EPISODE 14

TRANSCRIPT

 

Hi guys, welcome to A Lifelong Habit of Exercise. I'm Coach Kendra, and this is episode 14. Today we're going to be talking about taking ownership. What does that mean and how do we apply that to our exercise life?

 

Taking ownership is something that for a very long time, I always heard, most of the time when I was in college, I heard, "take ownership of the team, take ownership of the team." And as a college basketball coach, that's something that I've even found myself telling my student athletes that I want them to take ownership of the team, right? So what does that really mean? Taking ownership of something, when we take ownership of something, really, that seems so surface level, and when we just take ownership, it's like, we own it, right? We possess it, it's in our possession, it's something that we have, it's something that's ours. But what does that really mean? Like when I really think about that with our players, and with me being a student athlete in college, what did that really mean when my coach said, take ownership of it? And I think more and more recently, things have been where I'm starting to understand that more, and as I talk to you guys about different things, a lot of times, it's things that either I've gone through, or over the years I've gone through, and I've noticed, and I've seen and I want to share with you. But this is something that again, more recently, I've been playing with this idea of taking ownership. And I've gotten a whole lot of clarity around it, which is so exciting for me. 

 

So, I wanted to share with you guys the taking ownership, because again, this is something that when I was a college athlete, I was doing and I was trying to figure out how to take ownership as a team, as an individual of our team. And it was something that our coach kept always saying is you need to take ownership of your team. And what I took it to mean, as more of a as we got older into the program, we were supposed to fill our role. And we were supposed to be the leaders of the team. And we were supposed to be where coach shouldn't have to say anything. And we were the ones that took the responsibility of the team and took the ownership in a way of when things happen, we are responsible for them in a good way and in a bad way, when things were going on. It shouldn't have to get to the coaches, we should be the ones that have ownership because this is our team, we're the ones that are going to be on the court, we're the ones that are going to have to play. So it's our team, and we should be able to deal with most of the stuff. And at a four year college, that's something that I think is expected a little bit more from the student athletes is that they take ownership of the team. And that was the view that I had on it was they take ownership of the team, because this is their team and more so rather than things always having to go through the coaches. But that was very surface level and I don't think I truly understood that until more recently. I always took ownership as a stepping into a role. You're stepping into the role of a leader, you're stepping into the role of being able to take the team and have that responsibility, be able to take the team and put them on your back and say, "okay, this is our team. Now, how we perform is up to us. What we do is up to us, we can get better, we can choose to get better, we can choose to do these things, and do them willingly and do them and understand the benefits of them." And we can do that. And that was very surface level. And I'm going to tell you why is because now that I understand this a little bit more now that I have my business and I have different things as far as that goes being a parent. Different things that I can really take ownership of different things that I'm now looking around, like what else can I take ownership of that I didn't understand ownership before? And I didn't truly dig into it. It's like one of those things I heard the other day that is it possible to have something and not get the benefits of it? Or is it possible to have something and not truly, truly enjoy it? And I think that's something that ownership does with us a lot. We have things. There's tons of things that we have, I want you to look around wherever you're at, look around and figure out what is there that you have right now that you have ownership of you have possession of it's yours, but then you're not truly taking advantage of? You are not truly utilizing in the way that you could be. You are not getting the full benefits of it. And why is that? Why is there so much stuff that we have that we don't utilize? Maybe we utilize it in the way that we're like, okay, that's what I bought it for is, "Hey, I have a picture on the wall. And that's what I bought it for was to take up space on the wall," but you don't really look at it and you don't really enjoy and you don't really appreciate that picture. 

 

But taking ownership is something that now that I'm digging deeper into it. And now that I see it more, I understand that taking ownership is not so much stepping into a role and how it was designed to be, but more so being able to make whatever it is that role or that thing fit to you. Being able to figure out how you can be you in whatever situation. So still being able to maybe fit into the guidelines. So as a student athlete, me being able to still be a leader, but being able to figure out how to be a leader, kind of on my terms. Yeah, there's the team. Yeah, there's all of that, but how does Kendra become the leader as Kendra not trying to follow somebody else's footsteps, not trying to fit directly into the box that they've created. But more so then creating my own box, then creating my own encompassing way of doing things. Not following into, what is it that's already been laid out and how do I exactly fit my feet into their footsteps? But more so saying, "Okay, this is where we're headed. This is where we want to go, this is how it's been done before. But now, I'm Kendra, I'm different than who that is. I'm different than whoever's done it before me." And now let's see, how do you create that? And how do you do that, and take ownership and truly be yourself in that position. 

 

And I think that is something that is so cool, because like I said, Now, this is something that with my business, I look around, and I watch people that are building businesses, and they want somebody else to tell them how they did it. They want to know how other people have done it. And they want to know exactly the steps and exactly the processes that other people have done. And I'm so excited, because I'm like looking around and I get an opportunity to now figure out how I'm going to do it. I get to figure out how I want to do things, how me helping my people, how me helping women establish a foundation of exercise, what that looks like for me. And I love it. Because this is something that I know that these are the people that I'm helping, and I know who I am. And I know exactly how I want to do that. And it may not look the same as other people, it may look completely different. And that's okay, because that's me taking ownership. That is my way of taking ownership of what it is that I'm doing, and how I'm helping the people that I want to help. That is my way of taking the ownership and doing it. 

 

When it comes to exercise. I think so many people look around, and they look around at what other people are doing. And they look around and see what is happening and how exercise fits into other people's lives. And when people hear exercise, when people hear or want to start to exercise, what happens is, is we have very set ways of the first things that we do we look to go to the gym. We look to figure out what home workouts we can do, we look to see what apps are out there, we look to do things that way and we look to see what's already out there, right? And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's good to use your resources, especially if something's gonna work for you. Like it's really good to use your resources. But then we get stuck in it has to be done that way. We get stuck in trying to figure out how somebody else's way of doing something fits without us, and it might not fit at all. We get stuck trying to figure out where we fit in, instead of making what it is that we want to do fit with us. We get stuck trying to figure out exactly what exercises what exercises are going to work for me instead of figuring out what is it that I want to do in order to get my exercise. 

 

And I think with exercise, it's such a good example of being able to take ownership because I looked up the definition of exercise. And the definition of exercise is activity requiring physical effort carrying out to sustain or improve health and fitness. Or it's also to engage in physical activity to sustain or improve health and fitness. And it's so interesting because I look at those definitions. So that's one the first one was if you use exercise as a noun. So if you use exercise as a thing, then it is a an activity requiring physical effort carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness and if you use it as a verb like you are exercising, then it's to engage in physical activity to sustain or improve health and fitness. And I look at those definitions, and those are so broad, they are so broad, there's so much possibility to that. But yet, when I look at people trying to exercise and trying to start exercising, we are so narrow minded on what has to be done, we have to take a class, we have to go to the gym, we have to go buy all this weight equipment and all these at home exercise equipment that we have to have. But our main goal is just to exercise. It's not to become a bodybuilder, it's not to become something huge, something different, whatever, it's just to get your body moving most of the time. As we continue to exercise, maybe that's a goal that we have is to become a bodybuilder to do a show to do something more physical, that would take more effort that would take more to it, but to begin with, most of the time, the people that I talked to, they're just like, I just want to exercise, I just want to move I know for my health, that's what I need. I need to just move my body. But we're given all these different things we're given, like I said, we're given apps, and gym memberships, and personal trainers. And there's so many things that we are almost overwhelmed with of things that we can possibly do to exercise. But what's missing most of the time, probably, like the majority of the time, what's missing is that we don't learn the foundation of exercise.

 

I was talking to somebody about this the other day is that we don't learn the foundation of exercise throughout school. Think about like all the education that we have the education that is built, and we learn how to write, we learn how to read, we learn how to do math, we learn how to do all of that stuff. Now, a lot of times when we're in school, or you hear other people talking about different things as they talk about how like we're never going to use this. But what we are using is we're basically putting all of those skills together so that in life, you have those basic skills to be able to do what you need, and then you apply them to whatever you're doing, right? You write, because you've learned how to write the alphabet, like you may never sit down and write the alphabet, just because. But you know how to write, and you've know how to put those letters together to make words. You know how to add, you know how to do your math, you know how to do those, you may never do two plus two, just because on a worksheet. But you know how to do that in order to calculate your paycheck, in order to do all of the other things in order to tell time, there's so many different things that we use those basic skills for. But what is missing a lot is we don't have that foundation around exercise. We had to take PE classes, yes, most of us had to take PE classes. But that doesn't create the foundation. All that does is give us more things that are possibilities of what we can do, but it doesn't keep us going. Most of the time, most of us have at some point started to exercise and stopped, and what I consider remember the the cycle of inconsistency. Most of us haven't been able to take ownership because we don't have a foundation, taking ownership and figuring out how it fits around us that is starting to create the foundation. 

 

And a lot of us don't have that foundation, we were never taught the basics of exercising. We were taught things to do, but we were never taught the basics of how to figure it out. In math, we're taught how to figure it out, right? We are taught how to figure out math problems. We're taught how to figure out and solve things. But in exercise, we're not taught how to figure out how to keep going. That was never anything that was in any PE class that I was ever in. Nor have I ever heard that to be in anybody's PE class. We were never taught the basics, the foundation of when I want to start working out and I never want to stop working out which is why we start right because we don't start with anticipation of stopping. After a while we start to think that that's all there is as an option, but that's not all we have to do is create a solid foundation of exercise. And that's what I do with my clients, that's what I'm trying to do with you guys here. But it goes back to the basics. 

 

It goes back to the basics. In basketball, we always talk about the basic same thing, just like school, we work on the basics and the basics are like ball handling, just dribbling the ball shooting, passing. And all of that comes together for a big game of basketball at any level. Those are the basics you have to have in order to compete at a high level in order to compete at any level. Those are the things that we teach us at The basis, but for some reason at exercise, we don't ever give any solid foundation. So that's what I do. That's what my goal in life is to do is to bring all the people that want to work out all the women who really want a solid foundation in exercise. That's what I'm helping them do, because I think they deserve it. I think we all deserve it, not just women, I think women men, all of us deserve that solid foundation, in order to start and never stop and have the correct tools in order to do that. That is me taking ownership of what it is I'm doing. That is me taking ownership, and when we take ownership of our exercise, we are able to understand and be able to see that it's not about what it is that we're doing, which I've told you guys many, many times, it's not about the what, because in all honesty, the what may change. But it's about doing what you need to do with the resources that you have at hand, in the amount of time that you have some days, that might be 20 minutes, some days, that might be an hour, some days, you may have a couple cans of soup in the kitchen, that that might be all the weight that you can use. But that's what you have. It is about thinking outside the box in order to get what you want. It is about changing our minds to create what we want to create an establish that lifelong habit of exercise.

 

I work with you guys to change your minds. To interrupt that cycle of inconsistency. It's not about the what everybody comes to me and says, but are you going to teach me what exercises I'm supposed to do? No, I'm not. I'm not going to teach you what exercises because honestly, I don't know the exact exercises for you. And anybody that tells you that they do personal trainers, this is nothing against you at all. But we can't tell people what to do or help people with what they're supposed to do without them having a foundation. Without them having a solid foundation, the watts do not matter. It doesn't matter. Because right now we're trying to get other people's exercises, other people's plans, other people's everything when it comes to exercise, and we're trying to make it fit us, but we don't even have a stable foundation. And the stable foundation is what I work with you on. And then from there, you can figure out for sure what exercises but we start small. And if you already have something that you would like to do, that's fine. I work with people that have been exercising for years and years and years, but still don't have that stable foundation. And it's the stable foundation that they have to go back to and build that foundation up so that they can continue to work for years and years. It's not just willpower. It's not just when they were laying in bed being like, "Nope, I know I have to do this, I know I have to do this, okay, I don't want to do this," in a constant fight. It doesn't have to be that way. When you have a stable foundation, there are tools like I have tools for you so that it's not a constant fight. It is just a stable foundation, and you get to do what you want to do. 

 

And actually this leads me right into I am starting a Facebook, I have a Facebook group, Women Who Want to Work Out. And in this Facebook group, I am putting on a five day free workshop very soon, five day free workshop called The Workout Mentality Workshop. And this workshop is for women who want to work out and who haven't had a chance to figure out how to consistently do it. And the reason you don't do it consistently is because we don't have a stable foundation, we don't have that solid foundation. But this workshop is going to give any woman who wants that workout mentality and wants a solid foundation, the opportunity to do it. So I encourage you to go to my Facebook group it is Women Who Want to Work out Facebook group, go to it, join it, bring a friend, because we are going to be getting started with that five day free workshop very soon, and you guys don't want to miss it. This is a solid foundation, a solid opportunity to build that foundation of exercise so that you never stop working out again. Also, the other thing I want to talk to you guys about is coming soon, my Check Your TEMP program is going to be completely upgraded, and I am so excited and I can't wait to tell you guys more. 

 

But right now what you guys need to do, men, if you were listening, invite a woman to come over to my Facebook group. Women, if you guys are listening, let's get that solid foundation and bring a friend because every buddy deserves the solid foundation. We don't need to try to get our things anymore. The things to do anymore. What we really need to do is make that foundation solid so that the things actually matter, a little bit, because without the solid foundation, the things the exercises, the activities, those don't really matter. But when you have the solid foundation, you are not trying to fit yourself into different exercises and activities, then we're able to then take ownership individually. Take ownership of your exercise and figure out what fits best for you. But you need that solid foundation. I invite you, I encourage you to like I said, head over to Women Who Want to Work Out Facebook group and join it now so that you don't miss that five day free workshop, The Workout Mentality Workshop where I hope you get the workout mentality. Until next time.