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Cards For Kids Planet Fitness

The Benefits of Kindness & How Planet Fitness Is Paying It Forward

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One of the things I am always conscious about is the fact that, because of this blog, my children get to experience things that a lot of other children do not. They have had toys sent to them, met their favourite major league baseball players and been treated like VIP’s at numerous events we have attended. My concern has always been that the kids will become entitled and think that everything in life will be handed to them, when we all know that this isn’t the case.

That’s why my wife and I have been having some really great conversations with kids lately about the importance of kindness and giving back to those less fortunate, and the kids have responded in amazing fashion. They have both agreed to create a giving jar, where they will put away a portion of any money they earn, to be given to the cause of their choice each month. Further to that, my son recently decided that he would set up a driveway booth where he would sell some of his hockey cards, with all the proceeds going to charity.

Cards For Kids Planet Fitness

This month, their earnings will be going to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Canada! We are also happy to be teaming up with Planet Fitness, the innovative health club franchise known for its Judgement Free Zone® and affordable prices. Planet Fitness will be inviting Canadians to join their clubs for $5 down and as low as $10 a month, which includes donating 100% of the enrollment fees to Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada as part of their Judgement Free Generation™ initiative! This incredible campaign runs October 2-13.

Give Jars Planet Fitness

Planet Fitness has also challenged my kids, and children everywhere, to display what a bullying-free world looks like to them, or to show an act of kindness. If you feel like sharing your child’s vision or act, you can do so by tagging Planet Fitness Canada on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and by using the hashtag #JudgementFreeGen! Furthermore, if you have been debating that gym membership, there’s no better time than now to head into of Planet Fitness’s 15 locations across Canada!

Planet Fitness Canada Picture

Here’s more information on Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada:

Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is dedicated to supporting and encouraging children and youth as they discover, develop and achieve great futures. They are a national charity serving 96 member Clubs that provide services to 200,000 young people in 625 locations across Canada. For 116 years, They have welcomed children, youth and their families into Clubs that reflect the diversity of Canada in small and large cities, and rural and Indigenous communities. Visit www.bgccan.com and follow them at www.facebook.com/bgccan and www.twitter.com/bgccan.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Planet Fitness. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Community

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Encouragement

I always believed that a community is simply a term to describe the area that you lived in. In my limited time in the blogging world, I have come to respect the fact that the word, community, means so much more than just a grouping of similarly coloured houses.

I decided to make a life change today. I decided that it was time for me to stop punishing my body with junk and a lack of exercise, in order to create a healthier version of me. Let’s call it Me 2.0. There were a handful of things that pushed me towards this decision today, none of which I will be discussing here. The point is that I got suddenly motivated and had no idea where to begin. I’ve had this sudden burst of motivation in the past and it always turned out the same; I would tell myself I was going to the gym but when the time came to actually do it, I would find any excuse to bail out. Then I would eat chips.

Today was different though. I innocently tweeted my intention to hit the gym for the first time in years and something funny happened. Encouragement. From complete strangers. There were no less than 10 tweets from people I have associated with online, each pushing me towards completing a goal I have failed to achieve so many times before. It was probably the single coolest thing that has happened to me on Twitter so far, and that includes the time Wil Wheaton scolded me.

And I did it, too. I took all the messages of encouragement, got my ass to the gym and it felt great! When I finished my workout, I sat and wondered why it took me so long to finally do this. It wasn’t that hard and it was made easier by the fact that I was reading the tweets coming in as I was doing it. Community. That’s what helped me get over the first hurdle in creating a better version of myself, for myself and my family. I shared all of those messages to illustrate my point and to my surprise, I received more messages from people who just needed to hear the encouragement, even if it wasn’t intended for them.

This new online community I have found is something that has started to transform my life. That might sound like an exaggeration but those who are willing participants in it will know exactly what I am talking about. It’s one of things where you absolutely get what you put into it and I have decided that I am all in. If a simple tweet of encouragement can make someone feel the way it did for me today, imagine the effect of 10 or 20 or 100 would have. It’s something to think about the next time you see someone innocently posting about a goal, hope or dream, while secretly looking for support.

Community is important. It’s what drives us to be better to each other. It’s what motivates and inspires us to do the things we didn’t believe we could do. I’m incredibly thankful for having found such a great community of people and can’t wait to pay forward all the kindness that has been given to me thus far. Thank You all.