It’s the Olympics and the perfect time to talk about how often we witness astounding success without comprehending the huge amount of work it took to get there. For most of us, we see someone else’s success every time we open up social media. There’s always a story or two of someone celebrating, maybe they ran a marathon, or created a beautiful meal, or gained a spot on a prestigious sports team. If you are anything like me, you see this and say to yourself, “I want to do something like that.”
Anything worth doing is worth working for.
“We are being trained to believe that a decision almost immediately leads to results and this could not be further from the truth.” – The Lost Art of Relentlessness by Owen Fitzpatrick
Work is simply that, work. Work means taking time to improve your skills, hone your craft, and develop your talent. Ever see someone being awesome at doing something you’ve always wanted to do? Ask them how long it took them to get to where they are. My friend who is always making the most amazing food has over three decades of real-life experience in the kitchen and loves spending time cooking.
Anything worth doing is worth working for.
What success do you want?
If you read last week’s article about being curious, you might have uncovered one or two things that you would love to learn more about. Consider this your chance to make that dream a reality. This is where the sneakers hit the pavement, the meat hits the pan, or the paint hits the canvas.
- Step #1: Acknowledge that learning anything new takes time and your first attempt is going to be challenging and might not turn out how you planned. That’s called growth. Let it happen.
- Step #2: Look at your schedule and make “appointments” for yourself to spend time on your dream. Be realistic, it might be 30 minutes, twice a week. That’s okay.
- Step #3: If possible, find a buddy who’s better at your dream than you are and use them for support and guidance. Even better, schedule appointments with them!
- Step #4: Commit to showing up and giving it your best for at least two months before making any decisions on if you want to keep going or not. Don’t give up when things get tough, that’s where the magic happens.
Turning Yoga into a Lifelong Practice
One of my passions is finding ways to squeeze the most out of life. A big part of that is physical and mental health. Yoga is the perfect fusion of those two aspects of wellness and something that I’ve enjoyed for years. However, there are times when life gets complicated, and often the things that make my body and mind happy get dropped.
I recently went through a huge chunk of time where I’d dropped the practice. Yes, COVID, I’m looking straight at you. I was still spending anywhere from 3-6 hours a day on my computer and found that my energy levels were crazy low, I was cranky, and my body felt like it belonged to someone much older.
A few weeks ago I reinstated a modified yoga practice to help combat all of those things. I found that ten minutes of gentle yoga in the morning gives me back a few more hours of energy in the afternoon. That alone makes it totally worth it. Even better, the gentle stretching is helping with my posture and working out several aches and pains that had been bothering me.
Making time for yoga started as a curiosity, I wanted to see if going back to my practice would help with some issues. I’m glad I did because I now feel much better and stronger.
