Fit for Life: You GET TO do it!

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Matt Espeut, GoLocalProv Health +Lifestyle Contributor

 

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I want you to stop thinking and saying “I have to”. Try changing your mindset, and your words, to "I get to".  You’ll start to see and feel things differently.  I am always listening to inspirational quotes, reading and listening to motivational speakers, and reading self-help and ways-to-better-yourself materials, and when something powerful comes my way, it resonates deep within me and changes the way I think of things. Then I take it and use it for my own purposes - to help motivate others.

So, this week I am doing just that, writing about something I heard from someone else and putting my own spin on it.  I was watching a video that one of my fellow Fit Body Bootcamp franchise owners posted, and it told a story of a person with physical limitations doing some yard work. When a bystander walked by, he acknowledged the person with these limitations doing the yard work, and went further to ask him if he needed help, because he felt badly that he HAD to do this work. The person doing the yard work stopped, and turned to the bystander, and said: “thank you, but no thanks; I am just happy that I am able, and that I GET to do this yard work”.  

Changing the “have to” to “get to."

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This made me think long and hard about how lucky most of us are and how grateful we should be that we GET to perform tasks we think we have to do. I thought this was so powerful I used it on my Shea Raiders high school football team before Wednesday’s practice in the blazing hot sun. I asked how many of them had friends coercing them to do something fun like going to the beach, or playing video games, or hanging out somewhere cooler than a football field. Many raised their hands, and one replied “everyone I know knows better to ask me during football season.” So, I asked “how many of you replied, “no, I have to go to practice?” Many raised their hands. Then I let loose. I told them that none of them HAD to be here, but they GET to be here. They live in a country where they have an opportunity to play organized sports, without mortar shells going off in the distance, maybe even to earn a ticket to college. They have coaches who care enough to be away from their own friends and families to coach them. They get an opportunity to work with a professional trainer who will help them be in shape for the season (that’s me). And, they have a school that supplies all the equipment so they can play.  I could see the look on their faces that it hit home. I received confirmation that it did this week, because one of the players told the same thing to a lazy brother who didn’t want to go to practice the next day, and I was ecstatic when he told me that he took what I said and relayed it to someone else.

Here’s an example to try.  Say you have a job, weather you like it or not. Trade the words “have to” into “get to”, and watch how it gives you a whole new outlook. Maybe it isn’t your idea of a great job, or the perfect job, but with the unemployment rate so high, it is better to have one than be broke. And if you really hate what you’re doing, you “get to” try to change your life for the better and look for a more satisfying job. Whether you do or not, depends on how much drive and ambition you have. But the bottom line is that you “get to” chose your own destiny. We’re lucky to live in this country where those freedoms to “get to” exist.

The next time you think, damn I “have to” eat healthy, think of those third world countries that have shortages of food, and all they get to eat is some pre-packaged garbage food dumped from an airplane containing some GMO grain, rice or other unidentifiable slop. Just so they can live another day. These people would love to “get to” eat fresh produce and quality meats and fish, but they “have to” eat what is available. You don’t even have to look outside the country, or the state, to have this point driven closer to home.  We know the numbers of homeless, jobless and hungry right here living among us, eating out of garbage cans, or going to a food pantry for canned and processed foods, just to survive. They would love the same broccoli, grilled chicken, or the smoothie that we “get to” have the opportunity to consume every day. Now the next time you think, ugh, I have to go to the gym; look down at your two legs, and wave both arms in the air; look out the window of the house that shelters you, see your car in the driveway, put on those $100 sneakers, and say to yourself, I GET TO GO TO THE GYM TODAY.  And you, my friend, are one of the luckiest people on the planet.

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Matt Espeut, GoLocal's Health & Lifestyle Contributor has been a personal trainer and health & fitnesss consultant for over 25 years. He is the owner of Fitness Profiles, a one on one, and small group personal training company, as well as Providence Fit Body Boot Camp, located at 1284 North Main St., on the Providence/Pawtucket line. You can reach Matt at (401) 453-3200; on Facebook at "Matt Espeut", and on Twitter at @MattEspeut. "We’re all in this life together – let’s make it a healthy one!"

 

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