October: A Review

It’s November 1st, 6:34 AM.

I’m sitting on my couch in my dim living room, drinking the first peppermint mocha of the season.

The whole world is quiet, and I think to myself —

Wow, I really needed this.

October was a whirlwind for me, in a really good way. I kicked off the month by starting a new round of the Frequency Project with many of you. My team flew in for our very first ever BBA in person team retreat. I made a LOT of investments in my business that are terrifying. We started the journey to hire an operations director. We started thinking about scaling… turning BBA into a 7-figure company.

I’ve been doing a lot of Yin Yoga lately and have been fascinated by the yoga phrase “find your edge.” Finding your edge means sitting at the very end of your comfort zone. It means feeling stretched and pushed, but not in pain or falling apart.

I think that’s where I’m at in life right now. I’ve found my edge.

In early September of this year, I was feeling fed up with my own workout resistance. It felt like getting to the gym was constantly a battle. At the beginning of 2022, I set a big scary goal for this year of competing at my first powerlifting meet. Part of the reason — the deeper WHY for setting that goal — was that I wanted to truly develop higher frequency around workouts. But the goal alone wasn’t changing my behavior, which makes sense. Goals don’t generally do that, at least not long-term.

So, I pivoted. As an experiment in workout resistance, I decided to treat workouts as a daily non- negotiable. Every day, I would move for at least 30 minutes.

I’m currently on day 48, almost 7 weeks in to my daily movement streak.

Shockingly, all of the problems in my life have not spontaneously disappeared.

I think working out on a regular basis can be very healthy. For me, working out definitely correlates to my mental health. I feel better, clearer, happier. I’m able to focus more and pivot faster when things go sideways. And don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely seen benefits these past 7 weeks.

But I think I had glamorized consistent exercise in my brain to an unrealistic point. I think there was a part of me that thought if I simply could get to the gym on a really consistent basis, somehow everything in my life would be *poof* amazing.

It’s relieving, almost refreshing that after 7 weeks of daily movement, that’s not the case.

And yet, at the same time, thirty minutes of movement is a baseline habit I’ve established that TRULY gives me at least 30 minutes every day focused on stress reduction. Every day, I’m thankful for that 30 minutes. The daily nature of it makes the workouts seem less negotiable. It shuts down the mental chatter, a bit.

With that reflection out of the way, let’s move onto some data review & a core four update.

Before I do, I do want to mention that our Change Academy theme for this month is HOW TO RECLAIM CONSISTENCY… so if you haven’t joined us yet, don’t miss this one.

The monthly data

My core four habits that I chose for this round of the Frequency Project are as follows: Get up before 8am, get dressed & ready, 30 minutes of movement, clean kitchen @ night.

Here’s my frequency of those habits:

Up before 8am: 14/31 days
Get dressed: 27/31 days
30 min movement: 31/31 days
Clean kitchen: 16/31 days

I want to remind you all here that data are neither good or bad.

Data are always interpreted by the human brain, which is where they gain judgement and context. For me, and my brain, I would say there’s definitely some celebrations there, and some room for improvement.

For the month of November, I’m choosing to really focus in on that daily wake-up time.

I’m a very seasonal person. I have cycles, and phases. And for me, the holiday season is a time where I know that I benefit from an earlier wake-up. There’s something about it being dark outside, maybe snowy (if we’re lucky), and being up before the world gets loud and distracting that is SO comforting to me in the winter.

So that’s the goal. Get up early.

Yearly check-in

Before I hop off today, I wanted to take a second to give an update on my big 2022 goals.

Goal #1: Create 250,000 of revenue for BBA. Check! As you know, we hit this goal in July.

Goal #2: Compete at a powerlifting meet and total 600 pounds.

Here’s the update on this one:

In July of this year, I got incredibly burnt out of powerlifting training. By mid-August I was ready to be DONE, and rather than “forcing myself” or “being disciplined and following through!!!!!”, I chose to let go. The last two weeks of August, I barely did any movement at all.

But in September, my desire to lift heavy came roaring back, so I followed it.

And this month, I FINALLY took the leap (which I had, in all honesty, been procrastinating for 10 months) and signed up for a real, actual powerlifting meet. November 12th, I’ll be there.

Will I total 600 pounds? Nope. At this point, there’s no way that is going to happen.

Here’s the lesson I want to impress upon all of you… actually, three.

1. You can ALWAYS pivot. I had completely abandoned my powerlifting plans in my head for about a month. But when I sat down and reflected on that, I realized that I had committed to a goal at the beginning of the year, and I truly WANTED to be the type of person who fulfilled that promise to myself. So if YOU set a goal at the beginning of the year, it doesn’t matter if you spent the entire year ignoring it. If you WANT, you can still pivot now and pursue it.
   
2. Two, even if there is NO way you can fulfill your goal, you can still bulldoze in that direction, relentlessly. Just because I won’t hit 600 pounds doesn’t mean I can’t lift heavy and push myself towards the end of the year — and the closer I get to that goal, the prouder I will be. Don’t give up on the pursuit of your goal just because you won’t get all the way there.
   
3. And three, finally, I like to remind people at this time of year that IF YOU DO NOT ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOAL, YOU CAN SIMPLY KEEP GOING NEXT YEAR. Y’all, the entire concept of time is made up. In the grand scheme of things, there is literally no difference between me hitting 600lbs lifted in December of this year or March of next year. (That’s an arbitrary date – when it happens, it happens).

Alright, with that out there, let’s move on to goal #3:

Goal #3: Become Tidy

Recently, I took the time to re-organize my highlights on Instagram, and I went through my ENTIRE archive of stories from this year and pulled all the clips of me tidying. And let me tell ya… there were a fair amount of them.

The short version here is this: I think I’m tidier, but I don’t think I’m truly TIDY yet.

But heck, I’ve got two months – 60 days – to become the TIDIEST version of me I can before this year closes out (and this is likely something I’ll be working on for years to come).

I take that as a challenge. Let’s see what we can make happen, shall we?

Closing notes:

If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

Here’s what I hope you’ll get from this blog post:

Don’t give up.

We have 60 days left in this year. And yeah, it might be cliche…but what if you used those 60 days to truly FIND YOUR EDGE?

What if you pushed yourself to the end of your comfort zone?

What if you sprinted to the finish line, instead of starting again next year?

Between now and the end of the year, I want to feel STRETCHED.

What about you?