Easy? Fast? Lies!

What does it take, day after day, to stay motivated?

That’s really the difference between a casual approach and a committed approach.

You knew that, right?

If you don’t dream big (like for the rest of your life), you lose.

Big is not:

• Losing weight for the cruise
• Losing weight for the School Reunion
• Watching your diet for your upcoming blood test
• Losing weight to get back in your old jeans
• Losing weight for swim suit season

Big is only one thing:

• For your lifetime health and fitness

Got it?

Good.  Enjoy your food and your exercise today.

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Special Moments Happen Unnoticed

Last night, while watching the Super Bowl, did some blog surfing and found this Lane 8 healthy blog post from last April.

It’s a story about a Father and a Son having a casual conversation that was as significant, as it was insignificant.

These are the small, often unnoticed moments that make life exciting.

You have one you’d like to share?

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Lane 8 In Finland 2009

Last night I experimented with a WordPress front page “sticky post”. This allows bloggers to indefinitely keep a certain blog post as the very first post. Like a sticky note.

If it works, regular Lane 8 readers will see the same “Welcome to Lane 8″ post indefinitely. This is really for first time readers to give them a quick look at what Lane 8 is about.  All you’ll have to do is simply scroll past it each time you visit, to get the daily Lane 8 post.

Do you experiment?  At work?  At home?  With your diet? With your exercise routine? With your rest? With your motivation?

We all know that experimentation and creativity are the keys to innovation. What grade do you give yourself for practicing what you preach?

Anyone on the honor roll this semester?

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In watching these two videos, it’s clear where my mind was. It was on motivation. Everyday our minds should be on motivation.  Everyday.

Many of you will never be runners. That’s ok.  Never want you to feel like you should be a runner. But I absolutely want you to feel you should do something. Walk, bike, dance, roll, swim, stairs, yoga, gym, ski…. it doesn’t matter, unless it matters to you.

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Dream Big. Get Started. Never Stop.

Haven’t run in five (5) days.

How is that possible?

Mister “you have to find a way” or your doomed, Mr. Internet five-a-day blogger, Mr practice what you preach, Mr. self-appointed wellness expert.

Yeah, tell us why you have “failed” this week.

First of all, who am I to be calling myself such names, with that stern tone?

Ease up already mister.

There is an inherent challenge with an impossible goal.

It is, well, quite literally, impossible.

To think that we could consistently get regular exercise for the rest of our lives is preposterous.

Rubbish.

It can happen.  It will happen.  It is happening.

Went to the gym for strength and core training last night.  And, after a few commitments this morning (I’m Off today), I’ll go for a run.

Dream big.  Get started.  Never stop.

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Motivation Is Like A Fire

Wow, another year come and gone.

It can be so challenging to get healthy, so challenging to stay healthy.

I often wonder if I’ll ever end up a hypocrite, a phony.

Living in Central Florida now for 26 years, it’s this time of year when we actually use our fireplace. And being on vacation the past ten days, we’ve been having a fire nightly. Sometimes we even start the fire in the morning.

And this thought just entered my mind while typing this blog post:

Motivation is like a fire. You must continue adding fuel to it to keep it burning.

Otherwise, it will go out.  A “no brainer” as they say.

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World Championships Gold Medal

Have you ever had something really important or “big” in your life, a long-time dream perhaps, where you where getting close to the end of your journey?

And you were so close you could see the glorious end in sight, but then the unthinkable happened.

How did you deal with it?  Did it work out for you?

Where you forced to compromise? Or maybe (gasp), quit?

Pain in the as foot.

Pain in my left foot. Still.

It plagued me during the August Master’s Track & Field World Championships. In fact, it has bothered me all year.

In the Spring, it seemed to be a dominant topic at Lane 8.

By June however, I pretty much had stopped writing about the pain, but not because it went away.

Eventually, I had to suck it up and do what needed to be done to make it happen.

In Finland, it didn’t turn out the way I had dreamed, but that’s the beautiful lesson – nothing turns out the way we dream.

It’s either better or worse, but never the same.

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Masters Track

Yes, Masters Track.

What do you do to stay motivated to reach and maintain your health goals?

Master’s athletes are defined as people over 30 years old.

There are other sports that have Masters competitions too.  The thought of trying something completely out of my comfort zone actually seems possible – at a future time, of course.

Why?

Because the whole point of the competition, to me, is simply to find ways to stay motivated.  When things get boring, I get less motivated.

This is a deadly place to be, literally.

Someday. maybe swimming.  Or perhaps I’ll try Filed events, like the Discus, Shot Put, or, heaven forbid, the Pole Vault.

Whatever it takes.  That’s one of the secrets to staying healthier.  I figure everybody knows this, but it never hurts to say important things over and over.

Does it?

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Lane 8

Because we see it every time we visit Lane 8, we don’t see it any more.

The tag line.

Huh?

The tag line beneath the title, Lane 8, at the very top (header) of this page”

“If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough.”

As soon as I start taking the most important things for granted, I lose. Are ya with me?

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Long story short:  While I was sharing the story on my 1982 cross-country bicycle trip, he came to a realization, and so did I.

When I said cross-country, the original intent was from one coast to the other. But for a variety of good reasons, it didn’t happen the way it was envisioned.

And for a moment, it started to feel like maybe I was misrepresenting the truth, and I questioned myself.

In summary, Derrick Redmond, an Olympic 400 meter runner, may tell people he ran in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but that may not be the “truth”.  You owe it to yourself to watch this, and then ask and answer the question that follows:

So, did Derrick Redmond run in the Olympics?

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