Advice on Advice

Navigating your fitness quest to greatness or even to your nearest mailbox can be always made more difficult if you don’t know where you are starting from or haven’t a clue where you’re going. All this has been made wildly overwhelming when everyone I know and love wants to bequeath advice upon me. There comes a point in any endeavor I have realized where the advice becomes a cacophony of noises that when I’m strong enough to hold space for those who love me I can often guide into a symphony. 

I work incredibly hard and being pulled in 18 different directions mentally and sometimes physically can be the reason you see me casually drink pre-workout before I train you. I feel better when I do a good job and thanks to the magical powers of caffeine this stimulant Queen can keep on, keeping on. 

My best resource in life has been the people I have been lucky to meet through my own quests or adventures, the majority of those beautiful humans being those I am blessed to train and it’s beyond what I do it’s the life skills I wouldn’t have thought to learn, or things I might not have tried without them. This life hack is something I reached into the past and stole away with. “It takes a village” they meant this proverb in application of raising children and I identify my idea baby as my own screaming demanding first born that I have been losing sleep over for the past couple years now. What began as a twinkle in my eye is now toddling on it’s own two feet and transforming my life each day.

I heard the toddler years are challenging, what’s in your mouth isn’t the game I’m playing with this baby, it’s an absolutely tidal wave of work that eviscerates my nerves because if you do something you love; you will work so incredibly hard on it that everything is personal. If someone was mean to your kid at school, you go into the Principal’s office. A stranger writes something gross on a pull up video you bet my buns and guns I’m banning them from my page. I don’t take prisoners, where would I keep them? That advice is simple and easy to follow but what if the person sharing what you think is trash to me or about my LIFE’S WORK, the love of my life, my reason for breathing as I see it, and everything I’ve gambled on is not a stranger? The hard work comes in when I know them and love them. How I have learned to appreciate what I once thought of was silly hot air being blown in my face and is to direct it into my balloon and fly on my merry way.  Hey, I love you lots but from far away your words are smaller and if I get far enough I can scream into a pillow about this later. 

Turning advice into anything can be a challenge when so much of what we hear can come off critical or lacking in any directions of what you can do. Here are some things that have helped me most of all when the advice is swirling on the precipice of unproductive:

1. Get clear on your own objectives when you’re sharing things with other people, everyone wants to be the catalyst for your change or the mentor that made you. You have to act on what they tell you so clear goal setting is critical and know what you need advice on. Be clear if you are just wanting to vent about anything.

2. Why are you telling them and can they contribute? If you aren’t solid in your vision it’s hard to communicate it to others. Everyone brings their own baggage to the advice table so this could be less productive if you’re only looking for a sounding board.

3. Know your weakness and make it your strength. Learn as much as you can and find the holes in your own story then ask questions. Asking questions is free and half of what I know is because I know how to find anything on the internet.

4. Remember this quote:

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.”- Baz Lurhmann

5. Do the best you can to communicate when someone steps over the line and hurts your feelings, you are human and allowed to have them. They are also human and allowed to mess up; it’s then on them to accept responsibility for hurting your feelings and apologizing. Intent does not grant anyone a pass on creating pain and “I’m sorry you feel that way” is trash compared to “I am sorry I made you feel that way, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings” where they take accountability and acknowledge it.

The most important thing when you want to get anything done is to keep going and know that if someone didn’t care they wouldn’t say anything. I work with other people about their bodies which puts the vulnerabilities of all people at the forefront of my mind at all times and the greatest learning I have absorbed is how truly caring people are and how much they want to help. Humans need to feel needed and we need to feel to be human. MS