eat better, move around more!

Let’s all make a New Year’s resolution, you guys. I’ve always felt like New Year’s resolutions maybe shouldn’t be reserved only for January 1st, but that’s another story. Let’s all eat better and move around more. 💪🏼🥦🎉

It doesn’t take much...replace one non-vegetable a day with a vegetable. Replace one non-fruit with a fruit! Don’t eat when you’re not actually hungry! If you think you’re hungry, drink a class of water and wait a minute. Drink one extra glass of water... Or completely revolutionize everything and try eating as well as an organic Olympic athlete and see how you feel. Think about it, write about it...see what happens! What do you love? What do you hate? What can you live without and what are some new things you realized you don’t want to live without anymore?

Find something you love that doesn’t feel like working out. Go take a salsa class, (with my salsa company!) go take that skating lesson you’ve always wanted to take (with me!), start running again, go for a bike ride, go for a walk, do that online workout in your living room you’ve been meaning to do for months, anything! Even if it’s just for 15 minutes. 15 minutes is a lot more than 0 minutes, you guys.

Trust me.

Working. Out. Will. Give. You. More. Energy.

A greater ability to take on your day with strength and a clear mind. I SWEAR. I often forget this myself, until I go back to the gym after a hiatus thinking *maybe* it might help offer a little more clarity and make me a little more grounded. It always does. ALWAYS. So does eating well, getting sleep, and drinking water, too. Oh, and taking Vitamin D. Or getting out and getting some bonafide sunshine. Miraculously less tired and readier than ever to take on the world. 💪🏼🎉👍🏼

DON'T be the boy who cried wolf.

I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day, reading Michelle Obama’s book (which is completely amazing- you must read it) and killing time before salsa practice when I happened to tune in to the conversation happening next to me:

Coffee girl: “So, I hear you’re going to school in fall!”

Coffee guy: “Oh. No. If I told you that, it was a lie. I told a couple people that, but it was a straight up lie.”

Coffee girl: “Wait, it was a lie?”

Coffee guy: “Yeah.”

Coffee girl: “Straight up lie?”

Coffee guy: “Yup.”

Coffee girl: “Wow, well what else have you lied about? Hahaha just kidding.”

Except she wasn’t. They moved on and started talking about whatever else their conversation wandered to, but you could feel the energy drain out of their connection for a second. And some of it won’t come back again. Every time you lie, you’ll be believed that much less by those who are close to you. It changes the threads of trust and respect that hold your relationship together.

You guys. Speak your truth. Whatever it is. I can’t stress this enough. It would have been so much better if coffee guy had told coffee girl, “I don’t know, I’m really scared and I want to enroll in school, but it’s just so much money and I’ve gotten by just fine so far without it, but I keep getting rejected because I don’t have a degree...”

or

“Sh*t, man. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I literally have nothing coming up. No prospects. And I’m scared.”

If you’re truly happy and unafraid, you really have no reason to lie. But, even if you’re not truly happy and you ARE afraid, Don’t. Lie. It’s especially important for you to speak your truth when you’re afraid. For yourself and for those around you. Our stories are so, so powerful. You never know what your story, your true story, will spark in someone else. Maybe your words will pull them off a bridge, maybe your words will inspire them to get off their ass and do that thing they’ve always wanted to do, and maybe speaking your truth will make YOU get off your ass and do that thing you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe speaking the truth about your fears will make you see just how small they are and how much you actually should enroll in school. Or not. But, don’t push people away by lying. Stretch your soul out and embrace the world with your words of truth.

step one: show up.

I know you’ve heard some version of this before- half the battle is just showing up. I’ve always thought this was somewhat bullsh*t until recently. I realized how often over the years I’ve watched colleagues around me loose business or not get business simply because they missed a lesson. If they had just shown up, they would have kept the client. And maybe even gained clients from recommendations! You never know how one thing will lead to the next...

This realization has been a relief to me. I feel like I’ve been strug-a-LING so hard for so much of my life, and if I had known that all I have to do is show up? What a relief! I have permission to just be myself?! Fabulous. Here I ammm! *snap*

This is not an excuse to stop improving and stop striving for something better. No way, Jose. Your life will fall apart and you’ll end up in an unhappy ball on your couch. (Been there, too. It sucks.)

I “taught” my first salsa class the other day. Well, I assisted. I only said about 3 things, and what I did say didn’t seem particularly revolutionary to me, but at the end of the class, at least HALF the students went out of their way to come up to me and tell me how helpful it was to have me there. #daymade And all I did was show up.

Sometimes all your friends or loved ones need is for you to be there. Just listen. I know you want to help and solve all their problems (I do, too) but sometimes all they need is just for you to be there with them.

So, show up! Solve problems as they arise. Ask for help if you need it. And get on out there to shine some fabulosity on the world! 💫