2023 Year in Review

Each year I write down the most important things I read, see, hear, and think about. These notes help me reflect on what I am learning and how I am growing both personally and professionally. Here are several of my 2023 thoughts. I hope it inspires you to keep your own list!   

• We can’t control the things that happen to us, but we can control how we respond.
• If you want time, you must make it!
• Secrets lead to lies. Tell the truth!
• Once you can make sense of a loss, you can grieve because you know what you’re letting go of.
• We are the authors of our own story!
• Pain is not a problem. It’s just a signal that demands your attention.
• While it is always important to believe in oneself, a little help from others is a great blessing.
• Lose an hour in the morning and you’ll spend all day looking for it.
• Larger lungs = longer lives
• The pattern of disease or injury that affects any group of people is never a matter of chance. It is invariable the expression of stresses and strains to which they were exposed, a response to everything in their environment and behavior.
• There is no doing it right, but there is doing it better.
• How you feel is the early indicator of your health on a cellular level.
• The purpose of your life is to enjoy and learn from your experiences. You are not helping anybody by being miserable. You gain nothing by being bothered by Life’s events. It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer.
• Put life into your fitness not the opposite.
• Age is not about disease, it’s disuse.
• You cannot spend energy worrying about your future health. These are passive thoughts that cause negative emotions such as fear, worry, doubt, and blame. These are emotions of stress. Stress is at the center of dis-ease in the body. In practice: instead of worrying about your heart, ask yourself what positive action could I take keep my heart healthy.
• Focus on progression, not perfection.
• It is not about knowing it all, but rather caring to know more.
• Sometimes the truth can ruin a perfectly good story.
• The aim of all religion is self-development and inner refinement.
• Think of the body and mind as a garden needing tended too.
• Thought becomes habit and habit becomes circumstance.
• Four fundamental emotions: fear, anger, sadness, and joy.
• BE INTERESTED! Be Engaged!
• Sometimes it is not about escaping, but finding whatever comfort in hell.
• Emotions are the end product of past experiences.
• You learn more when you are interested and motivated in what you are learning.
• To make change, you need to think about the things you’ve been thinking about and make new thoughts.
• There is always room for imagination in science.
• Become the scientist of your life.
• You must always make time for things that are important.
• Meditation is like planting a garden. We need to get rid of the weeds.
• Be proactive not preventative.
• Risk should not be avoided but rather analyzed, understood and worked with.
• Peace and intuition go hand in hand.
• Health and fitness are not extrinsically linked— as one goes up, the other doesn’t necessarily go with it.
• Freedom means knowing who you are,   what your purpose is, and acting on it.
• Don’t tell, but show!
• Think about your body as something you can teach.
• We are organisms, not mechanisms.
• Doubt is torture.
• People burden themselves with so many choices.
• The sooner you cut the head off the snake, the less likely it is to bite you.
• What’s good for the heart is good for the brain.
• Live a life that’s worth talking about.
• Measurement informs uncertain decisions.
• True fun: confluence of playfulness, connection and Flow
• You are as old as your spine!
• The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
• Stress dampens creativity.
• We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. It is inside of us.
• A plan is simply a system for engineering the desired outcome.
• Genetic is a term we’ve made synonymous with beyond our control.
• Your body adapts to the position you spend the most time in.
• The presence of oxygen means the absence of disease.
• Understanding your physiology is paramount for optimal health.
• Focused effort is at the heart of success. Therefore, narrow your focus, and you have much less to focus on and worry about. Make decisions, whether or not what you are thinking about matches what you are focused on.
• You are in charge HERE. It’s YOUR own Ride!
• The science of how the body works is relatively new, and therefore the science of how to enhance performance is even newer.
• We prepare our bodies for sleep with brushing teeth, etc... We need to put our minds in a position for sleep as well.

**The notes above are a combination of my own thoughts, adaptations of other people's thoughts, and likely even a few direct quotes from others. I'm grateful for the many brilliant people teaching me along the way!**