I Don't Think Gratitude Means You Have To Settle.

Hi, it's Maria,
and with Thanksgiving coming up, I've been thinking about something that I don't think we talk about enough when it comes to gratitude.

You can be incredibly grateful for what you have and still want more.

Somewhere along the way, I think we started treating those two things like they contradict each other. As if being thankful for your life means you should be completely satisfied with every part of it. And if you're not, well, maybe you just need to appreciate what you have a little more.

I understand where that comes from. There's something to be said for recognizing how fortunate you are, especially when so many of the things we once hoped for have quietly become part of our everyday lives. But I don't think appreciation and ambition have to exist on opposite sides of the room.

I can love something exactly as it is today and still see what it could become tomorrow.

And I think there's a big difference between wanting more because nothing is ever enough and wanting more because you know there's more to experience.

I've always been someone who likes having something to look forward to. A new idea, a project, a trip, something to plan, something to work toward. I genuinely love my everyday life, but I also love knowing there are things I haven't done yet. I don't think those feelings take anything away from each other. If anything, being happy with where I am makes me more excited about what else might be possible.

I see this in my own life with BARE all the time.

A year ago, I wanted to open one really great studio. I wanted to create a place where people loved the workout, loved the people, and genuinely looked forward to showing up. Now, a year later, I get to walk into that place and see it happening. There are familiar faces, full classes, friendships, instructors I'm proud of, and a community that has become so much more than an idea I once had.

I'm incredibly grateful for that.

But I also want to see what else we can create. I want to continue improving the experience, developing our instructors, introducing BARE to new communities, and finding ways to make something I already love even better.

That doesn't mean Odessa wasn't enough. It means Odessa showed me what was possible.

And I think that distinction matters far beyond owning a business.

You can be thankful for your job and still want to pursue a different career. You can love your home and want to move somewhere new. You can appreciate your friendships while wanting to meet more people. You can feel genuinely good about your health and still want to get stronger, try something new, or challenge yourself in a different way.

None of those things automatically means you're unhappy.

Sometimes wanting more is actually a sign that you're happy enough to be curious about what comes next.

I think we tend to associate wanting more with dissatisfaction because we're so used to hearing about the dangers of never being content. And to be fair, I think there's a real conversation to have there.

There are people who move from one accomplishment to the next without ever allowing themselves to appreciate any of it. They reach the goal, immediately replace it with another, and spend their lives feeling like the good part is always somewhere ahead of them.

I don't want that either.

I don't want to spend my life treating everything I have as a placeholder for something better. I don't want to be so focused on the next thing that I forget to appreciate the things I once wanted more than anything.

But I also don't want to confuse contentment with standing still.

Because sometimes we use gratitude as a reason to stay in situations we've outgrown.

We tell ourselves we should be thankful for the opportunity, even when it no longer feels right. We remind ourselves that other people would love to have what we have, as though that automatically means we're obligated to keep it forever. We convince ourselves that wanting something different must mean we haven't appreciated what came before it.

And I don't think that's fair.

You can be grateful for a chapter of your life without wanting to live in it indefinitely.

I think about how many versions of ourselves we go through as life changes. There are things I wanted five years ago that wouldn't make sense for me today. There are things I thought would make me happy that turned out to be less important than I expected. And there are things I didn't even know I wanted until I experienced something that made me realize they were possible.

I think that's one of the best things about gaining experience. You get to change your mind.

You learn more about yourself through the things you try, the people you meet, the opportunities you take, and even the ones you decide aren't right for you. Your priorities shift because you have a better understanding of what you actually want, and sometimes that means making completely different choices than you would have made a few years earlier.

It would be strange to expect ourselves to keep wanting exactly the same things forever.

And yet, we can be surprisingly hard on ourselves when we start wanting something different.

I think the same thing happens with fitness.

People often start working out because there's something they want to change. Maybe they want to feel stronger, have more energy, improve their health, or simply feel better in their own bodies. And I think sometimes we're so careful about encouraging people to appreciate where they are that we forget it's perfectly healthy to want to improve something, too.

You can appreciate your body for everything it does for you and still want to challenge it.

You can be proud of the progress you've made and still have goals you haven't reached.

You can love the person you are today without believing this is the strongest, healthiest, or most capable version of yourself you'll ever be.

At BARE, one of my favorite things to watch is how people's goals evolve. Someone walks in wanting to get through their first class, and a few months later they're excited about a movement they couldn't do before. Something that once felt impossible becomes familiar, and suddenly they're curious about what else they can do.

I don't look at that as someone who was never satisfied with their progress. I see someone who discovered they were capable of more than they originally thought.

And that's a pretty wonderful reason to keep going.

I think there's also something important about allowing ourselves to want different, not just more.

More doesn't always mean bigger, busier, more expensive, or more impressive. Sometimes more means having more time with the people you love. More experiences outside of work. More confidence in your decisions. More space in your schedule. More opportunities to do things simply because they make you happy.

Sometimes moving toward a better life actually means having less of something.

Less stress. Fewer obligations. Less time spent doing things you don't care about. Less pressure to make your life look a certain way.

I don't think there's one universal definition of what more should look like, and I certainly don't think it needs to look impressive to anyone else.

I've become much more aware of that through the different experiences I've had. There are things I care deeply about that probably wouldn't mean much to someone else, and there are things other people work toward that I have absolutely no interest in pursuing. I've learned that something can be a wonderful opportunity for someone else without being something I need in my own life.

And that's fine.

The point isn't to want what everyone else wants. It's to be honest enough with yourself to recognize what would genuinely make your own life better.

And then to give yourself permission to pursue it without feeling like you have to apologize for already having a good life.

As we head into Thanksgiving, I have an enormous amount to be grateful for. My family, my friends, the people I get to work with, the business we've built, and the everyday routines that make my life feel like mine. There are things happening in my life today that I would have been thrilled about a few years ago, and I don't want to lose sight of that.

But I also have plans. I have things I want to experience, places I want to go, people I want to meet, and ideas I haven't even figured out how to bring to life yet.

I don't think acknowledging those things makes me any less grateful for what's already here.

Actually, I think gratitude is a pretty great place to start.

When you recognize how much good already exists in your life, you don't have to approach the future like you're trying to escape the present. You can move toward something new because you're excited about it, rather than because you're convinced happiness is waiting somewhere else.

And maybe that's the difference worth paying attention to.

Are you moving toward something you want, or constantly trying to get away from what you have?

Because those are two very different ways to live.

This Thanksgiving season, I hope we all take the time to appreciate what we have, the people who make our lives better, and the things we've worked hard to create.

And I hope we don't mistake that appreciation for a reason to stop wanting, trying, exploring, or changing.

There's nothing ungrateful about believing there could still be more good ahead of you.

You can be thankful for where you are without deciding it's as far as you're allowed to go.