The art of staying fit, healthy and happy

Happy is being healthy and fit. Not just of mind but of body and soul as well.

When the mind, body and soul are happy as one, then happiness is a sweet by-product.

I know all that sounds so sickly perfect but it happens after working on it for years.

“A living, breathing monument” – Steven, dad in Family Ties. Not sure how it really fits in.

Building wealth or building health? The more health you have, the more energy you can use on appreciating your wealth.

Everybody wins and the world becomes a better place.

Thank you and you’re welcome.

Family and the art of self-awareness

It’s my grandmother’s 92nd birthday today. Happy birthday Nan! She’s tearing it up just as much as she was when I first came into this life some 40 years ago. A happy and vibrant gal is my grandmother yet there’s a little tinge of sadness going on in her heart because there are some family members that are holding decade old grudge and aren’t open to bridging the gap because their egos are in the way.

My journey on the art of self-awareness started years ago when some stuff went haywire in my life. I think that’s how most people become self-aware. So I’m grateful that I can easily, well not always easily, take stock of my life and realise when I am hurting or have hurt other people. And I’ll quickly make amends too for my ego is not greater than anyone else’s. Maybe if they tried these 3 ways to improve self-awareness, then we’d be closer to becoming the happy family we once were.

The art of self-awareness can be a tough one if you’re not open to taking for responsibility for who you are and what you do. It’s easy to lay blame on others and walk away thinking that you’re in the right. I still do it but if I’m in the wrong, then I’ll own up to it.

Family is family and need to be strongly bound. If we don’t have family, who do we have? (Yes, our closest friends but that’s not the point of this post). Our families have helped shaped who we are today. I’m blessed that we’ve had our trials and tribulations. It’s part of who I am.

It’s time to heal the wounds.

Living in the now with self-awareness

Peeps!

Another day graced with reflection. I’m keeping this one short as there’s so many awesome things to do today.

The last few days at the gym have been draining. Nothing surprising there as my workouts are for my purposes – intense. If I’m not almost dead on the ground by the time I’ve finished, then I haven’t worked hard enough. Anyway. Moving on… Normally I feel energised afterwards to the point of ridiculous but lately have just been plain flat for the rest of the day. Yes, I’m still excited by more work, my relationship and my existence though my energy levels have been bordering on the point of time to change the batteries. It was with the art of self-awareness  this morning that I realised I had been thinking way too much about the day ahead.

Thinking about all the things I needed to do was putting my mind in a state of overdrive. Instead of simply visualising the task as a one point of action, I’d go nuts deep into the whole situation and then come up with a billion scenarios from that one point. TOO MUCH! My self-awareness gave me the ability to sit back and enjoy the moment and that I could face my work day when I got to it. Why ponder the “what ifs” if I have no control over them at the time?

Living in the now has been something I’ve heard and tried to implement into my life a number of times. They say that you will only ever do something when you’re ready for it. With my awesome journey of self-awareness starting to take a positive affect, it would seem that my time to live in the now is… NOW!

Take care rockstars. Live in the now, embrace your self-awareness
and rock on!

Self-awareness improves your communication

Morning rockstars!

A cool revelation came to me yesterday as I stepped into the realms of the unknown and really jumping into the uncomfortable zone of video blogging. For some time now I’ve been chatting to business owners of the benefits of youtube videos for their business. It’s a powerful way to get a business more visible and engage with a wider audience. They’d pretty much all say it’s an awesome idea yet when push came to shove, either didn’t know where to start or didn’t want to take that leap of faith.

So… one thing I’m really finding I get frustrated over lately are people that don’t practice what they preach. That means I’ve been a walking contradiction as I certainly haven’t practiced what I preach. It grated on my nerves so much yesterday that I decided to start. With the art of self-awareness, anything is possible.

I opened up my laptop, turned on video capture and got started. It wasn’t until after I filmed myself that the idea of ‘self-awareness improves your communication’ came to mind. The video was created first and foremost as a business tool – get my message out to the masses and let it evolve organically. No scripts, just me rattling off my thoughts. Then I watched it a couple of times. I started to notice the way I spoke, my facial expressions and unfortunately my hand movements (laughable!). But thanks to my self-awareness, I realised I could use the video to improve my communication. Like listen to the words I use, watch how my facial expressions changed and my overall body language.

What started out with one intention in mind has now developed into something that can have such awesome benefits I hadn’t even thought of. The art of self-awareness – it’s a beautiful thing.

See you on the road to awesomeness.

PS – link to the video coming soon.

The art of self-awareness

Some have been blessed to realise what self-awareness is early on in life. Some, like myself, come across it later in life when the trial and tribulations have been many and monumental. Either way, as long it’s something that you can find within your life at some stage, it becomes an ever evolving art form.

Right now on my journey, the joys from sitting back and taking note of where I’ve come from, where I am and where I’m heading are truly profound. Yesterday was a great example of that.

A mate I used to work with a couple of years ago started a blog – check it, http://philrobb.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/duality.html?spref=fb – and the message from it was an eye opener for me. Phil made a comment about living life happily 24/7 is somewhat “fake”. Instantly I felt frustrated by the comment – something I’m pretty good at, getting frustrated with things that aren’t in alignment with my personal views. Then the magic of self-awareness kicked in.

For once, I took a step back and thought about the message and came up with two thoughts:

1) What if Philby has a point? I’m the type of person that does walk around and talks up living a life of continued happiness. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realised my life is not a continual path of complete zen happiness. There are days, like Limp Bizkit sing – “it’s one of those days, feeling like a freight train, first one to complain, leaves with a blood stain”. So I smiled and realised that Philby certainly had a point.

2) Philby, like myself, has started a blog to share his thoughts with the world. It’s an empowering act and I find a cleansing of the mind as I write down the dialogue in my head. I’m sure Philby does the same – as most bloggers would attest to. When reading his blog, my ego tripped in and as mentioned before, wasn’t entirely agreeable with the message being put across. Stepping back and taking ego away, there came an inner calm as the realisation that another brother was simply stating what was on his mind. It may have been aimed at me (was it brother – just kidding) but more than likely not. The guy has every right to get his thoughts out there and who I’m I to get all high and mighty about his opinions. Unless his opinion is one where I should be put to a slow death, then I really have nothing to be threatened by.

The blog is a little longer than normal but the art of self-awareness can at times take time to get through to dig deep down to the heart of the matter. And when you get there, the trip has definitely been well worth taking.

Living a path that at this point certainly is one of duality, I’ll hope to see you on the road to awesomeness!

Who was I really trying to impress?

Firstly, a very funtastic Friday to you all! Nothing better than waking up – try not waking up and see how that works out for you.

Walking around the kitchen this morning and thinking of an email I sent to a colleague last night, I thought to myself what was the true purpose of sending the email? Interesting thought pattern to have before the work day starts. So I reflected back to when I was working in the previous role to my current one. This is what I came up with…

Because my working relationship with old manager was less than favourable I would attempt to bridge the gap by sending emails that, in my mind, would “prove my existence (my worthiness for my role)”. They would be emails on industry news, cool new products or sales tips. Looking back, what value did I add by sending those emails? Proof that I was interested in what I do? Did I actually read the whole article I had sent?

Trying to be impressive but failing

So, using my awesome sense of self-awareness (come on, life has to have some laughs in it), I realised this morning that sending an email for the sole purpose of ‘trying to impress’ the recipient is fruitless. It doesn’t add value, more than likely wastes there time and may build up an image in their mind that I simply trying to look cool.

Therefore, from today, I’ll think twice about the reason for such emails. I now only send emails that have a genuine purpose of intent…. not just something that looks impressive.

Tearing it up on the path of a fulfilling life,

Craig

Thursday, 29 November 2012

What an awesome day! It started out slowly as I woke up a little tired and struggled for the first part of my session at the gym. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Right? Right. Though I started thinking about my day ahead at work when the energy levels started to rise. And rise they did!

The beauty of being self-aware is that it can create an instant buzz if you harness the learnings from it. Sometimes the learnings will be things you may not want to reflect on too much at the time because of the negative thoughts they’ll produce. A typical human reaction and not really the point of this post. Self-awareness can provide such awesome insights into the future based on the past.

So I started thinking about my past successes, who I was then and then and how I accomplished them. Then I fast forwarded to the present and checked how I’d progressed since then. Self-awareness in affect baby! Stepping forward into the future with the goals I have in mind, I was able to construct a game plan that blew my mind and instantly lifted my energy levels at the gym.

Next thing I know, I was home and cranking the tunes, strategising how to get the game plan happening and tore up the rest of the day. Once again, the ability to look deep within myself and reflect had so many positive take-aways that it is now a daily routine.

Oh, and thanks to Kellie @ PT Business Success www.ptbusinesssuccess.com for the early years of my self-awareness development. She’s an integral part of why I am where I am today!

Blazing a path of awesomeness,

Craig

Why self-awareness?

This blog is my personal insight to self-awareness and why it’s important that we understand who we are.

Have you ever woke up and wondered why your life is the same old mundane existence and yet you yearn for a better life? When one becomes self-aware, then life becomes a journey that most people only ever dream of. Self-awareness is attribute that if you can take on in your life, can transform everything from your body shape, career, bank balance, relationships – every aspect of your life!

Those that have a greater understanding of their self-awareness have greater control of their emotions and therefore are better at handling the challenges of life. All it takes is the ability to look honestly at yourself and improve on the areas that are “less than positive”. It can be daunting to begin with but with time, will be something you look back and thank yourself massively for.

So join me on my own self-awareness journey and enjoy life along the way!

Continually improving,

Craig

What is self-awareness?

Ever woke up and thought to yourself – am I really being the person I want to be? Well, my friend, that is self-awareness. It’s the ability to take a look at yourself and ask some deep questions.

Now I’m speaking in my language here. There’s no psycho-babble about the intrinsic values of what self-awareness is. This is coming from 40yrs of living and slowly understanding who I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going as a person.

So if you’re the type of person that wants to know more about yourself, are prepared to look deep within and can listen to the hard truths that will sometime come back to you – then buckle and join this journey with me.