Episode 024
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the UFFDA! Podcast hosted by Emily O'Connor and Jordan Rudolph. The UFFDA! Podcast brings you a surprisingly fresh take on everyday topics in health, fitness, and everything in between. We want to open the door to explore new information and new solutions in a way that's easy for you to understand and apply to your own life.
Let's get into today's episode.
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the UFFDA! Podcast. I'm Jordan Rudolph. And I'm Emily Morris. We're happy to have you back in season four, episode twenty four. Uh, we're coming up to the holiday season, fastly approaching. It's already, Almost Thanksgiving. It's crazy. And Thanksgiving [00:01:00] is late this year, which makes it actually even crazier that it's still almost Thanksgiving.
Still almost there. Still almost there, and then right around the corner, it'll be Christmas. Um, we're happy for you to be joining us today. We're gonna start this episode with a little notice of the next episode, 25, will be a throwback to Thanksgiving. To one of our all timers on how to thrive during the holidays, something like that, right?
I believe that's almost the exact title. Yeah. If not, you'll see it next week when it releases. See it next week. But just sort of something to look forward to. It's all the tips, tricks, strategies, and even some tactics to help you get through the holidays and stay on track with your goals. But more so, not to lose track of yourself.
So make sure you're ready for that one next week, which then allows this week to be a very good segue into that next week's episode, because we're talking all about intention, right? And as we dive into intention, [00:02:00] it's one of those things that seems very vague or can be very vague and broad, and it can apply to many different things.
Um, in this case. We are going to center mostly around the intention behind training from a training side of things but you can also take some of this that we'll talk about today and apply it to Nutrition apply it to life apply it to anything that you're pursuing really throughout So it doesn't always have to be in the gym as a workout, even though that's where Our discussion will largely center today.
So as we dive in, I think one of the best ways to start to define intention is we were talking pre show is just the simple question of how are you showing up? For the workout at hand, right? What are what [00:03:00] are you bringing that day? How are you presenting? What is in your mind? What is that intention or goal behind each day and starting to peel back the layers there?
How am I showing up being that base layer, that initial question that must be answered, if you will. Such a good question, isn't it huge. And if people take a moment to be intentional about just asking themselves that they can realize if they're being, uh, like, over reactionary to something or if their energy, you know, where your energy goes or what is what.
We had an episode on this, uh, where your mind goes, where your mind goes, your, your energy flows, right? So if you're thinking about something else, like of course your energy's gonna flow there. So if you're showing up, and we'll give you some different examples here, listeners, in a, in a moment. But if someone shows up, uh, if, if someone shows up and, and they're [00:04:00] intentional about showing up to the best version of themself or, um.
you know, making sure that they're, they're showing up for, uh, the best version that they're going to become right there. They're, they're essentially being open, uh, intentional about that. There's a ton of abundance beyond that to help the person go through and do their thing. And it's huge, right? Like that, that abundance that allows people to show up to do the thing that they want to do.
And even just the self reflection. that can come with answering that question, taking the time to really sit down and think about how you are in the position you are right in that very moment. This isn't necessarily like a macro level, but how did you sleep the night before? How has your nutrition been?
What has your mind been focused on? Are there things outside of your control that are dwelling in your mind? [00:05:00] can all start to paint the picture of what you're bringing in to a session or in to a workout. That in turn, what you're bringing in can yield huge results or have a huge impact on the outcome of that workout.
So whatever we're bringing into the workout starts to impact the workout itself. And then, We can also then have the power to change what we are bringing in to, right? If we're noticing that we're high stress, we have some family stuff going on, but we know we have to show up to the gym. It's just another thing on our checklist.
We're just kind of mindlessly going through the motions. That's going to give us a specific output from that workout versus if we're intentional and we recognize, Hey, I know I have a lot going on. I'm stepping into the gym. I know I'm a little bit more stressed than usual. Okay, maybe what has to change right now in [00:06:00] order for me to think on and to really get the benefit out towards my overarching bigger goals.
Do I need to take a minute? Do I need to go extra deep breathing in the beginning? Do I need to adjust a load that I'm using? So recognizing and starting to answer that question can put the power back in our hands to start to adapt and change our intention and change our approach into the workout.
Instead of letting it just run the workout itself and letting that spiral continue, especially if it's a spiral that's continuing, in a way that we don't want it to as well. I think it's easy, easy for people to show up and just go through the motions, right? And they just continue to go through the motions and they They've probably had some sort of success in that, in their life, uh, or enough to at least have them believe that they can continue to show up like that.
Um, and through your health and fitness, there's, that'll only get you so far. And if you're okay with that, then be okay with that. [00:07:00] But if you're not okay with that, if you want more out of your, your training sessions or how you're, going to a restaurant or how you're working on getting steps in and making sure your body's staying mobile, limber, recovering the right way, then be a little bit agitated enough by it to show up differently.
And I, when we were saying, talking in the pre show, um, you know, in our discussion about letting, letting intention be your guide, I did a presentation, um, Um, over at a franchise bootcamp here, I don't know, two months ago, a month and a half ago, whatever it was. And one of their, one of their slogans that they have, at least on that wall.
So I'm assuming it's in most of them is you showed up now show up. And I was like, Ooh, like I read that right when I came in the door that I walked around and looked, I'm like, Oh, you can put your stuff here. And I look over and I'm looking around the room just to kind of checking things out as they're cleaning it for my presentation started.
And I was like, Oh, I really like that. Right. [00:08:00] So, um, Make sure that we're not getting any type of trademark stuff. It's burn boot camp so they said it and my thing that I've always said like I I've always said be where your feet are or if you're here be here like be present and If you're coming in and and you're stressed and you show up for a workout stressed Everybody feels it.
Yeah, you don't have to be an empath. Everybody can tell when you're stressed Right everybody can tell if you're a little off So then you just bring the room down with you and if that's what you want then just know that you were showing up in that exact same way and maybe you show up that way and you and you came into the gym and If it's somebody like that that shows up here, we're grateful to have them but our goal is to make sure that we're checking in on that person and making sure that they're okay and we Like to practice good vibes only here, right?
So we hope that the the energy from the coach From the other people [00:09:00] from the experience from the from from being inside these doors here at unity Will uplift that person and a lot of times we also have to take the the acknowledgement of I know that person's stressed. They still chose to show up We are lucky to have them here today and they're coming here because it gives them the time to de stress But what i'm getting to here is make sure that you're intentional about letting that time de stress you That's not the time to unload everything for 15 minutes on the person next to you And then continue that conversation for 30 minutes during your workout.
Be intentional about letting that, whatever you gotta get off your chest, get off your chest. But then just be here. Be where your feet are. Be intentional. Show up, because you showed up. And, and go through it. And I think you were, just a moment ago, just for those of you that didn't catch it, I stepped away from the mic for a minute.
Um, but you were probably giving them different examples. Uh, so yeah, we, more about, we were talking about kind of diving into the workout and not letting [00:10:00] it completely derail the workout, right? So we can certainly dive in to some specific examples there, absolutely. We've talked, we've talked even, even prior to getting into those, we've talked several times on episodes throughout these hundred plus episodes that we've done.
Environment is an 80 percent role, right? Something along those lines, 80 percent or more dictating your decisions and how essentially you're making decisions and who you are right now. Um, if you change the environment, you're most likely going to change how you're feeling. There's obviously a lot of stuff.
There's baggage that you can take with you, but I like to think of it as the dojo, right? If you go somewhere, like if you have a specific spot of your house, or if you go to a specific place. Like a gym, for an example. When you step inside these walls, it's a different world in here. You don't have to bring whatever is going on outside the world into this.
I think that's the key, right? Like, you don't have to. You have the [00:11:00] choice to do so or not. And when we can step back and recognize that we in fact do have that choice, not only here, like stepping into the gym, but perhaps that's the choice to not bring Work stress and, you know, struggles home to your spouse or your family.
Maybe that's the choice to Not just complain to your co workers when you go into the gym about a family thing at home, right? Everything becomes an intentional choice and we have the opportunity to choose one or choose the other Depending on what we want for the end goal for the greater greater purpose, the greater, the greater good, if you will, of ourselves, right?
Like I was trying to come up with another way to say it, but really it is right. Because if we can choose. We'll use our gym example if we can choose to let the workout be a de stressor, if we can choose to let that 30 minutes, 45 minutes, [00:12:00] hour in the gym be the getaway to just take time for ourselves, how much more refreshed can we be then stepping out of the gym?
How much more of, again for lack of a better word, attitude adjustment can we have during that time as long as we're intentional about it and we're not letting it just continue to feed into the problem? Right? Like we as coaches can help and certainly that is our goal to make sure everyone's feeling better when they leave than when they come in.
But a big part of that can be changed the instant you walk out the door and start complaining yourself on the way to the car. Right? If you're going to undo everything that was just done over the last hour. So there is a lot of that, or at least a large part of that, that is personal that you can take ownership over and have the control over as well.
Yeah. again, if you don't have a coach listening to this, maybe you're not a member at unity, um, there's, there's that piece of it as well, where it is [00:13:00] personal presence and ownership are key characteristics of taking intention or being intentional and those things should show up. And, and, and again, it just comes back to the question of how are you showing up and, and are you showing up the way you want to, are you showing up the way that.
If you are watching yourself in third person, that you would want to show up in that circumstance. If you were, if your friend showed up like that for you, or if your parent or your spouse, significant other, whatever it was, showed up like that for you. Would you be proud? Would you be happy? Would you be upset?
Would you be angry? Would you be disappointed? So, you can ask those questions and there's not a wrong answer in that. Those are all emotions. We can feel them however you want to. but if you want to show up and be inspiring to somebody, if you want to show up to be uplifting, if you want to show up to feel better, that intentional part of it is a huge role.
If you are in injury or in pain or have an injury, how you show up for a workout [00:14:00] is then you working on yourself to get out of pain and get out of injury. But if you're going to come in and let pain essentially dictate and continue to dictate, And, and, and it's easy to do because when we're in pain or we are injured, it, it, this is how it consumes our lives.
It takes over our lives. It literally, literally consumes us and it's draining mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. We understand it. We understand it because we work with these people intentionally working with these people. By the way, we 100 percent intentionally sought out working for people in our demographic community.
In our industry, this is usually where people shy away from it. Most of the fitness industry runs, most of the health care can't help. They'll just say, do a surgery, take more pills, but they're not actually providing a solution. We are choosing the harder path to do that intentionally. So we show up every day knowing that that's our mission and that's what we're after to help people get to that point.
But going back to this [00:15:00] part of it, if you were injured, pain, if you're stressed, if you're super happy, you can show up intentionally, but it's still going back to the point of you have to almost check yourself before you get too far ahead. And the cool part about this is you'll get more value out of every single thing that you do as you show up for that, whether it's a workout or not.
I know we're talking about workouts in particular on here, but the value that you receive and the value that you give is, um, Exponentially higher than what you can ever expect because you're doing that without expectation. You're showing up just to be there and be present. There is no expectation for it.
So I think that's the other part about intentional. Like we're talking about characteristics like it's ownership. It's, uh, you know, I don't want to say Expectation less, but I think there's a big part of that to doing it and you just let your conscience be your guide through that Because you're living through intention [00:16:00] Well, I think there's that element of as well comes to mind like when you're talking about that of just enjoying the process of it Right, like we know the end outcome is there but there's also joy and Gratitude and excitement all found along the way.
So when we can kind of reset our intention and reset how we show up to enjoy that process to be, you know, a learner looking for ways to improve throughout, we start to kind of engage with the process itself and the workout itself. And that, like you were saying, bleeds over outside of workouts as well.
But when we can do that, it opens up a whole new realm. We don't feel tied to only that end result. And if that end result didn't happen that day, we're constantly down on ourselves or wondering if this is right or any, any kind of thing that might lead us astray thought that might lead us astray. But when we know the intention is like you were saying to get out of pain [00:17:00] or maybe it's preventing injury, maybe it's just being a better human for those around you, right?
Like this can span all different. But when we can have that end goal in mind, but still move forward and enjoy the process along the way, that can really, really open up and unlock some areas in which intention can dig a little bit deeper, right? Instead of just staying at that surface level. Yeah, it goes, it goes a long way.
I was thinking, as you were talking there, I don't know what triggered my brain into thinking operating without intention. Yeah. Maybe we touch on that a little bit, just because my brain went to, has there ever been times where you regretted something, like anything? Me? Yeah. I mean, I don't, I can't really think of one to be fair.
Like, like in playing sports or you chose the red pill instead of the blue pill. Did you regret that? Not really. It's a Matrix [00:18:00] reference. Yeah. More movies that I don't. And all the references, too. Uh, I mean, not really. Like, I think everything, at least for, for me, everything that I've done or chosen to do has always led me to a lesson or something to learn from or something that I can use in the future.
Right? I think if someone's not operating with intention at, like, at a highest level or at a consistent or maybe, like, let's say consistent level, I think it's going to be helpful. They have more regret. Oh, if I would have just showed up to do those workouts and do my ramp, like work on my mobility, like I was supposed to, I could have avoided this all along.
Oh, if I would have been more aware of my posture, intentional, my posture, sitting at my desk, or if I didn't paint something for seven hours with one arm above my head, and there could have been more intentional about taking rest, taking breaks, using your upper hand, maybe using a roller, maybe hiring somebody out.
But anyways, [00:19:00] I feel like regret shows up more when we're not living with intention. Well, my mind goes to what if, right? We start asking ourselves the question, what if? I could have prevented it. What if things were different, right? Whereas intention allows us to take the action to ensure it's no longer wandering.
Like I'm thinking like in numerous circumstances from my side, particularly with sports, right? We can even say golf for a relevant example. If I didn't win the tournament, did I show up as my best self? Was I all there? Did I put in the work prior to that to be in a place, in a position to win? Um, or was it just one of those days where somebody else had just a better day?
And sometimes that's going to happen. Sometimes that's the other team, the opposition, whatever it is, is just going to have a better day than you. But if we showed up with intention, there's, there's a lesson there. There's something [00:20:00] to learn from, like you were saying. If we're not showing up with intention, if we didn't show up with intention as often as we should, as much as we should, whatever it was, I feel like that's where regret comes in.
Not a lesson, but regret. Yeah. And we sit on that. I could see that, right? And then we start to stew, we start to then. Potentially think about more of the times that we've regretted other things and just starts that again continuous spiral like we start to put ourselves in that victim place of everything happening to us instead of for us, right?
Things start happening to us. We have no control over it versus for us. We have the opportunity, it then becomes something that we have the ability to impact, the ability to change, or redirect. We start to have that ownership come back, and that intention starts to come back. Yeah, I think you and I have been more, I would say over the last year to two years, have been way more focused on intentional.
No, um, I can't, we had [00:21:00] like a one liner for it, I can't remember what it was, but it was something like, um, Everything we do. Is, is like why we do, or everything we do has a reason. There's nothing, there's nothing for random, nothing for chance, like we, we are intentional. There's, there's like a one liner that I know I've written down a few times.
Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah. Probably talked about it on the show. I, I'm sure. But there, there's that one liner. And we remember what it is, we'll put it in the show notes. But it's, it's coming back to that and, and like everything we do has a purpose. Everything, everything we do has full effort and full presence.
And making time for all of that. Again, sometimes it's freeing up your schedule so you can do it. But the big part of what we even wanted to talk about this today is to help you get through the holidays coming up. Like, have intention. Like, we know you're going to be a little more stressed. We know you're going to be a little more strapped for time.
We know that there's going to be more demands and there's more exposure to the bad things in terms of alcohol, candy, sugar, [00:22:00] bad food, parties. X, Y, Z. We know all those things are coming, but if you can go through that with the intention that this isn't gonna kill me, this isn't gonna hurt me, but also having a plan in place for each event, each moment, whatever it is, and have the intention that you're gonna come out better on the other side and go through all this holiday season, then you will.
But if you let it all just be the chance and just roll with the punches, which you can certainly do, we don't want to be talking to you on January 2nd and having you have regret on this. Like, Mhm. There is no right or wrong. There just is when you go through intention. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's just how you've chosen to the it's all in your hands.
100%. And it doesn't matter if you're showing up for fat loss, getting out of pain, if you're just coming in to get a really good workout in that day because you've like got a lot going on and you want to make sure it's just an hour that you can get focused, focus on you and have somebody else help you through it.
Be around the good people. Um, any, any goal, any goal, anything at all. If [00:23:00] even if it's just a day where you just want to get mobile and flexible, just coming in and having intention to do that, it'll change your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that about wraps it up. As always, thank you guys so much for listening to this week's episode of the OOFDA podcast.
Share this with someone who you think will find it valuable. Leave us a rating, a review, subscribe, download all the things that help us to grow organically, and we'll catch you in the next episode. Bye, everybody. Thanks, everyone.
