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Never Stop Learning! Another Pilates-Filled Weekend
I am not too much of a video game player, but I when I was a little girl I remember vividly the year that my parents bought my sister, brother and I our first Playstation and the original Crash Bandicoot game. We were instantly hooked and it was something fun we could all do together. We worked as a team to advance through the levels slowly, teaching each other the hacks and route as we went along and taking turns whenever one of us lost a life. And especially in the beginning that was often, so the remote was constantly being passed around! It took a long time, probably over…
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Announcing the Flex in the City Studio Whole30 and a Delicious Whole30 Chicken Caesar Salad
Last week over at Flex in the City we announced something which I personally am extremely excited about – our very first Studio Whole30! At the end of last month, I became Ireland’s one and only Whole30 Certified Coach and this will be my first official event. As I have shared previously, I am extremely passionate about this program and after completing several successful rounds, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it did indeed live up to its bold promise to “change my life.” I have completely transformed my health, my habits, and my relationship with food and have experienced tremendous growth in many other aspects
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Some Healthy Travel Hacks as I Head Off to Malaga!!
As this post goes live on the blog, I will be just landing in Malaga, Spain for a four day (hopefully sun-filled!) girls' trip! And to say I am excited would be a slight understatement! :) I haven't had a proper holiday in awhile now after being on the go frequently for a few years. And in light of being crazy busy with work and other projects over the past few weeks, I am looking forward to lounging, laughing, and long chats with a few of my favorite Irish barre girls! We don't have a lot of definite plans, which is actually ok by me for a change. Pretty much…
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Barre is “My Happy Place” :: Why Exercise Makes Us Happier
In recent conversation with a friend (after barre – OBVIously), we were talking about upcoming weekend events, which led us to lament those days when life gets in the way of “barre time.” Now in this case, she was looking forward to some special occasions and fun things which of course she was more excited about than if it were extra hours at the office, but nonetheless we both agreed that missing a chance to shake at the barre was never something we dealt with well. Although we realized with a laugh that this is probably not something everyone would understand, we completely agreed – life is better at the…
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Celebrating Four Years at the Barre :: The 4 Most Important Lessons that Barre has Taught Me
Tomorrow marks two very significant events in my life. The first, is my mother’s birthday. I cannot begin to put into words just how much my mom has taught me, supported me, and shaped who I am and am striving to become everyday. If you have met my mom, I am willing to bet that you may have been a bit stunned. She is good at just about everything and she is someone who can and does take on multiple superhuman tasks all at once, executing each one to an unprecedented level of exceptional. Long story short, she is pretty amazing. And I remember clearly calling to wish her a…
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Priorities, Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand
One thing I need to remind myself of often is the unpleasant reality that “working” can be one of the most insidious forms of procrastination. Many times I can distract myself or delay working on my highest priorities or the most important things because I convince myself that I am busy being otherwise productive. I love my daily To Do List. It makes me feel organized and productive just writing everything down in one place so that I can map out the day strategically. I always check my calendar for any classes, meetings, or appointments which occur at particular times and add them as well as deliverables, assignments, and errands…
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Building Grit and Mental Strength One Barre Class at a Time
Nature vs. nurture – one of the oldest and most longstanding of all psychological debates. Although this was a formerly hotly debated and central issue in the field, most researchers and people in general now accept that each of us are indeed powerfully influenced by not one or the other, but both biology and genetics as well as society and culture in almost every facet of our personality, preferences, tendencies, talents, and inclinations. A lot of evidence supports a variant of set point theory, which argues that we all have a genetically determined range for our weight, our aptitudes, our intelligence and even our happiness. But it is important to…
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Avoid Going Through the Motions – At the Barre and Beyond
Throughout business school and my work in both management and consulting, a very popular and often invoked truism has been “what gets measured gets managed.” And while in those settings this has usually been in the context of devising specific ROI targets, service level agreements, or key metric performance trending, the same concept can be applied across a broader spectrum within our own lives. When we monitor and track our actions we usually do a much better job at managing them whether it’s our eating, sleeping, exercise, spending, etc. By tracking and measuring our activities, we raise our level of self-awareness which can increase our resolve and self-control and allow…
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Flow, Optimal Experience, and Intrinsic Motivation
When I was in Milan last weekend, I had the opportunity to see Michaelango’s final work of art, a marble sculpture – the Rondanini Pietà. He had originally intended for it be incorporated into his own tomb and had worked on a few versions of it in various stages, dissatisfied with his progress and the direction it was taking more than once. It is not known as one of his most famous pieces of work, nor the most beautiful, but I was especially intrigued by it when I heard that he had been found working furiously on it into the late hours of the night with a candle strapped around…
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Contentment and Enjoying the Process
Yesterday as I was leaving Cork Coffee Roasters, I walked by Unbound, an adorable little gift shop, and saw a sagacious thought for the day. In the window display sat a letter board which reminded passersby to “never let the things you want make you forget the things that you have.” And although the general (and generally vague) concepts of contentment, gratitude and thankfulness are all around us, especially this month with the American Thanksgiving, I felt this was a particularly powerful prompt in light of what I had read recently in Juliet B. Schor’s The Overspent American. She cited a study which reported that “61 percent of respondents ‘always have…
