No Pain, No Gain?

Pushing your body and mind is very important to building resilience and strength. That said, too often as a society do we push our bodies and mind too high, too frequently, and unnecessarily.

Stress is a very important human biological response important for survival and strength. But, in personal and business life, we have introduced too many false stressors in our days like “I have to get this done”, “what will they think of me”, “I don’t want to fail”, “I’m going to be late”, etc. which is a made up stress yet still has the detrimental affects of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol).

As athletes, we are told to train harder, train through the pain, no pain no gain, etc. I ignorantly fell into this category for many years. Because of an immense passion to educate myself with an open mind, I’ve come to realize there are so many things we can do with our diet, fitness, mindset, and lifestyle choices to reduces the activity in the parts of the brain that trigger stress hormones.

Over the last few years, I have built and continue to work on building up an aerobic heart rate base for optimized oxygen intake and fat oxidation, which reduces excess free-radical damage, inflammation, and oxidative stress. I’ve worked hard to build up, and continue to build, strength, mobility, technique, explosiveness, and recovery while focusing đź’Ż on my nutrition and mindset to eliminate excess stress to my brain and body. Finally, I allow myself to rest when my body tells me it needs it. I’d rather have fewer days at đź’Ż than more days less than my full potential.

Rather than not training, like the old me, or training too frequently when not feeling đź’Ż, I train hard 3 days a week, go all out 1 day a week, have 2 active recovery/aerobic and gymnastic ring days, and take a full day off when need be, while riding 4-5 days a week.

The benefits and improvements I’ve seen with my energy, body composition, strength on and off my bike, mindset, recovery, digestion, and mental focus were in fathomable at the beginning but now I’m a believer. 💚✌️

-Josh P.

Fear Disguised as Practicality

So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m saying, I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it.” -Jim Carey

This resonates with me so much. Although I pursued my dream 100%, I battled with fear and anxiety in regards to not doing what others expected me to do. Although my family and friends supported me every step of the way, I still had that society voice in my head saying it was the wrong path because I chose to drop out of school and get my GED, disregard college because I didn’t believe in it, not have a “grown up job”, actually enjoy what I did/do, and not have any guarantee of a future or stability.

Once I began to foster the belief that my inner being and desires were correct, listen to my intuition, and full heartedly commit to what I love to do and brought me the most joy, the fear, worry, and anxieties all were stripped away. I had/have a desire to accomplish something bigger than the norm and what most believe to not be capable of doing, continue along that path pursuing progressive goals, and help others do the same. I also have begun to understand my purpose for my life and legacy is, for one, much bigger than me and any accomplishment tor success, and two, the driving force behind my motivation to push through hardships, which I have had many along the way.

I share all I share and do all I do because I want you all to believe in yourself, even if you feel you are alone. You are never alone. There are many many of us out there even if some are scared to shine through the void of being heard due to fear of judgment or failure. I was once there but saw so much positivity from owning my reality, sharing it with others, and collaborating with many forms of motivation to get past my fears and do what I wanted and indirectly started to see I was helping others along the way.

The point of this post is to share the fact that if a kid from Cape Cod that comes from no money, no upper hand at life, a rough up brining, and battling death multiple times along the way with only a dream and motivation to pursue that dream can do it, so can all of you. It starts with a belief and manifests with action. I am grateful for my love for BMX and all its shown me in and about life.

-Josh P.

Is Pain & Suffering a “Must” for Life?

According to the actual definition of “pain”,

it’s suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.

 

That being said, the majority of us inflict that said “pain” on our selves by lifestyle choices and or lack of choices, aka mental illness (fear, anxiety, stress, and depression). I don’t believe anyone must choose what “pain” they will HAVE to endure and I don’t believe anyone must suffer against their own will, that is living in a past emotional state and experience, or literally harming yourself on your own terms, which creates illness and or disease.

 

I am not willing to suffer for shit. I am willing to make choices that will lead me to my goals. The cool thing is about most of anyone’s dreams and goals is that they come without illness or injury. MOST, is the key word. For example, my dream that I live today is to be a BMX athlete. An injury does happen because mistakes do happen in life but you move on, assess what went wrong, and learn from it. “Pain” in that sense is temporary unless you let it mentally hold you back later on in life.

 

What drives me is that life could always be worse, I am a living human in America, I want to support others in this world with my experiences that have given me tremendous perspective, and I, just as well all do, have potential to reach any and every one of my goals.

 

Nothing is worth my pain.

Pain is just information to the brain when things are not in balance.

 

I use pain as I use “failure” a lesson to learn what is out of balance and how to progress with my life.

 

-Josh P.

Uninspired “WORK”

We worry & focus on money too much!

Money is just a tool.

It’s important yet has no true value or meaning other than what we instill upon it. 

If you had a million dollars, would you be happy? If it just sat in a room & you couldn’t take it out or “spend” it, would you sill love it so much? Of course not. It’s not the money, it’s what you’d do with it and the emotional response it’d bring with it.

I encourage all of us to focus on the things we enjoy in life, the things we love doing most or would love to do most, and the emotional state it’d bring along with doing these things. Not the money.

When we focus on the things we love, actively pursue those things we love, and create that emotional response and space of the energy we live in, we can then attract the money. It may not show up in the form of a lump sum in your bank account. But, it’ll show up in the form of opportunity.

There is plenty of money out there for us all to live abundant lives. We just much choose to recognize it and believe we are all worthy of receiving it.

Uninspired work to make a dollar doesn’t lead to fulfillment and abundance. It may pay the bills but always have you working to make that money rather than enjoying what you’re doing and contributing to society as your best and happiest version that we all owe the universe and one another.

Wouldn’t you rather be inspired to contribute your talents, passions, skills, help, love, etc. to the world and show up happy and motivated every day? Or would you rather wake up dreading your daily tasks and way of providing for yourself, thus keeping you uninspired, unhappy, stressed, and feeling in lack?

I choose inspired work. I choose to work for a purpose I believe in. I choose the belief that I am worthy of abundance and that we all are, and that we all have something unique to contribute. I choose love!

It’s a belief. People are not just rich or poor because that is so. It’s a belief in which they make that a reality or sustain that reality.

We can choose to see the world as it is and be “right” in our claims about why it is so, or we can choose to make a difference in our lives and live an inspired and happy life. It’s a choice. Not a fact.

What do you choose? 💚✌️

 

-Josh P.

Trust The Process

“When we focus on results, we don’t get change.

When we focus on change, we get results”

 

I heard this quote in 2013 by a dietician while enrolled in the Institue for Integrative Nutrition, and it has stuck with me since. I believe in it so much that I have aligned my life, goals,  and all my actions around this quote.

 

I must admit, I was skeptical of change providing me the results I desired for a while at first and didn’t want to make some necessary changes I knew I needed to make. My ego stepped in and told me that being settled into what I was familiar with, even though I was not happy, was better than the unknown.

 

I began to put my faith in this quote once I started to make some much needed and long overdue changes in my life. Whether they were difficult or easy, I started to see the small changes take place in my life and then the results followed. It was enough to make me a believer and since fully believing, I see so much progression in terms of results.

 

I noticed along the way that when I get cocky and comfortable with my ways, I begin to get anxious and stressed out. My mind and body don’t like to be stagnant, and goals don’t like this either. I am a big lover of discipline and my routines, but I know full heartedly now that change is inevitable and the more we fight change, the more tension and resistance we create along the path to achieving the results we want.

 

Once I get back to implementing change into my routine while still fostering discipline,  the stress, fear, and anxieties disappear.

 

If we are only interested in results, we defeat the purpose. The process is the purpose. There is no destination. We are always evolving, internally and externally, and must embrace the journey because, at the end of the day, the journey is, in fact, the “destination”.

💚✌️

 

-Josh P.