Beating the Holiday Blues
My name is Coach Jimmy and I am a one hundred pound weight loss success story. I’m a three time college dropout that used to drowning in tens of thousands of dollars of debt and me and my wife found a way to take our fitness and make it into a business and get debt free and live a life of freedom that allows me to sit here and talk to you right now on a morning when a lot of people are sitting in traffic trying to get to work or sitting in that cubicle and I want to help break free of that.
Overcoming Holiday Depression
We’re talking about holidays today specifically. Holidays it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and for a lot of people, that’s a great time of year. “Oh, it’s family! It’s my favorite time of year! I love it!” and for others, this is a really trying time of year that there are, I remember reading stats before that the depression goes super high, that suicide rates go up during the holiday season, that it’s a time you know you’re getting to the end of…and let’s talk about that. Why does that happen?
Time to Reflect
Well, for some people, it’s a time for reflection, right? You’re getting to the end of the year, you’re reflecting on the things, and some people choose to reflect on the things that have gone wrong in the past year. You know, it just seems like boom, it’s January and you set that you know New Year’s Resolution goal that this year’s going to be different and this is why and here we are, another November or December and you look back and you’re like “Son of a ____. I didn’t do it, again.” You know?
So there’s that defeating feeling of hitting the same wall over and over again and falling off the same wagon to saying you’re going to do something and your actions didn’t back it up because you lost motivation or you didn’t show up on a daily basis or, you know, there was a death in the family or you lost your job or whatever. For some things there’s reasons and sometimes we hide behind reasons and they become excuses, right? That’s a very real, real thing.
I’m not saying that your reason isn’t a reason, but I also know just as many people who have had the same trials you did this year that used it as a springboard to do something. Depression’s really funny because when you run into depression, what usually happens? It’s usually because you focus on something that gone right in your life and I’ve gone through this in my life before. I used to really suffer from a really bad what I call the ‘victim mentality’. “Woe is me. This isn’t fair. I would be further along because I didn’t have the same opportunity they did because of x/y/z whatever. I didn’t have the money. I lost my job. Oh, you don’t understand. I’m trying to support my parents and there’s things going on with my kids.” You know, there’s a list of a ton of reasons where we say that “I’m going to let ourselves off the hook and I’m going to feel sorry for myself and I’m gonna be depressed because you don’t understand. I lost my mom. I lost my dad. I lost my spouse. I went through a divorce. My kids got arrested this year.” You know, whatever.
There are so many reasons and so people get really depressive. Those people that don’t have any family that are spending their holidays by themselves. I think is also a thing that really plays into people getting depressed around the holidays, right? Instead of “I’m going somewhere”, it’s “My parents are deceased or I had to move and take a job and I’m not around anybody that I know.” and so it’s really easy to let yourself to slip into that depression.
Tips to Beat Holiday Depression
I wanted to give you some tips today on, you know mindset is a big deal about that. I want to give you some actions beyond mindset, some actual action-tangible things that you can do to break that holiday depression. So it’s what are some things that you can do? I have found that depression happens when we are focusing on ourselves, right? We kind of go into this cocoon of “Woe is me” this victim mentality. So the minute that I ever start getting frustrated feeling sorry for myself, one of the very first things I do is “How do I focus on somebody else?” No matter how bad your situation is, somebody has something worse going on than you do right now. So what can I do to shift that?
Step #1: Being Mindful of Your Mindset
What I’m going to share is kind of two fold. It’s taking care of you and taking care of somebody else. So let’s start with mindset, it’s been brought up, let’s start with mindset. What are you surrounding yourself with right now during this holiday season? Are you turning on the news all the time? Are you reading the paper? Where are you spending your time on social media? Is your Facebook news feed full of negativity? Is it full of political jargon? Are people taking jabs at each other? Are you protecting what’s going on between your ears? For me, that’s super important. Even now with losing a hundred pounds and keeping it off over ten years, having created a successful business, I have to be extremely diligent every morning and attack that before it attacks me. How do I do that?
Find motivation and feed your spirit
I wake up early and I put something on that’s feeding either my mind or my spirit, immediately. So, for some of you that’s putting on a or finding a podcast or something on YouTube from somebody like Tony Robbins or Eric Thomas, the hip-hop preacher I love that cat, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jim Rohn, or Zig Zigler or Les Brown. Some of my favorite things to watch in the morning literally if you just go on YouTube and put in motivational video they have these epic montages of positive speeches with inspirational clip from movies with this epic music that swells. And you can kind of think, “Jimmy, that kind of sounds cheesy.” You know what? Maybe it is, but for met that changes my mindset first thing in the morning. That’s exactly what I listened to today as I was getting ready to go to the gym and get my body moving.
Even now with losing a hundred pounds and keeping it off over ten years, having created a successful business, I have to be extremely diligent every morning and attack that before it attacks me.
So that leads me right to my second point. The first thing is mindset. Any time that I have extra time in the day, if I’m brushing my teeth or I’m making coffee, any extra little time, I immediately put something on my phone that’s feeding my mind or my spirit. That’s shifting my state of what I’m focusing on.
Step #2: Sweat Therapy
The second thing is, I build my body. Getting moving changes my state. If I’m feeling down in the morning or I’m feeling depressed, if I will get sweating and moving as you can see my two dear friends behind, Shaun T and Chalene Johnson, have both played huge roles in my life in helping me make this a habit and make this a pattern.
It’s my sweat therapy and it’s amazing how coming out of that I’ll have a different idea, a different perspective, a different mindset in this.
I didn’t grow up being physically fit. I didn’t grow up wanting to work out and liking to work out, but if you’re dealing with depression, you no longer have the option on whether or not you feel like it. You gotta move to save your life. You gotta move before you go diving deep into this area of depression. It is so vital and I’m going to be really honest and real with you that I care enough about you to break out of this depression slide that’s happening right now that you have to get moving.
Find what works for you
I don’t care what it is. If it’s a 4 mile run in the morning, if it’s doing a program like INSANITY or PiYo or P90X, if it’s going to a spin class, if it’s getting around other people and going to a group fitness class or if it’s going to a cross-fit box, I don’t care what it is, but there’s something about taking control of your body.
Taking back control of your life
A lot of times what happens in depression is we feel like we’re out of control. Where the outside things are controlling our lives so when we don’t control it, we feel again it feeds into that victim mentality where everything is against me. So I know in that 25 minutes if I’m doing a program like T25, that 30 minute jog, that hour lifting session, I have control over all of that. Nobody can determine how hard I work, how much weight I lift, how much I sweat, the endorphines that are released in your brain are going to boost that depressive state for you. So you gotta get active. You gotta care enough about you to get moving and you’re not going to feel like it. You not gonna feel like it. That’s what I’m here for. That little loving push to tell you to get going.
So you gotta get active. You gotta care enough about you to get moving and you’re not going to feel like it. You not gonna feel like it. That’s what I’m here for.
Step #3: Focus on Helping Someone Else
And the third part of about this, we’ve talked about mindset, we’ve talked about getting moving, and the third part is focusing on somebody else. What can you do to create a cause this holiday season where you’re focusing on somebody else? So, me and my family, we go to the mall and we take some of the Secret Santa angels off of the trees, we adopt a couple family, and we do things for others. You can go volunteer at a homeless shelter, you can help a food drive. The other thing that I do is that I focus on the people that I work with on my team and what does that mean the people on my team? That’s two-fold.
I help them live a healthier fulfilling life, but then I also help them create a life and create some income during the holiday season where right now people are depressed because they don’t have enough money, can’t afford Christmas gifts or holiday gifts, and we help show them how getting physically active, they can actually create some extra income by paying it forward to other people, by helping other people feel better about themselves during the holiday season, so whatever that is. Maybe it’s volunteering at your church, maybe it’s getting involved in some sort of community rally, it’s going to do stuff at the public library, focus on somebody else right now and you’ll get your mindset off of how bad you think your situation is.
Volunteer your time to people going through the same thing
If you’re grieving right now because of the loss of a marriage or the loss of a family member, then go find an organization who serves those type of people and serve a person going through the same type of thing. Because who better to help them than somebody that’s going through it right now. “Hey, I lost my mom. I’m going to go serve and find somewhere that people are grieving with the loss of a spouse during the holiday season,” and you get to be in the middle of it and it’s going to be therapy for you while you’re helping someone else. The same thing with the workouts and the physical part. Why do I work out? It’s so I don’t kill people. It’s my therapy.
If I’m frustrated with something, if I’m battling with something, if I have some kind of depressive spirit going on, or I’ve been chasing a goal that I haven’t hit or that something’s wrong with my business or Kelly and I got into a fight and something’s frustrating there or I’m trying to figure out some way to do something with my son, that morning is my protective time, it’s my sweat therapy and it’s amazing how coming out of that I’ll have a different idea, a different perspective, a different mindset in this.
Holiday Depression is Real, but it Can be Beaten
So that’s my message for you today is holiday depression is a very real thing, don’t take it lightly, but you gotta aggressively attack it now before it starts. So either you’re dealing with this or you know somebody that is. And if you know somebody that is, then this is your opportunity to serve, right? What’d we talk about? Mindset. Sweat therapy. Serving others. Those are the three things that are going to help break you out of what you’re suffering with right now. If you know somebody else that’s going to be suffering during this holiday season a little, you have to aggressively go help them or go aggressively go help you. And if you need somebody to partner with or right now you feel really isolated and alone, I would love to be that person.
You can get more information about how to work with me, how I work with people, that I’ve helped thousands of people change their bodies, change their lives, change their mindset, and get out of depression and you can do that. You can simply go to JoinCoachJimmy.com, that’s JoinCoachJimmy.com, and right there is a little video from me. I’ll give you four days that you and I can work together. You can see how I work with people and see if you and I are a match. Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t, but you’ll only know if you go educate yourself. I know I’m passionate about helping movers, about helping people that are ready to take steps, not people that are ready to just feel sorry for themselves and not take action. You can be sad, you can be depressed, but it’s time to move. I work with movers and if you’re like, “Jimmy, I’m ready to move.” Then go, go to JoinCoachJimmy.com and let’s connect. Let’s find out if you and I are the right people to work together because this holiday season is going to be different for you and I’m going to make sure it is as well. So thank you very much. Let’s take action. Let’s serve some other people. Let’s improve ourselves while we’re improving others at the same time.