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I have an assignment for you. This week, I want you to live every moment like you just won the Super Bowl. Let me explain…your job is to treat each task completed with a celebration. I don’t mean you need to hoot and holler and pop champagne when you finish the laundry – but a little internal happy dance and jubilant sense of accomplishment and self congratulations couldn’t hurt any.
You made it through the first paragraph and as usual are thinking, “What the hell is she talking about?” Here it is my friends – we don’t give ourselves enough credit for all of our little achievements in life. We have high standards for ourselves and great expectations and we are the first to beat ourselves up when we fail –but we don’t recognize how many times a day we succeed. And frankly – I think that should change. What would it hurt if your internal voice started to cheer you on like you had just won the Super Bowl? Can you imagine if you took each win and made time to celebrate it? I’m not talking about taking the day off work and going to Disney because you finished a proposal – but how about recognizing yourself for finishing that proposal?
It seems to me that we all have never-ending lists of things to do. These lists might be divided into personal and professional, they might be in our heads or on paper, they could be the most mundane or exciting, things we want to do or dread doing but they exist. We have these lists and we drag ourselves through them each week. And if that’s not enough, we generally add to our lists as the week progresses. It can seem like our entire life is made up of things we have to get done. I guess much of our lives are things we have to get done and when we are that overscheduled, overburdened or overwhelmed, many of us inadvertently turn everything into a task that has to be completed. Somehow, “read your child a story” can get mixed up with “pay the bills.” We approach all these things as something that has to get done and we suck the joy out of all of it. It goes back to living in the moment – we lose the moment because we can’t see it for the list.
So my plan is that we start by celebrating each thing that gets checked off the list this week like it’s a Super Bowl win. Hate paying the bills but sit yourself down to do it? Well rejoice in not only having the money to pay your bills –but also in completing the task – something that wasn’t pleasant for you deserves a pat on the back – a victory lap around the coffee table or at the very least a bright pink check off the list! Finish a project at work? Manage that difficult co-worker? Make it to the office on time? Celebrate it. Be proud of yourself and make sure you acknowledge your accomplishment. That’s part one.
Part two is something I think evolves in the process. Part two is play the game like it’s the Super Bowl. In other words, give everything in your life everything you’ve got this week. And I mean everything from tucking your children in and sex with your significant other to your attentiveness in today’s third conference call and that strategy document you are working on. Just really be there and try your absolute hardest. If you do, you cannot help but succeed but you will also feel a sense of pride in your performance.
My clients come to every class with this approach. These are people who have “real” lives – unlike me, Pilates isn’t their job. They spend somewhere around two hours a week doing Pilates and there is not one of them who doesn’t walk into a class and give it everything they have. They show up – not just physically (although let me tell you – that alone is huge!) but they show up ready to work. They are attentive and really listen to everything I say – they dig deep in their own bodies and work as hard as they are capable on any given day. They take the things they learn into their everyday lives and they do homework – yes they do homework! The perform like it’s the Super Bowl every time and I’m sure feel like they’ve just won it when they are done. And they make miraculous changes in their bodies. But change takes time. Rome was not built in a day and I see them – from the very beginning – having a little internal celebration at the end of every class. Heck, sometimes they celebrate at the end of a set of ten just because they “survived” it – but that’s the start of it. They are proud of themselves for getting it done and over time they learn how to work not just hard but smart and they get results.
So start this week celebrating not just your “wins” but also your “got it dones” and let it evolve into trying as hard as if it was the Super Bowl.
“Marcia Polas, you just finished this week’s blog, what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to Disney!”