The expectation of what lies at the end of the rainbow is always what trips you up.

Expectation and all the baggage that is attached to expectation is a big driver of unhappiness and disenchantment in the world today.

Expectation drives impatience, supports an undercurrent of “what if”, and quite often leaves you empty.

I asked a friend of mine who is a mother of four how she handles all the comings and goings of every day, the chaos that is likely her life.

Her answer: “I have no expectations”

If you have no expectations, you suffer no disappointment, and in some ways no over the top elation either. You remain neutral to the high-high’s and the low-low’s.

Neutral? 

What does that mean, you don’t feel anything and so therefore you will be happy?

Neutral doesn’t mean you don’t feel things, it just means you don’t get attached to those feelings.

The immediate sensation of elation when something good happens to you, or that sense of immediate disappointment because something went wrong is normal.

But if you have a deep sense of expectation for a result and when that result doesn’t occur, your whole demeanour changes and you find yourself in a funk, then you’ve attached too much to the outcome, and not enough on the process.

This is called object reference. Being attached to the outcome or object of your desire.

It’s the same even if it’s a positive result.

Yes, be happy you won the game, or finished the project, or had a great date, but attaching future expectations to these results doesn’t serve you. Neither do over the top celebrations that leave you feeling empty the next day.

Instead of being attached to the outcome and having specific expectations of that outcome, good or bad, simply connect more with the process of reaching the intended outcome or objective.

If you just focus on the beauty of the rainbow, and not on the “treasure” at the end of the rainbow, you will in turn enjoy the rainbow for what it is, a beautiful separation of light.

This post is not just for men!

In fact I would say that both men and women should read it as the perspective might give worthy pause for consideration.

All men grow up with a chip on their shoulder, put there by their father’s and their father’s father, and put there by society at large.

You don’t feel, you do.

Your job is to work and to provide, not to connect with your feelings, or to be vulnerable.
Suck it up son, you’re not injured!

Get up, get up!

Don’t cry, why are you crying?!

What are you going to do for a living, how are you going to provide for your family?

Stop being lazy and get after it!

We watched our dad’s work their tails off, and they watched their dad’s work their tails off, and we never saw them show their soft underbelly.

The real soft underbelly.

Ya, they might have laughed and joked, roared with laughter over a good story.

They might even have been the life of the party, back-slapping, high fiving, and making everyone in the room smile.

But you never really saw them wounded or sad.

You saw them angry and frustrated, maybe for some even more than the expression of the mood, the outward punishment from those moods.

Maybe you or someone in your family suffered the wrath.

Be a manly man, no time for a woos in this world!

As men we live our lives with an understanding that to embrace our emotional center is somehow a weakness, never to be seen by anyone, not even those we love. For if we do, we risk being taken advantage of, our value lessened, our ability to succeed somehow tarnished.

So when we become fathers, we struggle with the opportunity to emotionally connect with our child.

We love them, of course we do. But showing it is not a naturally understood reality.

Having little girls perhaps softens us up, forces us to connect with a side we’ve never understood, which in some ways can be even more confusing.

Having little boys, well here we go, a chance to perpetuate the story. The story of manliness!

Grow up, get a job, make a living, take care of your people, they are your responsibility.

The truth is, you can still be a man, and be a great dad.

It’s true!

How you say?

Here are ten things you need to do every day that will help you be the best man and the best father possible.

1 — Understand that unless YOU are good to you, you can’t be good for anyone else.

Being a martyr, sucking it up, dealing with your pain only ends up making you sick. Sickness manifests in many ways.

• We carry more weight

• We sleep poorly

• We eat poorly

• We get tired easily

• We are exhausted each day

• We can’t get out of bed

• We become less active

• We feel like shit!

• We kick our dog!

Then real disease starts to appear, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, all sorts of lovely stuff.

If you are sick, you can’t be your best for others, you might try, you might get the job done, but it will be nothing like what you can really bring to the table day in and day out.

Treat yourself with care and consideration first and foremost. It’s the number one rule!

2 — Let your partner know what scares you.

When you let your partner know you are human, they begin to see you as human, not indestructible. In turn, they will begin to consider how their behaviour or energy supports you.

If they don’t know, they won’t likely read your mind.

If they know, they can help you move through your fear, they can help you get to the other side. No matter what you believe, they won’t see it as weakness, they’ll see it as vulnerability, and they’ll cherish it.

If they don’t, well they shouldn’t be your partner in the first place. Really!

3 — Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you can’t be tough when necessary.

I worked for eleven seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) and it was a funny irony that the nicest, sweetest, most vulnerable people were often the tough guys.

Yep, the tough guys had soft centers!

Perhaps because they knew they could handle themselves, they were more comfortable with not having to be tough all the time.

I’ve seen the same thing in meeting many MMA fighters, and boxers. They are often very good-natured people, and often the most connected father’s that I’ve seen.

4 — The shield you carry to manage the war of each day in business and life must be placed on the floor upon your arrival home.

When you walk in the front door to your home, understand that your home is your sanctuary. Your family is your safe place, not a place to shut down, but a place to share your life. Let your family in on what’s been going on in your world, good and bad.

Yes, we don’t have to give all the gory details and scare our kids when things are maybe not going so well, but we also don’t have to slog it out day after day, coming home with a frown on our face, and hoping no one is noticing.

Even though they are all scared shitless of asking!

The more honest and up front you are about the good and bad of life, the more they will be prepared for the life they will one day live, and the more human they will know you are, leading to greater empathy and kindness on their part for you.

5 — Treat your family better than you treat your best client!

A lot of men think (and this is true of women as well) that their family should just put up with their shit. 

They should just understand. They treat their family way worse than they would treat their worst client.

Instead, we should all be treating our family better than anyone else in our lives.

Yes, they should and will be there for you, but that means you need to honor that unconditional love, not expect it!

6 — Always treat your partner with the greatest level of respect, especially in front of your children.

You are a beacon.

You are an example for your children.

How they see you treat your partner will be how they treat their partner. They will seek out partners that emulate the behaviours of their parents, and if you have set an amazing example, they will in turn expect to be treated in the same way.

When you set a poor example, your children’s choices are going to be a crap-shoot you will in turn be required to watch!

7 — Set an example in front of your friends!

Too many guys like to pull out the machismo badge when their friends are around. They want to appear to be large and in charge, as though their partners and children are servants to their cause.

We all know its bullshit, so drop the façade and be a good partner and father in front of your friends, set an example. By setting an example, you in turn move the tone and character of the moment towards kindness and honesty.

8 — Know who your good friends really are, and don’t be afraid to tell them you love them!

Men seldom confide in one another that they love each other. The weight of life each day requires the support of our peers. We can’t get through life without the love of our parents, our family, our partners, AND our friends.

Why is it ok to share your love with your family, but not ok to do it with your friends?

Let them know how much they matter, you’ll be surprised how often it is reciprocated in kind.

9 — Tell your kids you love them all the time!

This would seem to be the easiest rule to follow, but for some reason lots of fathers rarely say the words “I love you” to their kids.

Say it, because you know you feel it. Say what you feel, it really isn’t that difficult, we just need to make it so!

10 — Give your kids hugs, hugs and more hugs!

Along with the last rule, tell them you love them, this one is just as important.

You can tell them, but if you don’t embrace them and make them feel your deepest connection, they might not believe you!

Hugs are the essence of love!

Manliness and fatherhood are one, be good in both.

P.S. If you loved this post please take the time to share it with someone who will be moved to do better. Thank you 😉

A mentor of mine once provided me with this powerful metaphor.

A man jumps into his canoe and begins to paddle toward the other side of the lake.  After a little while he realizes he’s not going anywhere. 

So he begins to paddle more forcefully, digging into each stroke, expecting that the rise in intensity will move him more rapidly.

But nothing changes.

So he begins to pick up his pace, turning over each stroke faster and faster, again, believing that with the increased rate, he would see a real change.

But nothing seems to change his progress, he remains the same distance from the opposite shoreline.

Perplexed, he looks behind him, only to realize that in his haste to get to the other side, he had forgotten to release the rope that held his canoe fastened to the dock!

The rope and his lack of recognition of its constraint on his boat is the metaphor for not recognizing or acknowledging his limiting beliefs.

In the many years I’ve spent helping some of the best athletes in the world achieve their objectives, I’ve noticed that the one thing that is most often in their way is not their opponent, but their own limiting beliefs.

Your mindset and the limiting beliefs you hold near to you are most often the things that stop you from achieving the things that matter.

No one is immune to this reality.

If you don’t recognize these limiting beliefs are there, constantly defining your perception and experiences, you are literally remaining unknowingly constrained by the rope.

Like most people, you likely have these “characters” inside you that are always talking to you and telling you what is and is not possible. Telling you that you aren’t good enough to make something you want to accomplish actually happen.

The best thing you can do to allow yourself to thrive instead of survive in this world is to take the time to identify your limiting beliefs, accept that you have them, and become more aware of when they are stopping you from reaching new heights.

Acceptance that you have limiting beliefs is the first step.

If you’re shaking your head and saying something like, “Nothing is getting in my way, I’m fine.” Then you are either not being truthful, or you’ve done a lot of personal development work already, and you likely stopped reading a while ago.

So, I’m going to assume you are the prior, and you can keep telling yourself that story, but just realize that your language, what you say to yourself every day, is what you come to believe as the truth.

Becoming more aware of your internal narrative, and what you keep telling yourself is an essential element in moving to a more serving language.  An internal dialogue that inspires you rather than holds you back.

How do you become more aware you might ask?

You journal.

Journal daily, at least once a day, and in that journal, listen to your inner voice and write down the things you continue to tell yourself.

Don’t like writing in a journal? 

Then voice record it.

Listen to those negative conversations that you wouldn’t have with someone you love, but you will have no trouble saying to yourself.

As you become more aware of those conversations, you can start to name those “characters” in your daily conversations. 

Characters like Judging Jerry or Judy who likes to come out and judge everything you do (oh, that was so stupid, how could you do that, why did it take you so long, why did you eat that? Etc, etc.). Or Comparative Carl or Karen who loves to come out when you see others doing well, or better than you!

As you become more aware of these characters, you will begin to realize how often they are in your life, and you can begin to shut them down. When you hear them start to talk, you can use strategies to re-direct your conversations and trigger more productive thoughts.

One such strategy is to take a moment and breathe. When you hear these conversations ramping up, your blood pressure begins to rise. 

Stop!

Take five long slow deep breaths, and shut down your negative thoughts, instead focusing on your breath.

As you become more aware of the comings and goings of your limiting beliefs, as you begin to shut down the negative conversations, you will begin to adapt, to create new pathways of thought that are more positive in nature and more aligned with who you wish to be.

However, this does not just happen naturally, you need to prepare the soil for the seed, and that means that you’ve been journaling consistently, learning about your limiting beliefs, shutting them down, and inserting new more powerful belief systems.

With greater awareness comes greater accountability. 

You become accountable to your language, accountable that the limiting beliefs ARE what is holding you back, and as you become more accountable you can further set these limiting beliefs aside and adapt to a new normal.

A new normal where telling yourself you can’t do it is no longer front and centre. Where telling yourself you can and will do becomes the beacon for your deepest intentions.

• Acceptance
• Awareness
• Accountability
• Adaptation

These are the four steps you want to travel through in order to re-set your belief system and own a new narrative that sees you achieving your intentions instead of being constrained by your limiting beliefs.

The key to all of this is the consistency of the task. 

Journaling daily, listening to your inner language, changing the tide, setting your intentions for each day, and counting your wins when the day is done.

If you follow this path, you will no longer be fixed to the dock, you will be challenging open water with no limit to what you can accomplish!

I hope this serves.

If you like this piece please take the time to share it with your community. Many thanks for reading and all the best in your life.

If you’ve been in the world of human performance for a while you’ve likely been lucky enough to witness some amazing achievements in life and sport.

If you’re still young and developing a practice, you will indeed begin to see some incredible things.

Training and repairing people who want to achieve new heights has been a part of my professional life, and throughout my experiences, I’ve used every possible tool and approach in my repertoire in order to create the right solutions for the clients I serve.

Through your own experience, you might have noticed the following habit many practitioners apply that limits the possibility of creating unique solutions or opportunities for their clients.

People like to put things in boxes. 

People like to categorize and constrain.

In the health and fitness industry today you see so much categorization, so many labeled trends or systems, and the approach or solution to any one person’s objectives is defined through a particular trend, fad, or system rather than a unique combination of approaches.

This is something humanity has done forever, each time a new concept, service, or material item has been created, we’ve established where it fits, what it feels like, sounds like, is perceived like and then we put it in that box.

Music is a classic example of this desire to categorize: Classic, Jazz, Blues, Folk, Rhythm and Blues, Country, Hip-hop, Rap, Rock, Metal, Alternative, Disco….and the list goes on and on.

The ability to categorize gives rise to the ability to compare and contrast and establish leaders and followers, those that are on the rise and those that are on the fall. 

A music category allows the listener to associate an identity with the sound or the genre to which they connect. You can “feel” others that listen to that type of music, and be connected to a tribe or group of fans or followers of that type of music or artist. 

It gives it meaning in our lives and gives us meaning.

However, it’s in that dogmatic definition or label that we create all the pain and suffering we see today in our society. 

We establish the category or label, we define what it means, and in some instances, we even define what the person who would do, use, or like that item or element would look, be, or behave like. 

This leads us down the slippery slope of judgment.

You listen to this type of music, therefore you are this type of person, therefore you will have this set of morals or values, therefore we will judge you and place you in a box called “X” and sometimes that box is judged good, and sometimes it is judged bad, again, a way of categorizing something!

In the health and wellness world today (in and of itself a category) we do that as well. 

Types of training, bodybuilding, Cross-fitting, HIIT training, aerobics classes, powerlifting, yoga, Pilates, Olympic lifting. These are all examples of trends or systems in training and they all are born of various concepts and fundamentals. 
Ultimately it’s the fundamental properties of these things that you need to understand so that you can create the results you are trying to achieve.

The same goes for the sports medicine and therapy industry; soft tissue work, manual therapy, stretching, mobility work, modalities, ART, MAT, FRC, FST, FMS, DNS, and the list goes on, many of which are sold as THE solution to ALL problems.

The truth is, no one system of practice, technique, or protocol fits every problem.

Just like in music, you need to understand the fundamentals of music, how sound behaves, and is produced, and how you can manipulate it, then you can make sound behave so it creates what your ears perceive as music.

When you train people or treat people, you need to understand the varying methods of practice in varying combinations that suit your “listening style” and allow you to flourish most effectively and create the most effective outcomes for your clients.

You don’t need dogmatic application of trends or systems, you need to establish what combination of ingredients will create your unique success or the success of those with whom you work.

Don’t box yourself into one method or one way; explore all the possible combinations and permutations to create a unique solution!

Be open to the possibilities.