Live with Intention

Last night after watching my DVRed episode of The Following (SO good yet SO disturbing!), I needed to watch something lighter to get visions of psychopaths and murder out of my head before going to sleep. I wound up putting on a reality TV show about Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte. In the episode, Ryan talks about his work hard, play hard mentality. While I don’t think show is meant to be inspirational or anything more than goofy late night entertainment, I went to sleep thinking about how this mindset really resonates with me and is how I always want to live my life giving my all, taking chances, and living life to the fullest.

When I woke up, I zipped through my work with great productivity. Later on I had a session with a personal trainer at my gym. I went into the workout with Ryan Lochte’s go-big-or-go-home mentality, which was a good thing since the trainer came up with a challenging combination of exercises that I powered through. After 90 minutes and almost 800 calories burned at the gym, I left a sweaty mess and felt pretty damn awesome.

In giving 100% of effort to my day, I was reminded how I want to make sure to live my life with this kind of intention every single day. Too many people walk through life settling, not really being happy, not challenging themselves often enough. I want to always strive to live my best life and have a positive attitude.

When it comes to giving your best effort in terms of working out, I challenge you to push yourself in the upcoming days. If you regularly work out hard, work out harder. If you usually walk or do a mindless elliptical routine, try to jog or switch it up with something more challenging. And if you don’t exercise at all, get out there and do something active. Push yourself beyond what you think your limits are, because you’re stronger than you think. And know this…