 When we’re fit, we’re much more likely to live longer, be well, have sound mental health, physical well-being and emotional stability.
And most significantly, we’ll help ourselves to avoid serious illness. This is what Dr James Rippe, a renowned physician in the USA, and a great proponent of preventative measures for healthy living, wrote a couple of years ago. Since then, the need to be well, not just fit, has emerged as a vital element in the field of Human Performance, in any aspect of life. If you’re tired rundown, off form, life can be tough. Even small chores are hard work. But when you’re fit, well, and optimistic, you’ll give yourself a real edge and a true advantage. The energy levels of mind and body are a constant. More and more, the Human Element is being seen as the major part it plays in the scheme of things. Sound mental health has a huge influence on emotional stability. And emotional energy is the lifeblood of creativity. A research company in Toronto recently concluded the following; The value in business success of IQ was around 6%, the value of EQ (emotional intelligence) was up to 40%. We need to value our fitness. Treasure it. Keep it. But first of all, we need to have it.
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Life today is probably faster than it has ever been in the history of Man.
It's not hard in the traditional sense, for most of us in the Western World. But it's really fast, isn't it? We've probably better standards of living than ever before. But there's a question over the quality of life. In business, careers, sport, politics and even war, our speed of living has accelerated to that to which we have yet to adapt. Like the high-performance athlete, the thoroughbred horse, the driven artist or performer, we're in top gear, high performance mode, all the time. We all seem to have little time other than to work, commute and live our social lives. These events are part of our everyday lives. And they all need to be done. It matters not that what we love doing is our work. It matters not how good we are at it either. Every human being has his/her break point. We all need to stop, every now and again. We need to be able to stop, rest and relax, both the mind and the body. But most of us have forgotten how to do that. That's if we ever knew how in the first place. The alternative consequence is burnout. Breakdown. Disintegration. Look at that last word. It's the opposite to being integrated, where mind, body and our spirit are at one. Now, here's a bit of good news. We can learn integration. We can learn how to quiet the mind, calm the emotions, rest the flagging spirit.. It's a skill. Like all skills, it has its fundamentals, and they can be learned. That's one of the effects of regular practised breathing. It exerts that effect. If we do it. If we practise it. Frequently. That's a start. So, start. For many, the word 'creative' is thought to be the preserve of painters, playwrights, musicians, composers and other artistic practitioners.
Four Mondays ago, a young and inexperienced businessman, not long at his job, and new to the urgencies of keeping payments, loans and other demands up to date, wondered how he was going to pay the wages to his staff of five on the following Friday. By Thursday afternoon he had the wages sorted for the next three months, rent, rates and looming electricity bill, all due in the very near future, covered, and enough money to live on as well. Now, there's creativity for you. His next immediate plan was to organise himself and his activities into a cohesive force that used the same urgency, the same focus, and the same continuous application to refine what he'd done in the crisis. His focus was on the activity, not just the planning. While aware of the necessity to plan, he was now aware of the equal necessity to act on the plan. That's where he'd fallen behind before; he'd planned meticulously, thought his way through the possible challenges, figured out strategies in the face of obstacles, and then sat on the plan as it gathered the dust of inaction in his memory. Creativity isn't always about divine inspiration, flashes of insight, inspired motivation. Mostly, it's about doing. It's about starting to act on an idea, a hunch, a detailed plan. But it's the starting that matters. Once the plan of action is in place, it's a matter of doing it. Once we start doing it, we deal with the obstacles and diversions just as we do on any journey. And even though the route can be sometimes diversified, we get there eventually. Which is better any day than waiting for the plan of perfection to express itself into our lives. If we don't start, we can end up waiting for the right time, the right feeling, the right day of the week. And of course all these things can be relevant. But once they have been reasonably assessed, then it's time to move, to do, to get started. In the realm of people getting fit, preserving their health, helping themselves become the best version of themselves, I see this a lot. Some people will examine their options, decide what they need to do, what they should be doing, for themselves and their lives, and immediately come up with the most persuasive of reasons why the time isn't right, why the course won't work for them, why they will do it sometime. But not now. And the moment is gone. The opportunity to begin the journey, start the process, slips by. The ideas, the incredible benefits, the unquestionable advantages of a more fit body, a more alert mind, and a more sound sense of being well, not just physically fit, but universally well, get lost in the tide of good intentions. "What You Can Do, or Dream You Can, Begin It; Boldness Has Genius, Power, and Magic in It". Wolfgang Von Goethe, German playwright. Performance in any field is down to the individual. We can make all the excuses we like, even call them reasons, but when it comes to getting it done, the only thing to do is to do it.
Very basic. Even simplistic. Yet, it's amazing how many of us Do. Not. Do. What. We. Know. We. Should. Be. Doing. It's addictive. We castigate ourselves for being remiss in our duties and then dive wholeheartedly into it on the following occasion, when faced with a routine but necessary duty, the kind of activity that doesn't excite us, isn't colourful or highly profitable, and yet if it isn't done and in place, the rest of our efforts are rendered useless. This kind of repetitive procrastination can become compulsive. Like most humans in the world, I've done it myself. For instance, when it's time to prepare some figures at that time of the year, we can get out the books, gather receipts and invoices and other relevant documents and just as we're about to start, find the really important things to do, like give the dog a bone, check that there's water in the kettle in case someone calls, run out and check the car's tyre pressures, sweep the front hall, straighten all the pictures, don't want to appear sloppy in the Art Department of meticulously hung pictures, count the pens we have in the office and start rummaging for a long-lost fountain pen that could be anywhere between here and the last three houses through which we've moved. But look anyway. Just in case. And you never know. Finally, having run out of desperately important jobs to do, we reluctantly shuffle into our core chore. To our relief we find it isn't as bad as we thought it'd be, and we get through it uninjured and in one piece. Now, what I've found over the years, and so have many with whom I've shared this, is that when we sketch out our agenda for the following day on the night before, commit to a Morning Ritual of Stretch 'n' Tone, Breathing, and reinforced with a Statement of Intent, things get done like clockwork. Even the constant activity of performing the Ritual creates it's own direction and sense of purpose. It gives us the impetus to search for worthwhile directed attention. Over time, a deep sense of that purpose begins to pervade our language and our thoughts, and becomes part of who we are. Those thoughts and words begin to seep into that mysterious mind that we call the subconscious. At which point they begin to guide behaviours and actions; which are now chosen as supports to our aims and aspirations. It may take a little bit of time, and a lot of persistence and patience. But when it happens, it hits the life of the individual like a benevolent tornado. And that's when true transformation can be said to have taken place.  Had a wonderful conversation with a very interesting man the other day.
He’s been a musician all his life, and in the 60s and 70s played with a couple of show bands as well as doing work with pit orchestras for shows. We were speaking on the motivational power of music. Among his favourites, were the themes from “Rocky” and a little heard version of “Clare to Here“ by Red Hurley. In the realm of training for fitness, there is a great case for music to train to; the “Rocky” theme is a universal favourite, as is “I will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. They’re songs of triumph over adversity, and of course that’s what hard training is about; overcoming the mental persuasion to resist the seduction of the easy option. Both songs have an up-tempo rhythm too, which, along with the lyrics of self assertion and wilfulness, are great motivators for training. This isn’t some new discovery. In the 60s, in a gym in Southeast London, to which I went on Saturday afternoons, the recording of Duke Ellington‘s “Night Train“ was played over and over again. This was alternated with up-tempo Chuck Berry numbers. It was in an old fashioned gym of those times. The premises had been a storeroom, of about 2000 ft.². It had a wooden floor and punch bags hung from the high ceiling at various points. The main exercises done were skipping, bag punching, and training with an assortment of fairly light barbells and dumbbells, which lay in a corner for those who wanted to use them The showers were just off the main floor, a smallish room with concrete floor and a huge outlet for the waste water at one corner. The source of water came from the mains, through a 4 inch flexible pipe bent into two large covered buckets, which overhung the middle of the small room. When you wanted to shower, you went in, turned on the mains, and stood under one of the buckets, which had small punched holes in the bottom. As the stone cold water pelted onto you with a force that would nearly peel the skin from your body, it made the whole process an exhilarating experience. The other musical number played in that premises was a rousing version of ‘Woodchoppers’ Ball’, by the Woody Herman Band. I paid two shillings and sixpence for the use of the gym’ on Saturday afternoons. I stopped using it after about three months. The owner was a forward-thinking man and refurbished the place with a carpet, chrome equipment and six shower cubicles, along with a designated changing area. Up to then we’d changed wherever there was a space, usually somewhere around the edge of the premises, never taking your eye off your gear, and bringing valuables to the owner, who’d put them in a box with a padlock, and give you the key, which you then brought back to him when you were leaving, to retrieve your goods and go. The advent of the chrome and carpets, not to mention the real tank-fed showers, changed the place. The bags were done away with, and with a carpet only floor, there was no place for any skipping. When I stopped going, I was able to replace it with a kind of gym’ of my own. I was living in a ground-floor bed-sit at the time. I had access to the back yard and a small well-kept garden, kept green and tidy by my very elderly land-lady. She had no objection to my skipping in the yard, and using my ‘Bullworker’ ( remember them?) in the garden. And being a generation or two older than me, was fully tolerant of my vinyl discs from the Big Band Swing era of the thirties and forties and fifties, played at full volume. The styles of music and the fashions have changed, but the principle is unshakeable. Long may it continue. Today, the world changes more quickly in a year than it did previously in fifty years.
Talking with a man who writes books for a living a few days ago, here's what transpired in the conversation. He was telling me that he submitted his manuscript to the publisher and was waiting for the interminable delay that's associated with that process. I remember this well, as the process I experienced in 1983 was what follows. The manuscript was submitted. It was usually sent to one, perhaps two, at most, publishers, at a time. It was considered unethical to send to many publishers at once. You can see how authors spent, lost, years of their lives in the process. This was my fifteenth submission, as the previous fourteen were rejected. Some of the rejections were hairsbreadth, the publisher saying that they loved it, but their quota was full at the time, so, if it wasn't taken up in the next 12 months, to come back to them. That was what we might call an encouraging rejection. Anyway, this fifteenth submission went out, and two months later, after the usual morning vigilance around the letterbox, day in, day out, I got the notice of acceptance in the form of a phone call. The manuscript had been first sent out just three years previously. It took anything from two months to three months to get a final decision. So, the average send-out and return was about two to two and a half months. Fifteen submissions represented thirty seven and a half months. That's three years and a bit. When the book was accepted, it was scheduled for publication in hardback. Twelve months later. If the book sold well over the next 6 to 12 months, the paperback edition might then be offered to a paperback publisher, or done by the original hardback publisher. Either way there was another 8 to 12 months wait for the paperback edition. This was my experience In 1983. Consider the difference 40 years later. Today, an author sends her completed manuscript by BCC email to 40 publishers at one time and can expect replies within 3 to 10 weeks. When the book is accepted, and the deal done, it can be available in hardback, paperback, digitally, large print, and even in braille, to the world, that is, globally, within another six weeks. I say this to indicate the speed at which we live today. That’s only one tiny indication. Everything is changing so quickly that we find ourselves adapting, or trying to, not only physically , but mentally to the New Speed. And in spite of the New Generation being born into it, the pace of life today is something to which we haven't yet adapted. And it may take a while. And that's why we need to make our own pace, and keep it. Otherwise the world and it's accelerated tempo will batter us into a burnt-out, frenzied wreckage in which we end up serving technology rather than the other way round. Let the body relax and deliver. Let the mind go quiet and calm. With the power of a free flowing river And the peace of a Sunday-time psalm. Click heQuick tips to make the most of your practice sessions:
i) If you want to get rid of body fat cut out alcohol for four weeks. If that's a problem, address it. ii) The majority of your nutrition should come from real food. Supplements are very useful, but the bulk and vitality of live food is what we were designed to digest.. iii) Endless crunches don't shred your abs––you need a good, honest diet and frequent activity. iv) 2-3 tough, rigorous workouts will net you better results, and more lasting results, than hours of desultory visits to the gym'. Intensity is important. It's not meant to be easy. v) Always have a plan when you go to train.re to edit.  Some people grow old when they're still very young. And that's a shame. It puts a man or a woman into a defeatist frame of mind before they even start to live. Others enjoy their vivacious youth, energetic maturity and then begin to age gradually as they advance in chronological years. There are definite factors that make the difference between ageing and growing old. We all age. Years take their toll. Chemistry changes, the mechanics aren't as quick as they once were, and attitudes shift. But. That doesn't mean we have to capitulate. Energy levels can be preserved. Digestion, flexibility, reasonable strength, can all be preserved. It depends on how we use what's available to us. The first thing I would suggest to anyone who's beleaguered by the prospect of ageing would be to make sure that lung capacity is maintained. This is the life line for anyone. Most people according to the most recent research, (American Lung Association) begin to have reduced lung capacity as early as 35-40 years of age. This can accelerate dramatically as the years pass and activity declines. So concerned are the authorities in the National Institute of Health in the USA that they have a campaign in place to promote simple breathing exercises. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is now the fourth biggest cause pf premature death in the United States, and is probably somewhere near the same level here. Many, by the time they're in their fiftieth year, are existing on 50-60% of their lung capacity. That means low energy, poor digestion, inefficient elimination, low resistance to colds, infections, tiredness, and a diminished capacity to think, concentrate, use our cognitive ability. Our mental processes of remembering, perceiving, understanding and reasoning are diminished. Articles in papers and TV shows focus on the disadvantages of ageing. And with good reason. That's because a good deal of the afflictions can be offset, delayed, and very much diminished. An active lifestyle, a sense of purpose, some attention to what we eat, and adequate rest, can change the whole concept of life. The solutions are simple, available and useable by anyone. The time to begin protecting yourself for when you're older is now. The first thing to know is that it's never too late. Simple steps done with a bit of will can not only arrest symptoms, but even reverse them. The second thing to know is that it's never too early. Patterns of activity learned and applied in younger years, and continued into the farthest of age, will establish effects that will, literally, last you a lifetime. And that's a lifetime not only longer, but more vigorous, more lively, more likely free of the illnesses normally associated with age, and a hell of a lot more acceptable than the alternative. I'll be going into what to do about these in the next few posts. Let me know if you've special interests or queries. Get to it.
To find and fight a way from being miserable, tired, stressed, being the butt of cruel ridicule, to the point of being called a 'useless fat lump', to one's face, takes courage, determination, and a big portion of the Heart, the Human Spirit, that so many of us have, but not all of us use.
I had a revealing talk recently with a successful and accomplished client with whom I’ve been working for over 20 years. Those who know him now, would be surprised at the events from his past Presently in his early 50s, he’s admired as a leading figure in his area of business. But just over 20 years ago, it wasn’t thought by anyone, himself included, that he might ever get to do anything more than he was doing at that time. He wasn’t a happy man then. Far from it. His life was one of apathy, disinterest, boredom. He wondered why he lived. At 30, he saw himself as a washed-up human being, a has-been, a lump of flotsam on a broad and lonely windswept beach. Such was his view of the world, and his life. His job had possibilities, good prospects, for anyone that is, who might apply himself. But he didn’t have the ambition to stir himself. And that was a big source of misery and disappointment to him. At one time he would have been keen to drive himself and his abilities forward. He knew he had plenty of them. But at 30, he was thinking and feeling, like a tired old man. Because of his potential, he knew he was selling himself short. And that saddened and irritated him. Because of what he saw as his losses, misery, and simmering self pity, he sought comfort in the numbing and easily-got refuge of food, drink and fantasies of what might-have-been. If circumstances had been different. Things hadn’t worked out as he had hoped. He had always thought that his life would have been one of endeavor, accomplishment and reasonable success, in whatever field of activity he played. But, he thought, circumstances had conspired against him. He had been flattened and ground into an existence of self perpetuating, wretchedness and unhappiness that he had never planned. His mind, body, and indeed, the spirit that exists in all humans, had been swamped and suppressed by the growing and worsening situation that was then his life. He was getting to the stage of deeper and more dangerous conditioning. He was adapting to, nearly accepting, his life and himself, as it then was. Close to the stage of capitulation, he stood at the edge of despair. He was seeing his future, what there might be of it, holding all the excitement of a burst, torn and ragged balloon. This was not only apparent to him, but to others too. In his workplace, he had been called a “fat, useless lump“. None of this was what he had planned, he thought. And as he thought some more about it, he realised that that could be the real problem. He had let circumstances blow him about like a leaf in the wind. He had twisted and tossed and fluttered on the currents in the wind, and let them dictate his life and decisions . “Decisions?“, he heard himself ask, “what decisions?“. He hadn’t made any. He had let himself be shifted and shunted by outside decisions that others had made, and not for him either, but about him. He had let himself settle into a meaningless, aimless apathetic direction that had all the misery and pain in it, equal in weight and power to the happiness, self-respect, and sense of purpose that a life of effort and will and determination might bring. And, he realised, there was only one person who could do anything about that. And that was a good thing; that he had the wit to see it. So, in spite of his low opinion of where he was at that time, he took heart. If his negligence had got him into that position, he reasoned, his decisive attention, some application of courage, and a bit of seasoned determination, just might do something for him in the opposite direction. With this realisation gaining hold in his mind, he began to imagine what he might do about his life. Whether it was possible to change, to become who he needed to be, to do what he still vaguely believed, might be possible. He wondered if it might just be possible to transform his existence from what he saw as abject failure, into one of even moderate quality. And the more he thought about it, the more the idea began to appeal to him. He wondered where to start, how he could go about bringing what he thought was a remote possibility into reality. That was when he called in to the little gym that my wife and myself had in Dublin‘s city centre. I recall the day we met. I was struck by the determination and force that he exuded. I was pleasantly surprised. In my experience, people who carried a lot of weight could be diffident and hesitant about their prospects. Not this boy though. His decision and will were pouring into his words. And when he started his program, with an open mind and a spirit ablaze with enthusiasm, I remember being fired up about his prospects. To me, this fella had the attitude and mindset of someone who was on a personal mission. With an open mind and a willingness to apply himself with extraordinary vigour, he moved into his course of action with a quietly relentless and ferocious consistency. He was voracious in his learning, and committed to the doing of it. In those days, no other gyms taught breathing techniques as a specific exercise, posture points as a foundation, nor the importance of belief and attitude in any undertaking. But with his open, mind, his ability to listen, and his willingness to practice, this man achieved spectacular results, naturally. And quickly. Because of his total involvement, and especially how he saw the psychological effects of what beliefs he held, and how he could shape his attitude, his success washed over into other areas of his life. He soon equaled anything that was being done in work by colleagues, those who had mocked and ridiculed him previously. In another short while he outgrew them and forged ahead of them, and what levels they had set themselves as standards. At that point, a senior manager approached him with the offer of a partnership in a new company. The manager had the capital and administrative experience to run the business. My friend had the drive, the know-how, the newfound energy and belief, and the marketing and sales expertise to promote it. That’s exactly what he did, to become the man he could be, to do what was needed, to get where he wanted to go, and to have the attitude and drive to sustain what they had created. There are many stories like this in which I’ve been privileged to have played some part. It’s an exhilarating experience to be acquainted, however remotely, in that kind of accomplishment. It’s one of those events that reinforces the belief in the spirit of the human being, and what becomes possible, when this great quality is invoked. to edit. Our mornings, every single one of them, start the night before.
His wonderful book, “the biology of belief”, Professor Bruce Lipton speaks of the force of thinking on our bodies. Every one of the 50,000,000,000,000+ cells in our existence is affected directly by how we are thinking. We interpret that physical reaction as a feeling. An emotion. More simply, HOW we are thinking affects how we are feeling. Professor Lipton concluded this many, many years ago. his initial conclusions were not readily accepted by his peers, colleagues or the medical profession. He endured ridicule, dismissal and hubristic condescension; a frequent reaction to original thinking, or as Dr Edward Bono called it, lateral thinking. Professor Lipton's research, development and conclusions are now utilised in the system of thinking known as Neuroplasticity; a whole new development of how we can change, modify, or influence our thinking consciously. Which gives strength to the practice of a Morning Ritual, in which we choose a thought, an idea, or a project (goal), to direct or redirect our thinking. It's back to decisions, isn't it? We can pretty well decide how we're going to think, which will affect how we feel, which will influence how we, act, react, or respond in any situation in life. Any situation at all. Regular training trains the body, the mind and the nervous system in the wisdom and discipline of exercising.
Friend, good morning. The habit of exercising routinely has more than just a physical effect. Training affects are wonderful. They create miraculous changes in our minds and bodies. They increase our energy, invigorate all our systems, sharpen our minds, help stabilise emotions, rest, relax and revitalise our very existence. But there is more. Regular training also creates a pattern of activity that washes over into every other area of our lives. When we discipline ourselves into doing it a regular basis, we also train our minds to the practice of discipline, regular activity and the habit of committing to what needs to be done. In anything. Tony Robbins and Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale and Brian Tracy and all the other energetic and motivational people who fire the world up and try to keep us thinking and acting in a useful way, may well have found their source over four hundred years ago.
That was when William Shakespeare penned the words, " Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we all might gain, by fearing to attempt." Which pretty well encapsulates the self-help movement, doesn't it?? In 1859, Samuel Smiles wrote "The greatest things in daily life are achieved not so much by the extraordinary powers of genius or intellect, as they are by the extraordinary application of simple means and ordinary powers, with which we're all more or less endowed."
Let that be your thought for the week. Do it simply, with extraordinary application. The workshops, starting soon, are about PREPARATION.
You know what's said, 'Fail to prepare, and you prepare to fail', a good reminder for getting ourselves back in the groove, doing what we NEED to be doing, not thinking about it, talking about it, but DOING it. Click the link HERE and take a look. See if this might suit you. They've gone down very well with groups, and individuals. Might be just the thing for yourself. Get all the details HERE They're sharp, to the point and effective in switching on, increasing energy and making the most of yourself and your life. And it won't break the bank. Somebody was telling me recently about Steve Jobs and his views on focusing.
Now I suppose many of us have the same views, but as we’re not as famous as Mr Jobs was, our views on focusing wouldn’t have the same impact on the listeners. And that’s fair enough. When someone has made a great success of his life, and by all accounts Steve Jobs did that, it behoves us all to observe as well as we can what he did in his life that perhaps we could emulate. What he said about focus was: “What focus means is saying no to something that you, with every bone in your body, think is a phenomenal idea, and you wake up in the morning thinking about it, But you say “no" to it, because you’re focusing on something else. “ Now that’s a very telling statement. He wasn’t speaking about idle distraction. He was speaking about an exciting idea with bags of real potential, and in spite of the promise of the idea, you stick to what you’re at. The strong point in this statement is that when we start something, we should finish it. That to me, seems to be the lesson in this statement, to hold our attention fast to the task. Start, get to the middle and see it through. And of course, the bright shiny distracting idea will still be there when we’re done. What do you think? In correspondence with a gentleman recently, he observed that 'As long as you feel pain, you're alive, as long as you make mistakes, you're still human, as long as you're trying, there is hope.
Pain, mistakes, difficulties, they're all a part of life, aren't they? And what's important to remember is that they will always be there. However, no matter what we've done before, what will determine our lives, and the quality with which we live, is how we think about, and feel about, and how we handle, pains, mistakes and difficulties. In other words, it isn't so much what happens in our lives that shapes us, but how we choose to respond to what happens to us. This is a lesson worth repeating again and again. And again. I never knew of anybody who didn't at some time or other in their lives, need a helping hand, a guiding word, a piece of useful advice.
Did you? This realisation got me thinking about the word 'useful'. I read in a post somewhere recently about how a sage, I think it was Socrates, on being told what he suspected might be idle gossip, asked three questions. Is it true? Is it good or kind? Is it useful or necessary? If it didn't fulfill at least one, and preferably all three of these criteria, he didn't want to hear it. They seem to be good measurements of merit, don't they? So, perhaps we can take a direction from that. Maybe we find how we can make our conversations, correspondence and general communications, true, kind and useful. Now there's a Mindful Exercise. Those of you have a certain age may remember a lady by the name of Mae West.
May was famous for her nonchalant attitude and her quick one-liners. One of her sayings was “I don’t so much think about the men in my life, as I do about the life in my men! “ May had her priorities organised. Many of us want to live longer, to stay around for a bit more, especially when we get to the middle and more years. Somebody said to me recently “who wants to live to be 100? “, and he then promptly added “I suppose if you ask any 99-year-old, you will get a very definite answer.” While it is a great achievement to extend our lives, we need to ensure in as far as we can that we keep good physical and mental health. Dr James Rippe, Director of Exercise Physiology of Harvard University stated some years ago that physical exercise, done regularly, not only lengthens life, but helps maintain activity, and more significantly, helps to prevent illness. Two factors help to ensure this. The first as lung capacity, and the second is good muscle tone. Both of these factors contribute to a well-ventilated system and a vibrant healthy circulation. Regular exercise, good breathing patterns, and a halfway decent diet will get all of these in place for you. Put these in place and Your body will find it physically impossible to not respond. Start today. Friend, good morning.
In training, the key to success is consistency. Sometimes you may find you’re not in the mood, or you’re short of time, or there’s a pressing problem, or your mind is engaged. All of these things can contribute to either skipping your training entirely or doing it in a haphazard way. To apply yourself regularly and to make sure you get full benefit from every session you do, is a skill Learning that skill and applying it will raise the value of every workout you do. What this means is that whether you are short of time, are under pressure, or distracted in some other way from your plan, you will be able to apply yourself to your program, ensure continuity, achieve consistency, and make sure that you get good results. This is the secret of every successful trainer, consistency. As in everything else in life, you will have good days and you'll have bad days. But because your practice, application, is consistent, it is physically impossible for your mind, body and attitude to not respond. This response overspills into everything else. You'll find that as you decide to deal with the matter of consistency in your discipline of training, you'll do the same in your work or any other area. There's a saying that 'as you do one thing, you do everything.' That means that as you cultivate the habit of training, for 10 minutes or two hours, the mind is inculcated with that attitude, and your training becomes not only a physical workout, but a mental exercise. Of course, there will be days when your performance will not be as wholehearted as it is on other days. But that’s life, isn’t it? Though there are days when the intensity may not be in the workout, but keep in mind that you're still making progress. At the end of a three-month period, for instance, your mind and body won't know the difference with which you applied yourself on any given day. What they will know, though, is that the work has been done and that they will have responded accordingly. Go to it.  Some people never give up. And they often succeed.
But they sometimes they do fail. Others fail more often than they succeed. And they don't give up either. Some fear failure with a terrible dread. "What'll I do if it doesn't work?" "What'll people think?" "How will I cope?" Others fear success with an equal amount of horror. "What'll I do if this works?" "How will I keep it up?" "What will people expect of me?" "How will I cope?" Success and Failure are uncertainties. There are no guarantees. You can do nothing, and cogitate for the rest of your life wondering what if you'd done it. What if it had worked? Or you can work like blazes at it, and have the rug pulled from under your feet. But be glad that you used the resources, abilities and talents you had to chase the dream, even if it did elude you this time. Or you can put every ounce of your existence into it, and survive, or achieve, and be glad that you used the resources, abilities and opportunity that this wonderful life affords us, to have ACTED, used your resources, and to have done your best. |
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