This isn’t going to be one of those, “In my day” rants, but honestly, years ago, people prided themselves in never giving up and never quitting. I don’t live in some parallel universe and come up with these commentaries. I see people give up, I hear about people giving up and I know that “I can’t” is an all too common refrain today.
In the fitness world, that is bad news because there are things that are a whole lot easier to do. Although the level of enthusiasm is very high now for keeping resolutions and losing weight and getting in shape and giving up bad habits, history tells us that enthusiasm will wane – another way of saying people will give up and quit. That is so sad.
Because I hear it so often, I will use the Beachbody workout DVD, P90X, as an example. It was created by Tony Horton who started out as a regular guy who didn’t like to exercise and eat right and went to Hollywood to become an actor. Being a “98 pound weakling”, he realized he had to get fit to succeed and joined the World Gym in Venice, CA. His transformation was so awesome that he became a sought after trainer and went on to create a series of workout DVD’s including Power 90 and the legendary P90X.
Virtually anyone can do P90X, just like anything else that we set our minds to, but we all too often focus on failures instead of successes and don’t get up, dust ourselves off and try again. Remember, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Tony himself says, “Do your best and forget the rest”. And if you don’t believe me and think that you can’t do P90X, then just click on the Ask The Coach logo at right and one or more of the coaches will tell you how.
Why can’t people dream big and hold onto their goals for dear life and not let them go? A simplistic evaluation would be that there are too many safety nets these days and so many other things that you can be doing with your time that are a whole lot easier. You can eat junk food, sit in front of a computer, play video games, watch endless hours of TV and still be taken care of when you get sick. Your health insurance covers all but your co-pay and there is a drug for every obesity and inactivity related affliction there is. In the old days, which I lived in, there were far fewer safety nets and it was more survival of the fittest. We lived by sayings like an apple a day keeps the doctor away and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
If you fall into the category of gravitating to the easy and avoiding the challenging, can you imagine what you would be doing with your time if there was no TV, no video games, no smartphones, no iPods and no computers? You would get mighty bored just sitting at your desk or sitting on the couch or in an easy chair.
Work hard to be healthy and physically fit and then you can work easy to maintain it because once you have those things, you will cherish and safeguard them and value what you do to keep them.
Have a dream, create a goal, make a plan and commit to succeeding in achieving your goal. It only takes unwavering determination and we all have it if we put our blinders on. Stop thinking about all those distractions that pull us from the path we need to stay on. The path that has the ultimate reward of optimum fitness and health is what we all must stay on. There is nothing more valuable than your health because without it, no other dreams are possible.
