Defining Boundaries

There is no absolute in life! My father will remind me of this every day to keep me realistic with my goals, dreams, and desires.

Making fitness a lifestyle is just that. In order for fitness to be part of our daily lives it has to be part of a realistic process of prioritizing the many things that we have to accomplish in a day.

We are all so busy these days. I feel like I have to hold on sometimes just to keep up. Whether it's school, work, family, social events, business networking meetings, relationships, friendships, or charity obligations there is just so much to do! I understand this completely.

I am right there with you! I have been working so hard developing my business, studying for the big test, and adjusting to a new city. It's been a very big learning experience that has brought me incredible joy and anxiety as well. This week I learned to define my boundaries!

Defining boundaries is the most important thing we can do to be functional and successful. Boundaries establish guidelines. They implement direction. They develop consistency. They are there to keep order in our lives.

Setting boundaries is not the easiest thing for me. Especially being a new trainer. I am not in the position yet to only work certain hours and certain days. It would be career suicide to think that I am. However, for my health and sanity, I have to set a few boundaries in order to remain in good spirits and successful at my job. So this week I began setting a time frame on my schedule, only working late a few evenings a week. I also blocked Sunday completely out so that could be my one day out of the gym. I started to take control of my schedule so I can limit the back and forth from one gym to the other. (Traffic is a nightmare for this small town girl!)

It's not easy for me to do this. I am definitely my mother's daughter as far as work ethic. Work, work, work to pay the bills! This is admirable and productive, however, this mentality left me completely worn down on Wednesday, forcing me to define my personal boundaries.

Again, there are no absolutes in life, so boundaries will have to be expanded at times and then also retracted as well. Life truly is about give and take, but we have to be in control of this! Fundamentally speaking, we are in control of what takes place in our lives on a daily basis. If we are not, forward movement will be contradicted.

Exercise and a healthy lifestyle will complement the chaos of our lives. It completely settles the ambiguity and the anxiety of my new adventure. It personally is an important aspect to remaining calm and composed. However, this week, I couldn't remember the last time I worked out besides teaching or training clients. This is unacceptable. This forced me to draw the boundaries!

There will be times when life demands far more from us than we can handle. There will be days when allergies leave us breathless and completely exhausted; days when school requires more time and effort than we have; days when a project at work keeps us in the office late, taking us away from our cardio session; days when quotas for sales force us to question if the job is worth the aggravation; days when our body aches and exercise is the last thing it needs; days when finances leaves us too worried to do anything; days when fatigue and stress leaves us depleted of passion and motivation; and days when junk food is the only thing that brings us comfort.

This is when we have to take a breath and a moment. We have to slow down and reevaluate our priorities and obligations. We have to become REALISTIC! Yes, fitness is a priority. Yes, it will make you feel better about yourself, which in turn, will make life more enjoyable and functional. However, though unfortunate, it will just not be the first priority of every day. Again, I am right there with you!!!!!!!!!!! Please know that! Know that just because I am a trainer it doesn't mean that exercise is the biggest priority of mine. Know that setting boundaries sometimes will draw the line on my daily workout. Last week I was so frustrated with this! But I now understand that this will happen when there are other important priorities to pay attention to. The key is to keep it all into perspective and all in order, knowing that the order of importance will shift on a day to day basis.

Setting boundaries though will enable you to not veer off track completely from your exercise program. On Sundays, I look at my schedule for the week, see how many clients and classes I have and try to make a realistic exercise plan for the week. I put my workouts in my master schedule and I do my best to make fitness a realistic accomplishment for the week to come. I know that there will be a day that I have to cancel my personal exercise appointment, and I might not be able to make it up. Again, this is life and this is reality. Instead of being angry about it, I am going to work on understanding it, and then putting forth more effort and more intensity in the next workout.

We will not be successful in anything we set out to do if we are not realistic about how life ebbs and flows, rises and falls. Setting boundaries and establishing priorities will contribute to develop an orderly process to accomplishing our weekly tasks. And this in turn, will leave us feeling victorious, rather than defeated.

So this week, define your boundaries, make exercise an appointment at least three days, and most importantly, enjoy the process, whether it runs smoothly or becomes a bumpy ride. Remember, and I know this personally from last week, if we are not having fun and enjoying the ride, then there will be no purpose to it at all. And without purpose, there is no direction, and without direction, there is no movement.

Have a great week to come.