It's my birthday soon and I just got the best pre-birthday surprise ever! No, this year I will not be turning a year older, I’ve actually got younger! Yes, it’s official! I am now three years younger than my legal age!
How exciting is that???
Who doesn’t dream about turning back the clocks? Best birthday present ever!
Want to know more…
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago…! Haha no! Actually, it all started just a few months ago. I finally woke up one morning and decided it was time for a change. Not that I haven’t experienced my fair share of change in the last few years, but I was ready for a change on my own terms. And without thinking any further into it, I found myself in contact with a personal trainer and two days later down at the gym.
Fitness has always been a foreign language to me. Sports in school were always a painful experience for me, perfectly summed up in a recent article going around the web, and I automatically assumed I was just no good at it. In psychology terms, a perfect example of learned helplessness. Sports have always been my nemesis. I always considered myself healthy, always preferring to cook rather than eat out, always preferring to walk or cycle rather than drive, but sport and formally working out at a gym always sent me running (pun intended!). As someone who thrives on challenging herself, living one challenge after another, always pushing myself to greater and more exciting levels, I couldn’t understand why sport always left me giving up before I even started. It was a small hidden fraction of my personality I couldn’t fathom, yet I know I am not alone. It is something countless people live with, holding ourselves back from reaching even greater potential, or pursuing dreams, not necessarily because we fear failure, but because we automatically assume we are going to fail before we even start.
Is that a fraction of your personality too?
This time round, my tiny fraction was still pushing to make that assumption, yet for some reason I decided to put that voice in the depths of a dark cupboard and get on with what I wanted to do. I decided to just take things one day at a time. No expections, just one goal I wanted to reach.
And the results started coming. And coming. And coming.
I just wanted more.
You see, with change, always comes the need to learn. There are times, particularly in a context where you find yourself in a cycle of defeat before you even start, it can be essential to get outside help. And this was one. In my case, quite symbolically, fitness was like a completely foreign language to me. It was not just not knowing where to start, it was knowing how to work your body to get a maximum of results possible. And we are not talking more is better, we are talking the smallest tweeks, slower movements, a slightly sharper angle, holding a position for just one second longer, to totally intensify a workout. Often the simplest exercises just done that little bit better would give results I thought only existed in my dreams. And that’s where expert help works at its finest.
I may be the first person to push self-learning, and doing everything yourself, but I also strongly believe in efficiency, and this is where expert outside help is indispensable. There are no two ways around it, learning anything to a high-end level always takes time, always takes effort. This means, in investing such time and effort, you want to be absolutely sure your learning experience is in the hands of an expert, maximising every minute of your learning, ensuring you reach your goals in the most efficient and effective way possible, even achieving things you thought only existed in your dreams!
Sometimes it is the little things in life. The little things that make life better. And faster. And stronger.
And sometimes, even younger!
Happy birthday to me and all you beautiful experts out there.
Here’s to another amazing year, full of success.
Together, let’s make learning happen.
Endnote: Behind the scene
My first day back in the gym was memorable, to say the least. I thought I had always been healthy, but I realised there was a whole lot more I could do. And with consistent hard work and sticking to my guns, in just a few months I turned back time and actually brought my metabolic age to three years younger than my current age! Perhaps this is the best anti-aging secret out there! And I’m only just beginning...
