can do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

It is four Fridays before Christmas!

That’s right, we are that close.

And this can be a time of inconsistency, or time to throw in the towel for some.

I am here to tell you, don’t do it!

Let me help you keep reasonably consistent through to 2026 and maybe even kick a goal or two along the way.

You have looked at your calendar, and your schedule for the next month looks ridiculous!
Something has to give right??!

But it really doesn’t, everything may look a little different, but you can stay consistent, and still be in a great place come the Christmas/New Year period.

So with that planner/diary/calendar in hand have a look at your regular routine, and then lay it over the irregular routine ahead.

Look at if you absolutely must be at every little thing that is on. Have a look at if you can maybe shorten up the amount of time you are at something.

For example, you might normally hit the gym on Mondays at 5, but there is a work function at 6 that night and you are expected to attend. Instead of blowing the gym off altogether you can do an abbreviated workout that day. It might mean working in with what the gym can help you with, or an at home workout of a 10 MIN AMRAP of 5 burpees 7 push ups, 9 sit ups. 

Is this ‘ideal’, is it ‘optimum’? Probably not, but who cares? You got your movement in, you managed something, which is better than nothing and you still managed to get to the work function.

Drinks on a Thursday night and it is at the pub and people have said they will be having dinner there. There is no law that says you can’t eat before you go, have your normal dinner, arrive a little later and enjoy a drink or two and savour the occasion. And you will have saved some dollars as well as eaten your regular Thursday night dinner.

There is a thing on Wednesday night! It’s late. So getting up for the gym might be tough, but I can do it on four hours of sleep you say! No, no you won’t. Instead, you will book into Thursday afternoon, yes it isn’t your ideal or regular time, but it is a small inconvenience at this time of year to fit in all of the things you want to do!

It has been hectic, crazy busy, you managed all the things. The gym, work, the kids end of year stuff, the Christmas parties! BUT, you haven’t read, journaled or anything, you are exhausted each day. Well, be a kid again! Go to the shops, buy an adult colouring book, yes they make them, but maybe not where your mind went to right away, buy some nice pens, textas, or pencils and give yourself 5 to 10 mins each night in bed to colour in. Nothing to think about, just the colours on the page. This small activity can fit in to anyone’s routine, it costs next to nothing and it can really help to clear your head.

So there you have it, four things to help you keep Moving well, Eating to your goals, Sleeping better, and clearing your Head right through this next month to Christmas!

Ever put something off?
Until the last minute?
Or well, just keep putting it off?

Every single one of us is guilty of putting things off. Paying bills, doing our taxes, cleaning up the spare room, mowing the lawn. All of those things.

The thing with those though is they will still be there, and there are timelines or deadlines that need to be met. Bills and taxes have penalties for being late, relatives are coming for Christmas so you need the yard tidy and the room ready for them!

But what about your health and fitness? There doesn’t seem to be a date or a deadline.

So we just think, tomorrow, Monday, yeah I will start Monday.

Then Monday rolls around, you slept poorly to say the least. So you think, ah tomorrow.

Then you think, oh I have to do that thing after work on Tuesdays, can’t start then.

Wednesday then! Oh yeah, I need to cook dinner Wednsday night, couldn’t possibly start then.

No one starts on a Thursday, that’s silly. And Friday, well I head out for a drink after work so it is definitely out! 

Next Monday! Or actually, um when I get all this work stuff sorted, yeah, when that settles down. When I can manage the kids’ stuff too. Yeah, once the touch footy season is over yeah, that is it. Then once the netball season is done.

Does this sound at all familiar?

I have heard more times than I care to think about how someone will start ‘once I sort my things out with life’.

Almost everyone that says that still hasn’t started.

The people that have said, now is the time. It is far from perfect, but I need to look after my health and well-being now! Before it actually has a deadline put on it! Those people are here, most days of the week, doing something to help look after themselves.

I am going to use a bit of an analogy to convey what I am getting at here.

If we look at your life like a family car you will see there are so many moving parts to it. The engine, wheels, suspension, instruments, gear box, etc. In your life there is work, family, social, home life, maintenance, paying bills, doing budgets etc.

And you, you are the driver of that car. Now if you neglect the driver, ie lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, training, rest, etc well then accidents happen, and if you as the driver are struggling, then the car doesn’t get maintained either, and the wheels fall off!

If you keep putting off looking after you, pretty soon the car will be off the road.

There is a cliche that says you can’t pour from an empty cup. It rings true here.

If you are not moving well, and regularly, not eating to fuel yourself well, sleeping like shit, and doing nothing to help your mental space, sooner or later you and your car will be off the road together.

But back to putting things off.

Think back to a time where you thought, hmm I will do X or Y once all my ducks are in a row. It doesn’t have to be joining CrossFit Armidale, it might be a hobby, playing an instrument, reading that book you have had on the shelf for five years, putting the shelf up to put the book on!

And you never got all the ducks in a row, and so you never started.

It is simply because we never have our ducks in a row, we never have it all together to put something else into the mix.

There are times where we just have to say to ourselves, now is the time.

The past is gone, but we can learn from it.

The future hasn’t happened yet, but we might be able to do something to make it better when it does come.

The present is where we can make it happen.

Because the only time you really have, is now.