Barriers

I want you to think about this, but when you do, refrain from emptying your mind. If you meditate on it, fill your mind with what it is you want to accomplish. The universe doesn’t like vacuums, everything is filled with something, so fill your mind with the thoughts you want it to think, instead of allowing your environment to fill it for you.

Truly this is the first step in the process of overcoming any barrier, especially those that are soaked with entropy and decay. You have to make the willful decision to do something, and for that something to come to fruition, you must have the energy reserves to ensure you have the strength and endurance to remain on the road. Because if you fall asleep for just one second, your car can swerve off the road, and God only knows where you will go.

Perhaps the legacy you want is something you are uncomfortable saying out loud, perhaps it’s something as simple as raising children as a mother or father. Maybe you want to improve the education of children, maybe you want to serve the community as a healer, leader or guide. Maybe you want to help people in their final moments before they die. Whatever your soul wants you must hold it close, take the steps to make it real, and have the faith that if your legacy is in God’s plan, it will happen.

The value of this powerful goal is it will inspire every segment of your existence. It will remind you what you are working to achieve, and when you have setbacks that cause your heart to bleed, the strength of your conviction will push you forward in all of your meaningful endeavors.

Thinking about this is a big idea, so lets fly a little closer to the ground to see the ways in which you might be facing barriers throughout your day.

When I was saved I took a deep look at my life and realized that though I had been working for years to remove the entropy of my existence, it was still everywhere. Thank God I had a newfound focus and discipline to begin improving my life in a flurry.

When we are attempting to commit to meaningful change we need to remain aware of the barriers we may face. Some of the most common will be time, unrealistic goals, lack of social support, anxiety, convenience, and ambivalence.

Additionally, our barriers generally appear in two ways. Some are physical, these may arise from illness, injury, lack of transportation, resources, and safety. Others may be due to our perception, like we might not think we have the time to accomplish what we want to get done, perhaps we might believe we are too tired, and won’t have the energy to sustain our new lifestyle or even reach our goals. The key is to be creative, to create new roads when prior paths have revealed themselves to be too perilous. Removing the entropy and decay from our existence is achieved in every moment of every day, so we must search for ways to maintain our drive to live a healthier life.

Embarking on the expedition of meaningful change includes a lot of setbacks. Every time you make ground, you will lose ground. It is important to know this because the setbacks can and will sweep you off your feet, so you must be prepared to catch yourself.

Throughout my ever-constant quest to remove entropy from my existence I have found it has a predictable ebb and flow. I will improve important aspects of my life, then as my target areas of focus take hold, other accomplishments will begin to fall away. Instead of getting frustrated by the loss, watch how it falls. This is important, because we grow from failure when we pay attention to what is happening around us.

After everything settles I look around at my life to see its new state. With a sigh and a smile, I rest for a moment, then with hope and faith I once again attempt to accomplish meaningful change in a new way.

At the core of achieving meaningful change, what do we need to have in our life to maximize our ability to succeed? I believe we need to have a strong relationship with God, we need to be eating healthy and regularly, we need to have a predictable sleep routine, and we need to be exercising.

Time

Some people like to say that we all have the same 24-hours in a day, and that if such-and-such person can do it, so can you. I’m not a fan of this kind of banter, it lacks empathy, insight and an understanding of how challenging life can be. Sure, we do all have the same twenty-four hours, but we all have different days and responsibilities. For example, teenagers have a lot more time than an adult would have. Sometimes I think back to my youth about all the personal time I had to enjoy. Every weekend was so much fun, I had no genuine responsibility, and I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to with reason. Sure, as a kid we have the restrictions placed upon us by our parents, and we had to get our chores and homework done, but those responsibilities pale in comparison to what an active adult has. A single person without children typically has more time than a parent or business owner would have. Even then, those generalities don’t account for the individualized life experiences of each person. I have met many twenty-somethings single people who have two or three jobs and barely have enough time to sleep, or enjoy leisure, let alone enough time to get to the gym to work out. Ultimately it is not about making exercise a priority, it is about looking at our lives to see if we can manage our time better.

For many, time management is not a perfected skill. Many of us do the best we can with what we have and wing it. A lot of people have never been taught how to take an eagle’s eye approach to their life to see how much time is squandered. I think that if we actually took the time to document what we did throughout the day and objectively analyze it, we could fit more leisure, family time, rest, and exercise into our day.

Unfortunately, this task takes effort, and everything in our society saps us of our precious life energy at every turn. We are saturated by so many negative influences at every second and hour of our day it fills us with dread until we feel lifeless and out of breath. How in the world can we find the might to muster a documented manuscript of our daily lives? We just do. Like any challenge you have ever faced, you have found the might to fight through it. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but your record of success is incredibly high, and every setback you faced raised you to greater heights. What you see as failures made you stronger and taller and able to take on greater challenges. You are a force to be reckoned with. I am certain that you have what it takes to start your journey, you have the discipline and drive to document your life and look at where you might be wasting your seconds. This perceived barrier is an illusion. Once you realize this you will find the time to enrich your life, and once you do, you will embark on a quest that tests every negative thought you’ve ever had about yourself. You will emerge as your own champion, you will be your own inspiration, and a beacon that inspires others to make the most of their moments.

Unrealistic Goals

You must have realistic goals. Even the universe was not created overnight. I believe goal setting is rooted in humility. Humility is our ability to effectively assess where we exist within the universe. It allows us to know we are not the worst, nor are we the best at everything. It is acknowledging others may be better, equal to or less than us. It is the willful act of loving who we are and where we exist within the universe. It tells us we could be better, we can strive for more, but we need to be patient, kind and reasonable with ourselves in the process of improving our lot in life.

When our goals are unrealistic, they can become a barrier. They can make our exercise expedition seem impossible and as a consequence it will frustrate us. If the frustration grows too powerful it will lead us to quit. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not become a hulking man of muscle after a week, month, or even a year of exercise. It was a commitment of time with a series of important milestones. If you expect to completely transform your body in an unreasonable period of time you will burn out and potentially injure yourself in the process.

Instead of creating unnecessary barriers for yourself, set an outcome goal and some process goals. An outcome goal focuses on an end result, while a process goal offers milestones in the pursuit of an outcome goal. This method allows you to enjoy success along the way. An example of an outcome goal could be finishing a two-mile run in under sixteen minutes. While a process goal could be jogging for 30-minutes after work five days a week.

If you choose to set a goal for yourself, it must be measurable. You must have a metric of knowing if you are making progress. Burnout is one of the worst outcomes we can experience in the pursuit of our goals. If you want to avoid going out in a blaze of frustration, you must establish a means for you to assess your development. Without a means to measure our progress it leads us to grind in place. This is a phenomenon that causes us to feel like no matter how much we put into something it appears to yield nothing. If you plant a seed and judge it on whether it immediately yields fruit you will never enjoy the miracle of its growth. You will miss the magic of it sprouting from the dirt, revealing itself as a vulnerable little twig, growing leaves and one day offering you its bounty. Transformation takes time, energy, and patience, so be good to yourself and set reasonable expectations.

Many times, even our reasonable expectations reveal themselves to be too much, too fast. In these instances, we need to reign in our goals, reassess and slow down. When your progress isn’t happening as quickly as you like, adjust your process goals. Give yourself more opportunities to win. It is essential to feed your heart the Scooby snacks it likes to eat. Nurture and nourish your spirit with obvious progress and it will provide you with the motivation to continue.

Lack of Social Support

A lack of social support is a difficult barrier to overcome. We are social creatures. Interaction with others is a need, and when the people we go to for support are uninvolved with our wellness journey it causes it to become exceedingly challenging. If we have no one, it feels nearly impossible. When we have someone in our corner, they can encourage us to continue as we begin to waiver, we can discuss with them our challenges, they may be able to offer us transportation when we require it, they can help us assess the accuracy of our information, and they can motivate us as a exercise partner.

Anxiety

I think most people have felt this at one time or another, especially when we haven’t exercised for some time. We stroll into the fitness center, look around and immediately start comparing ourselves to the people around us. And… it doesn’t feel good.

We get it in our mind that people are staring at us with judgement. We assume they are saying negative things about us in their mind, and it makes us want to flee. If we do stick around without leaving, we start walking on the treadmill or lifting weights and suddenly we start thinking people are criticizing our performance with the belief that we are weak.

Thoughts enter our mind, searching for excuses to do something else. Without anyone even saying a word to us we think

• “I’ll start working out once I lose some weight or get a little stronger.”
• “I don’t feel comfortable in my clothes, I will come back when I have the right clothes.”
• “I feel way to self-conscious right now to work out.”
• “I feel like everyone is staring at me.”

This is a challenging barrier to overcome because it is rooted in our self-perception. Unfortunately for many that self-perception is tied to our perceived state of physical fitness. We want to work out, but being in the presence of so many others who have invested more time in their wellness often causes us to belittle our bodies. The reality though is there may be some people who are judging you, but most aren’t. There is a good chance some of the people you think are judging you are criticizing themselves and are feeling social physique anxiety too.

Convenience

When you are getting off work and you just spent eight or more hours sitting at a computer, or running around the hospital, or lecturing to a class of rambunctious kids, you just want to go home and relax. Driving an extra five or so miles to burn more energy you just don’t have feels like the worst idea ever. Maybe you would like to workout before work, but they don’t have showers. Maybe they have showers, but they are gross, or you forgot a change of clothes, your towels, or even soap. When something feels like an inconvenience it is a powerful barrier and it will easily derail your desire to exercise.

The key to overcoming the convenience barrier is by searching for ways to workout without having to feel inconvenienced. This is achieved by finding ways to motivate yourself to go to the fitness center. This may mean looking over the calendar to see if they are running any group activities you like or have certain amenities you would enjoy using. When you have something to look forward to when you arrive it will increase the likelihood you will actually go. However, if this cannot be done, search for alternate ways to exercise that don’t require a facility. There are plenty of exercises that can be performed at your computer desk, in your living room, or anywhere for that matter.

Ambivalence

Ambivalence is a tricky barrier because it is what occurs when someone has mixed feelings about something. When it comes to exercise it usually results in a lack of interest and an unwillingness to integrate it into their regular routine. This happens for an array of reasons, and when it happens to us, we need someone else to help us see the light. This is where a personal trainer shines. We need them to inspire us. They need to show us ways in which we have not seen how regular exercise could improve enrich our existence.