Living in the Moment - Ep.24

Living in the moment - Ep. 24

[00:00:16] Intro

Hey guys. Welcome to Growth on the Daily, the personal development podcast for athletes. This is a podcast where we help athletes overcome the challenges we face on the daily. My name is Rey, and I'm your host. I'm a former competitive hockey player. I am passionate about self-growth, and I'm here to help you on your journey to becoming the best version of you.

Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in to today's episode. I'm so excited to talk about everything mindfulness for you guys. So, hope you guys are excited too. Before we dive in, I would love if you guys could head over to Apple Podcasts. Hopefully, that's where you're listening to this podcast now, and just press pause and leave us a five-star rating and review. That is how we grow the show and grow the growth on the daily community. Alright, let's dive into the episode.

[00:01:04] What is mindfulness?

So, what does it actually mean to be mindful, right? I know we hear all the time mindfulness and how it's important and how, especially with our generation, that that's something that we need to be more in tune with.

But there's a lot of just media and presence around it that I think the messaging actually gets lost. So being mindful to me, honestly just comes down to one thing, being present in the moment. And the reason that's important, at least to me, is because I like to think of being present in the moment so that you don't let your life pass you by.

You know, oftentimes when I think about it, we hear things like, YOLO, You Only Live Once. And I think there's an idea towards that that's related to mindfulness and it's more about, although, you know, we work hard and we, we prepare for our future, and that's definitely important. There's also an aspect for living for today because you know, life's short. And that also comes back to being mindful.

So, when I think about mind mindfulness, the one thing I would really focus on is how can you enhance your current experiences, right? Look at your life and ask yourself, are you just there in the background or are you surface level with your experiences?

So, you know, with work, like you're going to meetings, you're contributing when you have to, but you don't feel yourself having that impact with sport, you're showing up to practice and to training, but you know, you're kind of just checking off the boxes.

How are you with your friends? Are you present in their lives? Or it's just like, oh, it's someone's birthday, we got to go catch up. So, things to think about. One thing that I've learned from mindfulness is it's bettered all of my relationships, including the one with myself. And it's bettered my experiences.

So, I really wanted to talk about mindfulness and hopefully this can be an episode where it can help you guys overcome any challenges you have with enjoying your life experiences.

[00:03:01] The Impact of Mindfulness on Athletic Performance

So, let's talk about now how mindfulness impacts athletic performance. As athletes, the great part about being a mindful athlete is that you are more in tune with your mind and your body, and that's extremely important.

One. On a physical side, it helps you recognize injury or when something is off with your body, so you might not be able to perform your best or on the other side you are a hundred percent ready. You feel good, you feel ready to perform. That's a great part on the physical aspect. The mind aspect. You can understand and recognize when you feel stressed, when you feel, feel overwhelmed, or even fearful.

And the benefit of being so in tuned with your mind and your body is that it allows you to then look at your environment and say, hey, what is working and what isn't working? And then you can make those appropriate adjustments, right? So, if you recognize, you know what I'm super stressed out right now. What do I need to get over the stress and to mitigate it.

It might be surrounding yourself with people that you love. It might be having a lighter training schedule, getting more rest, doing something you love and taking a break, whatever that looks like for you. But it's important that you're in tune with your body because that directly impacts your athletic performance.

Another aspect of this is actually related to emotions. When you're mindful and you're in tune with who you are, you know how you feel about things. And it's really good because I think we live in a period where it's really common to just go with the flow instead of acting based on intention and curiosity.

And not that there's anything wrong with going with the flow, some of the time, but the danger lies and when you do that all the time because the way I think about life is that you should really be going after your experiences based on what you want, because it's your life.

And so, if you can navigate how you feel about things, you're able to point yourself in the direction that's best for you. And that might be, you know, choosing path A over path B, even though you might have been a long path. B, the whole time.

The danger with this is people get into the mindset, and I, I'm speaking from personal experience here, is that you might get into the mindset where you feel that since you've been on one path for so long, or you've been hanging out with the same people for so long, or you've been training on the same team or the same way for so long that it's like you're giving up or you're throwing something aside, but actually being mindful enough to recognize, hey, this isn't for me anymore, it's time to make a new step in a different direction.

That is ultimately not only going to make you better as an individual and make you happier with your circumstance, but it's actually allowing you to grow as a human being because it is so difficult to do the things that we're fearful of or that we're challenged by, or that we secretly wish we were doing. So, when you're able to actually actively make that conscious decision and recognize that, hey, I need to do what's best for me, you've now grown as a person.

I would say another benefit that I don't even think this is limited to athletes. I think this goes to everyone. Mindfulness also builds focus. So, if you find yourself distracted or just constantly thinking, first of all, that's how I would describe myself.

I have a brain that doesn't stop. When I'm sleeping, I can feel myself thinking about what I have to do the next day or like how my day went before. I also find myself like always checking my phone for no reason. Like I don't need to check an app, but just check my phone, like to make sure that.

I actually don't know what that's about, but probably to check if like I'm missing something or I'm supposed to do something. I also find myself forgetful. And so, all of these combination of things just sounds like a mess, right? And that's actually why I ended up starting to be more intentional about being mindful.

And it has helped me immensely with building focus and just picking one thing at a time to do. You're still going to do the rest in time, but just focus on that one thing in time, do it 110% and move on.

[00:07:28] Journaling for Mindfulness

And how I actually went about doing this is actually journaling. Journaling is something guys that I've had a hit and miss relationship with over the years.

I'm one of those people that have accumulated one or two journals a year and have started them. I've never finished them or never really got into them or used them for a bit, and then on and off kind of relationship. But I think I'm starting to navigate, I'm not there yet, but I'm navigating where journaling fits in my mindfulness journey and into my life.

So, I mentioned that I'm very distracted all the time and maybe you might find yourself like that as well. Journaling has helped me just channel everything in my head. Put it on a paper so it no longer needs to live in my brain. And my brain not only just calms down, but it lets me focus on what I'm doing in the moment, hence being more present and enhancing my life experiences.

So how do I actually journal and how would I recommend you guys do that for athletic performance? Honestly, first of all, take the pressure off. There's a lot of like bullet journaling and creativity and all that stuff that you can do with journaling, and I think that stuff is absolutely amazing. I wish I had that artistic ability. I do not.

So, I don't journal for perfectionism. I journal for mental health, clarity and mindfulness. What does that look like? That looks like when I have a lot on my mind, I reflect on my experiences. And it's not necessarily like, dear diary, I did X, Y, Z today. But it's more of like what's on my mind.

Like I notice I'm feeling stressed, like what are the things that I'm stressed about? Like where is this coming from? And trying to understand and uncover that root cause so that I can then, you know, look at my life and say, okay, this is where I need to make a change.

It doesn't necessarily have to be something negative. It could be what's going really well in my life right now. Like, I'm feeling great, like what did I do today that makes me feel so great and let's like do that tomorrow. Let's see how I can incorporate that more often in my life. So, reflecting on your experiences, and I'm not someone that, that would say that, oh, you need to write a couple pages.

You need, just write what you want to write. If it can be one sentence, it could be a couple. You know, it could be a couple pages, whatever. Write to your heart's content. Just write, and don't worry about perfectionism. Like don't worry about any of that.

The one thing I will say is don't just write in your journal. Read it over after you've written it. And the reason I say that is because I used to journal in a way that I would, you know, it's, it's kind of like a trashcan. I'd throw everything in the trash, throw everything in the journal, never look at it again. And I realized that, that would let me. The negative behaviors and circumstances that I found myself in.

But when I read it over again, I'd recognize and sort of connect those dots and say, hey, okay, this is where I need to make some changes, and this is where I can improve. So, it's really good for just self-growth and just being intuitive with yourself Another way I use journaling is also for dreaming, ideation and goal setting.

So, I don't do anything super formal. I know I have a ton of episodes on goal setting and, you know, perfectionism and smart goals and blog posts as well, and those resources are there for you. Just head to growthonthedaily.com. Check those all out. The repository is there, but let's just talk about when you immediately just think of, oh, what if I could do this?

Or wouldn’t it be amazing if I did this, or, this would be awesome if I did this. That's what I mean by putting in your journal. It's just those little sparks that interest you and come up to you because when you're looking for sort of inspiration or creativity, that's where you go back to and look for your next steps of, okay, you know what?

Let's actually try starting a podcast, let's try trying out for this new team. Whatever it is that, you know, sparks your interest in creativity, throw that in the journal. It's a great place to just, you know, let your mind have fun, is the best way I could put it.

And then the final thing I would say, and this goes really back to the mental health aspect, is express yourself. Use your journal to express yourself. When I say express yourself, I mean everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. The good could be, you know, things you're grateful for, what's going well for you.

The bad can just be any negative thoughts. We talked about negative self-talk in the previous episodes. That's a good way to put that negative self-talk, put that onto paper. And really bring it into existence to under to recognize that this negative self to does not belong in your life. Let it live in the pages.

And then the ugly, anything that's really anything, who knows what that's look like. Maybe you're dealing with some relationship issues whether that's friends, families, work, significant others. Throw that in there if you like.

The point is express yourself, because when you hold that stuff in, not only are you more likely to project that onto other people and in other ways, but you're also going to find yourself falling further and sinking into a state that can lead you in a place where no one wants to be, that's just anxious, depressed, and just not, not enjoying your life. And we don't want that. So, let's make sure we're using journaling in a way to enhance our life and to allow us to be mi more mindful.

[00:12:51] Key Takeaways

 So, to wrap up this episode, let me just sum up the key points here. So, being mindful is all about being present in the moment and not letting life pass you by so that you can enhance your life experiences.

Mindfulness directly impacts athletic performance. It makes you more in tune with your mind and body. It helps you navigate your emotions, and it builds your focus. And journaling is a tool that you can use to not only enhance your athletic performance, but also become more mindful. And how do you do that?

You can reflect on your experiences, you can dream, ideate, and goal set, and finally, you can express yourself. The good, the bad, the ugly.

[00:13:30] Outro

I want to thank you guys so much for tuning into today's episode. I would love to hear how you guys are being more mindful, if you guys are journalists yourself, and how you find this process. So, DM us @growthonthedaily on Instagram. Would love to hear your thoughts.

And to inspire you guys on your mindfulness journey this week, I have a quote for you that says, today, "I will live in the moment unless the moment is unpleasant, in which case I will have a cookie". I absolutely love this quote because I think it describes me perfectly.

It's me trying to live a glass half full lifestyle and. Really be positive where I can, but honestly, you're still going to have some really crappy days and sometimes you just need a cookie and that's completely okay.

Alright guys, that's all I have for you guys in this episode. This is the Growth on the Daily podcast. The podcast helping athletes overcome the challenges we face on the daily. My name is Rey Lambie, and I am your host. Thank you and see you next week.