Hey, everyone, Emily here.

You are listening to five Minute Friday Unhurdle.

It's the other day I was talking to someone and it's so funny.

Whenever someone comes up to me and they we don't know each other, but maybe they listen to the show, they will say my first and last name.

They will say Emily a body, and it's really sweet and very endearing.

And also I feel like I've done this to myself because I very rarely say what I just said, which is Emily here, Emily here, Happy Friday.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm happy that we're nine days into twenty twenty six and things are feeling cautiously optimist.

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me at the gym the other day.

I was having a frustrating moment.

I was having a moment.

If you've been hurdling with me for a second, you know that last year was the year of the pull up.

I was really determined to not only get my first pull up, but then I got two and three and four and five, and at one point I was at six and I aspired to ten, and then life was lifing.

What really happened was that I really dove all into marathon training and some of that strength it fell off.

It's okay, I'm not mad at it.

I'm okay.

However, I was a bit bummed that the progress on one goal stalled because I decided to put all my eggs into another basket.

I digress.

I was at the gym on Wednesday morning, and I've been working with this new trainer through this app that I love.

I've talked about it here before.

It's called Future.

I'll link it in the show notes.

I, as a part of this new work, have this really fun I'm so I'm a special kind of weird, and I think a lot of you are also a special kind of weird, so we're on the same page.

I have this fun pull up variation complex every Wednesday right now.

It involves one set of eccentric pull ups followed by some lateral dumbbell raises.

Then there is an isolated pull up where you just like you're at the top of the bar and you stay there in the top of your pull up and you just stay still, and then there's some front raises, and then the last one is actually pull ups followed by some other dumbell movement that I'm forgetting at this moment.

Anyway.

I get to the pull ups and the range today is between five and ten.

That's the target.

That's what I'm aiming to hit, Like you know what, It's been a second, but I'm gonna get the five.

I'm gonna go all in on this.

And I go and I get up to the bar and I do three, and I really go for the fourth and it is just not happening.

It is not happening at all.

And I hanging for a minute, and then I dropped from the bar and I'm standing at the rack in the middle of the gym, getting a little bit down on myself, admittedly, and this woman comes up to me and she says, I am so impressed by you.

And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much.

I thanked her.

And she was like telling me about how she's wanted to get a pull up for so long and it's been something that's on her bucket list for twenty twenty six.

And she asked me about what worked and what I've done and what didn't work, et cetera.

And I was just after she walked away, we had this really beautiful exchange I had this moment that I was like, I am so much farther than I ever anticipated that I could be on this specific thing, something that I once thought I was completely incapable of doing.

And who am I to forget the journey?

Who am I not to take a second and just say like, hey, it's okay, have some grace with yourself.

Yes, it's just a pull up, but you know the context here, it's not just about pull ups.

It's about how can I spend a little bit less time shoulding on myself, a little bit less time indulging in this negative self talk and embrace that everything's okay here, it's not that serious.

And again, you've come a very long way.

It was one of those moments that I really felt, like, you know, whether you believe in God or a higher power or whatever, like someone dropped in and said, let me bring this woman to you so that you can get out of your own way and celebrate the goodness that is how far you've come.

So my listener problemt for you this week.

My thought for you is what are you doing with that negative self talk?

Where are you talking down to yourself when maybe you could be having just a little bit more grace and now a listener question.

Hey, Emily, I set a goal to hit ten thousand steps and cook every meal at home this year.

Wow, every meal at home is very impressive.

I missed two days last week because of work stress, and now I feel like I've already failed my resolution.

How do you handle the mental hurdle of a slip up without letting it derail the entire year's goals?

Hi, my name is Emily A Vadi.

I slip up all the time, and clearly today's episode theme is having grace with ourselves.

Firstly, how impressive this goal to hit ten thousand steps to day and cook every meal at home.

I also aspired to do more cooking at home this year, So you and I are in the same boat.

There are going to be days where you don't hit your goals, and I want you to know that it is okay.

Any single second, minute, moment, day, week, year is your opportunity to start fresh.

The secret to doing that is not being so hard on yourself.

So, all right, you missed a couple of days last week.

What can you do to meet yourself with where you're at?

And my question additionally is how are you programming in to make the time to move in this way.

So what can we learn from maybe what didn't go as we'd hoped.

That is the opportunity with hurdles.

That is the opportunity that we have each and every single time that something doesn't go as we'd hoped, we get to learn from it.

So on the days that maybe you didn't hit your ten thousand step goal, were you stressed, were you at your desk, were you running around maybe in your car or doing errands?

What was going on there?

And how can we flip the script for next week?

So learn from that moment, learn what didn't work for you, and then plan ahead to get to where you want to be.

Also, I want to reiterate, whether it's this ten thousand step a day goal or cooking at home or whatever your goal might be right now, you have to have a strong why, because where there is a why, there is a way.

If you don't have a strong why for this goal that you have set, then I promise you you will fall off.

You will be celebrating Quitter's Day this weekend, and we are not quitting ladies here, respect to all the male hurdlers listening in.

So you want a strong why you want to learn from your mishaps, your hurdles, and you want to integrate those learnings moving forward.

Whether that means adding a specific time on the calendar to move in a certain way in the case of this ten thousand step goal, maybe you're parking farther away from places that you need to go, or adding in a post dinner walk.

Whatever it is that makes you feel good, that helps you get to your goal, that's you filling up your energy tank.

I'm all about it.

I want your listener questions and I want them in my inbox.

Email me over at Hello at hurdle dot us and I'd love to answer it on an upcoming episode of the show.

Make sure you're following along with me over on social It's at Emily Body I'm at Middle podcast.

Another Hurdle concord.

Catch you guys next time.