Just Jump!
This week has been a long time coming, months in the making, and its finally here, this is the week when Be Strong becomes ‘the day job’ for Rick and Rach.
We have spent the last almost three years, telling you guys to jump and have faith in yourselves and this is the week when we do just that!
Living the life you want, requires you to make changes. This doesn’t just apply to weight loss and fitness, but also to careers, relationships and your lifestyle. But change isn’t easy.
It takes sacrifice, commitment, dedication and a whole heap of motivation to get you to where you want to be, and the results aren’t instant. You must be able to maintain this for a long time, maybe even forever.
What do you really want from life? Do you even know? What’s your motivation? What gets you out of bed in the morning? Plugging into the answers to these questions and building your life around it can give you that feeling of satisfaction and happiness that you crave.
Small steps
When we first started Be Strong, we envisaged a few people might turn up, to one group a week, and we would be happy if we could cover the cost of the room hire. We had a cranky old laptop with a spreadsheet on it, to record peoples weights, and we delivered calorie calculations by Facebook messenger. There are some people who still come to groups now, who were with us at the start, and I hope you can see the difference, to where we are now. Pretty soon we realised that this was something we wanted to do as a full time job, but we had to find a way to make that happen. We had to build this community into something really special. And we have done that with you! And for that we are so grateful!
Over the last 2 years and 10 months, we have reinvested every penny of memberships back into Be Strong, to make it better and better. We have sacrificed sleep, time with our loved ones and even at points, our health, to keep building this into something that we could do full time. And why? Because the feeling of helping ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things is like nothing else. Better than any pay packet or fancy car. We look around at all you amazing people that come to our groups and we are inspired, every single day! We get to know a lot of personal stories, and the triumphs over adversity that you guys show us every single week, are incredible.
This week we leave behind the humdrum of the council ‘day job’, the steady salary and pension, to continue this crazy journey, and we want to thank every single member past and present who has put their faith in us to help you achieve your goals.
Why not try?
So why, are we telling you this? Because we want you to jump too. We want you to take that leap of faith, if you haven’t already. This isn’t where we ask you to give up your jobs and join us, but we want to inspire you to make a commitment, decide where you want to be, and take the first step on the journey to getting there.
Are you fed up with standing on the sidelines of other people’s achievements? Only you are in control of that – If you want to achieve something, find a way to make the preparation fit into your life, whether that be training or learning, and start the process, then just keep on. Be the person you want to be! Not just someone’s support crew.
Take inspiration from the fabulous people who you meet every day and every week. Has someone close to you achieved something that you have always secretly wanted to do, but you were too scared to try. Now is the time to stop being scared and just have a go!
Do you want to take up a particular sport? Or learn a new skill? What’s stopping you? Don’t let the fact that you can’t do something now, ever stop you from trying something new. When you first started school and you couldn’t read and write, what do you think would have happened if you had decided not to keep trying? It’s the same for anything else that we must learn. When we first started running, we couldn’t run for 90 seconds without thinking we were going to die, and this weekend Rick completed his 6th marathon in Frankfurt, absolutely smashing his PB by 11 minutes.
You can do it!
Is your eating out of control? Just stop! Commit! Draw on every ounce of strength you have to make the decision that you are just not that person any more.
Dedicate yourself to planning really tasty healthy meals that you enjoy, plan your calorie controlled snacks, sacrifice a lie in, or a night in front of the TV and plan your exercise and stick to it. Plan for problems and pitfalls, and how you will recover from them – because you will have to recover, if you really want to achieve your goals.
Plan how you will handle temptation. Keep your reason for being close to your heart, because this will be your saving grace. Always keep the end game in sight. When Debbie realised she was too heavy to take the kids trampolining, she realised that this was the reason to start taking control of her eating and do this once and for all. She kept it simple and spent those calories wisely, because being able to take part in activities with her kids was far more important to her than sneaking that Mars bar, or that extra McDonald’s for lunch.
Are you fed up of being that person that no-one believes in?
Take control – show those people just what you are capable of, make this the time that you surprise everyone including yourself, with what you are actually capable of. Because you are capable of anything that you put your mind to. Rachel was never sporty at all, but one day she was so inspired by the hundreds of people taking part in a race in Clitheroe, that she made a pledge to prove her husband wrong and become a runner. And she did just that! Her dad, the super duper fell runner, is still surprised at her achievements and regularly comments that he can’t believe the change in her.
Most importantly remember that this will not happen overnight, and give yourself a break on that point, but just keep on. There have been times over the last 2 years and 10 months, where it’s been tough. We have been exhausted, we have fallen out with our partners and families, we have missed out on social events, children’s school performances and family meal times, but has it been worth it to get to this day? Absolutely! And we cannot wait for this journey to continue.
How do you succeed at this game? You need to be prepared to make sacrifices, be committed and dedicated and keep that motivation. And it is all within your grasp, you just need to put your mind to it.