By Becky MacGregor, guest blogger
Most of you may have heard the saying “eyes up rise up”.
Mostly it's for inspiration however it's also a great motto for body position during exercise. I find when your gaze drops during certain exercises so does your posture. Or if you look a certain direction, your body position will skew with that.
Mountain bikers know that when they “pick a line” it needs to be the best route possible. While riding the mountain biker needs to keep his/her gaze on that line – not where they don’t want to go – But where they DO want to go. If you look to where you don’t want to go…guess what? You’ll go there. For mountain bikers that can be disastrous (it can be for us as well).
What you set your eyes and focus on will dictate your route and actions.
If you set your eyes (and focus) on failure, you’ll get failure. If you focus on how you can’t have something…It never fails that it’s the one thing you want most. For example, if you tell yourself you can’t have cake, what do you dwell on? Cake. How you can’t have the most delectable thing in the whole entire universe. Cake; chocolate, rich, creamy, with ice-cream. But NOOOOOOO….you can’t have CAKE. So you start obsessing about what you can’t have and how badly you want it. It occupies a good bit of your brain. All you think of is when you can HAVE THAT CAKE.
You might focus on how you CAN’T DO something. Can’t go to exercise class, can’t get to the gym, can’t take time for a walk, can’t lose the weight. If you think about how busy you are and how you have no time for exercise. Guess What? You will have no time for exercise.
My encouragement to you is to change your gaze. It’s not an equation of can versus can’t or have versus have not…It’s what you gain.
When you exercise regularly you gain strength, energy, stress relief, positive mood and stamina. When you eat well you gain health, energy and a stronger immune system.
So set your eyes ahead (along with your attitude) and it'll help your body, mind and heart stay in the right position.
