All in mindset

Stop Playing Small. Unleash Your Power.

Stop Playing Small. Unleash Your Power.

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset, offers

If you're a woman, it's highly likely that you've spent at least some time training to shrink.

The gym is male-dominated territory, and in no place is this more prominently displayed than in the weight room.

The free weight area is often full of grunts, stringer tanks, gallon jugs, backwards hats, and egos, with the women relegated to the 5-pound dumbbells (you know, for toning.).

We've all paid our dues: every woman I know has spent hours on a treadmill, elliptical, or stair stepper, not feeling a workout is complete until there are puddles on the floor, wrapping ourselves in waist trainers and sweat bands to hasten the process, always hoping to...get smaller.

How to Make Friends with Your Body

How to Make Friends with Your Body

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, feminism

Are you tired of advertising campaigns convincing you that you've been doing this wrong the whole time? That a bottle holds the key that you've been missing? That you're not capable of figuring your goals out on your own?

You've been taught she can't be trusted, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Your body – often demonized, rarely celebrated – is wise.

Stop Calling Yourself Gross.

Stop Calling Yourself Gross.

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset

An exercise I do with many of my clients is an examination of the words we choose to describe ourselves.

Many women come to me feeling things like, “gross,” “large and in charge,” and/or, “disgusting.”

I've been there, too, impugning my thighs for spilling over the sides of my chairs, deriding my stomach for flowing over my waistband, slamming my shoulders for ripping the seams of my shirts.

You're not alone in this shadow, but you also don't have to stay there.

How to Stay Cool This Summer

How to Stay Cool This Summer

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

When we've put in this work, we develop a solid sense of self: we know where we end and where others begin. We stop picking up energy, trauma, and problems that we cannot resolve (we can move through our own trauma: feel it, find its roots, and break it down. We can't do that with that of another, because we will never know the full story). We mind our own business, so to speak, and we step into a powerful experience.

We are not at the mercy of others’ powerful emotions. Not always easy, especially not in emotionally-charged situations, but becomes easier with work over time.

The best way I’ve gotten familiar with these delineations is by tuning in and making sure I’m accurately describing the granular aspects of my emotions: not just sad, but despondent, or heartbroken, or disappointed. Not just angry, but confused, or irritated, or downright irate.

There are layers to ourselves, and the sooner we know where we are and that to which we aspire, the sooner we can maintain our vibe in the face of whatever is to come.

To the Damsel in Distress

To the Damsel in Distress

Stephanie Ondrusek
feminism, mindset

These stories spin any number of ways, but – most often – we’re the damsel in distress, at the mercy of others, awaiting our rescue.

We're sold ideals - often ones we didn't choose for ourselves. We're enmeshed in an overculture holding that the primary purpose of a woman is to be decoration: we are to be looked at first, and we experience no shortage of tips and tricks to help improve our appearances. Comments on our bodies are often the loudest of all, proclaiming that if we aren't up to the standard, nothing else matters.

We look for respite in creams, in exercise programs, in diets...only to discover that these often provide little relief. Perhaps because these are attempts to solve an issue we never agreed was a problem in the first place.

On Overcoming Challenges (It's Worth the Heat.)

On Overcoming Challenges (It's Worth the Heat.)

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset

The dreamers, the doers, the problem solvers, the misfits – we aren’t meant for the mundane. We aren’t meant to uphold the status quo, to go with the flow, or do what someone tells us to do just for the sake of doing it. We’re meant to change the world, one step at a time, and to do that, we’ve gotta get in the mud and find out where the pain is and why it hurts. Embracing the suck (a phrase you've heard countless times by now, I'm sure) means more than just acknowledging that it’s shitty; it’s appreciating every second of it, knowing that it’s useful.

Spicy? You bet.
Worth the heat? Every time.

We ALWAYS Have Options.

We ALWAYS Have Options.

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, coaching

When we give ourselves the space to play, we find things at which we aren't very good. The rub is, thought, that we're in a low-stakes environment -- who cares if I need a wall for this handstand? It's not a competition, and no one else is in the gym measuring my progress but me. In low-stakes environments, we're free to get curious, to ask exploratory questions, to fail, to learn, and to improve.

Fitness is a means to an end: a way to get connected with ourselves. A way to learn what we're capable of and a place to push boundaries, explore limits, and surprise ourselves.

Authenticity Is More Than a Marketing Tool.

Authenticity Is More Than a Marketing Tool.

Stephanie Ondrusek
general BAMFery, mindset, offers

Because we feel the need to stay relevant—to measure up to a standard that is always changing— and we choose our least messy mess and call it authenticity, without sitting with it, feeling it, and making it home.

Or, worse, we choose the least messy mess to avoid the big, hairy, audacious slop. “That’s too much,” we say, “no one will ever trust me if I talk about that."

What would happen if, instead of being social-media authentic, for the sake of significance, we took the time to get to know ourselves so that we could be real-life authentic?

Authenticity is more than a marketing tool.

The magic of our authentic lives lies deep inside ourselves, waiting for us to take a look.

Your authentic self is biding her time, yearning to breathe a sigh of relief once she’s released from her cage.

She holds the key to belonging, to freedom, to power, and to magic.

The Scale Isn't Always a Measure of Progress.

The Scale Isn't Always a Measure of Progress.

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, mindset

It's Monday morning, and many of us have had our day ruined already by a digital signal flashing up at us from the bathroom floor, reminding us how much mass we have and, therefore, how much space we're allowed to take up in the world. We seem to have a sort of inverse relationship with this number: the larger it is, the more we feel called to shrink.

Rather than letting that determine what we deserve every week, we'd be wise to remember that we’re in these bodies for life, and they (WE!) are so much more than measurements and numbers.

Waiting for the Right Time?

Waiting for the Right Time?

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, mindset, offers

I had a coach who repeated a refrain that has stuck with me since I was 12: “quitting during training only makes it easier to quit when it counts. All you’re doing is practicing quitting when things get hard.”

I’m not sure I got the depth of that message when I was 12, but it’s been reinforced countless times in the 17-plus years since.

Quitting during training only makes it easier to quit when it counts.

Waiting to get started on our goals until "the right time" only makes us better at waiting.

Putting ourselves last on our to-do lists only makes us better at neglecting ourselves.

Load More