“Mental Muscle”

“Mental Muscle”

Man, just read up on a few great blog posts, a few emails over the week, as well as a few professional fitness blog sites that I’ve been reading on a regular basis and it just inspires me so much to see that they all share the same common goals in mind. Great stuff and it’s those inspiring, well thought out posts, measages and emails that I read that get my self motivated to see through obstacles in life, that kind of tend to take away the “focus” and eventually in the way of achieving our own personal fitness aspirations. The fact that they share the same dreams and aspirations is what gets me going every day to carry on this journey.

Sometimes there’s just so much outside negative influences that hold us down, trying to take that dream away from us…but that shouldn’t stop us from what we want to accomplish in the long run.

Sometimes we feel that limiting ourselves (or allowing ourselves to be limited) is what prevents us from getting what we want. We all have surrounding circumstances/issues in life that make our dreams appear unachievable and accept that that sometimes that’s just a fact of life that we have to work around at...we just have to push through it...and sometimes it may take longer to achieve than most. But no one can be more accountable than yourself. Never hold back on a dream! Always believe in yourself that it can be accomplished with that mental fortitude and heart that people don’t always see from the outside…that "mental strength" to carry on our journeys to better health and a better life is something we all should strive for everyday.

My newest motivator is no other than Michael Jordan of the great Chicago Bulls team of the 90's. He made a recent famous line that really hit the spot - “Maybe it’s my fault that failure gave me strength…...failure gave me strength and that pain was my motivation.”

The pain of failure is where basis of real strength is made.

Man this guy, whew...just blows my mind. And just like Bruce Lee, he represents what we all should strive for. This guy took so many cheap shots in his NBA career early on and with early repeated failures soon became owner to 6 championship rings. I was just fortunate enough to see this man play that I can share that with my kids as they get older to realize how great of an athlete this guy truly was for the sport of basketball…ever. It never was easy for Michael but he found ways to get better all the time.

Life aint easy…and there are no short cuts. Nothing was made easy to begin with not even since the day we were born...a baby has to crawl before he walks, sits and falls before he stands, cries before he talks. Nothing is easy. That’s the cycle of life….and our bodies tend to adapt rather quickly and that why it’s a continuous learning process that never ends…the body is that efficient. That’s why I will keep working hard at my goals and keep finding the motivation to carry on.

As we look at ourselves in the mirror every morning seeing that other person looking straight at you is where the challenge here lies. “How much do you want it?”. It’s very individual but that will get you over the daily challenge of answering the question “why?”. Tough question to answer and sometimes things that we may think are answers may be just excuses for us. Let’s not make excuses and just keep pushing it.

Personally, the challenge for me is looking at that man in the mirror straight in the eye every morning and that is all it takes for me to get right back into the gym the next day…Mental muscle. Strong stuff that goes a long way.