I am an authentic, positive force of inspiration.
That’s a powerful sentence. And it’s one that I’ve been repeating to myself a lot lately. Last week’s blog was devoted to creating your own morning routine, and this week is building on that. One component of the morning routine that I outlined last week is the visualization portion. Visualization is an extremely powerful thing. You might think that in order to visualize something you need to meditate, or you need to start crossing the boundaries between what’s considered normal and what’s considered “weird”. (Side note: You shouldn’t give a f*** if people think that something you do is weird, because as we’ve been discussing, there are a huge number of habits that are considered weird that are fantastic for your overall health and wellness.) The truth is that you’ve probably been a visualizer your whole life, but just haven’t called it visualization.
Here are some examples of visualization:
Planning for the future, and thinking about the pleasure you will receive from an accomplishment; the result of hard work and dedication.
Performing a mental rep; going over a play in your head (think soccer, football, or lacrosse) and imagining the perfect outcome of a well-executed play.
Thinking about a meeting or appointment you have later in the day and looking forward to the best possible outcome of that meeting.
There’s a good chance that you’ve done one, two, or all of the examples listed above in your life without ever even realizing that what you were doing was visualization. Here’s the really cool thing: the more you positively visualize something, the more likely the outcome of that visualization. Making visualizations part of your morning routine means more success in every facet of your life: fitness, health, relationships, business… but I digress, because Man Flow Yoga only focuses on fitness and health, right? 🙂
For those of you that have been the diehard fans of the Man Flow Yoga movement, you know that this brand has always been deeply personal. You’ve been able to see my progress over the last couple years as an athlete, entrepreneur, and hopefully as a human being. Now that I’m starting to understand myself more, I am better able to define what I am doing Man Flow Yoga. When I started, it was to get more guys to do yoga. I wanted them to experience the same physical benefits that I did. Then, somewhere along the way, I realized that the physical benefits were so much more than increased physical performance. I have to thank my first client for that.
Tom Couture, who has last 50 pounds in the last year working with me, has probably had an even greater impact on me that I have on him. At 56 years old, he didn’t contact me looking to get six-pack abs and make himself a better football player. He wanted to live longer. And here’s the thing that he said to me that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “I want to be able to play with my grandkids.” Talk about an oh shit moment. Suddenly I had a mission to help people live longer and be able to do what they wanted to do. Since that time, that simple sentence has been the essence of my why, the why of Man Flow Yoga. (Note: If you are still not completely understanding my use of the word ‘why’ in this blog, please do yourself a favor and read Simon Sinek’s epic book, “Start With Why”.) My sense of purpose, my why, in turn, has been the foundation of everything I do and every decision that I make, and that includes the visualization component of my morning routine. I am able to base my visualizations on a single sentence. It comes back to the original sentence that I started this blog with:
I am an authentic, positive force of inspiration.
What you see if what you get. This is the real, authentic me, out in internet world for everyone to see. I am here to encourage people to take positive steps in their lives. My job, my why, is to inspire people to improve their health through physical fitness that will enable them to do what they want for longer and with less physical pain. The word choice is also important. I choose positive words. (For some reason, words like ‘no’, ‘not’, or ‘avoid’ are NOT heard by the universe (or God, or your destiny, or whatever you want to call it), and you can get the opposite of what you’re visualizing.) I also choose powerful words. Authentic. Positive. FORCE, instead of source. Inspiration. Find your own powerful words, and make a powerful visualization.
The reason that I am telling you this is not only to let you know about Man Flow Yoga and my personal quest to make people healthier without changing their values or beliefs, but to help YOU develop your own basis for your own WHY, so that you can tie your visualizations back to a single sentence, and then go out in the world and be your own source of inspiration. If you can discover a powerful sentence for yourself that brings together your why, your character, and your sense of purpose, then you can simplify your approach to accomplishing your goals. Imagine that you can inspire yourself every morning with a visualization derived from a single sentence. Can you even begin to contemplate how powerful and how meaningful every action you take would feel? Stop imagining. Do it now. Like, right now. Find your why. Be your own source of inspiration.
I’ll leave you with that sentence one more time:
I am an authentic, positive FORCE of inspiration.
I’ve told you what I am. What are you?
Cheers,
Dean
