The June 6 (2016) blog post was about "Vision". I suggested that we need to establish a realistic appraisal of our basic physical condition, as well as how Ready, Willing, and Able we are to step up our activity level.
Using that as a starting point, I challenged you to cast a vision of your new, fitter self at several points in the future (one month, three months, six months, a year, two years, five years). These are arbitrary, but give us a range of close-up and more distant focus.
Several of my friends and I are piloting a Vision-Casting exercise that pairs the June 6 blog post with a worksheet to help define vision and set concrete goals. I have discovered that these two processes (vision-casting and goal-setting) are interrelated, in the sense that thinking about one tends to give precision to the other. So far, a clearer fitness vision and more specific goals have been "evolving".
I plan to have the feedback-tweaked worksheet available here in a week or so. My challenge would be for you to re-read the Vision blog and put some serious thought into actually casting a vision and creating specific fitness goals. Don't forget about the February Fitness Challenge!
By the way, I survived the triathlon!
Tuesday 30 August 2016
Monday 22 August 2016
Give it a Tri!
Sorry for the cheesy title, but the point of this blog is to push you to identify some new fitness challenge and give it a try. Step out of your comfort zone a bit. As always, be sure that you are medically fit by checking with your physician, but, assuming your body is up to the challenge, go for it.
Why should you give it a try? Because if you're anything like me, you have sometimes limited yourself by a lack of confidence, fear of failure, or the lack of an inspired vision of yourself. Here's another question: where has it [not stepping out of your comfort zone] gotten you? Probably resigned to a life of luke-warm satisfaction with your physical well-being. And what about your confidence? If you're cruising life with your "Safety" on, have you tried enough challenging things to have achieved enough of them to be confident in your ability?
I may have mentioned this before, but one of my instructors challenged us to choose good goals, because even if we didn't always reach them, our goal set us in motion in the direction of our goal. So you may set a goal of a half-marathon. You might accomplish that, or you might only manage 10k. Come on - 10k is not a failure; 10k is an accomplishment! And it has pushed you farther in the direction of your goal than you would have ever gone before.
My mind is presently caught up with our local triathlon which runs tomorrow (as I write this). I go into it confident that I can complete the event, but I'm amazed to see how easily thoughts of "You haven't trained enough" or "That time [one of my time targets] is not a realistic goal" keep intruding. It's like there is a barrage of self-doubt trying to undermine my confidence. In the past, I would have listened to those doubts more, but I think I've gotten to a place where this event is more about something I am doing for myself than something where I want to impress others. And I have to say that I feel pretty good about that, on balance.
I attribute this change (and it really is a change in attitude for me) to a few things. First, I'm older (and wiser) than I was. Take that for what it's worth! Second, with some encouragement and counter-encouragement (or you could say mutual encouragement), I have let people talk me into fitness activities that I would only have imagined trying even though part of me was thinking, "Man, I'd like to be able to do that!" Nonetheless, I wouldn't have felt confident enough to try on my own. Hat tip here to both my brother and my daughter for their challenge/encouragement - thanks to you guys! Third, I have come to realize that I really do enjoy being active and working on fitness. I have learned some new lessons and realized that most of the "limits" I put on myself were essentially limits in my own head. This has freed me up to take more of a "Let's see what happens if I try [x, y, or z]". For me, the biggest area of new attempts has been with level of intensity: Intervals and sprints. Full-out sets of Kettlebell swings. Or the infamous burpee challenge. And I survived.
So here's my parting shot: with your physician's approval, step out of your comfort zone and push a limit. Set a goal beyond your current abilities, get some appropriate coaching (if you need it) and stretch yourself toward the new goal. And so what if you don't quite make it. You'll probably be at least part-way there, and almost certainly past your old limit. Become a limit-pusher. Push the envelope. Stretch your limits, work hard and become better. I want to hear from you in October with stories about limits pushed and new goals achieved.
Give that a tri!
Why should you give it a try? Because if you're anything like me, you have sometimes limited yourself by a lack of confidence, fear of failure, or the lack of an inspired vision of yourself. Here's another question: where has it [not stepping out of your comfort zone] gotten you? Probably resigned to a life of luke-warm satisfaction with your physical well-being. And what about your confidence? If you're cruising life with your "Safety" on, have you tried enough challenging things to have achieved enough of them to be confident in your ability?
I may have mentioned this before, but one of my instructors challenged us to choose good goals, because even if we didn't always reach them, our goal set us in motion in the direction of our goal. So you may set a goal of a half-marathon. You might accomplish that, or you might only manage 10k. Come on - 10k is not a failure; 10k is an accomplishment! And it has pushed you farther in the direction of your goal than you would have ever gone before.
My mind is presently caught up with our local triathlon which runs tomorrow (as I write this). I go into it confident that I can complete the event, but I'm amazed to see how easily thoughts of "You haven't trained enough" or "That time [one of my time targets] is not a realistic goal" keep intruding. It's like there is a barrage of self-doubt trying to undermine my confidence. In the past, I would have listened to those doubts more, but I think I've gotten to a place where this event is more about something I am doing for myself than something where I want to impress others. And I have to say that I feel pretty good about that, on balance.
I attribute this change (and it really is a change in attitude for me) to a few things. First, I'm older (and wiser) than I was. Take that for what it's worth! Second, with some encouragement and counter-encouragement (or you could say mutual encouragement), I have let people talk me into fitness activities that I would only have imagined trying even though part of me was thinking, "Man, I'd like to be able to do that!" Nonetheless, I wouldn't have felt confident enough to try on my own. Hat tip here to both my brother and my daughter for their challenge/encouragement - thanks to you guys! Third, I have come to realize that I really do enjoy being active and working on fitness. I have learned some new lessons and realized that most of the "limits" I put on myself were essentially limits in my own head. This has freed me up to take more of a "Let's see what happens if I try [x, y, or z]". For me, the biggest area of new attempts has been with level of intensity: Intervals and sprints. Full-out sets of Kettlebell swings. Or the infamous burpee challenge. And I survived.
So here's my parting shot: with your physician's approval, step out of your comfort zone and push a limit. Set a goal beyond your current abilities, get some appropriate coaching (if you need it) and stretch yourself toward the new goal. And so what if you don't quite make it. You'll probably be at least part-way there, and almost certainly past your old limit. Become a limit-pusher. Push the envelope. Stretch your limits, work hard and become better. I want to hear from you in October with stories about limits pushed and new goals achieved.
Give that a tri!
Wednesday 17 August 2016
Limits and Goals
Back on June 6, I did a blog about Vision. I suggested that vision is something that you mindfully create, rather than just some mental image that pops into your head. I defined a fitness vision as "…how you see your personal fitness/wellness at some defined point in the future...", and suggested that you arbitrarily pick some time points in both your short-term future and your longer-term future.
So… did you do it? Did you spend some time creating a vision for your future, fitter self? If not, my encouragement is that you give it another try. We are not in the habit of doing this, so we might need a reminder or two. Here's your reminder: give it a try. You can re-read that blog for the full story, but it's important to let those creative, imaginative ideas flow. And here's why I bring it up.
I will assume that, if you are reading this, you are either closely related to me OR you have at least a passing interest in personal development. You would at least like to see yourself being more physically fit. I think we usually assume that, along with greater physical fitness will come other good outcomes like lower stress, better health, higher quality of life. There are no guarantees, but I will take my chances on the idea that improving my own physical fitness will enhance my life in a variety of areas.
How does a vision of improving our personal fitness relate to goals and limits? I would argue that we often unconsciously or even consciously set limits on what we can do. For a variety of reasons, I suspect that we set those limits well below what we physically are capable of. I think we get in the habit of setting "safe" limits that are so easy and safe as to be essentially meaningless. We blur the distinction between limits and goals with the effect that even the goals we set are so safe and achievable that accomplishing them is so lame it's underwhelming. We set limits on what we think we can do that are so low (relative to our ability) that we basically prevent ourselves from pushing forward to the next level. In fact, we might start to slip backward.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that, many times, we are so much in "Limit" mode that we don't even sit down to consider our own vision of where we would like to be at various points in the future. And setting a goal would be, to quote Brother Maynard and the Book of Armaments, "right out." So we don't set goals - not meaningful ones, anyway. And we don't think seriously about where we would like to be down the road.
I am saying that it is easy to allow our thinking to become "limited". We talk ourselves into not likely being able to do certain things (i.e., we limit our scope of performance). Then, even if we do set goals, we undercut our ability so much that there is no risk or challenge. With these nothing-ventured, nothing-gained goals, there is little sense of accomplishment when we achieve the goal. We don't inspire ourselves and we likely don't inspire anyone else. And THAT is pretty boring. Did I mention uninspiring?
My challenge for all of us is to find a way to revitalize our thinking by challenging our physical abilities (we need to be realistic, given our current health and fitness and such). We need to shift our Limit-oriented thinking from, "I can only do [x]…" or "I can't do that…" to "I’m not sure if I can do [x] but I'd like to try it and see. I might even try [x and y]". That is more goal-oriented thinking, and it is also introducing a challenge component into it. You have to work (i.e., try hard) to accomplish the goal. You might have to practice or train.
Here's an experiment to explore this concept:
1. Find a friend, relative or co-worker who has taken on a physical challenge - like a non-walker who starts walking daily, or someone who decides to take a swimming class or dance class or train for and participate in a road run or triathlon. Ask them if they regret setting that goal and accomplishing it.
2. Find a friend, relative or co-worker who has not taken on a physical challenge or pushed themselves to accomplish some kind of fitness or wellness objective. Ask them if they have any regrets about their choice.
Don't be the person who lives with regrets because they allow Limit-oriented thinking to govern their approach to their personal fitness and wellness. Take this opportunity seriously to find an encourager who can challenge you to become more Goal-oriented, and to set more meaningful fitness/wellness goals. When you accomplish those goals, you will truly inspire yourself and those around you.
And if you don't accomplish the goal fully, who cares? So you tried to run 5k and only made it 4k before you had to start walking and running. Boo-hoo! You made it 4k! That is a meaningful accomplishment for most people. Celebrate it. Try again in a few days. Learn how to train smartly and safely. Get some coaching. Keep at it. Work hard. Enjoy your rest days. And let all of this percolate as you brew up a great new vision for yourself!
So… did you do it? Did you spend some time creating a vision for your future, fitter self? If not, my encouragement is that you give it another try. We are not in the habit of doing this, so we might need a reminder or two. Here's your reminder: give it a try. You can re-read that blog for the full story, but it's important to let those creative, imaginative ideas flow. And here's why I bring it up.
I will assume that, if you are reading this, you are either closely related to me OR you have at least a passing interest in personal development. You would at least like to see yourself being more physically fit. I think we usually assume that, along with greater physical fitness will come other good outcomes like lower stress, better health, higher quality of life. There are no guarantees, but I will take my chances on the idea that improving my own physical fitness will enhance my life in a variety of areas.
How does a vision of improving our personal fitness relate to goals and limits? I would argue that we often unconsciously or even consciously set limits on what we can do. For a variety of reasons, I suspect that we set those limits well below what we physically are capable of. I think we get in the habit of setting "safe" limits that are so easy and safe as to be essentially meaningless. We blur the distinction between limits and goals with the effect that even the goals we set are so safe and achievable that accomplishing them is so lame it's underwhelming. We set limits on what we think we can do that are so low (relative to our ability) that we basically prevent ourselves from pushing forward to the next level. In fact, we might start to slip backward.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that, many times, we are so much in "Limit" mode that we don't even sit down to consider our own vision of where we would like to be at various points in the future. And setting a goal would be, to quote Brother Maynard and the Book of Armaments, "right out." So we don't set goals - not meaningful ones, anyway. And we don't think seriously about where we would like to be down the road.
I am saying that it is easy to allow our thinking to become "limited". We talk ourselves into not likely being able to do certain things (i.e., we limit our scope of performance). Then, even if we do set goals, we undercut our ability so much that there is no risk or challenge. With these nothing-ventured, nothing-gained goals, there is little sense of accomplishment when we achieve the goal. We don't inspire ourselves and we likely don't inspire anyone else. And THAT is pretty boring. Did I mention uninspiring?
My challenge for all of us is to find a way to revitalize our thinking by challenging our physical abilities (we need to be realistic, given our current health and fitness and such). We need to shift our Limit-oriented thinking from, "I can only do [x]…" or "I can't do that…" to "I’m not sure if I can do [x] but I'd like to try it and see. I might even try [x and y]". That is more goal-oriented thinking, and it is also introducing a challenge component into it. You have to work (i.e., try hard) to accomplish the goal. You might have to practice or train.
Here's an experiment to explore this concept:
1. Find a friend, relative or co-worker who has taken on a physical challenge - like a non-walker who starts walking daily, or someone who decides to take a swimming class or dance class or train for and participate in a road run or triathlon. Ask them if they regret setting that goal and accomplishing it.
2. Find a friend, relative or co-worker who has not taken on a physical challenge or pushed themselves to accomplish some kind of fitness or wellness objective. Ask them if they have any regrets about their choice.
Don't be the person who lives with regrets because they allow Limit-oriented thinking to govern their approach to their personal fitness and wellness. Take this opportunity seriously to find an encourager who can challenge you to become more Goal-oriented, and to set more meaningful fitness/wellness goals. When you accomplish those goals, you will truly inspire yourself and those around you.
And if you don't accomplish the goal fully, who cares? So you tried to run 5k and only made it 4k before you had to start walking and running. Boo-hoo! You made it 4k! That is a meaningful accomplishment for most people. Celebrate it. Try again in a few days. Learn how to train smartly and safely. Get some coaching. Keep at it. Work hard. Enjoy your rest days. And let all of this percolate as you brew up a great new vision for yourself!
Monday 8 August 2016
Slump!
Around 2004 or so. . . I was training for my first triathlon. What a risk I was taking - could I do it? What if I embarrased myself? If you've ever tried this, you will know exactly what I mean.
Anyway, I read a great book by Eric Harr called Triathlon Training In Four Hours A Week: From Beginner to Finish Line in Just Six Weeks. Aside from the fact that I thought it was a great book for a newbie, it was very readable. It contributed to one of my most enduring memories of that whole training season. "Slump!"
Let me explain. During the leadup to the event, I came down with a cold. One of those nasty summer colds that squeezes your eyes out and makes you ache all over. But wait! There was something in the book about colds. Flip, flip, flip. . . He talked about colds during training. Aha! There it is - the section talking about dealing with colds. The author pointed to a crazy sounding concoction of vegetables and fruit that should put your cold on the run:
Alexandria's Amazing Tonic (p. 198). You can probably find the recipe if you want the details, but it had these things in it: beets, grapefruit, oranges, lemon, carrots, celery, fresh ginger (a 2" x 2" piece!), an onion, and garlic. And here's why I'm even telling you about it. This was the single-most memorable experience of my whole triathlon training experience (other than the wetsuit incident - and EVERYONE has had a wetsuit incident!).
I grabbed the book and started gathering the ingredients. Which caught the attention of one curious and observant ten-year old boy who is genetically related to me. He watched, and I gathered. And I cut and peeled and popped all this stuff in the blender. And he watched. And I put the lid on the blender and hit start. And he watched. And I watched because this was getting interesting. The ingredients reverse-engineered into a purple-pink mixture which looked hauntingly like apple sauce, but oddly more dangerous.
Moment one was when the lid came off and the "fragrance" of this concoction hit us both. Moment two was when my son uttered the fateful words: "It looks like Slump!" You don't have to have seen this to imagine it. Purple apple sauce which kind of tries to remain standing where you poured it but it fails, kind of in rings or ripples of failure that spread out from the centre. I might just as well have poured it onto a plate.
By now the next move was painfully obvious: I had to ingest this stuff. I say "ingest" because it wasn't clear if I should eat it or drink it. Nor was it clear whether the stuff was actually edible, considering what had gone into the blender.
Well, I decided to dive in and go for it. With my attentive audience now fully waiting for the inevitable, I threw caution to the wind, grabbed the glass (which made an ominous milk-shakey kind of "toonk" sound), and chugged back a mouthful of the stuff.
There really are no words for what I experienced. Even with a severe head cold, I can say that I certainly tasted some health-imbuing flavors. I think I tasted fire. And maybe gasoline. Even a ten-year-old can be impressed by a parent from time to time, as in, "No way, Dad - you didn't really DO that!" That one mouthful was the only one I could manage, and the experience got chalked up to "Too terrible to ever do again."
But my curiosity did nag at me. Why did this guy put such a gut-wrenching and repulsive recipe into a book and why did the publisher let it stay in there? So, I had to re-read that part of the book. And that's when I spotted the word "juicer." It would have gone better for me had I read this later, after my audience had left the room but, no, I had to mutter the word out loud. These ingredients were supposed to be JUICED in a juicer, not BLENDED in a blender. I know what you're thinking. . . honest mistake. Okay, you were really thinking, "idiot" which I have to confess probably fits. Not the first time, not the last time on that.
Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself. If you're dumb enough to do these kinds of things with your kids watching, there is nowhere to hide. I have never had the courage to try the recipe again (even in a JUICER, which I now have). I Just can't get past the mental image of that purple stuff slumped there menacingly in the glass.
Taunting me.
Anyway, I read a great book by Eric Harr called Triathlon Training In Four Hours A Week: From Beginner to Finish Line in Just Six Weeks. Aside from the fact that I thought it was a great book for a newbie, it was very readable. It contributed to one of my most enduring memories of that whole training season. "Slump!"
Let me explain. During the leadup to the event, I came down with a cold. One of those nasty summer colds that squeezes your eyes out and makes you ache all over. But wait! There was something in the book about colds. Flip, flip, flip. . . He talked about colds during training. Aha! There it is - the section talking about dealing with colds. The author pointed to a crazy sounding concoction of vegetables and fruit that should put your cold on the run:
Alexandria's Amazing Tonic (p. 198). You can probably find the recipe if you want the details, but it had these things in it: beets, grapefruit, oranges, lemon, carrots, celery, fresh ginger (a 2" x 2" piece!), an onion, and garlic. And here's why I'm even telling you about it. This was the single-most memorable experience of my whole triathlon training experience (other than the wetsuit incident - and EVERYONE has had a wetsuit incident!).
I grabbed the book and started gathering the ingredients. Which caught the attention of one curious and observant ten-year old boy who is genetically related to me. He watched, and I gathered. And I cut and peeled and popped all this stuff in the blender. And he watched. And I put the lid on the blender and hit start. And he watched. And I watched because this was getting interesting. The ingredients reverse-engineered into a purple-pink mixture which looked hauntingly like apple sauce, but oddly more dangerous.
Moment one was when the lid came off and the "fragrance" of this concoction hit us both. Moment two was when my son uttered the fateful words: "It looks like Slump!" You don't have to have seen this to imagine it. Purple apple sauce which kind of tries to remain standing where you poured it but it fails, kind of in rings or ripples of failure that spread out from the centre. I might just as well have poured it onto a plate.
By now the next move was painfully obvious: I had to ingest this stuff. I say "ingest" because it wasn't clear if I should eat it or drink it. Nor was it clear whether the stuff was actually edible, considering what had gone into the blender.
Well, I decided to dive in and go for it. With my attentive audience now fully waiting for the inevitable, I threw caution to the wind, grabbed the glass (which made an ominous milk-shakey kind of "toonk" sound), and chugged back a mouthful of the stuff.
There really are no words for what I experienced. Even with a severe head cold, I can say that I certainly tasted some health-imbuing flavors. I think I tasted fire. And maybe gasoline. Even a ten-year-old can be impressed by a parent from time to time, as in, "No way, Dad - you didn't really DO that!" That one mouthful was the only one I could manage, and the experience got chalked up to "Too terrible to ever do again."
But my curiosity did nag at me. Why did this guy put such a gut-wrenching and repulsive recipe into a book and why did the publisher let it stay in there? So, I had to re-read that part of the book. And that's when I spotted the word "juicer." It would have gone better for me had I read this later, after my audience had left the room but, no, I had to mutter the word out loud. These ingredients were supposed to be JUICED in a juicer, not BLENDED in a blender. I know what you're thinking. . . honest mistake. Okay, you were really thinking, "idiot" which I have to confess probably fits. Not the first time, not the last time on that.
Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself. If you're dumb enough to do these kinds of things with your kids watching, there is nowhere to hide. I have never had the courage to try the recipe again (even in a JUICER, which I now have). I Just can't get past the mental image of that purple stuff slumped there menacingly in the glass.
Taunting me.
Monday 1 August 2016
And now a word. . .
And now a word about a simple thing: a word of encouragement. First of all, welcome back to the blog! I enjoyed a much-needed break!
This week's blog is really an attempt to shine the light on a strategy that will enrich your life: Encouragement. You have undoubtedly experienced the impact of this, one way or another, in your own life. And you'll notice that I referred to it as a "strategy". That means I think of it as an action. Something that people do.
I also said that you have probably experienced the impact of encouragement. You can probably think of a time someone encouraged you, and you probably still remember how it lifted you up a bit. Think of the Grinch when his heart got 3 sizes bigger. The word "encouragement" embodies the idea of heartening, thereby making stronger (a la our friend, the Grinch). When you encourage someone, you invest something in them which makes them stronger and gives them more "oomph", to use a clinical term. Haha!
Conversely, blowing an opportunity to encourage can result in disappointment to the non-encouraged person. And, unfortunately, there are specific and destructive things that we can do which actively discourage someone. Don't be THAT guy, eh!
Why this was on my mind in the first place emerged in the past week. June and July were busy for me, with a few additional stressors. Coincidentally, Cross-Swim had ended in June and I think I was experiencing a bit of a let-down from that. So the workouts were a bit aimless again.
My friend texted a few times to see if I wanted to go for a bike ride with him (like a training ride). Once I was finally able to coordinate a time, off we went and had an excellent ride and visit. We talked shop about our bikes (his is actually a real road bike, while mine is a sort of a Franken-Bike which my son thinks looks like a moose. Well, okay, it does look like a moose, but that's not the point). I shared a few ideas about setting up his bike - seat angle/height/position, handle bar rotation, etc. I don't know if it was helpful but I enjoyed sharing what I had learned and two things he did encouraged me: first, he kept asking me to ride, and second, he seemed interested in what I had to say about the bike setup. After our second ride, he had some feedback on the bike adjustments and commented that I had encouraged him by going out for the ride. So that was pretty cool. I guess it's symbiotic encouragement - each helped the other and both are better off. And it did kind of lift my spirits to get back out and grind the gears.
And then, just when I was thinking about getting back to the drawing board for the blog, my wife passed along a message that one of her colleagues was (patiently) waiting and looking forward to the blog starting up again. Wow! Just when I had started wondering if anyone was out there. . . I find out that at least one person is. And that was encouraging to me. I may be taking liberties, but I get the feeling that the blog may be encouraging to that person also. So, again, it's symbiotic - each helps the other and both are better off.
My message is this: never forget that you have opportunities (some find you, and some you make) throughout your day to strategically "hearten" other people. You know what it does for you when they hearten you, and you also know how it feels when you could have used a lift and didn't get one. . .
So, thanks to the encouragers. If this blog could influence people, it's goal would be to challenge and encourage the readers sufficiently so that they become stronger, more effective people.
Those are the kind of people I like to have around me.
This week's blog is really an attempt to shine the light on a strategy that will enrich your life: Encouragement. You have undoubtedly experienced the impact of this, one way or another, in your own life. And you'll notice that I referred to it as a "strategy". That means I think of it as an action. Something that people do.
I also said that you have probably experienced the impact of encouragement. You can probably think of a time someone encouraged you, and you probably still remember how it lifted you up a bit. Think of the Grinch when his heart got 3 sizes bigger. The word "encouragement" embodies the idea of heartening, thereby making stronger (a la our friend, the Grinch). When you encourage someone, you invest something in them which makes them stronger and gives them more "oomph", to use a clinical term. Haha!
Conversely, blowing an opportunity to encourage can result in disappointment to the non-encouraged person. And, unfortunately, there are specific and destructive things that we can do which actively discourage someone. Don't be THAT guy, eh!
Why this was on my mind in the first place emerged in the past week. June and July were busy for me, with a few additional stressors. Coincidentally, Cross-Swim had ended in June and I think I was experiencing a bit of a let-down from that. So the workouts were a bit aimless again.
My friend texted a few times to see if I wanted to go for a bike ride with him (like a training ride). Once I was finally able to coordinate a time, off we went and had an excellent ride and visit. We talked shop about our bikes (his is actually a real road bike, while mine is a sort of a Franken-Bike which my son thinks looks like a moose. Well, okay, it does look like a moose, but that's not the point). I shared a few ideas about setting up his bike - seat angle/height/position, handle bar rotation, etc. I don't know if it was helpful but I enjoyed sharing what I had learned and two things he did encouraged me: first, he kept asking me to ride, and second, he seemed interested in what I had to say about the bike setup. After our second ride, he had some feedback on the bike adjustments and commented that I had encouraged him by going out for the ride. So that was pretty cool. I guess it's symbiotic encouragement - each helped the other and both are better off. And it did kind of lift my spirits to get back out and grind the gears.
And then, just when I was thinking about getting back to the drawing board for the blog, my wife passed along a message that one of her colleagues was (patiently) waiting and looking forward to the blog starting up again. Wow! Just when I had started wondering if anyone was out there. . . I find out that at least one person is. And that was encouraging to me. I may be taking liberties, but I get the feeling that the blog may be encouraging to that person also. So, again, it's symbiotic - each helps the other and both are better off.
My message is this: never forget that you have opportunities (some find you, and some you make) throughout your day to strategically "hearten" other people. You know what it does for you when they hearten you, and you also know how it feels when you could have used a lift and didn't get one. . .
So, thanks to the encouragers. If this blog could influence people, it's goal would be to challenge and encourage the readers sufficiently so that they become stronger, more effective people.
Those are the kind of people I like to have around me.
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