Be exceptional, don’t settle for average, don’t settle for mediocrity, don’t freaking settle!  Do you hear me?  Instead choose to be your best.  Everyday we have a choice.  We can choose to be average or worse mediocre, but we can also choose to be exceptional.  This doesn’t mean that we are perfect or striving for perfection.  It only means that we do everything with our best effort.

For example, when we work out.  Do you give your best the entire time?  Or do you slough off a bit?  If we’re not giving our workout our best effort,  we won’t see the results we covet.  Our results are proportionate to our effort and sadly our diet (damn you age and womanhood.)  For example if we only give 50% effort at a Zumba class,  instead of burning 500 calories, we’ll only burn 250 calories.

Tonight I tried my first Xtend Barre class up at Burn Fitness.  Cheese and rice, I will feel it tomorrow.  Adam, our amazing teacher, likes to call his class barre boot camp.  He wasn’t lying.  Hey, at least he was up front and honest.  He’s a great teacher with tons of energy, so class went quickly.

Class may have went quickly, but it was tough!  In truth, I felt a little bit like fish out of water as I was the sole novice in the room.  Adam, as good fitness instructor will do, made the class appropriate to everyone’s level including mine.  Even though I was new to barre, and admittedly not that good, I gave it my best effort.  Consequently, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to move tomorrow, but no pain, no gain.  Right?

Being exceptional isn’t just for the fitness studio though, it’s for all aspects of our lives.  If we find that what we’re doing is no longer inspiring us to be exceptional, then it is time to move on.  Life is far too short to settle for mediocrity.  It is imperative that we find something that makes our heart and soul sing.  In addition, it is easier to be exceptional when we find something or someone that we are passionate about.

Tomorrow morning the choice will be all of ours. Join me in embracing the madness one cup of coffee (see meme below)  at a time and being exceptional.    If you’re not where you’d hope to have been by now, that’s okay.  Now is the perfect time to start working towards your dreams.   Now is the time that you stop settling and grab the bull by the horns.   Its time to go get it!

p.s. I’d like to give a special shout out to my Finland for tagging me in the meme below on Facebook.  It very accurately depicts my relationship with coffee!