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He's Counting On A Role Model (for life)

Ever struggle with your motivation to exercise or with making smart food choices?

(If you said no, you’re lying)

Yesterday while at Gold’s Gym Orlando, I asked one of the staff, “What is it that makes some people commit to exercise for a lifetime and others quit after a few weeks?”

What do you think?  How would you answer it?

I suggested that we can not do it for ourselves, we must do it for someone else. If we fail, we only let ourselves down. But if we do it for someone else and we fail, we let them down.

The other person challenged my rational (which is exciting), and in the speed of the day, neither one of us, in this casual conversation, really had a desire to debate this further at that moment.

Yet on the drive home, what I had been trying to say was revealed. We need to be a role model for great health habits. This is the secret that eludes people.

You must be someone’s role model, for life. This means you can not fail. There is no greater motivation.

If this is flying over your head, you’re at huge risk to miss this simple, but compelling health secret.

Master's Athlete of the Year, Rita Hanscom

Rita Hanscom was selected as Master’s Track and Field Athlete of the Year for 2009.

Rita Hanscom (San Diego, Calif.): Named World Masters Athlete of 2009 by the IAAF and World Masters Athletics after winning five gold medals in Lahti and setting a world record in the W55 heptathlon. She’s a deputy attorney general for the state of California.

The photo above is from the 2009 Master’s Track & Field Outdoor World Championships in Lahti, Finland. It was a privilege to meet Rita and her son and daughter.

In Finland, there was a sense of community and fellowship among the 5,300 athletes from 80 countries. It’s challenging to explain. It was unique, competitive, healthy and vibrant, supportive.  Amazingly supportive.

Who couldn’t use as much of that that the law will allow, in pursuing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

Shot Put

USATF Press Release, February 8, 2010: United States Largest Master’s Track & Field Indoor World Championships Ever, heading to Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.

Click here to read the official USATF Press Release.

The past few weeks have been a painful reminder how challenging it is to stay motivated. Most of us can eventually find a compelling reason(s) to get healthy.

Few of us find compelling, long-term reasons.

That is why it is essential to figure out a million ways to stay motivated. A million.  Are ya with me.  Succeed or fail.  There is no middle ground.

USA Track and Field does it for me.  For now.

What’s doing it for you?

You Can Do It

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-million blogs on the Internet, and growing daily.

There are 221-million results if you Google “Health Blogs”.

What are all these health-blog people trying to say? Please let me summarize for you:

1. Dream Big
2. Get There
3. Stay There

If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.

PS. Do your excuses make you stop or make you sick? Mine made me sick. Sick to think that I’m the only one responsible for my actions and I wasn’t doing anything about it, except making excuses.

Excuses be damned.

If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.

Hang in there if you are struggling.  Odds are, you are.

I know I sure am. Ran once last week. Once! How is that possible?

So here we are, another week.  Yesterday, I swore there would be time for a run. After delivering four keynote speeches yesterday, each to a different audience, exhaustion took on a whole new meaning. No run.

Today is another day…. for all of us.  Good luck.  Do not give up!

Be Well. Are You? Will You?

Did you exercise yesterday?

Did you eat mostly healthy food?

Do you plan on doing it again today?

Excellent.

If you answered no to the questions, today’s another day.

If not you, who?  If not today, when?

Are you getting this?  Or is it getting old?

If it’s getting old, so are you.

What do Guido Mueller and Roger Bannister have in common?

Most people know Roger Bannister was the first person (1956) to run one mile in less than four-minutes.

So what did Guido Muller do? By the way, this is the same Guido as in yesterday’s post.

People who know, claim that what Guido Muller did in August at the 2009 Master’s Track & Field World Championships in Finland, is equivalent to what Roger Bannister did – humanly impossible.

I was there when it happened. In fact, I was filming all the 400 meter final races. And then this happened:

Impossible is nothing. Carpe diem.

Which One Set A New World Record?

Let’s shake it up a little bit today. You good with that?  Good. Let’s go back to this past summer.

Here’s the scene.  Early August, 2009.  Sunny, clear, 70 degrees.

Finland.

Master’s Track & Field 2009 World Championships. Men’s 400 meters, 70-74 year old age group.

Enter a German man.

Click here to see the secret this “old man” reveals about getting and staying healthy.

PS. If you are too busy to follow this and invest two more minutes, please go look in the mirror and say something like, “I really do want to get healthy and stay healthy, but I just really don’t want to work very hard at it.”

Warning or Example?

Are you a movie star?

A rock star?

A Hollywood celebrity?

Most likely, we can all answer these questions with a resounding, “No.”

But I beg to offer a different perspective (imagine that, lol).

People are watching you the same way they watch famous people, and they are doing the same thing to you they do after watching famous people.

Judging.

We are all telling a story about what we value. Yes, we are. Every single day.  Every choice we make is another “scene” from the movie entitled “Your Life”.

And this brings us back to a very poignant question, “Am I an example or a warning?”

Today, all I suggest to you is to watch this short jeff noel, One-Take-You Tube video. It’s from June 20, 2009:

Just keep saying this to yourself, “If not today, when?”