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Deal with it. We must get uncomfortable if we want to see greatness in our lives. Here's my tips on getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

The beginning of the week, the month, the quarter or the year are all great times to stop and reflect on your goals and your progress. Here's a couple tips I thought you'd find helpful.

I was never a great student in high school and let's just say I didn't go to college to "play school" (I played football on a scholarship). Assignments/homework have never been my thing. I would always get them done at the last minute (or late) and my grades suffered and so did my opportunities because of my lack of timeliness. Completing them was not a matter of ability. I could do them but they just weren't a priority. I didn't see the value in them and I didn't have people in my life who were able to coach me on their importance because I wasn't listening.

In life you have regular assignments and opportunities to learn recommended every day that can help you prosper and succeed at achieving your goals. You may not always agree with them or see the value in them but the truth is success is not a mystery. Personal and professional growth works for those who "work" it. I've seen this first hand as I've learned the value of education and learning. I've learned the more you become the more you can achieve. If you grow 10% as a person/leader you can double the quality of your health, value in the marketplace and your income in 7.2 years or LESS (using the rule of 72)!

You're an adult now so you can choose to not do the work in a timely manner, turn it in late or ignore it altogether. Life is a self study program now. There is not a "No adult left behind program" for those who want a healthier, happier and more fulfilled life. The ball is in your court with optional coaching and mentorship. It's your life and opportunity. However, know this, your health and life success will be affected by your choices to grow, learn and act or your choices to stay the same and procrastinate. If you wish to be healthy, wealthy and wise, choose to learn, grow and act. Do the do even when it's not comfortable. I promise you that you will thank me for this reminder in a matter of days or months!

Studies show you become like the five people you spend the most time with.  The power of association is too strong to ignore on your journey to the top of Extraordinary Health Mountain. If you want to achieve your health goals, you’ll need to spend time with others who value the same goals.

Who are the five people you spend the most time with?  Whether you realize it or not, they are influencing your health decisions.  Do those 5 people live a healthier or unhealthier lifestyle than you?  Do the things you do together help move you closer to the top of Extraordinary Health Mountain or further away from it?

To improve the number of your healthy relationships, you don’t have to eliminate friends and family from your inner circle. Simply  identify people you may already have in your life who value healthy choices and become intentional about building relationships with them.  Engage them in conversations regarding health goals.  If you share your goals and updates to your progress, others will most likely share theirs. This allows you to begin a formal or informal accountability partnership.

You can also become intentional making sure the positive health influences outweigh the negative ones by about surrounding yourself with them in online health discussion boards, formal support groups or health education classes, and partnering with a personal health coach, trainer, or mentor.  

A good coach often makes the difference between an athlete winning or losing.  The same principle applies to our health.  Having a good coach can mean the difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary one.

Most people are resistant to change, not because they don’t want better, but because it is not comfortable to change.  It is easy to get cozy inside the Comfort Cave.  A coach can help a person to break out of their cave and move towards excellence.  They do this by helping us see beyond the comfort to the benefits of fulfilling our dreams.  By reminding us of our dreams and what we truly want, they offer us accountability and perspective.  We all face distractions that tempt us to stay comfortable, but by reminding us of our dreams, they help us refocus on what is really important.  When we stay focused on what we want, we can’t help but move towards it, which gives us direction in our actions.  Coaches move us toward an extraordinary life by offering accountability, perspective, focus, and direction.    

Often we think of a coach as a person who works face-to-face to teach or inspire an individual or team toward a championship. This is just one example of coaching. Coaching can come in a variety of forms including:

• Personal or professional growth books, DVDs, or audio programs
• Interactive websites, podcasts, blogs, or other virtual resources
• Live training courses or workshops
• Mentor or accountability partner
• Mastermind group of individuals who challenge one another
• Personal coach who works with you one-on-one

I hope you found this list helpful and wish you the best in success and optimal health in the days, weeks, months and year to come! For more tips, please visit www.eHealthCoaching.com.

You, as an individual, are completely responsible for your own choices, but making the healthy choice is far easier if the people around you are doing the same. Surrounding yourself with people working toward similar goals takes your Stone Age programming and leverages it in your favor. You build each other up, and you help to move each other forward.

Building your health bubble from your family outward can have a profound impact on you and the people that you love, but getting that bubble started can be challenged. Here are five tips to get you started:

1. Find each other’s unique motivations. Your interest in health may not be driven by the same goal as your spouse’s, and that’s okay. Perhaps you want to be more active, and he or she wants to look better in a suit. Talking about your goals ahead of time can make it easier to coach and support each other down the road.
2. Take small steps. Tackle your changing routine one piece at a time. Trying to upend your entire life in one day leads to yo-yo-ing. If you can agree to each start taking the stairs and going for a walk after work together, you are making valuable progress that you can build upon.
3. Be forgiving and supportive. Everyone makes mistakes on the road to Optimal Health. Try to avoid shaming each other and to instead focus on learning from the misstep to prevent it from happening in the future. Identify the source of the problem and discuss strategies for overcoming it.
4. Hold each other accountable. You can still be supportive while also keeping each other accountable. Checking in with each other throughout the day with an encouraging word is a good place to start, and scheduling time to exercise together can keep you on track even on the days that you feel like quitting.
5. Find a larger community to join. As you build your health bubble at home, look for opportunities to expand it beyond your family to a larger support network. Working with a health coach can help you do this. You could also join a pick-up basketball league or a yoga class to surround yourself with other people passionate about health.

If you take the time to build your health bubble, you can discover a new shared passion with the people you care about, and you can set yourself with a support network geared toward success. See more health tips at www.eHealthCoaching.com.

The word “coach” comes from a town called Kocs in Hungary.  Back in 1556 the people of Kocs began to make large carriages that would take people from wherever they were to where they wanted to be.  This large carriage was the beginning of what we know as the stagecoach.  

A personal coach is similar to a stagecoach.  The primary aim of the coach is to help the leader get from where they are to wherever they want to be.  Helping the leader make this trip successfully is the only agenda of the coach and their success depends on their ability to close this gap.

Without a coach in one’s life, leaders can experience:

•         Lack of Accountability
•         Lack of Focus
•         Lack of Direction
•         Lack of Perspective
•         Lack of Systems
•         Lack of Balance

These symptoms can often lead to an ordinary life producing ordinary results in the life and work of a leader.  Complacency in a leader’s life can also set in after a certain level of success has been accomplished because of a general resistance to change.  This leads to the leader never breaking out of the successes of yesterday.

A coach can help challenge a leader to break out of this rut by bringing their dream(s) back to them and holding them in front of them.  Leaders are constantly challenged by the elements around them and it becomes tiring to continue to climb the mountain of success.  Extraordinary coaches understand this and know where to go to help the leader dig deep within to bring out the courage to continue to journey to excellence.

Often, we think of a coach as the person who works face-to-face to inspire an individual or team to win a championship. This is just one example of coaching. Coaching can come in a variety of forms, including:

o        A personal or professional growth book, DVD or audio program

o        Interactive websites, podcasts, blogs or other virtual resources

o        Live training courses or workshops

o        A mentor or accountability partner

o        A mastermind group of individuals who challenge one another

o        A personal coach who works with you one-on-one

To live an extraordinary life, we all need some form of coaching to go beyond what’s usual, regular and customary in our lives. Coaches give us the EXTRA edge we need to make our lives “exceptional to a marked extent.” Resolve to find a coach and/or the coaching resources that will take you to the next level!

Extraordinary athletes have coaches to help them get extraordinary results. Leaders who want to achieve their goals and go beyond what is usual, regular and customary in their lives also need coaches who can take them farther than they can take themselves.

Why is having a coach so important?  

Stephen Covey, a New York Times Best Selling Author says “Accountability breeds response-ability.”

A coach brings some critical pieces to the success puzzle you won’t find anywhere else:

• strategic perspective, insights and knowledge different from your own
• resources, tools and tactics to help one accomplish the mission in less time with less effort and mistakes
• accountability, motivation and encouragement to help us go beyond what is comfortable

Once someone has reached the peak of success with the help of a coach, you will find that person rarely takes on a major project, dream or mission without one ever again. Invest in your success. Find a coach and listen to them.

Looking for a personal health coach to help you take your game to the next level? Visit www.eHealthCoaching.com.

“Laughter is the best medicine.” You’ve probably heard that saying, heard it so many times that you don’t pay much attention to it anymore. But you should pay attention! Recent research has proved that laughter really can have a direct effect on your health and wellbeing. Researchers found that “experiencing joyful laughter reduces stress hormones, lowers blood pressure, and elevates a person’s mood.”

In this study, researchers separated participants into two groups. One group watched funny videos prior to a memory test while the other group did not. The funny-video group went on to perform better on short-term memory tests, a finding that added to the already sizable amount of research that links laughter to health benefits.

“When there is mirthful laughter,” said Lee Berk, the head of the study, “it’s as if the brain gets a workout because the gamma wave band is in sync with multiple other areas of the brain that are in the same 30-40 hertz frequency. This allows for thinking more clearly and having more integrative thoughts.” If we think of laughter as exercise, as Berk suggests, its ability to reduce stress becomes even more apparent. In fact, laughter has even been linked to heart health. So, what makes you laugh? Who makes you laugh? We all need to laugh more. Go out and find what makes you giggle today!

Let’s take a little quiz about sleep today. Do you (mark all that apply):

• Wake up tired in the morning?

• Need a nap in the afternoon?

• Fall asleep watching TV?

• Have frequent small accidents at home, or large ones on the road?

• Have trouble focusing on the job?

• Find yourself sleepy after lunch?

• Have trouble figuring the correct change from a purchase?

• Feel irritable or depressed most of the time?

• Feel like you’re not getting anything done?

• Drink alcohol to get to sleep?

• Drink several cups of coffee or energy drinks to stay awake?

• Have difficulty falling asleep?

• Have difficulty staying asleep?

If you answered “yes” to more than three of these questions, you’re probably not getting the kind of sleep you need to support health. Sleep is one of the most overlooked aspects of health in our society today. I encourage you to make more time for it in your life. So, today, I want you to write down a sleep goal to achieve, alongside your other health goals.

Sleep is nature’s nurse. When we ignore the importance of sleep in our health and lives, we can’t fully enjoy the benefits that regular, restful sleep provides. Even one night of inadequate sleep can ruin our mood, impair our judgment and sour our interactions with everyone else.

Sleeplessness can leave you feeling mentally blurry and irritable. Lack of sleep can also disturb appetite regulation, contributing to weight gain and ultimately, the problems associated with obesity. Sleeplessness has also been linked to heart disease, increased inflammation (which can lead to cancer), and a 50 percent increase in your risk of viral infection.

Have a hard time sleeping? Take a close look at your schedule. Could you go to bed earlier, or wake up later? Try to increase the time you devote to sleeping for a week, as an experiment. Giving up the late night TV show you usually watch could have big health benefits. When you go to bed, leave electronic devices by the bedside. Turn off the lights and the technology (except for an alarm clock) and talk to your health coach for more tips to get a good night’s sleep.

Today, we’re going to look at 3 ways to help you achieve your health goals and master the habits of health.

1. Study. Get excited about the new you that’s unfolding, and get busy learning! This includes using online resources, reading magazines, and exploring health resources such as this challenge.

2. Do It. Here’s where the rubber hits the road, folks. Knowledge only goes so far. To make lasting change, you actually have to eat those health foods, not just identify them, and actually give up that dinnertime cup of coffee that’s keeping you awake at night. Health is not a spectator sport. Get out there and do it!

3. Role Models. The people we hold up as role models can have a profound effect on our lives. Here’s a fun exercise: write down the names of your five closest friends. Now, put a plus (+) next to their name if they’re living a healthier lifestyle or a minus (-) if they’re living an unhealthy lifestyle. We become like those people we spend the most time with, so we have a choice to make. We can either choose to spend time with healthy people, or we can inspire those around us to live healthier lifestyles!