Exceptional Living Versus High Performance

Exceptional Living Versus High Performance

As a lifestyle coach and someone who is passionate about positive change I hear about “High Performance” all the time! I use to love this phrase. Now I feel it is over used, watered down, and mis-interrupted.

People can be a high performer and still be a bully. They can make massive career moves and success but not care at all about the charity being organized for joe’s family in crisis down the hall. They can run marathons but still be out of shape because they eat garbage and smoke like a chimney…but they are still “high achievers and performers”.

I heard a quote years ago from a speech that has stuck with me and has replaced the phrase of “High Performance” in my life and I would love to share it. He said “I don’t want a life lived in excesses but one characterized of excellence.”  after that day, I called it the exceptional living strategy.

Happiness consists not in having, but of being, not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Life as a performer is exhausting. I have had that life. As a ballet dancer to be a top performer it was a constant competition, it was luck (body type), talent(natural and learned), lots of sweat and tears, and yes even politics. It was amazing when you were at the top and very rewarding but it was also extremely wearing. A ballet dancer’s career begins early and ends very early. A typical dancer goes through years of preparatory training, auditions for job placement, hours of ongoing classes and rehearsals, and harsh physical demands, while experiencing the joys of artistic work and performing on stage, it can be rigorous to stay at the “high performance level” forever.

My entire platform as a Life coach is focused on one idea. It it the Idea of a more full circle pictured life. It is about being able to achieve, grow and ….Maintain the pace and demands to continue the growth for a forever level of excellence.

My goal as an athlete, coach, mom, and writer is to be able to continually achieve and progress. Its called Exceptional Living. Exceptional is what creates health and vitality. It’s what can help a mom find her strategy when the toddlers are wailing. It helps the unhealthy person make permanent and lasting results, and it’s what can bring people greater peace because they’re no longer “performing”. They are actually living it. It’s also not about speed but, about consistency and lasting results. It creates breathing room, rest and confidence.

“Performing” creates faking it, exhaustion, burn out and competition. That doesn’t sound like something that is fun or sustainable.

synonyms for the word exceptional are: outstanding, extraordinary, unusually good and remarkable. To me that far out ways “high performing”. Unusually good. I want my marriage, family life and work to be remarkable, exceptional and unusually good.

Below is a special sheet I give my client’s who are walking thru my ELITE program that I have. Its fantastic and shows amazing results.

Enjoy and go be Exceptional!

Freeing – Inspirational – Technique! F.I.T.

The process I’m about to walk you through is very important to success and completion of any good thing.
If you can get this, you will be amazed at what you can do and who you are!
When I talk about a “FIT” lifestyle I am talking about creating something that works for you and encompasses health and vitality in all areas of your life! Becoming FIT in anything, whether its physical fitness or being competent for a job, requires a process. If it’s a great one, you succeed. Olympic athletes have come up with their perfect plan that is a Freeing Inspirational Technique. It gets them where they want to go. When you want to grow or change something it has to be:
A. Freeing: This is the fun part of the technique. It has to work for you in being life-giving. The process you put together has to be liberating — mentally, physically and emotionally. It can not be constraining on your life. It can not be one more thing to add to a crazy busy existence and world.
B. Inspirational: This is where it motivates. The process must evoke growth, “ahh-ha” moments, and zeal. If it doesn’t inspire you, you won’t do it. Athletes have to be inspired to stick with it even on the tough days. They have to know what they are shooting for. This creates the extra drive when the going gets tough.
C. A Technique: This where you don’t deviate. This is your program, your template, your structure. You stay the course, you know it works. It’s a pattern you created for yourself that will result in the flawless promise of better living, healthy living, exceptional living.
My goal, always, is to give you the tools to not just have a healthy heart, or strong abs, but for every aspect of your life to be whole. To be the right structure and a FIT for you.
What looks like a FIT life for you? Describe below:


Small Shifts

Small Shifts

I’ve been reading a book on organic and heirloom farming that has both fascinated and challenged me. Of course I have dashed out to order seed catalogs, harvest books and swore that I will only touch grass-fed beef from now on. This is so my thing. I love this stuff. I watch every documentary on healthy lifestyles and devour self-help books.. (Whether its good information or not. I still am completely fascinated.)

What surprised me was a quote from another person the author was paraphrasing from. The person was stated to have said that even if just restaurants, not people mind you but restaurants would buy just 10% organic we would change our entire system of how the county does junk food. It surprised me that just that little bit could literally change the entire way a whole nation does things. Not every household shift, or every person’s budgets but just restaurants buying organics. If something like this could shift an entire country and the epidemic of type two diabetes what other things could we change with just a 10% shift?

I have been feeling the pull to create shifts for the better and not just in my personal life. Although that is an amiable goal and important. In the after effects of the shooting in Los Vegas, I am confidant there are others who desire to create shifts that impact more than just the immediate individual or schedule.

How do you make the greater good stand up to so much busyness, a self-centered world, and watered down focus that are so rampant? By doing what the man in the book said. You start with 10%.

10% of your money-making an impact past your own walls. 10% of your meals being healthier. 10% of your time going to something greater than your own personal gain. It may not seem like much but its a start. And it can create big changes. It’s the ripple effect.

As I make a meal for someone who has had a rough couple of months I remind myself to keep creating ripples. Its challenging being in the throes of motherhood and toddlers to see the ripples you are creating on a daily basis. Christ was a poor carpenter with wisdom on his lips and healing in his hands. He didn’t touch everyone in the crowds but He did touch and speak to who was there, in front of him, and in need. Whether you’re a believer or not, the ripple He created in our world is reminder enough of what one person can do.

Lets move toward kindness, goodness, and gentleness. Lets stop for a minute and move past our busy lives to see what we could do for just 10% of our efforts.

At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe (a “literal” translation means “tenth”) of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do. – Deuteronomy 14: 28-29