“You can’t do that, you know the baby will be here then?!”

First things first;

I was totally overwhelmed how many of you messaged, commented or called me after my last post and I absolutely shed a couple of tears reading them. You were all so kind and I loved how so many of you chose to share your own untold parenting stories with me - It was so special and thank you so much for being so open and supportive.

Since then I have had an awesome week of visiting all of my clients all over the country and then a few days trip to Munich visiting friends.

This mini-break lead to some wanderlust inducing conversations and sketching out of plans for next year which, as Marie Kondo would say, sparked joy. I don’t think I realised how much the inability to travel this last year impacted me and this little reminder of the world outside of our boarders was just what the doctor ordered.

I have been quite flippant when talking about how much of a home bird I am now; I mean, I was accused of nesting even before the first twinkle in the Andrologists eye. But in reality, exploring new places and seeing new things will always have a huge piece of my heart.

Now, I am not going to reveal too much yet as I don’t want to jinx it (there is a little clue in the thumbnail of this post…any guesses?) but we had a lot of encouragement and tips from fellow travel bug parents and are now very confident that we can still do the things we love and bring along the tiny human to introduce them to the big wild world, even if we may need a few little tweaks and a bit extra planning.

On the flip side, we also had a fair bit of…

“You know the baby will here here by then? There is no way you can do that!”

My response…

“rumour has it babies don’t have a particularly busy schedules and are quite easy to transport? I was planning on bringing them along”

I think this kind of view is to be expected, especially when you are first time parents (and as you can probably already tell I always take “advice” with a bit of a pinch of salt). I can almost hear you while  reading this “what do you know, its easy until they arrive!” but I think this is where a phrase I use often use with clients really comes into play.

Environment dictates success.

Environment is not just where you live; it’s who you spend time with, the content you see online, the people you work, basically of the influences around you.

and in our environment a lot of our friends don’t live near their families so they travel up and down the country or jump on planes, trains or automobiles to make it work. Most of them have done a lot of travelling before babies came along, in fact put us to shame, so have carried this on once the little ones arrived.

They hike, ski, swim, cycle, climb so their kids go with them.

That is the environment we are in and experience.

So why not assume we can do the same?

Is it for everyone? Absolutely not - but not everyone would do these kind of things without a baby either.

So this post is serving as a little reminder to future me, just because people will tell you its hard does not mean it is impossible - and often that just means it’s worth the effort.

Taking this outside of my own situation a little I often speak to people in consultations who are struggling to hit their health and fitness goals and these environmental factors make such a difference.

If people around you are always on/off the wagon or don’t exercise but you are trying to train regularly the environment you are in and comments from others can really start to impact how successful you are with your own goals.

If this sounds familiar try giving your environment a little audit

In real life - join groups that all have a common goal, team sports, group training, even working with a coach who has cultivated an environment that supports your goals. They all help to shift the environment.

Online - unfollow accounts that do not inspire, entertain or educate. 

Social media is a bizarre, entirely created universe and the likes of Zuks and his crew of IT ninjas have set it up so that you see more of what you click on. Makes sense right? Because if we look at it we must want to see more (and if we are stopped scrolling to read or watch more we spend longer on that platform)

Well unfortunately social media has many filters, but it cannot filter out for “this triggers me” and we notoriously will click on and read things we know will enrage us.

This is part of your environment.

Don’t like it  - remove it!

However, this also works the other way.

Say you get really into bird watching, well more and more of your feed will be posts about bird watching. In fact a whole world will be opened up of others that feel the same way, that want to head out with their binoculars.

Thousands upon thousands of other people with similar likes and dislikes

It almost starts to feel like everyone on the planet is really into bird watching

Amazing right?

Being part of a community and feeling like others completely get you is a huge positive of social media and something I would really encourage people to try and cultivate in a positive way.

(a bit like how my real life and online environment totally supports my bias of being able to train and travel with a tiny human…)

Well with all good things of course comes the flip side; I am not sure why I picked Bird Watching as a topic as I  this as a topic as I literally know nothing about it so now can’t make my point with it… lets go back to nutrition.  Let’s say instead you have been looking at eating a carnivore or vegan diet, an well suddenly your feed is flooded with posts from “experts” in this field.

We create our own echo chambers on social media, and in life actually, where usually a lot of what we see aligns with our own beliefs OR hugely goes against them. These are the things we click on, so it makes sense for algorithms to show us them but BOTH help strengthen our own bias.

Ever noticed that these kind of extreme diets always have lots of the opposition commenting on them? Well the algorithm doesn’t care if you support or oppose, comments mean more and more people will see the post.

Controversy = clicks.

So what is my point?

When auditing your own environment it is okay to know that you like a certain thing and that is probably going to mean you see more of it and that will in turns probably help to strengthen your bond with that ideology.

Just like me and my potentially misguided “it will all be fine” attitude to traveling and training with a baby.

Curating a feed that inspires, entertains and educates in a way that keeps your online environment positive is an awesome tool to build a sense of community.

As long as you can also balance that with the side that possibly challenges your own bias and beliefs because in reality, for most people, life in the middle grey areas is going to be happiest.

*** A note here, I have deliberately side stepped more contentious issues online as there are many a dark corner of social media and those in those echo chambers have no desire to see another point of view regardless of how damaging or disgusting their own is. Let’s keep it light eh! ***

Give it a try

Really tune in to how your real life and online environment makes you feel

Is it supporting your goals and values?

Does it make you feel included and supported?

Even if it used to and now doesn’t thats okay - humans are adaptable and you don’t have to feel the same about something today as you did yesterday.

and then take action accordingly.

As always my DMs are open, just drop me a message if you want any help auditing your environment, I am ruthless with an unfollow/unfriend/block/mute so happy to help you judge which button to press!