On Possibility, Mindset, and Autonomy
Last week, I listened to Mel Robbins’ conversation with Dr. Ellen Langer, the “mother of mindfulness” long before that word got turned into a lifestyle brand.
I know her work well: the chambermaid study, where hotel staff lost weight and improved health markers simply because they were told their daily work counted as exercise. The counterclockwise study, where men in their 70s lived for a week as if it were 1959, and their bodies followed suit, getting stronger, more flexible, more youthful.
I’ve read about these studies for years, quoted them, even used them with clients. But hearing her talk about almost calling her new book Who Says? hit me right in the gut.
Because that question, "who says?" sums up the entire middle of my own story.
When I Believed Some Things Were Set in Stone
There was a time when I believed that certain things were fixed, personality, health, ability, fate.
You were either “the athletic one,” “the flexible one,” or you weren’t. I thought you could make improvements, sure, but there were hard lines you couldn’t cross.
I bought into the rules, the spoken and unspoken ones, about who gets to be an athlete, what “fitness” looks like, how bodies should behave, and what success means.
And if you didn’t fit the mold, you were just supposed to accept that and find your place at the fringe.
So I did. I performed within the limits I thought were mine. Even as I was training and coaching, I didn’t yet grasp that belief itself could shift physiology, performance, even pain.
Testing the Edges and Finding Evidence
That started to change when I stopped accepting things as givens and began testing them. Not with affirmations or blind optimism, but with experiments.
I’d try something new with my training or nutrition and pay attention. I’d notice how stress, sleep, and language changed performance. I’d challenge the voice that said, this is just how your body works, and test whether it really was.
And the evidence came fast. When I changed how I talked to myself about fatigue, my endurance changed. When I shifted how I coached people, focusing on attention and awareness instead of punishment and push, their results changed too.
I watched clients who thought they “weren’t strong” hit their first inversions, break through plateaus, and recover from injuries faster simply by changing how they related to their bodies.
That’s Dr. Langer’s point, the mind and body aren’t separate systems. They’re one system responding to perception. Our labels and expectations literally shape what we’re capable of. Health, flexibility, strength, pain, even age, they all move.
Everything that is was once a decision made by someone.
Someone who is (probably) not you.
Giving People Back Their Autonomy
That’s where I live now as a coach, in the space between “that’s just how it is” and who says?
When clients come to me saying they’re stuck, I don’t hand them a new set of rules. I ask them to look closer.
Who said you can’t lift heavier?
Who said recovery means doing nothing?
Who said this is your limit, your identity, your role?
We give away autonomy so easily, to experts, to programs, to cultural noise, and forget that all of this is a construct we can challenge.
My job isn’t to tell people what to do. It’s to wake them up to what’s possible when they stop living on autopilot. To remind them that the edges are where we learn who we are.
If that resonates, if you’re someone who moves, tests, rebels, or questions, this is your space. Not for “wellness perfection,” but for curiosity, experimentation, and autonomy.
Because your body, your health, your identity, they’re not fixed stories. They’re alive. Mutable. Waiting for you to ask the question that changes everything:
Who says?
With strength and curiosity,
NBC-HWC | ACSM-CPT
Mental 🏔️ Peaks: The Science of Mindfulness
When most people hear mindfulness, they picture meditation cushions and deep breathing, but that’s not what Harvard psychologist Dr. Ellen Langer means when she uses the word.
Langer defines mindfulness as “the process of actively noticing new things.” It’s not about emptying your mind, it’s about waking it up.
Her research shows that most of us live in a state of mindlessness: we rely on past categories, habits, and assumptions rather than engaging with what’s right in front of us. We repeat what’s worked (or failed) before, even when the conditions, our bodies, environment, and goals, have changed.
That’s autopilot.
And when we’re on autopilot, perception narrows, so does possibility.
Langer’s studies reveal just how powerful awareness can be:
- In the “Chambermaid Study”, hotel housekeepers who were told their daily work counted as exercise showed measurable improvements in body composition, blood pressure, and weight, without changing their actual routines. Their belief changed their biology.
→ Mind-Set Matters: Exercise and the Placebo Effect (Crum & Langer, Psychological Science, 2007) — PDF via Stanford Mind & Body Lab
- In the “Counterclockwise Study”, older men spent a week in a retreat designed to feel like it was 1959. Immersed in that environment, their vision, strength, posture, and cognitive function all improved. Their bodies responded to their minds’ perception of youth.
→ Rewinding the Clock with Mindfulness – Harvard Gazette
- Across decades of research, Langer has shown that attention and awareness directly influence health, aging, recovery, and performance, not through mysticism, but through physiology.
→ The Pioneering Psychologist Behind Mindfulness – Good Life Project
In short: what you notice changes how you function. If you assume things are static, your health, your flexibility, your limits, you’ll act as if they are. If you look for variability, or movement, shifts, and exceptions, your body and brain start to adapt in real time.
🧠 Try This Week: The Five New Things Experiment
Pick one everyday routine, your warm-up, your drive, your morning coffee, your skate session. Then, challenge yourself to notice five new things about it.
It could be sensations in your body, sounds in your environment, patterns in your movement, or thoughts that arise. The goal isn’t to change anything, it’s to see it. Because as Dr. Langer’s work shows, once you notice something, it’s already begun to change.
How I can help you right now:
- 1:1 Coaching (virtual or in-person): Personalized fitness, nutrition, health, and lifestyle coaching designed to meet you where you are.
- Group Coaching (Elevate 8 + other programs): For everyday athletes who want structure, accountability, and community while building strength and resilience.
- Studio Classes & Training (Tahoe Flow Arts & Fitness): Yoga, strength, aerial, and movement training with an amazing mountain community.
- Retreats & Events: Immersive experiences where movement, mindset, and connection come together.
- Corporate & Team Wellness: Workshops, trainings, and programs designed to support employee health, resilience, and performance, ideal for mountain resorts, hospitality, and other organizations who want to invest in their people.
|
Never Stop Learning:
Get your resources here...
