Tag: healthy living

Fortitude

Fairness is a Matter of Perspective

teamquadzilla
bitter or better1

Bitter or Better? A natural reaction to life’s negative circumstances is to say that it’s not fair. Bad things happen to good people…to us. We wonder why. We look for people to blame. We might even get mad at God.

Part of Sunday’s message at church was about the fairness of God. As a Jesus follower, I believe that God is ALWAYS good, and that His plans are WAY better than mine, even if I don’t see it in the midst of difficulty. He is not fair, nor does he have to be… – he’s God. In fact, He is infinitely more patient, gracious, and merciful than anyone.

Truthfully, it’s not fair that God had to sacrifice his only son Jesus on the cross in order to make provision for sinners like you and me to have eternity in heaven with God, but he did. All we have to do is believe it. That’s not fair, but it’s the kind of unfairness I’m grateful for. Fairness is a matter of perspective. Do we ever complain when unfairness is to our advantage?

Whether you believe in Jesus like I do or not, you still have a choice to make about life’s circumstances. The truth is that you alone CHOOSE whether the hard times make you a bitter person or a better one. ‪#‎truth‬ ‪#‎bebetternotbitter‬ ‪#‎lifeisnotfair‬ ‪#‎dealwithit‬

Fortitude

Interview Yourself

teamquadzilla
describe yourself1

On your personal journey to becoming your best self, one important activity to consider is the dreaded self assessment. This exercise takes the idea of “apply within” to a whole new level. Fret ye not; it’s not as bad as it sounds. Start by asking a simple question.

How would you describe yourself? Here’s an opportunity for a little personal reflection. Take a few minutes and WRITE DOWN your answers. If you are like me, the description is probably really nice, with some honest yucky stuff in it too. Now here’s the hard part. Ask someone close to you to describe you honestly. Be sure to tell them this is a ‘judgment free’ exercise and they are free to be honest and you promise not to be upset with the responses.

Remember, this exercise is designed to reveal the gaps between how you see yourself and how others see you and ultimately help you to be your best self. There are lots of ways to use the intel you gather, but lets keep it simple and positive.

1. For the descriptions provided by your friend, look carefully at the ones you did NOT identify yourself. Contemplate how you can further cultivate this descriptor, or mitigate it by some behavior change. Remember, this is how others see you. Whether you agree with their assessment or not, “perception is reality” and you’d prefer people to see you as you see you.

2. Celebrate the descriptors you matched with the ones provided by your friend. You know yourself pretty well. Even if some negative descriptors matched, at least you know what to work on.

3. Check in periodically with your friend and ask how you are doing with whatever trait you are interested in. This routine check up will go a long way to helping you be your best.

Need some help to get started? I found Tom Rath’s “Strengths Finder 2.0” to be especially helpful in learning who I am and what I’m good at. Another resource to try is 360Reach, which takes a fun twist on peer assessment with questions like, “What kind of cereal describes (you) and why?”

Fortitude

Stop Drinking Poison

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unforgiveness1

Forgiveness can be scary and difficult to deal with, yet I think it’s really important in helping us to be our very best. There are two sides to forgiveness; forgiving others and forgiving yourself. You might think I’ve forgotten about others forgiving you, but I didn’t.
While it is appropriate to be sincerely sorry for hurting someone, and appropriate to ask for forgiveness, we technically can’t control whether or not the other person will actually forgive us. We need to focus on what we can control, and that is our actions.

Forgiving others – The saying goes, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” If you think about it, this is perfectly true. Holding a grudge and being bitter or angry with someone who hurt you only hurts you more. The other person likely doesn’t even know you are mad at them. Even if they do know (and don’t care), why would you give that person the power to make you miserable while clinging to unforgiveness? Today’s challenge is to CHOOSE to forgive whomever it is that has you bitter, angry, hurt, etc. and embrace the FREEDOM of letting go of the pain. I’m not saying to forget it; memories are memories, the past is the past, what is done is done. I’m just saying to end the madness that bitterness and anger create in your head by choosing to forgive.

Forgiving yourself – Sometimes this is ever harder than forgiving someone else. I think it is for me. I’m pretty good at beating myself up over my past mistakes. Honestly, some mistakes still try to haunt me today. I have to choose the advice above to keep me from getting down. My past mistakes are part of what has shaped me to be who I am and where I am today. Hopefully I continue to learn from my mistakes and slowly but surely become better than I was yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m choosing to put the poison away.

If you feel like you have made too many mistakes to forgive yourself, I invite you to meet my friend Jesus. He is waiting to carry your burdens and help you find freedom from the past in his love, grace, and mercy. I would love to introduce you to Jesus if that sounds interesting to you.

Fortitude

Your Top Priority Revealed in 3 Questions

teamquadzilla
priorities

What is your top priority? I understand that your top priority today is likely different than it will be next year or last year and that’s ok. There are ‘seasons’ in life that require our focus to change. For example, you may have gone back to school in order to change careers and that is your top priority for a ‘season’ of time. When you graduate, school will no longer be your top priority.

The point is that we all have a top priority today and my hope is that we take the time to identify today’s top priority and evaluate whether or not it is what we want it to be. To evaluate today’s top priority ask yourself a few more questions.

1. Where does your money go? A revealing way to assess where your priority lies is to look at your expenditures. Where you spend your money (or more specifically, your ‘extra’ money after the standard bills & such) indicates where your priority lies. You are your own judge as to whether or not the way you spend money aligns with your priority.

2. How do you spend your time? Think about how you spent your ‘free’ time this past week or month. Decide for yourself if where you spent your time aligns with your top priority. For me, I’ve spent virtually all my free time the past week or two working on our new house – demo, painting, cleaning, moving our stuff, etc. so it can be made ready for my family to move in. It has been my top priority, but hopefully VERY soon it will be done and my priority will change.

3. What do you think about? This might be the most revealing of all. In your quiet thoughts you reveal your true focus. If what you constantly think about differs from what you want your top priority to be, then you know you have some work to do to change that.

While changing your top priority (assuming it is not what you want it to be) is not easy, it is simple. Your priority ultimately comes down to your CHOICE. You choose what your top priority is whether you are conscious of it or not. That may sound a bit narrow minded, and I’m sure there are instances where circumstances are out of your control or ‘seasons’ where your top priority is not what you want, but for the most part you can choose where you spend your extra money, how you spend your free time, and what you think about. Hopefully, your top priority is aligned with your values, is related to a big goal you set for yourself, and includes the important people in your life.

Fitness, Nutrition

How much water should you drink?

teamquadzilla

pee picThere is lots of noise out there about proper hydration for optimum health. There are diet plans that call for extraordinary amounts of water consumption (1 gallon or more daily!), and it seems like the common advice is to simply “drink more water.” There’s the rule of thumb which says to drink half your body weight in oz of water daily. So a 175 lb person like me should have 87.5 oz of water a day – or an 8 oz glass of water 11 times.

But what if I exercise? What if I eat lots of fruits & veggies? What if I sit outside in the hot sun and read all day? To me, these are all variables that make the rule of thumb unreliable. Additionally, while it is rare to drink too much water, it’s not good for your kidneys to over hydrate. So what should you do?

In my opinion, you should mind your pee. That’s right. The color of your urine tells you if you are properly hydrated regardless of how much water you drank. The lighter the color, the better your hydration – generally. If your pee is clear to ‘diluted lemonade’ then you are good. Brighter yellow to apple juice means trouble.

Personal Tips & Observations:

-Sleeping dehydrates you. I have a big drink first thing in the morning (20 oz at least) to relieve dehydration, start my digestive system before breakfast, help me feel more full before I eat, and wake me up. I think this is a good habit.

-Drinking a big glass of water before every meal will help you to eat less because you will feel more full.

-Have a water bottle with you at your desk or work place all day. Drink from it often.

-Certain medications or vitamins will discolor your pee for a few hours, so don’t freak out about that.

-Have a headache or feeling ‘hangry’ (aka: hungry/ irritable/ angry)? Drink a big glass of water first. Give it 10 minutes to see if it makes you feel better. Many times it will. This is your body telling you that you are dehydrated.

-Please do not replace water with soda, sports drinks, coffee, alcohol, juice, milk, etc. Your body needs water. While some juice, milk, wine and plain coffee may have some health benefits, MOST are filled with artificial and chemical ingredients that do more harm than good.

This has been a public service announcement from Team Quadzilla. Adequate hydration leads to increased awesomeness. Have a beautiful day!