https://www.listennotes.com/e/e3868eae551042c481ff4a8d9d89ffc8

Oh, friend. Today is a fun day. I'm going to share some behind the scenes of my workouts, what it is that I do, and more importantly than what I'm doing today, what it looked like seven years ago when I started working out from home. And even before that, what I was doing before, because I've been through many, many, many transitions within my fitness journey and with my body and It comes down to mindset. Every single time, as I've reflected over the past seven years and beyond that, and how I've stayed pretty consistent with my workouts, even though they look very different in these transitions that I go through from having four children, working out in a gym setting, working out in a home setting, running versus using my weights, there's just been so many times that things have looked different and changed for me. and that's part of life. And it's important for us to have a mindset and a clear focus on what we want through this journey in life. So as we dive into this episode, I want you to know that there might be times that your mind starts rattling up some negative self-talk and maybe some self-doubt comes in as I share what things look like for me. And I want you to hold yourself accountable to stay focused on what you do want. I'm going to share with you what it looks like for me. I'm going to share with you what I wanted and what I want moving forward. And if at any time your mind comes back to negative self-talk or self-doubt and criticizing yourself, whatever it looks like, hold yourself accountable. Don't let this bully come into your mind and take away your opportunity to dream to, to see yourself as someone that can experience all the same things that I've experienced. even in better ways than I've experienced them faster than I've experienced them better than I've experienced them. Those are all possible for you. And it's important that your mind believes that first, before you actually are able to hold it in your life, you're able to see it in your mind. And when you can do that, you can accomplish anything you want in this life. And I believe that because I'm speaking from personal experience. I feel like my life went from ground zero to cloud nine is what it feels like. And I'm only 30 years old, and I feel excited every single day because I know what I want. I'm going after what I want. I'm walking in that direction, especially when things don't look that way right now. And I believe that my experience with exercise is just a really practical example of my mind staying in the right place that you can adopt in a really realistic way. Right now, before I tell you my story and how things looked seven years ago before that and what they look like now in my workouts and in my fitness journey and my relationship with my body, I want you to keep this in mind. So often we think the problem is that we're not getting what we want. I don't want my kids to interrupt my workout. I don't want to work out in my living room. I don't want to run. I don't want to lift weights. I don't want to work out at home. I don't want to do it by myself. I don't want to figure it out myself. We think like, well, I'm not getting those things. And everything that I just said was what you don't want. So we think the problem is that we're not getting what we want, when really the problem is we don't know what we want. We have not clearly defined in detail what it is that we want. So you don't even know when you have what you want. Can you look around your life right now and see just for a moment when you observe things neutrally and you just try to like account for things, can you see how much of what you have is actually what you've wanted for a very long time? It's what you dreamed of not too long ago, and now you have it and you're just looking over all these things that you truly do want. You want these things, you wanted these things, and now you have them. And when we're trying to acquire more of what we want in life, you must be able to define it. You must be able to say, I want to work out in a gym. I want to go to a guided Pilates studio. I want to do hot yoga at this studio. And more than that, more detailed than that, I want to do the classes at this time and on these days of the week and with these people and with this instructor. See how detailed I can get, how focused I can get on what I do want, instead of just saying, I don't want to work out from home. It doesn't matter how much you say, I don't want to work out from home. That's not going to get you closer to what you do want. That leaves you with a thousand different options. And then you're just feeling really overwhelmed. And you're going to experience that decision fatigue because you just never took the time to clearly define So again, so often we think the problem is that we're not getting what we want. And the reality is the problem is we don't know what we want. We've never taken the time to clearly define and express and talk about and entertain and dream of the things that we want in the type of detail that leaves us feeling really, really excited. There are so many things that I really want in life. I want to be able to experience in life. I want to hold in life. I want to do in life. And I haven't done it yet. I can just see it so clearly in my mind, though, that to me, it's going to happen. It's bound to happen. There's absolutely no way that it won't happen. If I can see it that clearly, I just know it's coming. And so every day I put in that work, I show up as if it's so close it could happen tomorrow. So I'm just staying prepared, is what it feels like. And then There's just that inspiration, a constant flow of inspiration and excitement inside of myself and resourcefulness that when I meet an obstacle, I see a way through it. Rather than thinking it's here to stop me, I look at it as very purposeful, very intentional to help me become the person that I need to be in order to have all the things that I want. And everything I just described to you is mindset. So I want to give you a really practical example. Let's talk about behind the scenes what my workouts look like. And we need to take it back. Let's take it back. So before I even met my husband, my form of exercising was to run six miles three days a week. I worked two jobs. I have always been a really hard worker. I got a job the day I was early enough to get a job. My first job was actually Taco Bell. I am excellent at folding burritos, just so everyone here knows. It is a serious talent of mine. And I'm so grateful for that work experience at Taco Bell. I was there for a couple of years. And I also worked at a veterinarian's office. And I loved that experience too. So anyway, through that time though, my schedule was really packed. I was going to school full time, and I had my two jobs. So my schedule was really packed. And the best way for me to exercise, and really the only way I knew how to exercise, So three nights a week, I would go for a six mile run and reflecting on it now, it was not a safe area for me to be running, especially as a woman alone at night. God bless the protection, the divine protection I must have had at that time. Anyway, so that was the only way I knew how to work out. Then I meet my husband who is, he has his master's degree in sports conditioning and performance and. He was training athletes at a university and he had some tips and pointers for me. So he actually got me into starting to do some strength training and that means like lifting weights. And I remember the first time my husband, we were together and it was just, you know, like dating, we were still dating. And he asked me to lift up a barbell, to bench press a barbell. And I straight up looked at him and I was like, I don't know who you think I am, but that is way too heavy for me. I cannot believe you're asking me to do it with all this weight. It's a 45 pound barbell, and I did not see myself as someone that could do that. So my experience getting into strength training and using weight lifting as a form of exercise, I had a lot of self-doubt and I'm really grateful that I had someone in my life that believed in me more than I did and knew what my body was capable of doing more than I did at the time. So again, who we surround ourselves with, makes a really big difference. So I hope to be someone that can speak some encouragement, some life over you. You're really, really strong, and it's exciting to explore all that your body is capable of. How far can you run? How much weight can you lift? How many reps can you do? Look at that in an exciting perspective of, oh, I wonder how many I'm gonna try. I'm just gonna give it a try. So then I get into weightlifting, and I got a gym membership, and I was really fortunate to go into the weight room where my husband worked for a few years and he helped me learn the form, the lifts, the exercises. So that was just like foundational for me, given the resources that I had available to me. And I was very comfortable and confident working out in a gym setting. And I love to lift heavy. I would usually work out twice a day. It was definitely unhealthy. mentally, I was struggling a lot at the time. I wasn't in a strong emotional state, so I would use exercise to just try and escape the way that I was feeling. I wrestled with a lot of shame and a lot of anger, and I just felt like when I worked out, I finally had some peace. I finally felt better. So I just tried to work out a lot, and I had some disordered eating patterns and unhealthy tendencies with exercise as well. So it wasn't always like this healthy Pursuit for me or for the right reasons. So if you're in a season like that, I really get it. And I hope that through this mindset work, you're able to sincerely heal the parts of you that are leading and leaning into food and exercise as a way to nub what you're feeling instead of really become the person that you want to be. So for three years, my husband and I were married before we had kids and I worked out in a gym. Well, then I was pregnant and working out in a gym became a very toxic environment for me. I was very strong and people would make comments on my body and they're like, oh, don't worry, you'll be able to get your body back. and just hearing these comments about, like at the time I was pregnant with my first and I just thought, how cool I have this baby in my belly and I'm still feeling just so strong and so good and I wanna take care of my body. And then simultaneously I'm hearing these comments about my body growing and changing, gaining weight, getting bigger. And it led to just a spiral in my mind. It was not healthy for me. And then I really struggled with comparison at the time. So I would look at all these other women that were not pregnant and how much they're lifting, what they look like, how, like just what they can do. And I would feel less than about myself. And I remember going to my husband crying, saying like, it's just so hard and like my mind is like spitting and I thought I looked so good. Like I felt so proud of myself. And then I'm getting these comments at the gym and I , I see all these women doing more than me, looking better than me. And it was like a real, just negative storm in my mind. And I remember my husband, he just put his hand on my shoulder and he was like, just work out from home. Get, like, be in your own space, be in your own space that you can decide what to think during this time instead of having all these influences. And that was so powerful for me. And I wasn't really sure. I felt really nervous to work out from home. Like that transition for me, just like the transition going from running to weightlifting felt really difficult and very scary because it was unfamiliar. I didn't know. And now going from this transition from weightlifting in a gym to doing at home workouts, and I had one set of dumbbells, I had one set of 15 pound dumbbells. And I just convinced myself, like, well, I'm going to lose all my muscle. That's not enough weight for me to be lifting. I won't be able to like push my body the way that I want to and stay conditioned the way that I want to if I only have 15 pound dumbbells. Like I need more. Equipment and, space to be able to work out. We lived in a really small, rental at the time. So it just felt like I didn't have the space. I didn't have the equipment that I needed. And again, these might be things that you're telling yourself to. And I decided that my mental health mattered more than maintaining muscle mass right now. So I chose my mental health over the gym equipment and decided to start working out from home. And during that time, again, financially, we were not in a position to buy all this workout equipment, let alone more dumbbells. So I had a set of minivans that my husband was able to get from his work and a 15, like a set of 15 pound dumbbells. And even though that was all I had to work with, I ended up falling in love with at-home workouts. high intensity interval training. I just felt so good. I was sweating through these workouts and I loved how intentional I could be at the time. Like, I would just set a 20 minute timer and I would do my workout for 45 seconds, rest for 15, workout for 45 seconds, rest for 15 seconds. And I would just play with the intervals of time and I would do as much as I can in this amount of time and as many reps. And I quickly learned that just with 15 pound dumbbells, you could get a stellar workout in. And it was really cool to just let the experience teach my mind what was actually true. It was true that I could get a great workout. I can feel conditioned and strong and maintain my muscle mass even with 15-pound dumbbells and a pair of mini-bands. My muscles were burning and I just felt like, wow, I feel so strong. And I fell in love with these at-home workouts. And I did that through my pregnancy with my first literally until the day I had him, which was an awesome just experience. And then after I had him, I went right into, I rested for not long enough after having my first. And I went into doing some core work, core strengthening, breathing, and back into my home workouts. And it was such a cool experience to work out with my baby right next to me on the floor. And I still have videos from Instagram that I shared at the time where my baby was laying right next to me and I'm like, Liam, are you ready to work out? And just looking back at those videos, I'm just so grateful that I gave myself the opportunity to work out around my kids. And it's been so, it's been a precious experience to see how much my kids value seeing themselves as someone that's very strong and they want to see how many reps they can do, how much weight they can lift. I mean, learn about the proper mechanics of their form and see how fast they can run, how far they can go. And I really believe it's because as parents, we set that example. And the only reason why I set that example was because I allowed myself to take the chance to learn how to do these things at home and to just know what I wanted. I knew I wanted to be able to feel strong, maintain strength, and challenge myself in a home environment where I could also protect my mental health because that's just what I needed at the time. So through this journey, then I did my at-home workouts in a tiny living room space with a pair of 15-pound dumbbells. And my husband and I made a deal that if I worked out consistently from home, then we would budget to get me two more sets of dumbbells, a lighter set of dumbbells, for some accessory work and one heavier set of dumbbells. And I stuck to it. I kept my commitment. He saw me work out from home, usually seven days a week. And I remember the day we went to Walmart and I got a pair of five pound dumbbells and 20 pound dumbbells, and I was just on cloud nine. Now, I had three different weights to use. I had a set of minivans. I was working out consistently with my little baby next , and I was planning around naps when I wanted to, and it actually grew into my first business. Uh, again, I wanna be a stay at home mom. Money was definitely something that needed to be figured out in order for me to do that. And I, it's what I wanted. I wanted so badly to be a stay at home mom. And again, it was that power of focusing on what I do want. I do want to be health conscious. I do want to set these examples for my kids. I do want to be able to use the space that I have to do as much as I can. and I do want to enjoy this process. I want to take care of myself, right? So we think the problem is that we're not getting what we want, but the actual problem is we don't know what we want. We're not able to clearly define it and express it. So I'm challenging you right now to get out a pen and piece of paper and write down 10 things that you want. Are you able to write down 10 things that you want? Or does your mind say, I don't want to stay home with my kids. I don't want to go back to work. I don't want to work out from home. I don't want to meal prep. When we think of things, our mind is so, it's telling us where we're at. If you have a lot of negative thoughts and a focus on what you don't want, then that is just where your mind is at. Pay attention. You can change that. You can change that. And it can start with just writing out 10 things that you do want. Take as long as you need, as much time as you need. Look for some inspiration and clearly define what it is that you do want. It's a really powerful exercise. So we got the new dumbbells. I started my online workout community that I ended up running for three years doing at home workouts. I was live inside my community five days a week, four workouts and one day of stretching every single week for three years. , years straight. And when I had a baby, I would play replays for, a like three week period. And then I would be back doing like breath work stuff, still using some replays. Like I just, I made it work because I knew what I wanted every time I knew what I wanted. So I made it work. And even when we finally moved out of the rental and we were fortunate enough to build our own, our own home. And we knew when we designed the home, we wanted a space for an at home gym, exercise, and this lifestyle of health is so important to my family. And we could just imagine this space that we have teenage boys working out with us and our kids are enjoying this time spent in the workout room. And we didn't have the equipment for it by any stretch of the imagination when we built the home. We just wanted to make sure that we had the space for it while we had the opportunity to design it that way. And really, we would have never designed it with a workout room in mind and put that workout room there if we didn't know that that's what we wanted. If we didn't know health is a priority for us, if we didn't know we want a space to work out with our kids, that wouldn't have been in the design. We would not have designed it that way. And so many times we think we need all the equipment to fill the room and all of the just everything. We need everything figured out before we can just show Show our commitment to this vision of having a workout room by putting it in the design before we have the equipment, before we know where we're going to get the money to buy everything. Put it in the plan before you know how you're going to get it. And again, this workout journey is just such a great example of that. So we put it in the plan. We want a workout room in our basement. And it was about the first two years in our home, the basement was left undone, untouched. It was just concrete and wood. And we still knew, like every time we went to the basement, I knew that's the workout room. That's the workout room. That's the workout room. And I would just dream up what I wanted it to look like. I would dream up what I wanted it to be like to work out in that room with my kids as they got older, as they're little. And it always felt really, really exciting from the time working out in my living room at the rental with my newborn first son right next to me, I could just. I could see what I wanted taking place over years of time. It didn't have to happen right now because I felt just as excited right now about what was to come. I just believed it was going to happen. And that kept me really excited. That kept me really focused. And over time, I ran that workout community for three years. And again, I worked out in my living room with the timer, my three sets of dumbbells that I took from the last house, and a pair of minivans. And I just, even when I could, I had the opportunity to do more, I wanted to keep doing that. This is what I wanted. And I slowly incorporated running back in. I put my two young children in the stroller and I would go for runs with them in the stroller. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to feel strong enough to push my kids in a stroller to go for this awesome run. And while I was doing that, I was thinking of and able to see the day that they're gonna be able to ride bikes and ride next to me on the run. Right now, they're really little. They're two years old and a couple of months old, strapped into the stroller, and I'm taking them on this run. I'm getting them familiar with this routine, and I just felt so excited about that. I felt so excited to know that one day they're gonna keep up with me on their bike, and one day they're gonna keep up with me on a run. We're gonna run six miles together. We're gonna run one mile together. And I want, in my journey and my health vision, I just always want to be able to keep up with my boys to the best of my ability. And that means I want to be really intentional. I want to condition my ability to challenge them. I want to make it hard for my four boys to beat me in a race, in pull-ups, in how much we're lifting. I want to make it, I want them to look at me and be like, My mom is so strong. Like, I want to challenge them to a race and then, like, feel a little bit scared. Like, I just and I know I can do it. I just know that I also need to start training for that right now. So while some people like to train for marathons or fitness competitions, I look at it as training to keep up with my boys. I've got boys, guys, and they like protein shakes and they like to work out. My five-year-old can do half as many pull-ups as me right now. I am 30 years old and my five-year-old could do half as many of me. So I feel just as challenged by them. And I want to be someone that they feel challenged by too. I want to be someone that they can look at and be like, I want to keep up with my mom. And that's my vision. That's what I want. So when I know I want that, it just, the ideas flow. The opportunities reveal themselves. Things just make sense. They click into place because that's what I keep my mind focused on. And eventually I ended up closing my workout community and I decided to go all in on the coaching aspect of things, working with mothers, working with women. And that eventually turned into, wow, I think I'm actually really good at this mindset piece. The way I see things helps other people and I want to share more of that. So things have just constantly progressed over the years and it is really cool to track the progress from where I started to where I'm at and what I want to come next. It's all really exciting. And anyway, I closed the workout community and I still work out with my kids. Here we are, it's seven years later. And yes, we have completed our home gym to work out in. And when I go work out in that home gym, I can still see the living room that I started in. And I feel excited every time I walk into that gym because I worked really hard to make it happen. emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. I worked hard in every aspect of my life to see this gym take place before it ever had a space to be known in for before I could ever step into this room and pick up a dumbbell. I knew it would come and it, it just restores me every time I walk in there. I feel so grateful and I can see both clear as day. And I, and now when I work out in there, I've got my four boys next to little, my little baby is crawling around using the bench to help himself stand up. My almost seven year old now is, he's bouncing on the bungee cord on our squat rack. And that is really fun to see them do. They hang upside down. They pretend they're Spiderman. My five year old likes to practice running on the treadmill and that kid is quick. And my two year old, he's walking around the room. He actually likes to put the mini bands on his head and he calls them headbands. So everybody has a space, everybody has a place in my home gym. And that's what I wanted from the very beginning. And I can just see it happening more and more and more. And then looking forward at things, I actually think it'd be, you know, really cool to have a whole training facility in my backyard that my boys and their friends can come to and my whole family and their friends, like we're able to, if they're on a sports team, invite the whole sports team over and make a bigger impact and invite more people in. That's my next step. That's what I see happening next. And again, I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know where. I just know what I know what I want. I want a whole training facility. I want to be able to bring friends over. I want to be able to, you know, let people know in my community, I'm doing a training day this day, or I'm inviting an instructor over to Do some yoga. If anybody wants to join, I have this whole training facility that we can do it in. There's plenty of room for everyone. Come on over. Do I have that planned out right now? I know what I want, but again, I don't have a training facility. I don't know who would lead that class. I don't know how I'm going to make all that happen. I just know I'm going to. And that, to me, matters so much more than having it all figured out is just knowing what I really want. And so far in my life, staying focused on what I want physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, has taken me to exceptional places. And in my gut, I already feel far beyond where I'm at. And that keeps me feeling really inspired and really excited. So I just wanted to dedicate an episode to you kind of understanding, like, yeah, I started with workouts in my rental home with my baby right next to me. and I still work out with all four of my boys on most days. And I still have the opportunity to now do those things in my home gym. And the home gym isn't just about me. It's about my whole family. It's about this, I want the memories in there. I want the challenge to take place. I want my boys to look at me and say, man, I just want to keep up with my mom. Like, you know, I want them bending over, huffing and puffing, and be like, dang, mom, you're still going. and I want to set that kind of example for them. And again, I've got four boys. Testosterone is on their side, guys. They're going to put on muscle mass. Like it's going to be, I just know it's going to be easier for them in these teenage years to accomplish things a little bit faster than me. So I got to start trading right now. And I feel really excited about that. I don't view exercise as some chore or punishment, and I don't think I need to be more disciplined. Whenever I feel off in my workouts, I like to go back to my vision. More than I like to look at, you know, how much I weigh or count macros and track my calories and all the things while those are really useful pieces of information, I think my vision matters more than all of those things and so does your vision. So know what you want, my sweet friend. You can have whatever you want as long as you're able to define it. The problem isn't that you're not getting what you want. The problem is that you don't know what you want. and simply getting out a piece of paper and challenging your mind to write down 10 things that you do want can give you a lot of insight to where you're currently at. So I hope this inspired you. I hope it fired you up a little bit, got you a little bit more excited. And yeah, it's fun to reflect on. So I adore you guys. I'll see you later.