Doing what we don't feel like doing

My son Tanner and I did our fifth Spartan Race of the year last weekend. It’s an extreme running/obstacle course race.  

I got up at 4 am. I didn’t want to, but I did.  We drove 2 1/2 hours, starting in the dark. I didn’t want to, but we did. We got in the gate for our 7:30 start in the Elite class – the first group out on the course. I had pulled a hamstring sprinting two days earlier. Would my legs work today? Self-talk…

Go!  “See ya’ son, go get em!”  Short straight and then left up the first hill in the woods. Ughhh, this sucks.  I don’t feel like it. Top of the hill, hayfield, 100 yard crawl under barbed wire. Hating it half way through, finished it, loving it now. Downhill now, I earned it. I knew the “Twister” was coming up. It’s a new obstacle that most people don’t make it through. Would I?  If not I’d have to do 30 burpees, and that is significant punishment and would wind me for the next uphill. Self-talk.

I had prepared.  Here it is. The Twister. I wish I didn’t have to do this. One rung at a time. Ring the bell! Yes! Pass all those guys suffering through their burpees! Uphill. Ughhh. More obstacles. Bucket Carry coming somewhere up here. I hate it. Self-talk… Dump the rocks out of the bucket back where they came from when you get back down the hill…whew – lovin’ how that’s over with.

The Spear Throw is up here somewhere. One shot. 90% miss it – 30 burpees. While I usually hit mine, I missed it last week. Check the self-talk. “I got this.” Visualize it going right into the hay bale 30 feet away.  The trail opens up to a small field.  There it is – along with all the guys doing burpees.  Bullseye!  See ya!  This is fun. 

Another mile or so. What’s this now?  A huge tire to flip?  That’s new. OMG this thing is heavy! Argghh. I hate this. Flip it back now? Arghhh. I hate this. Over it goes. I love this. Next….

Rope climb, mud pits, dunk wall, slip wall, fire jump…Finish line!

I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m muddy, something stung me…but I feel great!

The whole event is an exercise in doing what you don’t want to do, what you don’t feel like doing, and what is uncomfortable or much worse. You override those feelings and do it anyway so that you may feel the satisfaction and exhilaration of knowing you did it.

Spartan Race or weekly/daily life.  Should it be any different?

How attached are you to you?

The reason why most people won’t become who they want, is that their attachment to who they have been is stronger than their desire to be something else.

How attached are you to the person you are now?

Get yourself ready

What is higher education? Getting yourself ready for a career or to increase your earning ability.

What is working out? Getting yourself ready to compete or to feel better.

What is becoming expert on a specific subject or developing your good reputation? Getting yourself ready for opportunity.

Opportunities don’t come along for just anyone – they come along to the people who are ready for them.

Get yourself ready, and they will come.

And they ignored the popular media…

…and lived happily ever after.

Stay out of the trash can of “information” – the “news.”  

You’ll be a happier person.

Indecision – the thief of opportunity

Some people say they are never given opportunities.  But the truth is we are all presented with opportunities every day – we just don’t take them.  And since one opportunity well seized leads to another, the chain of interesting and promising events lost is unknowable.

Just say yes and see what happens! Go there! Meet them! Talk to those people! Try it out! Get in the game! 

Doing what others won't

You can have what others don’t, if you do what others won’t.

If few others are doing what you know you should, it’s one indication you’re on the right track.

We live where our attention is.

What do you think about every day? Really. What do you put your attention on? It may not even be a person who is around you or place that your in – but if you put your mind there, that’s where you live.

You get to decide where you live. And where you live in your mind, will steer, drive and affect, sooner or later, where you are living in reality.

You are your own freedom factory

Feeling trapped? Captive? Controlled? Out of control?

(It’s not because of them. It’s you.)

You have the keys in your hand.

Use them.

Getting Hacked

I don’t mean your computer – I mean YOU.

We have five senses.  Which one do we take the most information in with?  Our eyes, right?  Which one is next? Our ears.  

So when we tune into the radio or TV (video or audio), and it is someone else’s choice to show us what they want (literally their “program”), we have opened up our firewall and allowed ourselves to be hacked.

We then are influenced by this program.  We think about it and talk about it to others and feel that this is the way the (our) world is.  

Don’t get hacked.  Control your own programming.

Narrow Samples, Wide Decisions

We get a bad piece of fish at a store.  

We can decide – 

We can’t buy fish on Tuesday.

We can’t buy fish at that store.

Fish is bad, I’ll never eat it again.

That store is bad, I’ll never go there again.

The world sucks.

Why me?

But what does it really mean?  You got a bad piece of fish is all we know. We do want to learn from our experiences, but that’s a small sample to be making wide decisions on.

You swing the bat and miss. You made the call but nobody answered.  You took the test and failed.

What does it mean? You get to say.

Choose carefully.