The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
MM Ep 36: Star Power
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We share how a playful star chart at M2B Fitness evolved into a system that honors mental growth alongside physical training. A member’s guilt over “nonactive” stars leads to Star Power, a monthlong challenge to match workout time with mind time.
• origin of the star chart and how it builds habits
• book club and walk-and-talk as spaces for mental growth
• reframing guilt about nonphysical effort as earned progress
• why mental training equals physical training in value
• Star Power challenge and how to track mind time
• simple tools for journaling, breathwork, and reflection
• measuring subtle gains and identity shift over 30 days
That was my challenge to them, and that's my challenge to you. If you exercise, I challenge you to spend that same amount of time that you did on exercise, on physical that day on your mental growth.
Welcome back to a mindful moment. Thank you for taking a moment to join me. At M2B Fitness for all our small group classes, we have a star chart. Sounds kind of goofy. We started it quite a while ago. It's probably been maybe a couple years, if not a little longer. We started star chart. It's kind of started as a joke, you know, kind of like when we were kids in elementary school, and we every time we attended or we did something, we got a star. So we started that a couple years ago, and it's kind of grown and it's kind of gotten bigger. And for different, they get those that come for different things, they get extra stars for come to classes, they get stars, they get you know, permit attendance, they get an award. So it's kind of a thing. And we started book club probably a few months ago here at MTV Fitness, and it was just kind of outside of our normal thing. Group wanted to start a book, so we said, hey, we'll do it. Um we started a book club, we did that book and we finished it, and they wanted to continue. So as we continued and we discussed the books, but we have some great discussions about the books, about people share in their lives what's going on, because a lot of them are how can we grow, how can we work on things that through the book that we're affected by. And I realized that we're really working on some mental health things, some mental growth things. I mean, so I made it as what I call a starable event. So in other words, they can come to it and they can get a star. They can put a star on their star chart and get get go towards an award and go towards perfect attendance, different things. And one of the ladies that evening, you know, said, you know, I just kind of feel kind of weird getting a star for just kind of sitting here and and listening and taking part. And we also get stars for what we call walk and talk. Walk and talk is they all everybody walks on the treadmill, and I share a topic with them each week for mental growth, and they chime in as they have uh things to say, and they get a star for that. There's really not a guilt uh per se for that star. But she mentioned, you know, I just feel guilty for sitting here and getting a star and not really doing anything active. And as I thought about that, I thought about over the next couple days, and I thought that was very interesting that that sitting and listening didn't have the same, I'm like, I earned it as getting on the treadmill, even though we're talking about some of the same things sometimes, but we're they're getting active. And I thought about how that is so true in a lot of things, a lot of ways we look at physical fitness. Well, I did something, I worked up a sweat, maybe I'm losing some weight, some inches. I can see some physical differences. But when it comes to our mental health and mental growth, we work on those things, but it's not always necessarily seen. And so we don't think it has as much value sometimes. And it has just as much, if not more, value, than getting on a treadmill, getting to the gym. Those things definitely have value, but we don't put enough value on our mental growth. And so it it encouraged me to start something, what I call star power. So I encouraged them that as we did this, it's in May, and May is mental health month, mental awareness month. And so I said, anytime you come to a walk and talk or book club, you get an extra star to put anywhere you want. And so I'm basically calling it star power. And I challenged them when I when I introduced star power. I said, you know, some of you might have two stars on a day, means you came to maybe a strength class and a treadmill class or booty class, strength class, and treadmill class. So it might have three stars. I said, I challenge you, however many stars you have on that day for physical exercise, I challenge you to do the same amount of time for mental growth. So if you did an hour, you're gonna do an hour for mental growth. And I said, you know, some of you have perfect attendance, which means you've come five days in a row, and you've done that for the whole month. And what kind of impact has that had you had on you physically? What if you got perfect attendance? You you five days a week, you put a star on the chart for mental growth. How would your life look different in 30 days? So that was my challenge to them, and that's my challenge to you. If you exercise, I challenge you to spend that same amount of time that you did on exercise, on physical that day on your mental growth. And if you don't exercise, then I challenge you to spend some time on mental growth. And whether it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes, spend some time each day and seeing if you can do it four or five days a week for the whole for a whole month. So that's the challenge. And see what kind of difference does that have at the end of a month. And I think you'll be surprised what kind of star power you will have at the end of a month. Thanks for joining me on A Mindful Moment, and I'll see you right here next time on Mindful Moments.