MOBILITY – give your shoulders some love after 15.4!

Open your primary joint (the shoulder) up with some band or door frame work. This’ll get the blood flowing and your body a bit more primed for some smashing and flossing later.

Door frame!

Bands!

The shoulders probably have countless big knots, so give it a good smash and floss and work those bundles out.

Also those lats do a lot of work for you, so work a lax ball into those dark corners of your armpit and notice your increased range of motion afterward!

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MINDFULNESS – consider the fickle nature of motivation!

Motivation to do something is usually reserved for the instant gratifcations in life, such as a tasty meal or simple task. The dopamine dump of driving a bit farther to get that cheaper gas price gets us to do a lot of things. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Things that aren’t terribly fun to do, but great to have done (like folding laundry, flossing your teeth, or doing mobility work) fall into a different category. We don’t see the dopamine fix, we don’t feel the drive to get this stuff done. It’s easy to come up with excuses or reasons to avoid certain tasks.

The more I incorporate mindful habits into my life, the more I realize that motivation is not something that comes before a task. Motivation comes after starting.

M&MWOD is a great example. I usually find reasons to put off writing my posts until the evening. Coaching all day and fatigue tells me it’s okay to delay it. But once I start typing and once I start formatting the post? I can barely stop myself from putting out over 500words!

Same thing happens with my mindfulness practice– I feel sluggish and slow leading up to it, but once I start my routine and my ritual time slips away and I find myself re-energized afterward.

Motivation isn’t something you find. You make motivation through action.

Waiting for motivation to find you while procrastinating is like expecting the love of your life to interrupt your Netflix binge of Breaking Bad.

Stew on this while you do some box breathing!