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.

Having experienced all sorts of performance cultures in my life in business, in organizations, and even in families, I’ve taken note of the things that really destroy or inhibit the development of good culture.

Good culture is the foundation of success, without it, people wither like the leaves on a drought challenged plant.

Poor culture sucks the life out of the people in it, and good culture feeds their soul.

I recently posted on the subject of the ingredients of great culture (See my blog from April 10th) and I thought for a second that although those things sometimes seem logical, they aren’t always done well.

In the same way, some things that would seem counter-intuitive to the creation of good culture are done spectacularly well with very little effort, and incredibly detrimental results.

The accidental destruction or inhibition of culture occurs daily in environments throughout the world. People just aren’t always aware of some of the simple mistakes they make and how they slowly and insidiously spoil the roots of the cultural flower.

There are five culture spoilers I’ve observed time and time again, that with very simple efforts can be avoided and in so doing, eliminate the limits of cultural growth.

Expectations Unsaid

One of the biggest culture killers is murky, or unclear expectation.

Often people who run businesses or organizations got to this place of leadership because they were good at setting their own expectations, creating their own set of benchmarks. They intuitively know how to set and reach objectives, and in turn revise and re-establish these objectives, constantly recreating themselves, and their role in the process.

However, and this is the big conundrum, they aren’t always so good at imparting these skills upon those who work for them or that they mentor. They are good at doing, but not so good a teaching and coaching.

Not everyone is good at clearly establishing the expectations of their role in an organization, or feeling comfortable with being autonomous in defining their path.

The role of a good leader or a parent for that matter is to clearly establish and communicate the expectations they have for their team members or their children.

When things are left to assumption or interpretation based on personal perspective, then things get very murky, and people become listless, lost, or ineffective.

Culture becomes fractured.

Too Many Policies and Procedures

In opposition to a lack of expectations is the over-bearing establishment of policies and procedures. The reaction in some organizations to the need for clarity of expectations is to enact a whole bunch of policy and procedure items for people to follow so they can’t screw things up.

Granted, in some instances clarity of policy, and the procedures that must be followed to support such policy can be extremely effective and necessary. An example like the submission of time sensitive documentation to support payroll or contractual payment is one that comes to mind in a small or large business or organization.

But quite often policy and procedure becomes the way of leadership to off-load the responsibility of leadership. Leadership requires setting an example, and holding people accountable to expectations, expectations that have been clarified through conversation and ongoing communication.

You can’t P+P culture, culture is an intangible creation based on positive and exemplary leadership, period!

Judgement

Judgment kills mojo. It’s human nature to get mired in personal negative self-talk. We love to beat ourselves up, to judge ourselves, and our favourite deflective strategy to counterbalance negative self-talk is to shit on other people.

What better way of making yourself feel good than to tell yourself, and everyone else for that matter, that so and so is messing up, its so and so’s fault, they made the mistake, they don’t know what they are doing.

The worst example of this behaviour is when leadership blames or judges those around them for their mistakes or the company’s failures.

The bottom line is that if you are in charge of something, the buck stops at you. If someone you are leading makes a mistake, it’s your mistake. You have to own the mistakes because you chose to be a in a place of leadership and as such, you set the expectations (please see above!) and if those expectations aren’t met, you own the problem.

Judgment has no place in a culture of performance. Instead, we need empathy, mentorship, learning, room for failure, and opportunity to redeem.

Fear of Retribution

The dark side of judgement is retribution.

When we go beyond simple judgement and now we cut a swath out of those in error, we leave them feeling gutted. The pain of the mistake leaves a scar that challenges future decision-making, tempers risk taking, and limits opportunistic thought.

If I am worried about “what if” I will never make the best decision, I will make the safe decision, and the weight of possible retribution can be enough to stagnate any innovative practice.

Without innovative practice, risk taking, or opportunistic thought, environments become stagnant and unchallenging. People become bored, or simply lost in the day to day.

Fear of retribution destroys culture.

In the game of football, the playbook is the bible that guides all decision-making. What to do and when, who goes where, and the plan of action to beat the opposition.

A playbook in life is a thorough plan of action to achieve your intentions.

How do we build one?

Build a Future Vision

First up, we look down the line a few years and think about what we want our life to look like. Not how we are going to get there, but what we want life to be like, and more important, how we want it to feel!

This takes a little dreaming, a little faith in the process of visualizing something beyond your current state.

If you’re having trouble seeing what you want life to look like, then try the reverse approach, what don’t you want your life to look like?

What are you doing now, or living now that you don’t want to do or live?

If you can put a thumb on what you don’t like about your life, it will often help you clear a little bit of the muck off the windshield of life, and see a little more clearly.

Spend a little time on what you want life to feel and look like, as this becomes the end game of the playbook.

Now, most of the time, it’s best to do this in 2–3 year increments as it’s tough sometimes to see too far down the road.

Year One, Two, Three

So now that you have a vision of what you want life to look and feel like in three years, then you need to walk back and create a set of benchmarks for each year. What do you want life to look and feel like at the end of year two, and so on for year one so you are essentially progressing towards the finished product of year three.

Imagination is a funny thing.

We spend so much of our time using our imagination to create stress in our lives, fill us with worry, and send us spiraling into sadness and in some instances, depression.

Look at us today, more than one-third (35.7%) of the adult population in America is considered to be obese.

Seriously, you read that right, one-third! More than 1 in 20 are considered to be extremely obese!

So many people today are addicted to pain medication, anti-depressants, alcohol, or other drugs all in an effort to mask or avoid the symptoms of stress, sadness, or depression.

Sugar has become the drug of choice for so many people, the sweet high of sugar keeping us as far from those negative feelings as possible.

Until you come down off the blood sugar high, then mega sadness hits again and the cycle continues. More chocolate!!

Seriously, we are so preoccupied with imagining disaster, imagining the “what if” scenario, imagining what our friends have, and what we don’t have, we are just so overwhelmed with all the negative possibilities.

We’ve even taken to not imagining, but simply voyeuristically observing everyone else’s social media highlight reels.

The Insta-life phenomenon is further killing our mojo!

We want what others have, but we can’t even imagine it, so we just long for their life, hoping somehow that if we wish, beg, and wait long enough, the payday will come.

In the meantime we are maxing out our credit cards, taking out credit lines to pay the credit cards, taking home mortgage loans to pay the credit lines. We are shopping ourselves into happiness!

We are living a pretend life of abundance, sad really.

So how do we change all of this darkness?

We start imagining the life we want to have.

Yep, that’s it.

How can I do that you say? that’s not an easy thing to do. I have bills, and responsibilities, and people to care for, and on and on!

But if you can imagine all this drama in your life, why can’t you imagine freedom and possibility?

Really, why not?

Our brains are hard-wired to lean towards the negative, so we need to jerk them out of that habit and apply some good old reverse psychology.

Wins

First thing we want to do is start to count our wins. Ya, you heard me, count your wins!

What does that mean you might be saying?

Well, each day you are going to take some time at the end of the day, preferably right before you go to bed, and you’re going to think of 1–3 things in the day that you did that could be considered positive.

It can be anything.

You got out of bed without hitting the snooze button

You ate a healthy lunch

You went for a 20-minute walk after dinner

You made it to the bank and got that deposit done

These are relatively simple things, but if you’re in a hole, sometimes you have to find the positive in the most malign of things.

If you are getting a little bolder perhaps you start counting wins like:

You completed a 45-minute HIIT workout

You finished a big project

You made an amazing meal for you or your family

You spent some amazing time with a loved one

You get the gist.

Counting your wins every night counter points your negative self-talk and finishes your day on a positive note. It tricks the subconscious into leaving the day on a positive rather than leaving the day on a negative.

It sets up the next day on a positive platform.

Once you gain some traction on your night-time practice it’s time to do some morning silence work.

Silence

Get up in the morning 15 minutes earlier. Get out of bed, find a comfortable place in the house where you can be alone, and either in a sitting or lying position settle down and close your eyes.

With your eyes closed focus on your breathing, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Try to stay focused on your breathing, the sound of it, the feeling of it.

You may begin to talk to yourself, that’s normal. Each time you do, try to reconnect with your breathing.

Do this for just five minutes each day, every day for 30 days. If you miss a day or two get back on the horse and start again. Consistency is the key.

Once you’ve gotten good at five minutes, try to push it to 10–15 minutes.

Is this meditation?

In a sense yes, but at the end of the day, what we are doing is working on disconnecting from our thought stream, connecting with our breathing, and taking the time to be in silence so our mind can, in essence, rest!

It takes time to own it.

You will not be good at it immediately.

You might not be good at it for a very long time, but the action of making the effort creates time and space for you. Something we don’t do a very good job of these days.

We usually fill time and space with stuff! Sometimes its good not to fill it with anything!

Once we get used to silence in the morning, we can begin to fill that silence with our positive imagination.

Imagination

What is a place, a space, a feeling, or an image you can see that makes you feel good?

If there is an image you can link towards that makes you feel good spend some time connected to that image. If you can see a moving picture of sorts, allow it to flow, and connect with it as well.

This type of imagination time doesn’t have to last long, again maybe five minutes in the beginning. Consistency once more is the key. Keep coming back to it and keep allowing yourself to fill the space and time with your positive imagery.

Once you’ve become comfortable with this type of imagery, try to move to the next level.

Imagine your life

If you could be anything, do anything, or if you could change your circumstances some how that would allow you to flourish, what would that be? What would it look like?

Don’t get stuck on how you’re going to get there, just focus on what that would look and feel like.

Now try to link with that image or picture of your life on a daily basis. Integrate your “imagine your life” into your daily silence.

The simple combination of counting your wins and imagining your life on a daily basis will change your outlook measurably. You will truly begin to feel different.

You will truly begin to move forward when before you could only stay put.

You will begin to be inspired by your imagination. When your imagination begins to connect to you, there is no telling where it will go, but what I can tell you is it won’t be stuck in the darkness anymore.

There will be light where once there was dark. Your imagination will inspire you.

Air, water, food, sleep, and shelter are probably the most important basic elements of living on this earth.

To thrive on this earth, we need to optimize all of those elements in our life, and one, in particular, can give us plenty of benefits if we just spend a little more time considering “how” we do it.

Unfortunately, sleep is not taken very seriously by many of us, we pay it little mind and hope that our body and brain will deliver despite our lack of consideration.

Sleep is simply one of THE most important elements of recovery, and working at your sleep is just as important as working at your business, nutrition, or fitness.

Sleep! Yes, sleep.

Three elements are most important to consider

1 — The Quantity
2 — The Quality
3 — Our Sleep routine

When we are awake, our brains and bodies are being used, and in some instances abused.

Sleep is when our body recovers.

Consistency around these three areas can go a long way to improving your physical recovery.

Here are ten things you can do to really make a difference in the quality, quantity and consistency of your sleep routine.

Practicing them will most surely make a difference in the quality of your life, relationships, work and play!

1 — Take sleep seriously

First things first, take sleep seriously, please!

For the most part, it just ends up being something we use to bookend our day, slamming our head into the pillow at some hour of the night, hoping that things will work out, and we will see the sun shining again tomorrow.

By taking sleep seriously, and building a functional and flexible routine around it, you will optimize your awakened state. Sleep is the most important element of recovery, so optimizing it makes a real difference.

You don’t have to be perfect, or OCD about it, you just need to be thoughtful and considerate about it daily. Understanding its value, and aligning your behaviour around that understanding is key.

2 — Spend some money on a mattress, linens, and a pillow

This might be one of the easiest choices you could possibly make on spending your hard earned money. Yet it is a classic example of how little we pay mind to our sleep.

We sleep on old, worn out, mattresses. Hand me down mattresses. Dirty hotel mattresses. Couches and pull out couches!

Sometimes we go out and spend a bunch of money on a “good” mattress, but we don’t take the time to lie down on it first, to feel our level of comfort. Just because it is sold as the best mattress on earth does not mean it is the best mattress on earth for YOU! Test it out first!

Then, when you do get the “right” mattress, don’t go putting old crappy hand me down linens on it, or the ones you got on sale with a zero thread count!

Spend some money on a good mattress, good sheets, and a great pillow. You spend your money on a great car, or great restaurants, or whatever you perceive to be valuable to your life, please spend some money on your sleep!

3 — Breathe deeply

Just before you are going to shut things down for the night, try taking some deep breaths. Deep and mindful breathing affects the parasympathetic system and helps bring your heart rate down, relax you, and clears your body of carbon dioxide, replacing it with fresh oxygen.

Ten deep, mindful breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, 3–4 seconds in and 3–4 seconds out.

Try to get the breath into the whole abdominal cavity, feeling your stomach rise, but also feeling like the breath is coming out the back and sides of your trunk.

This type of breathing will help your brain and body prepare for sleep.

4 — Prepare to sleep

Speaking of preparing for sleep. What are you doing for the last hour or so before you go to sleep?

Pounding ot e-mail and texts? Checking social media? Watching TV or video? Eating? Drinking?

All of the above reduce your body and mind’s ability to shut down. These things amp up your neurological system, they are forms of stimulant.

We want to bring the system down. So about an hour before you plan to go to sleep, start shutting out all the drama.

Bring peace to your day.

Build a sleep routine, even when you travel, take some time to unwind at the end of the day and get into the right sleep space.

5 — Deal with sleep issues

If you are a snorer, chances are you are leaning towards a sleep issue, like sleep apnea. If you are waking up like a brick hit you in the head each day, the opposite of refreshed, then you may want to get your sleep quality checked out.

If you are sleeping the right amount, with the right quality, you should be waking refreshed, not exhausted.

Don’t wait until you get sick to finally have things checked out, there are a lot of very viable remedies on the market today for sleep apnea and snoring. No need to sleep alone anymore!

Are you living a life focused on the next objective, the next goal, or the next thing you wish to conquer?

What does it feel like when you get there?

What does it feel like when you don’t?

If the answer to the first question is something like, “Good, so what’s next?” or “Great for a while, but then it fades”.

or

The answer to the second question is, “I feel anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated”, or all the seriously negative emotions we could describe here.

If these are your answers, or something akin, your point of reference, your connection is with the OBJECT of your desire, the endpoint, the outcome.

Your point of reference is not WITH the process, and with connecting to yourself IN that process.

There are no objectives that you will attain, or reach that will satisfy you if the focus is on the object itself.

If the focus is on the process of your growth in reaching that objective, then you may not always be satisfied completely with what you achieve, that’s understandable.

But you will be fulfilled.If you’re connected to the process and your self-discovery in that process, you can re-set and re-focus your energies towards your objectives, or even revise those objectives.

But you will not be taken off course or beaten down by your inner voice because you didn’t achieve what you expected.

Challenge and growth Vs. Objects and expectations

I’ll take challenges and growth every time!How do I do this you say?

First, understand that every time you embark on an objective, or as I like to express it, an intention, your connection needs to be with the process of reaching towards it, not with it.

Yes, that’s what I said?!

Don’t keep your eyes on the prize.

We’re all doing it.

Day in and day out.

I want that job, and when I get it, I’ll be happy!

I want that promotion, and when I get it, all will be well!

I want that car, and when I get it, man am I going to be cool!

I want that partner, and when I get them, I am going to be whole!

I want that house and when I get it, I will be living the dream!

Inevitably, when we don’t reach those objectives, we get disappointed in ourselves, we beat ourselves up, and we start into a cycle of personal reflection that is not self-serving, but rather self-deprecating.

Maybe we even self-sabotage along the way! Because we don’t believe we can achieve the objective, so we just throw in the towel, give up, and go home!

Or

We achieve the objective, back slap ourselves for a day, yell and scream from the tallest building!

But nothing really changes.

Ya, maybe we can afford something we couldn’t before, or we are in a better position than before, but for some reason, we can’t find true enjoyment and fulfillment at the moment!

We look around with this empty feeling, and then we look for what to do next, and here starts the cycle again. Here……we…….go!

If we connect more with working towards our intentions, we stay focused on learning from each moment, consider our choices, understand our pathway, and revel in the daily process, and we will feel such a sense of fulfillment each day.

And that is the crux of the matter.

It is not about the endpoint, it is about each day, each step.

Process, not Perfection!

When we are connected to that, then each day IS fulfilling, even when it may be a step backward, because you learned something, and you felt something, and you explored yourself.

You grew!

Growth, learning, and evolving vs. Expectations, Disappointment, or Emptiness — You Choose!

I’m pretty lucky at this point in my life to have a loving, supporting, and inspiring partner. And, most importantly, I love myself.

It hasn’t always been this way. I’ve been divorced twice, and the reason those relationships didn’t work out wasn’t that my partners intentionally set out not to be loving, supporting, and inspiring.

It was because I didn’t understand myself. I didn’t understand what I needed, or who I was, and I didn’t love myself, so how could I have a quality relationship with someone else?

So the first rule of a loving relationship is knowing and loving yourself.

The next element of a loving relationship is being a good partner.

If you really want to be in love, to be loved, to feel a bond that lasts beyond the early days of curiosity and discovery, you need to be a good partner.

What does that mean?

It means that you are considerate of the person you are with and that you let them know they matter.

You don’t do it with words.

Words can be important, absolutely.

But words don’t replace actions.

You see if your words echo or match your actions then those words matter, but if they run counter to your actions, then they become hypocrisy.

Actions matter.

What do I mean by actions you say?

First up, treat your partner the way you would want to be treated, with respect, honesty, compassion, consideration, and honor.

All too often we treat our clients, or our friends better than we treat our partners.

The assumption is that your partner is there for you, they can see your raw reality, and they should be there for you when you are at your worst.

And you know what, from time to time, when things do get difficult, that is absolutely true.

Your partner should be there for you through thick and thin.

They should see through your worst, as you should, in turn, see through theirs.

But being your worst should not become your default, not even a little bit.

On the contrary, your best should be your default.

You should treat your partner better than your best client, treat them like they’ll walk out that front door and never return if you don’t treat them with special intent.

Newton’s third law states that when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

In other words, if you treat your partner well, with good intentions, and with honest effort, they will, in turn, treat you with equal and matching consideration.

Simple physics in love!

Next, know their Love Language

In his groundbreaking book, “The Five Love Languages”, Gary Chapman presented five fundamental love languages that we should understand, recognize, and align with if we want our partners to FEEL loved.

You see, you may love somebody, and you may express your passion and your love with great fervor, especially in the beginning, but if you don’t speak their language of love, then they will not FEEL loved.

Over time, they will begin to feel less and less connected to you, less and less understood and when that happens, resentment and disconnection are not far away.

The languages as Chapman describes them are:

1. Words of affirmation

2. Gift giving

3. Physical touch

4. Acts of service (devotion)

5. Quality time

So one caveat to my original thoughts here is the idea that while you should treat your partner as you would wish to be treated, you can’t love them as you would wish to be loved.

That’s confusing you say?

Not really.

Treatment is connected to all the factors I expressed before, honesty, goodness, and respect are all elements of character.

However, the way you love someone must recognize the way they want to be loved.

If you are always giving nice gifts to your partner because you like gifts, but their love language is quality time and you are rarely available, well the reaction you get won’t be what you were expecting.

The gift will be most likely appreciated if you have been connecting with quality time, and your partner feels loved because of that connection.

The gift is a bonus and surely appreciated.

However, if you haven’t had time for them, no matter what the gift, its value or its thought, it will not leave a mark of impression, especially not one that will last, or be considered a replacement for your personal time and effort.

Love them as they would wish to be loved.

Finally, consistency is the key.

Sporadic efforts to connect with your partner’s love language, treating them with kindness and consideration, or pulling up your socks and recognizing you’ve been slacking will not save a relationship.

If you want a really powerful relationship, your efforts must be consistent and honorable.

You wouldn’t just mail it in at work (or maybe you would, but that’s a subject for another post!) because you know eventually, you’d lose your job.

Why do you expect any difference from your relationship?

If you mail it in at home, you will soon be in a relationship devoid of love, passion, or consideration, and the effort required to salvage it will be monumental.

Don’t wait for them to walk out that door to realize how much they mean to you!

Treat your partner with true love and kindness, understand them, honor them, and you will have a very powerful relationship for many years.

Four simple principles to a loving relationship!

1 – Love yourself

2 – Be a good partner

2 – Know their love language

3 – Be consistent

So Simple, now make it happen!