Below is your weekly dose of 4 Thought Friday, a short list of idea’s, thoughts, and experiments from a few members of the Mako Team. Enjoy!
Carlos’s Visualizing:
The Power of Visualization: I am a firm believer that visualizing situations, moments, and experiences can help you achieve wonderful things. I learned these visualization techniques from a sports psychologist when I was 15 years old that was helping me become a better golf player. Ever since I started using these visualization techniques it helped me accomplish things I never thought I would’ve been able to do. My golf game, life, and relationships got better and I started being more positive in every single aspect of my life. When I was 17 years old for 6 months I visualized myself every single morning and night getting a golf scholarship in the United States- I do believe these techniques helped me achieve my goal.
It only takes 5-20 minutes of your day to lay down, close your eyes, and visualize how your day is going to turn out. You can use it for future goals you want to accomplish when you feel you’re in a tough situation in life, or even right before you’re going to attempt a lift- close your eyes and visualize yourself hitting the lift. Try it out and let me know how it goes!
Kaley’s Learning:
I recently read an article that asked, “Are you a learner or do you already know it all?” I encourage you all to ask this to yourself because, while I tell myself that I am a learner, I realized I maybe wasn’t being the best learner I could be. I wanted to hold myself more accountable for learning something new every day. One way I have found that I could easily do this, without needing any more time in the day, is to listen to podcasts while I am driving. Listening to music is great, but I could use my time more wisely and be more productive with the 1-3 hours I am in the car every day. I always try to listen to at least one podcast every day- this is my personal goal. To start, maybe your goal could be to listen to a podcast on the way to work in the morning. Also, I have gained more out of listening to podcasts than just learning something new. I have found that I am much more satisfied with how I spend my time. After listening to podcasts, I generally feel more inspired and more energetic to take on my day and any challenges I come across I feel I can add a new perspective to overcome it. I usually listen to health and fitness related podcasts, but there are all types of categories depending on what you are interested in.
Podcasts I currently listen to include:
Chasing Excellence – Ben Bergeron
Brute Strength Podcast
Pursuing Health with Julie Foucher
Increase Your Impact with Justin Su’a
Brandon Pursuing:
Running as a skill again and pushing my fitness with it regularly. Anyone can run, but learning to run well takes time, practice, and discipline. For skills, a book I like is Power Speed Endurance: A Skill-Based Approach to Endurance Training. Another good source for skills and drills is the Instagram page @RunRx. Both of these sources teach the fundamental of Pose Method running. Learning to use gravity to drive you forward as you pull straight up with the hamstring, makes running much more efficient equally better times with less effort. Check these out and if you ever want to go for a run, let me know!
Cuz’s Inspiring:
Starting Your Day – Have you ever taken the time to think about the first interaction, outside of your family, that you have each morning? Maybe it’s someone at work, or at your favorite coffee shop. Have you noticed how sometimes this person’s attitude or personality can affect the rest of your morning?
In Birmingham, one of my coworkers (my first interaction every day) would start every day with a negative comment of some kind. It could be about traffic, weather or some complaint about the previous day’s work. If the first interaction of your day is a negative one, like this, it can have a tremendous impact on your attitude for the rest of the day.
I decided to start coaching early morning classes for this very reason. I found that surrounding myself with positive people, that are serious enough about their health and lifestyle to wake up early to be at the gym every day, can do wonders for the long day ahead. For different reasons such as kids, work schedule, desperately needed beauty sleep (David Currin), out too late stealing delicious beverages from your coach (AC), or tons of other reasons, getting to the gym early is just not an option. But was this just a way for me to avoid that inevitable unpleasant first interaction that awaited?
The easy way around this is to just find a different coffee shop or avoid a coworker. But to me, this doesn’t improve the outcome of either person’s day. The real accomplishment is when you can face the challenge head-on and try to make a positive impact.
My favorite bible verse is about David’s epic battle versus Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:48 says “As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.” This always drives me to face an obstacle head on and ‘run quickly toward the battle line.’
There are countless ways to face these adversities and each morning we should challenge ourselves to find our own unique way to impact others and start the day off right. So next week, let’s try to make our first interaction of the day one that is about making someone laugh, smile, or by asking a sincere question and take time to really “listen” to the response. I think you will all see that you will enjoy your day more.
