Keeping It Simple: The Foundation

When big challenges come our way, it can be easy to forget the basics that form the foundation to keep us steady and strong.

Certainly pressing life questions need attention and solutions to solve them. But if they take so much precedent that we forget what holds our core foundation together on a day to day basis, finding those solutions can actually become more and more difficult to figure out.

Here is a COVID induced example. A person’s livelihood is put on hold because it’s in an industry that requires people to gather together. That could be anything from being a performer to a professional athlete, from a hair stylist to a waiter or waitress. No work equals no income. So you try to come up with alternative ways to make money. You fret over making rent and car payments. And in the midst of all this you lose sight of your foundation, those simple things you normally do each day to maintain your health and sanity.

You might stop exercising or forego meditating. You stop meeting a friend for your weekly get together. That gets replace that with a bag of chips sitting in front of your laptop trying to find work. Your foundation of health and sanity starts to erode.

If this scenario or some version of it pegs your life recently, take a few moments for yourself.

Remember your foundation. What simple actions and practices that you know you can count on to help you feel better and think more clearly have taken a back seat to worry? Make a list. Commit to doing at least one of those things before this day is out. Affirm to yourself that you can regroup and solidify your basic core foundation of health and happiness.

It can feel like jobs, gatherings, personal freedoms have been stolen away from us. But even with that we can still own and build our foundation that keeps us propped up and steady.

I have my foundation of just simple daily practices that I have done my best to keep intact during these last seven or so months.

One is to get some form of exercise every single day. For me that includes walking, running, stationary bike riding, surfing, strength work, core work and stretching.

I do a number of spiritual practices every single day to keep my head screwed on right. When I feel myself getting that pandemic paralysis, I stop whatever it is I’m doing and bring myself back to a point where I find that calm place inside. It doesn’t make the challenges go away. But it certainly helps me sway and bend with them rather than have them “break” me. And with that I am able to keep my foundation intact!

Join us at Mark Allen Coaching and build your foundation of fitness for triathlons.