“CHOOSE BETTER. DO BETTER. BE BETTER.” Craig Harper


Welcome to the cyber-home of Motivational Speaker, Craig Harper.This site is a constantly updated inspiration, education and motivation station. Unlike other sites, it is a totally free resource. With over a thousand original articles covering a wide range of subject matter (from fitness to philosophy), there’s a mountain of quality information to help you create your best life. Apart from being one of Australia’s leading professional speakers, Craig is also an Exercise Scientist, Media Presenter, Published Author, High Performance Coach and highly sought-after Corporate Coach. He is considered to be a leader in the area of personal development, having worked with hundreds of teams, companies and organisations on numerous continents over the last twenty years.

Going Deeper

Same but Different

I’m not exactly sure why but for some reason, lately I’ve experienced something of a shift in consciousness. And awareness. Again. And yes, I know that might sound a little weird and new-age(y) but it’s just how I’m feeling right now. My reality. Sometimes it seems like I’m looking at old things in new ways and although things are kind-of the same, for me at the moment, they’re also kind-of different. Don’t know where the shift has come from but I’m just going with it.

Have you experienced something similar?

Do you ever find yourself having a particular conversation or doing a certain thing and right there in the middle of that experience you wonder why on earth you’re doing it? Like, what’s the point of this again? In a second, the thing you’re in the middle of shifts from important and serious to… “why does this matter and why are we talking about this?”

I have had a few of those moments lately.

Perspective

The other day I was having a very familiar conversation with someone (similar to thousands of other conversations I’ve had over the years), and in the middle of our not-particularly exciting or important dialogue, I kind of lost interest. Actually, I totally lost interest. And not because I didn’t care about the person but because I didn’t really care about the conversation we were having. Which was, to be honest, somewhat pointless, superficial, self-indulgent crap, which (in my experience) rarely leads to anything significant or positive. For anyone. And coming from a man whose existence was once largely pointless, selfish and superficial, this is quite the acknowledgment. Twenty-two thousand kids die in poverty every day and I’m consoling someone who’s hysterical about gaining a kilo. Good grief.

So there’s this thing called perspective…..

A Moral and Professional Dilemma

As a bloke who owns a gym and is always talking to people about their bodies, I am faced with a constant dilemma: how do I provide people with relevant information, support and encouragement (towards physical health, fitness and function) without perpetuating, re-enforcing or (even) creating unhealthy thinking, behaviours and habits in relation to their bodies? Want it or not, like it or not, the “you are your body” message is an ever-present one in 2013 and as such, many people have their emotional state, identity and self-esteem tied in to, if not, totally determined by, all things physical. On many levels, the prevailing message is…

…appearance matters most.

And what an unhealthy, anxiety-producing, dysfunctional paradigm that is to exist in. Not to mention, exhausting. Nonetheless, it’s where many of us live. It’s little wonder that eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, appetite suppressants (and the like), exercise addiction, anti-aging medicine and a terrifying collection of weird and wacky pills, powders, potions, products and procedures are now common choices and/or consequences.

The other day I read an article about an eight-year old girl battling anorexia who ‘learned’ how to eat by watching her body-obsessed mother. So while her friends are out running, climbing, laughing, playing and dressing up, this eight year-old is counting calories, doing sit-ups when nobody is watching and stressing about her appearance.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Turning the Car Around

Yes, it’s great to be in good shape physically and, of course, we all want to maximise what we have but this ex-bodybuilder and one-time insecure fat kid believes that too many of us are heading down a road of no return. It’s time to hit the brakes, to turn the car around and to start heading towards a new destination. A destination where our body is not ‘who we are’ but rather ‘where we live’. A destination where we value and appreciate the gift that is our body, without obsessing about it. A destination where we love our legs because they work, not because they’re skinny. I’m suggesting that it’s time to look past the abs, the biceps and the collagen-filled lips and to acknowledge where our body finishes and we start.

Think about that.

If you work in the fitness industry (and many of my subscribers do), I have an important message for you… you don’t work with bodies; you work with people who happen to live in bodies. Treat them accordingly. When you’re doing your job, you’re not talking to a hamstring, lung or body-fat percentage; you’re talking to a multi-dimensional (emotional, cerebral, spiritual) being who happens to currently reside in an organic home.

No matter how many pounds we lose, compliments we receive or jean sizes we drop, it will never be enough because insecurity (which is a manifestation of fear and a driver of all these obsessions) is an insatiable, greedy bitch. Try though we might, it’s impossible to resolve emotional issues with physical solutions. And having been the insecure fat kid, the insecure skinny kid and eventually the insecure adult bodybuilder, I should know.

 If what I’ve written today resonates, do something. Nodding your head is not enough. Knowing is not changing. Be courageous. Be honest. Be humble.

 Go deeper.

{9 comments}

Tell Yourself a New Story

Hi. Today, something that will be familiar to some of you (but well worth revisiting). It’s been tweaked and dusted off…

Too Scared to Try

Many people won’t even try because they’re scared of failure.

And because they won’t try, they won’t learn as they could. They won’t grow. They won’t build strength. Or resilience. And they won’t explore their potential. Neither will they develop new skills, insight or understanding. If only they would recognise the value in some occasional failure. If only they would understand that failure is, in fact, a myth. A self-created reality. An experience that we bring to life through our words, thoughts and beliefs. Something that doesn’t exist until we say so.

Just like success, failure is whatever we determine it to be.   

A Story of Two Runners

Kelly completes a 10km Fun Run in fifty minutes. Before the race, she had hoped to finish in less than an hour, so fifty minutes is something of a major triumph for her. She is genuinely happy. Kelly’s friend, Joe, runs the same distance and records the exact same time. However, he wanted to cover the distance in forty-five minutes or less. Consequently, Joe is devastated. He describes his experience as a massive failure and as a result, his psychology and his physiology are both a reflection of his belief; the belief that he has failed. He could have labeled his run many things but he chose ‘failure’.

He labeled it.
He believed it.
He lived it.

Joe was genuinely miserable.

The Power of Labels

He could have called his result a lesson, a surprise, a minor speed hump, an anomaly or simply, an experience. He didn’t. In reality, his misery was not ‘because of’ the run or the time; it was because of him. Specifically, his reaction to, and interpretation of, his result. If the run time (fifty minutes) had caused the subsequent misery then everybody who recorded that time would have ‘failed’ also. Clearly, they didn’t. The time was the trigger (for him) but he was the creator of the misery. The negative reaction.

One result, two very real self-created experiences: misery, joy.

In life, stuff happens and then you and I give those experiences a label. And when we ‘believe’ the label, we create our own personal reality. Good, bad. Hard, easy. Success, failure.

A New Story

But what if we simply chose not to fail? Ever. What if we shifted our paradigm a little to the left? What if we chose to re-frame our picture? To tell ourselves a new story? A better story? A healthier story? What if we removed the word ‘failure’ from our vocabulary and chose to have lessons, opportunities, challenges and experiences instead? Is this possible? What if Joe said “oh well”, shrugged his shoulders and simply let it go, instead of throwing himself into an emotional tailspin? What if failure wasn’t an option for us? What might we try? Do? Create?

And who might we become along the way?

Let’s Consider Babies

When a baby tries to walk but is at the point in their development when they lack the strength, balance and co-ordination to do so, what happens? They fall down. And then they try again. And again. Sometimes they laugh. Or cry. Sometimes, both. And then they keep trying and trying. And laughing and crying. They don’t evaluate or label their experience, they just have it. They haven’t failed; they just haven’t walked yet. Unlike me and you, they don’t label their experiences and they haven’t yet learned the possibility of failure, so they happily keep falling down until one day they take a few wobbly steps. And then a few more. And before long, they’re running. All their trying pays off.

They have fallen but not failed.

So, will you fall down and get up or will you fail?

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