Dawn Lupul – Page 21 – Holistic Health Coach

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020

Making Choices

Sometimes I eat chocolate chip muffins – I just choose to make them healthy ones

I went to the grocery store the other morning after the gym. I wanted to get some fruit and some dates and that was about it. To get them, I had to walk by a breakfast buffet filled with sausages, eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and a variety of other things. It smelled good, salty and fatty and savoury, and people were filling up containers to go.

It didn’t make me want to eat it at all. Even though I was hungry, I want to feel good. None of that food makes me feel good.

I grabbed a couple of kiwi fruit and the dates and headed for the register. To get there I had to walk through displays of chocolate bars, potato chips, and candy. Then on my way out there was a big rack full of croissants and donuts and other baked goodies.

January 13, 2020January 12, 2020

The Storm

The sky was getting darker by the second, almost an inky black in some spots. The storm was coming and I was alone, frantically driving to the stable where ten of my horses were outside in their paddocks with no shelter and nowhere to hide.

It was going to be a bad one.

In Alberta, thunderstorms come and go all through the long summer days. They can be ferocious in their power and can’t be taken for granted. Tornadoes could touch down at any time during one of these powerful storms.

I unlocked the gate to the long driveway and checked the sky. Trying to gauge how much time I had before it hit, I realized that I didn’t have enough. The winds whipped around me and the first raindrops began to fall.

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020

Thoughts Today, Reality Tomorrow

A narrow path leading to the ocean – not too many options of where to go from here

Making decisions can be so overwhelming sometimes. When there are too many choices and possible outcomes it can be difficult to narrow it down to one.

The fear of missing out on something better is often at the root of indecision. Every time one choice is made, it leaves the other ones on the table. What if they were the correct ones? What if the one you picked was completely wrong?

The only thing to do when faced with multiple choices is to gather as much information as possible and then make a decision. Do something. If it doesn’t work out then there will be other options at that time.

Hopefully after you make the decision and see what happens after that, you learn from it and are in a better position to make wiser decisions going forward. Life is basically a process of trial and error.

January 11, 2020January 11, 2020

Learning to Focus

Before the show begins – focus!! Me and Cory Woron getting ready for a broadcast – *Photo Will Wong*

Trying to do multiple things at the same time just doesn’t work for me. I find that the more I try to do, the less I actually get done and whatever I do accomplish doesn’t seem to get done very well.

There are certain things that I consider to be vital to my life. Exercise is a big one. I know that when I’m not moving around enough I don’t feel that great. It’s become a part of my routine, no different than brushing my teeth or having breakfast or sitting and writing. None of these things are crucial to my survival, but they became part of my routine because they make me feel better.

Maybe brushing my teeth is crucial, I don’t know. It seems that my ancestors from hundreds of years ago did okay with no fancy toothpaste or electric brushes. Anyways, I choose to brush.

January 10, 2020January 9, 2020

How Much Does History Matter?

Games of chance, or games of skill? Play the odds and time will tell

Does the past always repeat itself? I guess if the exact same steps are taken and the same information is used to make decisions, then it probably does to some extent. But there are many outside influences that can’t be controlled and can affect the outcome in a way you weren’t expecting.

Trying to figure out what is going to happen today by using what happened yesterday seems like a reasonable thing to do. But is it really? If it was as easy as analyzing results from the past, then it should be easy to predict what will happen in the future.

But it isn’t. It never is. If it was, then sports betting and playing the stock market and investing in real estate would all be 100% guaranteed money-makers.

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020

Indecision

High tide in Puerto Rico – keep walking or turn back? Depends where you are trying to go

It’s so easy to see things clearly after the fact. Once the outcome is known, the result was never in doubt.

Except it was. There was enough uncertainty beforehand that perhaps you didn’t act in the manner you wish you had. This goes for everything, both betting and life in general.

We make decisions everyday based on information that may be lacking in many ways. It is difficult to always know the entire picture before we have to act. Of course, in hindsight everything makes perfect sense.

January 8, 2020January 8, 2020

Look for the Hidden, Not the Obvious

Sometimes you need to look a little deeper to see what isn’t obvious

Doesn’t it seem that as soon as things become obvious, the rules change? You finally notice a trend, a predictable way of how something is going, and as soon as you do then the opposite begins to happen.

Sometimes it seems that if you just use a contrarian style then you can achieve more success. Start to zig when everyone else is zagging, move when others are standing still. Being a trend-setter is usually more lucrative than following the crowd.

I like to look at betting in that way. As soon as I notice that I am doing the same thing everyone else is doing, I know it’s time for a change.

It doesn’t matter what the choice of betting is, whether it be horses or football or blackjack. The most important thing is to find an edge. To find an edge, you need to see what isn’t obvious.

January 7, 2020

Betting the Opposite

Always bet the jockey in pink! Only if he is on the right horse, of course. Gary Boulanger after a race

Have you ever had those days when every time you should have zigged, you zagged?

I have days when I make five bets and go 1-4. Of course there are other days when it looks more like 4-1, but on the days when there are way more losses than wins I can be tempted to start playing opposites, especially if a couple of losing days turn into a couple of weeks.

In other words, do all of my picks and then bet against everything I liked.

January 6, 2020January 4, 2020

Losing It

Sometimes you come to the end of the path – which way from here? Another Puerto Rican moment

Sometimes we lose. We do everything we think we can, put all of our effort into something, but ultimately it doesn’t work out as we wanted it to. We end up losing instead of winning.

Losing sucks. To have an expectation of a result and then not achieving it is frustrating, humbling, and can be paralyzing. Sometimes it is enough to make us give up completely. Instead of making adjustments and trying again, we might just want to abandon whatever we were trying to do.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because maybe we weren’t clear enough about what we were trying to do in the first place. But giving up on a dream because the going gets a little bit tough is a shame.

What if a little bit of refining is all you need to do? What if the next time you tried, you succeeded? You will never know what might have been if you give up.

January 5, 2020January 3, 2020

Betting On Success

Not exactly my idea of luxury, but if you like pink then it could be for you!

There are so many parallels between betting on horses and sports and the unfolding of life. There are probabilities, the expected odds of something happening or not. There is the law of cause and effect, where what you do has a consequence of some sort.

You do something, there is a result, then you look at it and decide what to do next. That is pretty much life summed up in one sentence.

Betting is all about that. You look at the possibilities, choose one outcome that you believe is the most likely, evaluate the odds and see if they are in line with your expectations, and then act on it. Or maybe you wait for a better opportunity. It is absolutely no different than what we do each day of life.

There is also the law of reciprocity – in other words, you get what you give.

Life is to be lived. It is about plunging into the deep end, learning how to stay afloat and then enjoying the experiences along the way. It isn’t meant to be spent on the sidelines watching others live. It is a full-participation sport that will give back to you what you put into it.