How to stay on the success bandwagon for life

'I'm so disappointed, I could have done it, I just didn't...I'd like to say I had no time but that'd be a
lie.'

New Years fitness resolutions can be haunting, they leave you spilling your pity guts to your closest friends in a random brainstorming attempt to discover 'the secret to success' to fulfilling your goals for the following year. We love our drama filled approach for the holy grail of knowledge so much so that we forget the secret to success lies solely in our head and instead bash ourselves consistently with inadequacy whenever we fall off the bandwagon.

You awake at 5.30am to the obedience of your trusty alarm clock only to discover that the confidence and motivation you oozed last night is gone. Your bed sheets become a cloud of ecstasy teasing you to forget your goal and just do the workout tomorrow. You feel your body heavy, sore and peacefully calm, you decide it's best not to mess with nature, after all you wouldn't feel this way if your body wasn't trying to tell you something.

'Just listen to me' the bed sheets whisper. An hour later, conveniently too late to workout, you sit there feeding your mouth with guilt in every bite. You convince yourself that tomorrow will be different, nothing will break you and you WILL achieve your goal. Wrong.

This psychological mind play occurs to everyone, athletes aren't even exempt, it does and will derail your efforts to success and it is not the only one. Moods, long workdays, colleagues, children or family stressing you out or the classic...your apparent belief that you have no time to exercise, will all attempt to ruin your ability to achieve fitness success. As soon as you fix your headspace (and constantly work on this) you will experience achievement. 

Unfortunately everyday individuals aren't told by society the importance of psychology on developing positive, long lasting habits, instead we categorise that to the elite few or find warm, fuzzy and shallow ways to explain to people how to overcome everyday challenges. So I'm giving my tips. Am I a qualified psychologist? No. I have however experienced again and again failures from a weak mindset and success from applying sports psychology strategies not just to my fitness life but every other aspect of my life. For me it has meant hiking for 10hours straight on my own or putting myself through extensive training for Everest has never been out of reach and I'm not a six pack adorning female.

First of all it begins with acknowledging what your weaknesses are. This is the hardest part because many of us don't like to admit our weaknesses but when we know them we can plan things appropriately. For example, most people plan their exercise in the afternoon post work but most people who do this also find it easy to skip out on their exercise due to work related excuses, poor organisation at home or meetings they forgot existed. This is the first step to derailment. Exercise in the morning until you know that 100% of the time you've organised afternoon exercise you will follow through with it. If not get up even for a few minutes in the morning until you get used to it, you'll get endorphins, energy and a free afternoon to yourself! Afternoon exercise does take more motivation and commitment so if your mindset isn't strong, don't go there. Also, tune into your excuses, your current workout mindset. Do you stop at 8 repetitions because you've convinced yourself your incapable of doing more? Most people can complete 3 to 5 repetitions more than what they think. Do you yell, argue or verbally get frustrated with a trainer about how you're feeling?  Sorry honey, hate to tell you, this is just another excuse. Fully, committed people who are training to achieve fitness (of any original state of health) do not have the energy to yell, kick scream or get cranky- you've got a lot more in you when you're like this. I've got an injury, I can't possibly go on. Ask yourself this- does this excuse come flying through your head when your working your hardest? Good, it means your workout is effective, don't stop you're not actually injured. Here's another old age excuse- everyone will see me exercise, I can't go to the gym! Let me let you in on a secret from years worth of gyms. Gyms generally contain two groups of people- a group too focused on achieving their personal goals and another too focused on checking out their 'guns' in the mirror. No one is looking at you. You'll be fine. In any case no one derails your success other than you. People might read this and think it's harsh but let's be real, it's your goal, you own it, you can achieve it. Decide if you want to be haunted by your weaknesses, your excuses or be fulfilled by your success, then work on your mind some more.

Enter life hurdle number 1. What happens if I am awake and I suddenly realise I have no socks, bra, shoes are elsewhere or I'm missing my gym card? Surely that means I can skip the workout right? No. The best way to overcome this is with a two pronged approached. Sleep with motivational fitness memes in your room, have one in your car as well make sure it's not warm and fuzzy, make sure it challenges you. Place it right where you will see it. This will encourage you to get out of bed. Then if you happen to forget equipment no matter take a walk, you only require yourself to enjoy this. Drive to a park or beach if you have no shoes enjoy the sensory stimulation from the grass fronds or sand granules on the soles of your feet, take deep breaths and enjoy the fresh air. Either way the idea is that you allow your body to reward yourself with endorphins for your effort. If you don't experience endorphins at first you certainly won't experience guilt. 

When you make it to the gym forget the reps and sets. Yes, you heard me right. Most countries are riding a crossfit craze at the moment, while it's not for everyone there is something average joes (until we achieve our awesome success) can take away from these intense workouts. Decide on the machines or weighted exercises (works for cardio as well) you'd like to do and complete an AMRAP workout; do as many repetitions as possible. Record in a book what you were able to achieve and your starting weight. You can do this without a trainer. As you build your fitness levels through regular workouts go back every 10 days and see what gains you have made- use the same weight you started with. Record. Not only should you see an improvement in muscular strength and endurance but you will also initially determine what your capabilities are which is something a cookie cutter approach of 3 sets and 15 repetitions will never give you. 

As you workout more and experience more success you will come to learn that you will be challenged more. The 'fitness demons' of derailment will visit more frequently. Yes, the beginning of a fitness program is the easiest. Maintaining focus, motivation and striving for success when success may start to become smaller amounts of fat percentage, weight or slightly longer distances is difficult. This is where you need to learn specific  sports psychology techniques. Arousal and concentration, mental rehearsal, mental imagery and centring is important. Let's start with arousal and concentration. 

Arousal and concentration is about finding your optimal headspace. It's the point where your excited but not too excited or relaxed for movement and therefore the headspace were the best performance occurs. Different activities will require different levels of arousal. For example, running up several sets of stairs requires me to have a fair level of arousal so that my feet are moving fast, I'm motivated to keep going and I don't stop and get lactic acid building up in my muscles. So when I run the stairs I like to play upbeat music from the HIIT playlist on spotify. When I'm completing several hundred box jumps at table height I need a slightly lower level of arousal because I need to concentrate more on powering up from my legs to make the height, landing evenly with two feet and supporting my back by keeping my abdominals on tight- when I get tired I need to concentrate more for safety. Most people know their mind and what arouses it. The trick is finding ways to also calm us down. For some merely concentrating works, for others it's a lengthy process that is only achieved over time. Achieving improved fitness is entirely personal so this will not be an easy process. You need to think, when you get frustrated with performance or lack of it, how does your behaviour help your end game?

This leads us to mental rehearsal and mental imagery. These are both quite similar. Personally I find mental imagery extremely useful however I have a creative mind and so conjuring images in my mind is simple. So what are these techniques? Mental rehearsal enables you to practice every aspect of your performance, running or squatting, in your mind without moving a muscle. This means you are envisaging the movement of your body at each point in the exercise, how it feels, how freely it moves, your strength. The more you practice the more successful you will feel inside. For example, I used to daydream virtually everyday that my left ankle, once broken in 2 places, would land on the ground, off a stair or a train platform and automatically break leaving me stranded, helpless and devastated. Once I started applying mental rehearsal to this situation I would frequently daydream about successful landings. This took a lot of time and probably about 30 to 40 practices until I actually believed my ankle was stable enough but now (a long time after- 2.5years) I can complete thousands of box jumps, jump squats etc with no pain and no fear of snapping my ankle. Does my mind ever revert to the fear days? Yes. So I rehearse again until confidence is restored. Now when you add mental rehearsal and mental imagery together you have performance made in heaven. Mental imagery is about imagining all the phases of the performance as well as the scenery, the emotions, the noise etc. When I was training for Everest to assist my mind to create images I would use previous hiking videos of the trail so that I could imagine my body in those conditions, experiencing their experiences and feeling how they felt. By the time the mountain was closed for avalanches I had committed to memory, myself on every part of the trail to Everest base camp. This was also one of the reasons that made it so hard to work my day job when I should of been hiking because my mind was so entrenched in the process from long hard effort and constant practice. Now I know without preparing myself to witness a myriad of things my experience in Nepal will be far more challenging. Therefore in my opinion I think especially those who bash themselves with their own self hate, you need these techniques. You need to see yourself where you want to be achieving what you want to achieve so that you are haunted by your motivation. Then I promise you, you won't stop. However if you do stop, I have one more tip for you. Try centring.

Centring is one's ability to shut out all outside noise and focus on your task alone- I guess it's the woosar of all sports psychology techniques. This means children, gym junkies, skimpily clad chicks 'pumping iron', the person with the bad BO, your busy checklist and most of all your defeatist attitude all gone. If you cannot stop and focus on your task and stay bashing yourself with words then you won't change. Pity parties get tiring for even the most kindhearted people; no one wants to hear how much you hate yourself and your body day in and day out. You have a choice, move it or lose it. So spend time thinking of nothing other than the minute steps you need to take to achieve success. If you don't know how ask someone. Achieve one, two, then three of these minute steps and all the while do not let Mr or Ms Negative crawl into your workout, it's me time. Totally relax, appreciate yourself. Love yourself. If you don't, no one will. If you go off track once, use your arousal and concentration techniques to get you refocused and think nothing more of it. 

When your workout is done and you have applied these psychology techniques document how you feel. If it wasn't a good session, it doesn't matter tomorrow's a new day and you can always throw your dodgy emotions in the bin anyway. Whatever you do write down how you feel. Choosing not to write down your emotions will lead to stewing over it all day long (or longer than you should) and preventing you from seeing all the effort you have put in to achieve success and all effort is worth noticing.

I hope you enjoyed this article. I know you'll experience some success when you try these techniques. Please share any comments or thoughts below. 

It's simple Love

Love. I always had romantic ideas of how it's meant to be. As a young girl I dreamt nothing more of meeting 'Mr Prince Charming' getting married at 21 and having my first child at 23. Now at 29 I'm glad I soon learnt that my 'ideal' form of romanticism was far too naive and left no room to love myself or to enjoy a career of my own. Then came romance of the teenage years where famous peoples faces and half naked bodies were thrown across magazines like meat; myself a keen reader. My idea of romance became another form of jaded naivety, a checklist of physical attributes. Either way history serves me with plenty of laughs from memories once realities and romance well, it hasn't changed much.

Young girls still dream of that amazing wedding day, stunning dress and brute of a man at the end of the aisle. Teenagers still prim their hair hoping Zac Efron will turn up around the corner (don't worry me too sometimes) and daily women still fantasise that their Mr will display the attributes of McDreamy. It's all a lovely ideal but nothing more.

You see love ceases to exist where expectations fail to recognise truth. I'm no expert on love but I doubt I'd find any woman or man who said their expectations and jaded ideas of their Mr or Mrs didn't blow up in their face at least once. Expectations are essential but what they silently comment is that even the most decent person isn't good enough; it's not people you should question it's expectation. 

Everyone wants to be swept off their feet by someone so much so that it is easy to forget that the sweeper mightn't wear Giorgio Armani, have a rocking hot body and no hang ups. In fact they definitely won't. Life isn't a Hollywood movie and it's success doesn't operate on ratings. It's the little things that count. It's the little things that build a life with someone or tear it down.

You only need to be appreciated, respected and thought of to know that you're loved. You do not require fancy attire, slick hair dos, exotic accents or the thickest wallet. You need to receive and give love willingly. Hold hands, smile, make each other laugh, sit in silence, challenge each other boldly, appreciate the awkwardness when you both don't know what's next and trust that when you are thought of you are in safe hands. To share this would be greater than any Hollywood romance. It doesn't come with an age range, a career stipulation or the physical degradation of another person but simply the total acceptance of another and the faith and hope to see it through. 

I hope everyday, not just when you are reminded of love (like on or around Valentine's Day), your heart can see how superbly simple love is. Live it, relish it, hope for it. 

Ciao lovelies xo

Australia's red faced blemish

Hot under the collar? That'd be because your body is holding more solar energy than panels we have erected in our sunburnt country of Australia. 

Travelling around the world and particularly Europe you encounter time and time again solar panels and wind farms. These are countries that for the most part of their year see rain and very little sunlight compared to our sunburnt country yet these countries demonstrate a commitment to helping the environment. As a tourist when other travellers question if Australia is tapping into the healthy gold mine of green energy it is extremely embarrassing to state that in fact our nation's leaders do nothing. It's about time we start questioning why our government is happy to endorse the devastation of habitats by failing to be green.

Each year Australians experience on average 8 hours of sunlight, 18-24 Megajoules of solar exposure per square metre and an average wind velocity of 6-15km/hr. Our continent is the driest in the world with 20% land that is officially desert. A staggering 70% of our nation receives less than 500millilitres of water a YEAR. How is it that we sit on our hands with little to no solar or wind farms? Call me crazy but for an economically strong country we are squandering our chances to leave behind a healthy country for future generations or a place that is affordable to live for others.

Currently Brisbane, Queensland is the second most expensive city to live in second to London; our nation has privatised electricity companies and couples can pay up to $700 for 3months of electricity. Previous governments have put in place solar enticing opportunities but due to privatisation the energy companies have started to steal money from even the energy conscious. Wake up to yourselves parliament our nation isn't experiencing record breaking floods and droughts from no fault of our own. You cannot buy the environment. 

In one generation's time it is highly probable children will be using google to comprehend what wildlife and world heritage Australian sites once existed. In decades stunning cities like Venice only able to be witnessed via diving expedition, if you dare enter the water. Cost of living in Australia will be exponentially increased by a domino of natural disasters year in year out. What will it take to prioritise the environment? Will you stop thinking superficially about landscapes and start turning toward a mindset that acknowledges landscape extinction born of your inaction if change doesn't happen now? 

The 'littering' of solar panels and wind turbines are a positive reminder that our society, you, value our environment. It acknowledges that humans recognise they are one piece of the universe's puzzle. The only eyesore, red faced blemish Australia faces is the worldwide knowledge that we do not appreciate our amazing, naturally diverse landscape and we demonstrate this through failing to act on climate change.  Politicians it's time you felt hot under the collar, got your act together and made changes for the good of your society. I dare you. 

A miniature muse

Just a little something for your day. See what you think. Feedback is appreciated. 

'Our eyes do not deceive. Irrespective of where you are from, what language you speak or whether you can be understood our eyes always see the real emotion of people. Sorrow, joy, love, excitement, wonder, anger and fear are universal. You may walk the streets of any city in the world not understand a word another says but your eyes understand the conversation. To me this is more beautiful than the words being said because it requires us to truly witness another person's emotions and regard them first. It also means our eyes nor our intuition will fail us. I wonder if more people who spoke the same language really looked at each other's faces and their body language while they spoke, perhaps the universal emotions of others wouldn't be so easily misinterpreted.'

-Copyright held by Julia Trask. Please seek permission before reproduction of material. January 14 2015. 

The unmade choices we make

Yes. The word most of us define our lives by, little do we know it is the 'no' responses that define our lives more. 

No I won't take that chance, no I won't change my lifestyle, no I won't be uprooted, no I don't want to get hurt, no I cannot- I don't want to hurt them. The problem with no is there is absolutely no chance you get what you want when your sentence starts with no, not even a compromise. Sometimes we even try to justify to ourselves that a 'no' isn't a bad as it really is and that things will get better but a no still means that we fail to have what we desire full and well knowing that we are settling. 

Now there's nothing wrong with settling, nothing wrong at all. In fact settling is bliss when you have what you truly desire, your lifestyle is happy, your chances bring you learning and happiness and your relationships love- settling is not about creating sediment that fossilises over time due to comfortability. Settling is not about mediocrity it's about settling for a life that makes you truly happy, that mystifies you beyond conceivable possibility because true settling is sitting in the pleasure of good decisions that make you consistently happy. Yes, there are bumpy roads in any path where your required to settle but they are not outweighed by a joy that permeates our initial decision and a constant reconnection to the beauty that our choice was blissfully right for us. 

This initial decision, the 'no' whether voiced or silent is an unmade but totally deliberate choice we make. It is these choices too that are the hardest to forgive ourselves for. They remind of us that we chose blindly to waste time, not take chances or be the wrong people because we feared risk. We all do it, it is for this reason why I believe we should take more risks and look foolish more often for the sake of some more potential 'yes' responses to our life. Also for a settled life of happiness not mediocrity after all it is these unmade (no) choices we make that haunt our lives long after the risks. 

JT...

Societies construction of men and women

For those of you who write to the narrative form I ask this, do you stick to societies constructions of men and women and why?

In one of my short stories (haven't published on here in fear of losing publishing ability), Circles, I deliberately chose to present men and women exactly as they are. At times critics could, at surface level, suggest that my characters were easily constructed perhaps even fickley formed however my intention was to present the world as it is and display the truth that those who break down society's barriers of gender construction . As it is these people that tend to experience the hardship as the cookie-cutter majority struggle with concepts of 'different'.

I guess what I am saying is, everyone will criticise your work as a writer and your choice of character development, because you are someone creative and different you are already on the back foot but from where I stand it seems only natural to support those who are attempting to build themselves up in their passion. Also to break away from these stereotypical norms and present the realities because literature for me is about sending out the truth in written form in the hope that society will see our own injustices.

Now I cannot say I've experienced many injustices all in all, but I have experienced serious character judgement. Playing football (soccer) meant I was automatically gay in some peoples' eyes. I'm not sure whether that was because it was the only way for men to get comfortable with the skill level of women or people just didn't know the correct definition of gay. Furthermore, beginning my Everest conquest even college friends have suggested I am on a rampage to remind other people of what they are not doing and talk myself up. They couldn't be more wrong. A woman who is after her own individual pursuit understands to every inch of her being how individual it is, yes you have to feed off yourself for the most part, sometimes celebrating your milestones and wanting to shout them out loud has to be done and there is absolutely nothing wrong with showing pride in your ability, commitment, hard work and dedication. Other times publicising your progress or workouts is just about keeping yourself in check that you are doing a good job. When 400 plus Facebook friends know you are working out that's a lot of people to let down if you don't work- so you become highly accountable and criticised. Similarly, when something doesn't go ahead according to plan, you have a mass exodus of questions.

Recently I was asked as I reflected on my Everest journey to date with a new friend, does your ideal man entail a big, tall brut who can do anything, including lifting you up with one hand? (Or something like that). Let me get my checklist & I'll reply.
'I want a decent hearted person, no big brut needed.'

You see the 'normal' notions society constructs in our heads enables us to only stick to assumed ideals of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman. There are entire self help sections of libraries and book stores dedicated to the characters we want to become- for fear that we are not enough. Sadly though this enables one response, one reaction to our work and a lack of space to write for the human spirit. Now I'm certainly no JK Rowling but I think it's an easy bet that if literature mocked the reality of people's' true character the reflection of our lives would be different and so would our success.

Food for thought yeh?

J :)

An impressionable city that captures your heart

Recently, as you know, I have been touring Europe. Whenever I travel there are a few traits that become inexplicably clear to me almost instantly as you arrive to a new location- people's manner, the culture in the air, usually born of people's manner, and the pride the people have in their culture and history. Throughout the past 3 weeks I've travelled to 9 countries, many amazed me and some I could see myself living in but no other city made such a significant impression on my heart than Germany and particularly the city of Berlin. This is the city you don't want to miss. 

Berlin was amazing. The city is old yet it's most influential history ridiculously young. Germany is a nation categorised by an ugly war history when it should be identified as a nation full of some of the most resilient people the world. 

Five minutes of a tour here is all you need to come to understand the elasticity of the hearts of the Germans after human travesty, dictatorship, atrocity and physical boundaries attempted to break the beauty of true human spirit. Of approximately 15 countries I have travelled to so far, each with their own fights, I cannot surpass being truly impressed by the Germans. To me this relatively young country has much to be proud of and the world could do with taking notice at how they turned life around. 

The Berlin Wall, still standing in sections, demonstrates how divided the country was. It is mind boggling to comprehend that overnight family and friends became divided strangers for 28years trapped in a 'country' that separated them from those they loved. The Wall is decorated with art now and one famous piece whereby the east and west leaders are kissing and making up. Many wouldn't necessarily know however that it was the efforts of the average person that really forced the Berlin Wall down. It is a pleasure that parts of this wall exist to remember a life the Germans will never have to return to. However I find it also extremely beautiful and perfect poetic justice that Adolf Hitler is not glorified at all in this city. 

The lack of glorification to Adolf Hitler is such a joy because it shows so fervently how Germans felt about this power tripping maniac. The shame is that many who don't travel here will not understand this unless it is written about. In a walking tour about Berlin you are taken to a carpark and are told that you are standing on top of Hitler's bunker. Many tourists I was travelling with were excited to see the 'spot' where he ended his rule but the Gemans didn't give Hitler the notoriety, not even in death. It is a perfect ending to an ugly story. Had it been 2015 I wonder if our media would have done the same. Either way I found it extremely impressive that the Germans virtually erased him, well what you could, given the horrible, countless crimes he and the SS (secret service) committed. 

Other extremely impressive parts of Berlin is the artwork, hipster cafés and restaurants and various musicians that play for your amusement in the u-bahn (underground and overground stations). Of course the people here are very lovely. It's the only city in Europe I've managed to have a fun snowball fight with randoms, been offered a toboggan ride from a grandfather or held random conversations with local people for a lengthy time. 

Overall Germany to me, in my short glimpse, is simply impressive. I am deeply saddened by the horrendous loss and tragedy the Germans have faced but I am also in awe of how resilient, kind hearted and exceptional the people are. It will always be a city I will be happy to return to and travellers should never take it off their bucket list. 

The Holocaust Memorial- creative in design & always thoughtful. Keeping in mind the heartbreak caused by a loss of 6 million Jews at the hands of an atrocious man. 

Kreuzberg- whilst I visited here in the winter, the buildings were still amazing, artwork Devine, cafés & restaurants so craftily created- simply beautiful area of the city with a superb local feel- as the tourists don't flock here! I don't know why!

Remnants of the Berlin Wall that divided loved ones for 28years- overcome by pure human spirit in the end. Brilliant.