Gratitude is a funny thing, a thing that lives and breathes differently for each of us. If we have not suffered illness or injury, we may undervalue health. If we have not lived in poverty, we might underestimate wealth. If we have not experienced loss or watched a child grow, we may never fully appreciate time.

Delayed gratification—doing hard things now with the anticipation of a benefit later—is the source of real joy and fulfillment. It's not in the having, but in the becoming.”

“It’s not in the having, but in the becoming.” Fucking genius.

So, what are your hard things? Things that come naturally, but also challenge you to step outside yourself?

What do you wish for your reality, yet where are you now? What beliefs about yourself are holding you back? If you cannot see it, feel it, touch it, and really believe it can be true, your efforts are merely that, just wishes. And the universe doesn’t reward wishes.

In “mid-life” we tend to step back and look a bit deeper at all the things, the ones that actually matter. We save our time, money, hopes, dreams, vacations, for a future time when we’ll “finally be able to enjoy them.” But what if I told you the average lifespan from birth is 80, and markedly lower in the United States than comparable countries?

What is dangerous? Growing older and losing muscle, unable to react, or catch yourself when you fall, lacking strength to walk up stairs, or get up out of a chair. That is dangerous. If you are not doing things to maintain or even build muscle as you age, you are subtracting years off your life.

Step back and look at where your time is spent, these are your priorities. How you organize your time, how you play, when you work, what gets wasted, what gets done? So, what do your days say about you?

We are gifted with the comprehension of finite time, yet we often mistake it as a thing to be had, to control. We are the beginning and the end, and what we decide to do with the middle is all we have.

"Excellence is mundane. Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together,

added up over time."

-Sociologist, Daniel Chambliss

“When there is no path or plan, the default is struggle. Wanting to change isn't enough. You need a plan in place to turn that intention into action.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on what exactly is my system? How do I help people? What are the big dial-movers I feel are deeply important?

Well, I came up with an acronym I felt described this in ONE word: STRONG.

For centuries, humans have been “getting ready to start.” Why do we act this way? Why don’t we take action, do what needs to be done? Perhaps because it is uncomfortable, and to make real change, sometimes the discomfort of our current situation needs to be worse than the discomfort it would take to change… .

We talk a lot about believing in the person we want to become, making the choices this healthy person would choose. If we cannot see the leaner, happier, healthier version of ourselves, and truly believe we are this person deep down, true change and happiness will be fleeting. “Fitness for life is not a 30-day challenge.” John Goodman, PTDC

So, I have been diving deep into research, books, podcasts and short courses, learning as much as I can about optimal biomarkers and where we want to see our numbers now, so that in twenty, and thirty years we are as healthy as possible. We want to thrive as we age, not simply stave off disease.

You’d think with my slight obsession over optimizing health and time, I’d have a pretty good handle on this! I want to say it’s a constant battle, yet I realize this mindset may be the underlying issue. We are always “battling” against time, instead of leaning into it and embracing it… we ARE time. Perhaps reframing our view of time, that we neither have it, can master it, or make it, but in fact we embody time itself, only really experiencing the moment we are in.

I’ve been having some meaningful conversations with clients and friends recently around my post Trading Health for Wealth? This closely ties into my innately strong resolution, we are not meant to work all day to save for later years, when we’ve waste our health away, and can no longer enjoy the things we once did. I believe our job is to remain healthy, stay active, connected and participate in a life we love, and realize what is ENOUGH is very individual.

”When you design your day(s) and stick to the commitments you made to yourself, over the course of a year your life can drastically change… If you repeated today for the rest of the year, where would you be a year from now?” -Luka Hocevar