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.
What are all these health-blog people trying to say? Please let me summarize for you:
Dream Big
Get There
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.
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:
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?”
And on this day was born a child. In a manger, at the stable. No room at the Inn. And they called him Emmanuel.
Impossible?
Perhaps nothing is impossible. Perhaps impossible is nothing.
Lane 8 is a simple website and blog. Even the first Lane 8 business card was handmade, in five minutes. And 5,000 were printed and taken to Finland.
August, 2009, in Lahti, Finland, the Master’s Track & Field World Championships drew 5,300 athletes from 80 Countries, with the same Olympic spirit as the official Olympic Games.
Many of the Master’s athletes celebrate Christmas, and that little boy everyone calls Emmanuel.
Lane 8 is simply a humble beginning. Not at all unlike a child born in a stable.
What do you do to stay motivated to reach and maintain your health goals?
Master’s athletes are defined as people over 30 years old.
There are other sports that have Masters competitions too. The thought of trying something completely out of my comfort zone actually seems possible – at a future time, of course.
Why?
Because the whole point of the competition, to me, is simply to find ways to stay motivated. When things get boring, I get less motivated.
This is a deadly place to be, literally.
Someday. maybe swimming. Or perhaps I’ll try Filed events, like the Discus, Shot Put, or, heaven forbid, the Pole Vault.
Whatever it takes. That’s one of the secrets to staying healthier. I figure everybody knows this, but it never hurts to say important things over and over.
