Fit For Life: Erase Negative Thoughts

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Matt Espeut, GoLocalWorcester Health +Lifestyle Contributor

I attended a one-day conference last week, and as always, I took home some good tips, some motivation, and some inspiration.

At these things, you hear a lot of one-liners, and some of them really stand out to me. They stand out so much, that I take time and dissect and analyze them, then write about it.

One line in particular, gave me enough to think about that I can write this article on the topic.

The line is “The world needs more light.” The purpose of saying this was to empower the group of coaches and fitness professionals to envision themselves as lighthouses.

When you think of the purpose of a lighthouse, its to help ships lost at sea find their way to safety.

As coaches and trainers, its our responsibility to help people that are lost with their health and fitness find their way. We need to help them find it by creating encouragement, empowerment, and creating self-worth and knowledge.

Many people live on the dark side, have low self-esteem and low enough self-worth that they allow themselves to fall into an unhealthy state.

Depression, anxiety, and negative energy are some of the reasons we end up on the dark side, and its an easy state to enter due the fact that negativity surrounds us everywhere. Watch the news and you will hear nothing but tragedy, crime, and all the things wrong with whats going on in the world today.

The world is full of darkness, and although it's easy to find, it's just as easy to find the light if you look for it and change your mindset. Let me give you an example of how you can change your mindset from thinking negative to positive.

When we left for the trip to Jersey, we left later than we wanted to, and caught some traffic. When we arrived at the hotel, they messed up out room reservation. The people at the front desk were uncooperative and wouldn’t do anything to correct the situation. When we finally entered the room, it smelled like cigar smoke, therefore I immediately stormed back to the front desk, and demanded that they change the room. They agreed, and after schlepping heavy bags, I requested a bell cart because the new room was in a different wing of the resort. It never arrived. This made us late for our dinner reservation. In addition to us being late, the place that we reserved a table at was having a party and was closed down to the public. After seating us at a different restaurant on the premises, we waited over an hour to finally receive disgusting food. After complaining about the service and food quality, we were comped and went back to the room hungry and irritated. Fast forward to the next day.

At the conference, I ran into a lot of my friends from all over the country, and the first thing they asked was how was your trip. Because it was fresh in our minds, all we talked about was the horrible experiences that took place. After talking to about 4 people, I realized that I was getting sucked on to the dark side. It was getting exhausting talking about negative experiences, and I was starting to notice that it wasn’t doing anything to enhance where I was at the moment. It was then I changed my thought process and realized I had the ability to turn things around.

The next person that asked me how my trip was, I told them that I had a few setbacks, but we made it in one piece, and I was happy to be here with all my fellow coaches from around the country. I turned my negative thinking around and started telling people how great my new staff was, how we were running the Paleo challenge in my facility and that the members were loving it. I also mentioned what a great workout we had that day, and how great I was feeling on the Paleo meal plan. I also mentioned that we just threw a great party at my facility, the weather was great, and business was on the rise.

The moral of the story is that there is just as much light in the world as there is darkness, you just have to look for it by changing your thought process. We are in control of our thoughts, and we are in control of our actions. Yes, it’s easy to find bad things to occupy our minds, but it’s easy to find good things to think about too.

You can choose what you want to think about. You can think about the fact you have two strong legs and were able to get out of bed this morning, or you can dwell on the long line at the coffee shop. You can get angry being stuck in traffic, or you can put on a great podcast and positively occupy your mind. You can hang around negative people that gossip all day long and fill your head with negative banter, or you can surround yourself with positive go-getters.

In my opinion, it’s not worth having negative thoughts over things that you can’t control. Lines at the coffee shop, and traffic are out of your control, so why complain. It won’t change anything, and you can’t change the outcome. What you can control, and change is the way you think and how you react to the things that happen to you on a daily basis.

Negative thoughts will only bring you deeper into the darkness, so when you find yourself going down that path, catch yourself, reprogram your mind, and look towards the shore.

There are lighthouses everywhere!!

Matt Espeut, GoLocal's Health & Lifestyle Contributor has been a personal trainer and health & fitnesss consultant for over 25 years. He is the owner of Fitness Profiles, a one on one, and small group personal training company, as well as Providence Fit Body Boot Camp, located at 1284 North Main St., on the Providence/Pawtucket line. You can reach Matt at (401) 453-3200; on Facebook at "Matt Espeut", and on Twitter at @MattEspeut. "We’re all in this life together – let’s make it a healthy one.

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