Mid summer thoughts, from Heba.

I’ve been sharing with you my journey as a creator, designer, CEO and business woman online and through these blogs over the past few months. The Evolve Nation community keeps me inspired to think bigger about my purpose as an individual, and challenge the assumptions that form out of living in a world where so much focus is on external perceptions.

You all keep me motivated, and I am eternally grateful. 

I like to think about the different mediums of communication and how each of them are unique. For me, writing is so intimate.

Taking thoughts and feelings from my mind and body and expressing them on paper requires intention.

It’s easier to talk than to write.

I think this has something to do with the physical existence of the words on a page. Writing forces me to be brutally honest.

When I journal, sometimes, it takes so long for seemingly trivial thoughts to come out. When I write these blogs, they take me days to conjure up the structure, direction and ultimately the content to express what I am truly feeling. But when I read them back, there is a sense of candidness that leaves me satisfied and feeling lighter.

Secrets will make you sick and writing my thoughts on paper has grown into one of the most eloquent releases of internal expression I have come to know. 

I think I am finally over my jet lag 😂

It took nearly three weeks for me to settle back into the eastern time zone pace of things. The summer is in full swing. What I love and am impressed with most about myself (yes, being aware enough to recognize your accomplishments and bold enough to celebrate your wins are a must do) is that I maintained my exercise and nutritional regime for the duration of my travels.

I am so thankful for the ability to use the coaching program I developed and being trialling on myself through this experience. It’s kept me focused, and eliminated the decision making process on what to eat. I think that's a good point.

Eliminating decision making points - in business, life, food choices - whatever - in the name of an established cadence and standard work is a no brainer. Whenever a decision point exists, the risk of making a poor decision is introduced. In some cases, this is ok. With other things, like diet and exercise, there is a good and bad choice - always.

This program has helped me so much to avoid these decisions and I am feeling so blessed coming back home and in the best shape of my summer. 

I wanted to take some time and recognize the Eid’al Adha celebration that passed.

The theme of this holiday is sacrifice, and dates back centuries to events that are related in Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures. For me, this holiday is a time to reflect on the purpose of sacrifice in my life.

I, like all of you, make sacrifices everyday.

But there is a difference between a sacrifice and a compromise. I think of a compromise as a two way door. There’s two parties involved (in some cases, both parties are yourself).

A sacrifice is usually a one way street. When I think about sacrifice and its importance in my life, I boil it down to instances where I make unilateral decisions in the name of a well defined, tangible and known outcome.

A compromise is when I decide to skip leg day so that I can ride my motorcycle during a beautiful sunset. A sacrifice is when I give up that motorcycle ride so I can get my lift in and hit my rep target for the week.

Simple. Both are healthy and needed in life. But coming back to the theme of Eid’al Adha: sacrifices contribute to the progress towards a well defined goal or target, while compromises often prolong  accomplishing them. 

There’s more to it. I feel sacrifices are not spontaneous; they don’t arise on the spot. At the Evolve Nation standup the other day someone used the phrase “failing to plan is planning to fail”. 

Working backwards from a desired goal or output, and mapping the inputs and steps to get there, building a roadmap of sorts, is step one. On that roadmap, the inputs are milestones.

For example; to reach a place of spiritual wellness I started to incorporate meditation, prayer, reflection and taking a moral inventory as part of my weekly ritual. My reflections led me to challenge the people, places and things in my life. And that presented me with a choice.

Changing some of the relationships and people I surrounded myself with to accomplish growth, or living in the status quo. The compromise here would be to maybe tone down how much I saw or interacted with these people. The sacrifice, staring me right in the face, was simple. “If something isn’t working, don’t hesitate; end”. 

The rest is history. 

I have so much more to share in the coming summer.  Every day our team amazes me, and what we continue to build on behalf of the Evolve Nation community is one of the greatest privileges of my life. For that, as I said at the beginning of this blog, I am eternally grateful. 

With love, always

Heba.