As a coach, I strive to support my athletes in their training activities, but I hope I'm also helping them become mentally stronger and that the strategies we use to help them be better athletes and competitors also help them in their personal lives—at home, at work, and as they look toward other hopes and dreams.

Because it’s early in the new year, and most people have set year’s resolutions or intentions, I want to support those efforts and help you be successful. Most people bail on their new year’s resolutions pretty early in the game, and there are a lot of reasons for that. Maybe they weren’t all that committed to the idea in the first place. Maybe they didn't keep the resolution top-of-mind--but most likely, it got HARD. And we resist doing hard things. We like to conserve our energy and take the path of least resistance.

This week, I'm sharing four strategies to help you develop new habits... because we all know that willpower alone doesn't...

This week, I'm sharing 10 life lessons from my recent family vacation to Maui, and I will share my ideas for how we can translate this to our everyday lives. I would love to experience Maui every day, and I think if we all took this approach, we would feel so much more content with our lives. So whether your favorite place is Maui… or Breckenridge or Nashville or someplace else... as I go through this list, think about what you love about your happy place and how you can take a piece of that place with you every day.

Here's the start of my list of 10 things I learned, or thought about, while I was on Maui:

(To see a video that includes our trip highlights, plus some of the things I mention on the podcast, check out this video my daughter put together.)

• Feeling calm and being in the moment. When you’re on the islands, it’s like time stands still. No one is in a hurry. How would that feel if we could maintain that sense of calm in our daily lives? What would...

You are the light of the world. You have the ability to spread your light to make a difference in someone’s life. And when a whole bunch of us come together, we can light up not just our homes, but our cities, our states, our countries and the world.

On this week's podcast, I want to do something a little different. I want to fill your heart and mind with positivity that will carry over throughout your day. I want to inspire you to share your light with the world. And that starts with how you think, getting your mind in a positive space, so you look at the world and the people around you with the joy that the holiday season brings.

This will be another podcast that you can use for your journaling. But what I’m really trying to do here is to give you something that you can use while you run or train. Once I stop talking, you'll hear upbeat, music (with a high beats per minute) with motivational quotes sprinkled throughout. I want you to run, write, train or just sit and...

I've mentioned before that I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions. They are shiny, bright objects that fill us with enthusiasm at the beginning of the year and quickly lose their sparkle once the newness wears off. That's why I like to encourage people to choose a word of the year, rather than making a bunch of resolutions. In this episode, I talk about choosing a word, how that word will guide your decisions throughout the coming year, how optimism helps us achieve our goals, and how we can "train" optimism. At the end of the episode, I share three fun ideas for personal or family projects that you can use to develop optimism. 

You can listen to the full episode in the player below, or head over to iTunes, Spotify or Google Play.

If you're listening to this / reading this through the holiday season, or if you've been following along with some of the episodes I've done related to journaling, you might find the following journal prompts helpful:

1. What were your best moments of...

If you tuned in last week, you know that I'm excited about using journaling as a way to power up your performance, not just when it comes to health and fitness, but in all areas of your life. I did some killer interviews over the summer with top minds in the health and fitness industry. For this podcast, I looked back through the podcast episodes and used some clips from the interviews as journal prompts. 

Tune into the podcast to get the full context. Then, spend some time reflecting and writing about any of the topics that resonate with you. Click on the links within each paragraph below to go to the full, original podcast with each of these amazing minds in the wellness world. 

Listen on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify. Or click on the player at the bottom of this page. 

From Sara J Loureiro, Mindset Coach & Business Strategist for women who are on a mission to make a serious impact in the world: We talked about living life "As if..." How would your behavior...

I wasn’t a huge fan of journaling until recently. It wasn’t that I didn’t like journaling or believe in it, I just didn’t understand how it could benefit me or my clients. Since then, I’ve started thinking about it more, and I’ve started introducing journal prompts in my clients’ weekly training plans. Does it help? Research says it does.

Here are a few of the points I cover in this week's episode:

• Most of us could use more confidence, and writing about your feelings, insecurities and successes is a great way to build confidence.
• Keeping a journal helps us be more mindful. It helps us see the connections between our behaviors, frustrations, our beliefs and our actions.
• If you’re keeping a health and fitness journal, you might want to track your workouts or your nutrition habits. It will help you see patterns that you might not otherwise be aware of.
• Often, it’s hard to change behaviors because we know we have a habit of starting...

You know exercise is important; yet, you still have trouble working it into your day. In today's podcast, I'll give you some tips for making exercise a priority by structuring your life for fitness success. 

As always, you can listen in the player below, or head over to iTunes, Google Play or Spotify and search Power Up Your Performance.

If fitness is important to you, you owe it to yourself to make it a priority in your life. We talk each week on the podcast about the benefits of exercise, so you know by now that you are a better parent, partner and employee if you take the time to exercise because it gives you more energy and boosts your brain power, not just clearing away brain fog, but also making it easier to learn new things.

Did you listen last week? Did you  do the exercise where I asked you to grab and pen and paper and jot down some of the biggest temptations you face this season? Whether you did, or whether you didn’t, take a minute to think about...

On Thanksgiving Day, I am launching my Booties and Burpees Holiday Challenge. And today, I am talking about the challenge, and I’m giving you some tips to help you finish 2018 happy and healthy, whether you’re working out with me, or doing your own thing, or even working with another coach.

Let's work together this year! Head over to my store and take a peek at the mindset, movement and race training programs I offer. 

Now, before you tune out and decide that this is too advanced or too scary, I want you to settle down and take a deep breath and listen…

Every time we commit to making a life change, it’s a little bit scary, right? Whether you’re choosing a college, or changing jobs, or even committing to a bucket list item, like running a marathon or half marathon … there’s a bit of fear there. So, you’re about to embark on the Booties and Burpees Holiday Challenge, and if you’re feeling a little uneasy about it, know that...

Anyone who has ever met my kids knows that they begged and begged for a dog forever. It wasn't until a week before my oldest left for college that I finally caved, and we became the proud owners of a beagle. (You can follow Miss Mabel on Instagram!)

Miss Mabel was tiny, and she fit in the palm of our hands. It wasn't long before she showed us she had a mind of her own, and her naughty side began to show. I talked to a dog trainer, and she suggested doggy daycare to help socialize her. That plan didn't stick though because we fell in love with a sweet sheltiepoo, and we bought Mabel a companion instead. Sassy Cassie (Instagram) looked a little like Cruella Deville, with white fur on one side of her head, and black on the other. She quickly whipped Mabel into shape, and the two are best friends and companions.

In my two years as a dog owner, this is what I've learned:

• Our dogs teach us that we need companions, someone to spend time with. This interaction is vital to our...

There is something powerful about this time of year. I know not everyone gets to see the seasons change like we do in the Midwest, but October in Kansas is always a reminder to me to take time to slow down and reflect and pay attention to what is going on around me. Years ago, when my kids were just little, I was still working full time at a job that I loved in marketing, but I was so stressed out with little kids and a full time job... and if I’m being honest, I was also probably a bit depressed

Because I was feeling down, and blah and in a funk, it really struck me that year when I realized that the trees had completely changed colors, and I had missed – had not even noticed - the beautiful changes in the leaves as they turned their oranges and reds before they wound up being a crunchy brown mess on the sidewalks and lawns. And it made me sad. And I made a point to tell myself that every year at this time, I needed to make sure that I paused and noticed the leaves and...