Coach Tip Tuesday: YOU are the Magical, Secret Sauce

It’s like Groundhog Day, but the good kind!  Coach Tip Tuesday is here - again!

As many of you have probably figured out by now, Coach Tip Tuesday is almost always inspired by what I am observing in both my job as an endurance coach and in my everyday experiences as a human who lives on Planet Earth.  My observations over the last few months, and particularly over the last several weeks have led me to this week’s discussion:

A big theme I’m hearing from folks lately is something closely worded to the following: “Things will be easier/better after [insert event/situation here] and I’ll be able to get my workouts done then.”

I do understand why it’s tempting to think this way.  It’s “easy” to imagine that things will magically be better than one perceives their current situation to be after something external happens.  Examples (this is by no means a finite list): after school starts, after this next work project is complete, after a sports season is over, after a holiday, etc.

I’m here to shake things up and say something that not many people say: You have MUCH more control over your own lives than many of you may give yourselves credit for.  Expecting outside circumstances to change your life that drastically is effectively like accepting that someone else or some other entity is in charge of your life.  I dispute this and firmly believe that each of YOU is in control of YOUR life.  

Sometimes outside circumstances might make aspects of life more challenging at times than others, but expecting things to magically change due to those circumstances or a change in those circumstances is not a truth.  YOU are the magic in your own life.  YOU are the “secret sauce.”  What you choose to do based on the circumstances that you are confronted with in your life is what dictates whether things go well or poorly for you.  If you don’t make time for yourself, no other human or situation on the planet is going to do that for you.  YOU need to do that for you.

So yes, maybe there is a season of life coming up where you will be faced with circumstances that are different, and potentially more challenging, than before.  Maybe you are facing one right now.  However, the answer to this is not to “hang on for dear life” until the challenging circumstances “disappear.”  Acknowledging the truth in those circumstances (including the truth that you often must say no to things in order to make room for changed circumstances or new things in your life) and making a plan for how best to THRIVE in those circumstances is what will serve you well.  This pertains not only to how workouts/sport fits into your life, but how ALL of the most important things to you fit together to complete the puzzle that is your life.

Take the reins of your own lives, my friends!  Do not subscribe to this mythology that external circumstances dictate the terms of your lives.  Do not wish away the upcoming weeks or months waiting for that “magical” day when things will somehow be different and easier than they currently are.  It won’t magically happen.  However, YOU can make things different for yourselves.  Realizing that you are, in fact, in control of your life is empowering, to say the least.  It means that anything and everything is a possibility for you!

So reach for the stars and keep your hands on the helm of your life ship, my friends.  YOU are the magical, secret sauce.  Don’t lose sight of that. :)