Lauren Muney at age 40:
Wellness coach
Featured in
"Fit Over 40: Role Models for Excellence At Any Age"

I was reading an article in Scientific American Mind, a news magazine based solely around the brain, mind, and its bearing on our lives. Of course the mind has influence on our lives: where would we be without our minds?

The article was discussing court trials of criminals: how defense lawyers are looking for a pixel of  chemical brain-evidence that their clients were temporary "insane" and didn't realize that they were committing a crime, and therefore were not responsible for their actions.

The article continued in the vein of
"What is free will"?

So I realized that the real question is,
what motivates people ("free will") to do what they do?

The next question might be, what motivates someone to NOT do something harmful? If we have a free will do create an action, don't we have a "Free Won't" so that we can decide what are improper activities?

How does this relate to our Physical Mind? Plenty, if you ever look deeply at yourself and say, "I can't stop eating this snack food"... or "I can't seem to stop being a couch potato to go exercise". Free will, or even "free won't", is actually personal responsibility. We are personally responsible for our actions - or mis-actions.

In this manner, you might seem like you aren't exercising your "free won't": you may be a slave to your own 'free will', a will which seems stronger than your desire to be fit and healthy. Of course, this speaks to our own personal responsibility to ourselves.

There may be several factors which determine why you are still reaching into that bag of chips or why the latest episode of "Desperate Housewives" has more fascination for you than exercise. I review some of these factors in my articles. Sometimes the issues are lack of fitness/health education: "If I am so smart, why am I so dumb about my fitness?" ... and sometimes the issues may be the 'old stories' we tell ourselves, over and over: "Top Ten Excuses for falling off the Diet Wagon"

What if the problem is motivation?

What if... your "free won't" is stronger than your "free will"?

Your "free won't" may be telling you to sit on that couch and watch TV.... your "free won't" may be telling you that the bag of cookies is fine to eat.

Then you come looking for a fitness trainer to "motivate" you into exercising every day, or a nutritionist to tell you what to eat!

To be honest, no one can motivate you but YOU.

You are the master of your own domain and your own mind. There is nothing that I can say which can make you train, stop eating those chips, or take a walk outside.

I can start you on the path, but the real answer is that "insight" cannot do anything for you until it's put into practice. You can read all the books you want, but until you try, over and over, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, you may not get there.

Everyday I use this phrase: "I can be your coach for 1 hour a day, but you are your own coach for 23 hours a day". This was coined by fitness author and coach Shawn Phillips. It's true: it has to be ALL YOU, or else it's not going to work.

In my coaching, I work with a client to discover the best practices for his/her own life. It's a process to review each person's health history and current lifestyle; yet, within the process we also uncover each person's individual motivation. Inside of each of you resides your own motivation: the force which will get you off that couch and start training yourself for the rest of your life.

You need to train to SAVE your life.

The "free won't" is turned into "free will" because we uncover the desires for living which are stronger than the couch!

Motivation is personal. Motivation cannot be as simple as "I want to be slim", because the brain needs to translate slimness (for example) as the means to an end, not the end in itself. Most people want to lose bodyfat so they can do something else:

• lose bodyfat so they can attract a love/partner,
• lose bodyfat so they can feel younger than they feel now,
• lose bodyfat so they can be taken more seriously at work or in social situations
• lose bodyfat so they have more stamina,
• etc (each person varies)

The point is to uncover your own motivation so that this custom dream is what cancels out your "free won't"!

How do you uncover your own motivation?

Simple:
Decide what is important to you.

That is not hard, is it? Decide what in life is important to you! How many of us actually don't know what is important to us? It's true - we frequently go into our lives not concretely understanding our values!

If we completely understood our values, then we wouldn't be violating our values and making ourselves feel badly!

If someone valued his freedom fully, then he shouldn't be stealing so that he would be incarcerated, thus removing his freedom. If someone valued her children fully, then she wouldn't become a workaholic, thus never having time for them. We do the things we value the most: the workaholic works long hours because he/she values work above family, friends, or other activities. (Note: I say "workaholic" on purpose; I don't include someone who has to work to support a family income, I'm describing someone who chooses to work long hours)

In health and fitness, we have to value health and fitness above TV-couch-time, or we have to value a slim body over the temporary taste of bag of cookies.

We have to hold in our minds what OUR value of that fitness is:

• fitness is a longer lifetime to value our children
• fitness is more energy in the day, to live for yourself (and family) and not for your boss
• fitness is being able to defy your stated age
• etc - everybody's motivation for fitness varies

Do yourself a favor...

Take out a pen and paper, RIGHT NOW, this instant, and write down what you value the most. Seriously.

Write it all down. Make a LIST. Start it really simple:

"I VALUE ..."

Make fitness SYMBOLIC of your values of youth, energy, living a long happy life with your family, enjoying fitting into whatever clothes you think are fun. Fitness may be a means to enjoying a good life in vitality.

So,
What do YOU value most?

Better yet,

How can you motivate yourself to eat right and exercise so that you ignore the "free won't"?

Make that list. Decide your own values.

Decide how fitness fits into your values... and create your own motivating force. Follow your motivating forces to decide what to exercise and what foods are good for you - and what foods scuttle your progress.

After you know what your motivating force is, then ACT on making that vision (those values) happen. 'Acting' will include educating yourself about health, pushing yourself away from the table when you've eaten enough, and exercising. There is no magic pill, and excuses don't work.

This, my dear friends, is the secret to fitness. The secret is there is no secret.

Decide what values MOST to you... and make your life about seeking those values. Our personal responsibility to ourselves is to uphold our lives.

Motivate your life like never before.

-LM

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For the people who decide that they want help to identify their fitness goals, create custom motivation, and get started on a healthy, simple plan to increase energy, lose bodyfat, and change their lives for the better, I am available for coaching. This is what I do, this is what I love. I look for ways to help you better.

Working by phone, in person, or email, I have several programs to assist you one-on-one. These customized programs educate you on your own health as well as making sense of the hype which pervades out world today.

I have several tools to help you create your own motivation. We revisit your motivation frequently to make sure that it does its job: that your motivation spurs you onto success, onto transformation, onto creating the you that you deserve to be!

Together, we can create your own "free will".

Every one of my clients has said that they made deeper, faster, and and lasting personal transformations after coaching. Coaching is the support you've been looking for. Beyond the diet books, diet hype, confusing exercise lingo, and swaggering exercise "gurus", coaching gives you a friend to walk the road of success - finally.

I've been where you are. I am constantly testing, comparing, and seeking. I've been heavy... and I am now fit, thanks to discarding my own "free won't"s.

Live your life... don't run away from it.

If you are interested in coaching services, write or call me today to set up your appointment... If you just like the articles and website, feel free to contact me as well.

I enjoy hearing from people; that's what we are on the planet to do.

With care,
Lauren Muney
lauren@physicalmind.com