It’s all about keeping your goals to yourself.

We’ve all done it and been told by hundreds of guru’s to declare our goals to our friends and get “leverage” on ourselves. Meanwhile this seemingly powerful idea, is preventing you from achieving your goals.

Yes, the problem is, you get the accolades before you’ve actually accomplished the goal and this kills your motivation.

Now imagine how you feel when secretly you know that impressing others with a goal completed is waiting for you in the near future.

How motivated are you?

Very.

See the video below with Derek Sivers.

Now about the only exception I can think of at this time, is this:

You have to tell some people your goals, like your associates and those who have a stake in it. Just don’t tell those people you want to impress. Therein lies your motivation.

It read:

“John,

This story reminds me of our conversation on how “doing nothing” is sometimes the best thing for us…

You may remember the name Alex Tew. He’s was that young, aspiring student that found internet fame in 2005 after making $1m with his ‘Million Dollar Homepage’, set-up to fund his university education. He now hopes his new site will provide an antidote to information overload.

A website that invites users to log on and do nothing has now become a web phenomenon.

The site – donothingfor2minutes.com – has received more than 2 million visitors since launching nearly two weeks ago, according to its creators, entrepreneur Alex Tew and developer Ben Dowling.

Users arriving at the site are presented with a sunset view and the sound of ocean waves, together with a countdown that resets to 2 minutes if the mouse or keyboard are touched.

Not everyone is up to the challenge though, explains Tew, “only 38% of visitors are managing to take a step back and do a full 2 minutes of nothing, which I think highlights the point of the site.”

“The idea is to use technology to give back what it has taken away: calm,” explains Tew, “I read somewhere that our brains are being re-wired by the internet, because we get a little dopamine kick every time we check our e-mail or Twitter or Facebook and there’s a new update.

So we’re all developing a bit of ADD, which can’t be good.”

According to Tew, the site – which has received more than 250,000 “likes” on Facebook – is not a business venture but simply “a fun side-project” and a “meditation on how technology is changing the way we think and behave.”

~end

I say…Hat’s off again to Alex Tew.

When I first read the email I was just in from the gym after a nice conversation with one of the trainers. No sooner did I walk in the house, I read the email and my first impulse was to do something, then do nothing, but that kind of thinking always flag’s me to look at the order at which I do things. So, I did the nothing option first.

I often meditate to determine my next steps or actions throughout the day, so it was very familiar to me, but since there was countdown clock on this site and I was aware that I was going to be doing nothing for 2 minutes, it was very interesting to experience what doing nothing for 2 minutes actually is like.

Many of us have done nothing before.  In fact very soon I am going to do nothing for two whole weeks as I embark on a rejuvenating and medically supervised fast. I’m not even going to digest food!

But you may not be ready for the ultimate in rejuvenation, a fast, so try this. Doing nothing for even two minutes is a challenge and during that time, what makes it a challenge is this:

When you do nothing for a period of time you end up facing your true present condition energetically, psychologically, physically and sometimes even emotionally. Hint: This is why living in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind so you can achieve even your most ambitious goals, is a lifestyle, not something you do after your lifestyle drives you into a wall.

Basically, when your energy is not directed outwards in some form of achievement, which can often masque your present condition, you begin to restore yourself. Facing your true condition can be uncomfortable and that’s one really good reason why people can’t and often don’t stop themselves. It’s just too uncomfortable; which, is why you want your lifestyle working for you, supporting you every step of the way, so that when you do stop and take care of yourself and your body, it is a peaceful experience.

If you have significantly low energy, two minutes is just enough time to begin the process of restoration, to help you in your day, maybe even a little longer, without getting groggy which would signal you’ve gone too far at a time when you are not prepared to go into a rest or sleep mode.

So, if you start to get lethargic and feel like a tidal wave of exhaustion is on its way, you are in personal energy debt and you need to learn how to manage your energy better.

Give it a shot and do nothing for two minutes. Remember to breathe and focus inward on your thoughts.

It was a somber moment for many of us in hearing that Jack La Lanne passed away. So many people were inspired by Jack as a leader in the movement of health and wellness, fitness and his overall pursuit for exemplifying a quality lifestyle. He was a great spirit and although he has passed from our conscious lives we can celebrate his life in the future as his was a life well lived.

As true icon for healthy living Jack was a fixture in many of our life experiences for many decades.

I always enjoyed hearing about his feats of strength – pulling boats while handcuffed in the San Francisco bay and I enjoyed going to his health club “Jack’s” and most recently drinking delicious fresh juices from his revolutionary line of juicers. It is not common knowledge that Jack La Lanne actually invented the juice bar!

His television show from the 50′s – 70′s was before my time but I heard the program was way ahead of its time – and a real inspiration to millions of people.

I never met Jack La Lanne but I honestly loved the guy. I respected what he stood for and I looked up to his unyielding commitment and dedication in his life. I always associated Jack with living “the lifestyle” that mirrors the PerformanceLifestyle we so tirelessly advocate . If you are thinking you have to live life like Jack La Lanne to live “the lifestyle” we are talk about here at PerformanceLifestyle.com, in reality you don’t.

Everyone’s lifestyle is unique to the individual and some people like jack dedicate themselves to inspiring, educating and supporting others to live a better lifestyle. The one thing that Jack knew that we can all take away is that he didn’t live his work merely to get in shape and lose a few pounds. Jack lived his way because he truly wanted a high quality of life – and just look how far it took him!

There are so many things honor and love about Jack and we can all learn from his legacy.

Here are  a few thoughts from fellow lifestyle experts, Seth Godin, Kevin Gianni and John Rowley.

Eight Lessons from the life and work of Jack LaLanne, by Seth Godin.

“He bootstrapped himself. A scrawny little kid at 15, he decided to change who he was and how he was perceived, and then he did. The deciding was as important as the doing.

He went to the edges. He didn’t merely open a small gym, a more pleasant version of a boxing gym, for instance. Instead, he created the entire idea of a health club, including the juice bar. He did this 70 years ago.

He started small. No venture money, no big media partners.

He understood the power of the media. If it weren’t for TV, we never would have heard of Jack. Jack used access to the media to earn trust and to teach. And most of what Jack had to offer he offered for free.

He understood the value of attention.

He was willing to avoid prime time. Jack never had a variety show on CBS. He was able to change the culture from the fringes of TV.

He owned the rights. 3,000 shows worth.

He stuck with the brand. He didn’t worry about it getting stale or having to reinvent it into something fresh. Jack stood for something, which is rare, and he was smart enough to keep standing for it.

Jack lived the story. He followed his own regimen, even when no one was watching. In is words, “I can’t die, it would ruin my image.”

From Fellow Performance Lifestyle publisher, John Rowley.

“Jack was a scrawny/sickly kid and at 15, he decided to do something about it. He honored his decision and didn’t back down because people challenged or tried to discourage him. And yes he got discouraged at every turn.

Today we know it is healthy to eat well and exercise, in Jacks early days they thought he was a nut. Yet he stuck to his guns.

He challenged the world. He didn’t just do a better version of the gyms of his day he revolutionized the health club industry, including introducing the juice bar… 70 Years ago….”

From Renegade Health Show Maven Kevin Gianni,

“I was going to write about something that’s been bothering me in the health world today, but this topic is much more personal…

As you may have heard fitness guru (a real guru BTW), Jack LaLanne, died yesterday from complications from pneumonia at 96 years old.

I am too young to have remembered Jack LaLanne from his television fitness shows.

By the time I was 7 years old, he had already been on the air for 34 years and was ending that incredible run…”

Rest In Peace Jack. Surely you will be missed!

In a world where we define our lifestyle mostly by things we own, what we can afford to do and our personal preferences – true, true and true – it is only through a PerformanceLifestyle that we can build a mindset and the skill sets we need to live in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind. These skills all function as our core lifestyle while enhancing our ability to achieve even our most ambitious goals – all without sacrificing our quality of life. This is the mission of living a PerformanceLifestyle.

I acknowledge the tall order of living this mission, but your lifestyle is what drives and serves you as a foundation that enables your capacity for achievement – and so I ask you now – why not think bigger, smarter and with a more proactive perspective?

This perspective shift can also begin answering practical questions that we all want answers to – such as “how do I live at or near my ideal weight all year round!”

Having a firm grasp on “your style” of eating, thinking and living enables you take a much greater, proactive stance on improving your life each day. By addressing you life from a PerformanceLifestyle perspective, you are improving your whole life – not simply living one more day on the latest “program” or having information change you that does not provide any real practical context.

When you truly understand your lifestyle, you will have something tangible to work from, develop and improve. Without understanding your lifestyle, the word itself is nothing more than an abstract concept. Even though your mind may be filled with motivational and insightful ideas, it ultimately has nothing to attach any new insights too in any organized way so any long-term advancement becomes almost impossible.

The more you align your life, your lifestyle (choices) and your goals – which ultimately ARE your mindset – the better you can achieve your goals and maintain a quality of life you want and desire or aspire to live.

We never use the term “mindset” and “skill set” loosely in PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching. We take lifestyle design seriously and understand the difference between life structure, style and goals.

A fundamental question is whether your personal “mind set” in your own lifestyle works for you or against you? Remember your lifestyle – no matter how you decide to address it, manage it or modify it – is inherently yours. Our exclusive PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching helps you identify your lifestyle and begin a process to live better.

So with that in mind, here are 10 predictions for the coming decade:

1) Our fast-paced and demanding performance culture has become inadequate to support self care, personal energy management, health maintenance and physical fitness. We will inevitably begin to develop and adapt to a new lifestyle structure, mindset and skill set that protects us from being overwhelmed, exhausted, over weight and riddled with health complications. We will begin a culture that learns how to thrive!

2) People will come to the conclusion that they don’t have the time, focus or energy to have to deal with year in and year out weight loss and lifestyle-induced health complications. We will learn how to live the healthiest lifestyle possible so that we can function and perform at our best at or near our ideal weight range all year round.

3) People will realize that 95% of all health problems – from diabetes to heart disease – are lifestyle induced and avoidable! As a result they will begin improving their own lifestyle – how they eat, think and live, every day.

4) Quality of Life will be the new measurement of success, and bragging rights; not money, power or influence alone. Lifestyle will no longer be seen simply as what you own, what you can afford or your personal preferences. Nor will it be defined by how much you sleep, eat or how much you exercise. Your Life at the next level will be the alignment of how you’ve structured all aspects of your life around the goals you aim to achieve and the quality of life experiences you desire. The most important characteristic of your new lifestyle will be the energy levels you can sustain over time.

5) Personal Energy Management becomes the new big thing and we all begin to realize that managing personal energy is tied into making all our life decisions – from psychological and emotional decisions to what foods we eat and how we train, work, focus etc. Everything we do and experience will consciously depend on how well we manage our personal energy.

6) We will become less and less “creatures of habit” with positive change being seen as a tangible reality. We will develop a greater understanding of our life “Style” and how to adapt effectively even in shifting circumstances. Our personal lifestyle will be seen as the missing link between health and success and we will learn how to change our lifestyles with proficiency in the skills we learn and integrate on a daily basis.

7) People will eventually stop outsourcing their lifestyles to rigid programs and rather learn from those who have identified proven and successful principles, practices and lifestyle strategies. We will incorporate and adapt them to “My Lifestyle” and we will begin to challenge ourselves to improve regularly. This transition will free us from the burdens of constantly “sticking to a program” as our way of life, to making our healthy lifestyle our way to a better life.

8.) People will begin to live their lives more like athletes do in the performance culture we live in. We will become far more discerning about how we drive ourselves, how we manage, spend and recuperate our own energy and the quality of the food we choose to eat as well as understanding how our lifestyle works with achieving our goals.

9) It will become very un-popular to ignore your own wellness and your body and your lifestyle will be held accountable to whether or not it supports the environment. People will begin to change to “save face” as we push to save our planet. What you eat over a lifetime, could save a town’s size piece of land from being ravaged and depleted.

10) We will rise and change the world for the better not by looking towards any outside entity to change so that we can change but by changing ourselves first. “Be the change“is what comes to mind and it starts from wherever you are right now and the lifestyle choice you make!

I hope these predictions provide some insight for improving your own lifestyle and inspire you to begin making changes today. You can live at a new level.

Years ago, when I picked up on this idea called “PerformanceLifestyle”, which is really your lifestyle when you take it to the next level in whichever ways you need to for better health and success results, I realized I had found the missing link between being successful, or being balanced and healthy. Too many people feel that they need to make that choice, and they don’t.

Knowing how to live balanced and healthy amidst the hard charging life that sustained success requires is an age old dilemma, and one that I was also tired of suffering from.

I came to that conclusion at a time when I was feeling like a worn down workaholic, while launching  an early version of a website called MyTrainer.com. After hitting the wall and running out of energy one too many times, I came to the conclusion that a paradigm shift in thinking was in order; away from trying to find the perfect diet or exercise program to deal with the negative consequences of an overwhelming lifestyle, to learning wellness, health, energy, nutrition and fitness concepts and skills in the context of “my lifestyle” and the performance required to achieve my goals and that was a major shift in thinking.

Enter Performance Lifestyle.

Since we wake up and basically achieve stuff all day as human beings, it made perfect sense to see my lifestyle very similar to how an athlete sees their lifestyle, as the way to function and perform better and naturally experience the “look and feel” benefits that so many people admire as a natural consequence of improving my lifestyle.

I no longer wanted to experience those benefits as a result of periodic heroic efforts of dieting or exercise (usually to lose weight); I wanted to look feel and perform the way I wanted all year round. So I started to delve into the kind of mindset I would need for that to happen, and the skills.

I (like you) live in a relentlessly demanding 24/7 world where if we don’t have the lifestyle skills to take care of ourselves and the health of bodies, the demands of our day to day living will inevitably wear us down over and over again, reinforcing a myriad of hidden lifestyle challenges. I dealt with these challenges regularly for a  very long time, experienced as struggle and at times desperation despite my high achieving tendencies. And, because I could see so many others dealing with these challenges too, it became my quest to learn how to overcome these challenges so people could manage my their better.

I was the first client!

Fast forward a number of years; what I ultimately discovered were the 12 core fundamentals of successful living; the mindset and essential skills set all healthy high achieving people know and live by to live in balance with vibrant health and peace of mind while achieving even their most ambitious goals, without sacrificing their life.

If I was going to move forward in my life, in a position of strength, free of the struggle and desperation I often felt from the hidden lifestyle challenges, these were the skills I need to know and that we all need to know if we are going have the quality of life we desire, not to mention live at or near our ideal weight all year round.

PerformanceLifestyle was an idea big enough to convey a more expansive skill set. It gets into the very structure of your life, and whether or not you’ve set it up for success. This affects your lifestyle and the achievement of your goals.

3 Lifestyle Types

Everyone has a lifestyle, but some are proactive and others are based on a “whatever comes I’ll just deal with” mentality, but are not being improved regularly.

A fitness lifestyle, for example, gets into training with some emphasis on nutrition. A healthy lifestyle gets into all that with greater emphasis on nutrition and sleep. But a performance lifestyle shows you how to manage your energy, food quality and activity levels so that you can achieve your goals and maintain your quality of life, living at or near your ideal weight all year round.

I can’t tell you how many times over the years, I thought my “lifestyle” was about … eating better, or exercising, getting more sleep or some other component of successful living, only to realize that my lifestyle was all of these and more, and that if I was ever going to live in balance with that vibrant health and peace of mind we hear to much about but so few experience on a consistent basis, while working hard to achieve my goals, I was going to need to understand the basics and develop a lifestyle success “system”.

Beyond nutrition and fitness alone, which is where most of us focus proactively when it comes to improving our lifestyles, thinking we are living “holistically” when we are really not; there was no doubt, a bigger picture of lifestyle that can unleash you from the hidden challenges that hold you back.

Now understand, this was a big shoe to step into. When I started this journey, I was just beginning to take my lifestyle to the next level, in my early 20′s.

Discovering the lifestyle principles and practices – or what we like to call The Lifestyle Success Formula which simplifies the complex idea of how to change your lifestyle to improve virtually any life situation – really happened over a 2o year period of time, with the help of number of several leading lifestyle pro’s’.

In just the last 3 years though, we were able to reveal The Lifestyle Success Formula; and it is this formula, that changes the paradigm for wellness, health, energy, nutrition and fitness (what, how and why) from living healthier after we have driven ourselves down and hopefully not into the ground,  to living the healthiest lifestyle possible so we can thrive.

Success is so much easier when your lifestyle is working for you, not against you.

Performance Lifestyle was the missing link all along; a concept that gave people a sense of the purpose and power of their lifestyle and something to improve every day by learning from others and experience. What we call “The Lifestyle” is that something. Something happens when you have a concept for your lifestyle and start developing it!

Believe me, most people are suffering from a very fragmented, outmoded and limited views of living that prevents them from living as fully functioning human beings. All of that changes when you start developing your lifestyle and learn The Lifestyle Success Formula.

When you get into a Performance Lifestyle you are no longer at odds with getting your basic needs met. You are able to understand why you might not be looking, feeling or performing the way you want (at present) and what actually needs to change in your lifestyle to progress as the balanced and healthy person you want to be, spiritually, psychologically and physically.

Yeah I know, that’s a tall order, but why aim for just losing a few pounds when you can move forward in a position of strength looking, feeling and performing the way you want to all year round!

I’m not professing that Performance Lifestyle is everything you need to learn in order get your life in a better order, optimized for higher levels of health and performance, but it is the lifestyle mindset and skills set that makes the process of fulfillment so much easier.

Learning The Lifestyle Success Formula and applying the skills in your life is also The Ultimate Stress Management and Energy Enhancement System . It will help you avoid going down many years worth of rabbit holes, chasing the best diet, or figuring out why you don’t have enough energy or why you can’t lose weight or are unable to follow through on achieving your goals. You can start living the lifestyle you need and want, from where you are right now, with the right mindset and skills set.

No longer does living the lifestyle have to happen after you become successful, you can live the lifestyle to become more successful.

I mean, do you really wants to spend your whole life chasing health or success? NO!

There are lots of great programs on the market, but you’ll be so much more successful, when underlying your efforts is a performance lifestyle.

The bottom line is: if you do not have performance lifestyle skills, you might be somewhat healthy, and you might by somewhat successful but you will always struggle to unleash your full potential, stay healthy and live at or near your ideal weight, and maintain quality of life, if all you know is what most people know about the true potential of your lifestyle.

That’s why when we talk about a Performance Lifestyle we are really talking about taking your lifestyle to the next level and the next level is better!

Strive for it!

It has also always been my opinion that if obesity trends are ever going to change we need to fundamentally learn how to eat, think and live better in a world that seems hell bent on making our lives difficult. Everywhere you turn there are short term, impotent solutions, that never solve the real problem and just trick us into thinking they will deliver the results we are looking for.

The question are:

• How are you going to discern between what will work for you and what won’t.
• How are you going to manage all the stress in your life,
• How are you going to keep your energy high so you can thrive?

Are you going to outsource your lifestyle to others (learn from others, yes, outsource NO) or take a command of how you eat, think and live. This is an imperative in the new high performance culture we live in.

You know longer have to live overwhelmed, overstimulated, under recuperated, over fed, under nourished, super busy, physically inactive, overweight and primed for health complications the way 97% of the population lives. You can thrive by learning what only 3% of the population knows at this time and why they are so fanatic about it.

Click here to learn the basic philosophy of a Performance Lifestyle.

Now of course, only a small percentage of those foods are nutrient rich foods, that promote health, peak performance and natural weight loss; or as we say at The Lifestyle Coaching Center, will help you live at or near your ideal weight all year round.

The numbers for new food products are staggering, something like 14,000 new food skews each year.

And need I remind you, that it’s likely none of those “food stuffs” grew on a tree so you need to each these foods carefully if at all.

What’s the fundamental problem?

Well, in addition to food quality (we’ll leave that for another discussion), we don’t have to spend any energy to get access to thousands of calories of energy in an instant and few people have the activity levels that warrant this level of calorie consumption.

Hence the reason we have obesity trends climbing off the chart.

But does this apply to nutrient poor calories only, like junk food, fast food, McDonalds etc? These guys are taking all the wrap and deservedly so, but they are not alone.

When you go to any health food store, you are going to find many so called healthy foods that are really junk foods, and if they are not, they are so concentrated in calories, that they will make you overweight.

Why?

Because when a food is nutrient rich, and you’ve been eating them for a long period of time, eventually, even eating healthy nutrient rich foods, will make you overweight if you don’t have the activity levels to support their consumption and you are eating more than you need.

Having access to as much food as we do, without the need to spend virtually ANY energy to aggregate them healthy or not, can leave you FAT.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

The moral is that we need step up our game and go to the next level of healthy living, if we’re going to live at or near our ideal weight, even eating healthy foods. It’s what you eat in coordination to what’s going on in your life that will make living at or near your ideal weight possible.

Two small steps to begin living your lifestyle at the next level.

1. Learn to eat when you are hungry
2. Make sure you use what you consume before you shovel more down the hatch.