Day 398 - Leadership 199 / Trait 5 of 14: Endurance

We're you decisive yesterday? Not just yesterday but think big picture, have you been decisive about what it is you truly want to succeed at? Speaking for myself, I have decided I will run three miles by the end of summer. And do it in 28 minutes or less. That is going to be a challenge for me, but one I have decided to achieve.

If you missed our previous posts in this series on leadership traits do not cry out in agony, do not throw things, no no no. Simply click through the links below; easiest thing you will do all day...
Leadership 199 / Trait 4 of 14: Decisiveness
Leadership 199 / Trait 3 of 14: Courage
Leadership 199 / Trait 2 of 14: Bearing
Leadership 199 / Trait 1 of 14: Dependability


Time to tee up our fifth trait…

Leadership 199 / Trait 5 of 14: Endurance

Defined: The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship.

Discovered: When we think of endurance we quickly think of a long and grueling physical challenge, e.g a marathon. A much younger version of myself would blurt out that a pub-crawl requires endurance. While fun, a pub crawl is not going to help us understand this trait. And neither is a marathon quite frankly. No one specific challenge is sufficient to understand the importance that endurance plays in our ability lead ourselves to success.

Our missions to get healthy are made up of many different challenges; challenges that will last our lifetimes. Lets look that deeper into that definition...

to withstand pain; what causes us pain in our mission? Exercise does. Or at least it ought to cause some degree of pain if we are properly breaking down muscle and burning fat in our quest to become stronger and leaner. Pain is not fun, I mean hello; it is called PAIN. Yet to succeed we have to lead ourselves to accept that pain will be there, that pain is part of the process, and that we can deal with it and overcome it's discomfort and the doubt it will try and have us believe.

to fatigue; so many aspects of getting healthy can get tiring. Sure, exercise causes fatigue; that's too obvious. What about doing the same thing day in day out? Eating the same 'healthy' meals, performing the same exercise 'routine'? Does doing the same thing cause you mental fatigue as the days become weeks and months? Oh it sure does for me. Call it fatigue, call it boredom. It wears on me, causes me to dull my focus and invite in failure. We have to lead ourselves to recognize that which cause us fatigue, and make changes necessary to maintain focus, maintain motivation to get up each day and choose success.

to stress; oh how we can put pressure on ourselves to do what we know we should. When we know we ought to exercise today, just knowing that can eat-away in the back of our minds until we do. And should we opt out, find an excuse not to do so, well multiply that eating-away by ten. Leaders know that we are our greatest stressors, and those tasks that stress us the most. Leaders also know that there if no way to relieve the stress of a challenge other than to tackle it, defeat it and remove it. You know you need to exercise today, do it now. Don't wait, get to it. Can't do it now because you are in a meeting at work reading my blog from your handheld, well good for you; now switch over to your calendar app and plan precisely what time today you can exercise and block that time off. Leaders manage stress, they are not managed by stress.

to hardship; why can't this always be easy? It is true, losing weight, getting and being healthy is not easy at times. As if the pain, fatigue and stressors weren't enough to overcome in our mission, we have a host of additional hardships confront. I could list 74 off the top of my head, but to keep this short and to the point I'll reference two. People, others around us make this harder at times. Well, they only really make this hard if we let them. They will toss a wrench on our well planned day at 4:29 p.m. when they come home and say, "can we order pizza and wings for dinner?" Or when they see what we are planning for lunch and say, "you expect me to eat that?" Ourselves, we can make this hard for us just the same as anyone else can. When you look in the mirror and see yourself, do you think to yourself, "wow, I am one gorgeous, healthy, amazing creature!" No, you don't. What do you say, something like, "ugh, I am a fat slob of a pig who needs to be skewered." Ever see youself in a negative sense and acknowledge it? If yes, you are making this harder than it needs to be. Stop looking at yourself and seeing what you are that you dislike. Start seeing yourself for who you are becoming.

Da-Point: Stamina is the bridge between succeeding today becoming victorious for a lifetime.

How heavy is the pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship in your life today?

And what are you doing to lead yourself to victory in spite of it all?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 368 - Three Something Wednesday

Not much response to the riddle, trivia yesterday. Perhaps a bad selection from the fun bag on my part. Lets give it another day and see if anyone takes a peek back to yesterday for a crack at any of these before I give out the answers. I know one member of my family who I believe peeks in here from time to time should recognize that castle. "Should", being the operative word there.

So what shall we do today?

Lets do something responsible for ourselves, something sincere for someone else, and something a few notches outside of our comfort zones.

Here are my three somethings...

For Myself:
Spend some time in reflection upon a commitment I've made? No More Fast Food.
A year ago yesterday I made that commitment. For the last 8 months of 2010 I bet I didn't eat a fast food meal more than 5 times in total. Here in 2011, I bet I've had a dozen. While not a all out fall of the wagon collapse of this commitment, I think it is safe to say I have a limb or two hanging over the wagons edge.

Today I am committing to getting those limbs safely back within the wagon but reaffirming to that commitment to change. Next week I expect to be released from the hold I've been placed on from lifting weights and strenuous exercise while I recover from last weeks surgery. I will be ready; man I can't wait to grip that bar and knock it around. Fast food will not benefit me in any way towards reaping maximum benefit from that exercise. Choosing to eat No More Fast Food will!

For Someone Else:
I am hoping others, YOU,  who read this will join me in this sincere act for someone else.
The someone else is Lynda over at Taking Less Space. In her post linked there from yesterday she stepped up bravely and owned up to having slipped up hard on the diet yo-yo. Please go read for yourself and help her any way you can.

For Lynda, this is what I have for her to ponder this day... Think, just stop and think quietly (after you read this post of course). Listen to the voices inside right now, who do you hear? I am willing to bet the $3.49 in my pocket that your Evil Inner Dialogue is back and louder than ever. Now listen harder to that evil, can you identify what its been feeding off of that has pumped up it's volume in your head? Find it, whatever it is, and focus on improving/eliminating that one loudest source of evil. For now, forget about all the other sources of angst, today they are not important. One day, today, you can choose to find & fix the primary root of your weight gain. This you can do, today, tomorrow and any day you choose.

Outside My Zone:
I'm going to have some fun with this one, I can't help myself; sorry (not). I have a personal purchase to make soon; not going to say what it is here to protect surprise factor from onlooking eyes. In most buying situations I do not haggle price much if at all. This item does have some room for price haggling. So I am going to haggle my face off.

The amount I may be able to haggle down is irrelevant as I have no intention of making the actual buy today, my need today is product comparison. The fun will come from observing the reactions of the store sales people as I drag them through a haggling that is really more of a hazing.

Do you have three somethings?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 149 - Dream Through It

Yesterday I was very focused on eating after my weigh in. Even though I did get in a walk yesterday morning it wasn't an extreme workout by any stretch. Steel cut oats, tomatoes, fish & green beans; were just some of the good foods I worked into my eating. With my gout all but gone I am ready to get the exercise engine kicked back into higher gear. You can bet that exercise is on the agenda for this day.

The t-shirt you see in the picture there was being worn by a student at my sons soccer game last week. I am not sure what sport this girl participates in but I have to say I like the t-shirts they have. I blurred out her last name on the back to protect the innocent; hmm, anyone else have a sudden desire to hang out & watch "Dragnet"?

When I saw this shirt I immediately thought of THIS post by Jody, if you haven't read it then give it a read; you won't be disappointed (um, is that a pun?). The subjects are similar, although not identical.

All of us have experienced disappointment in our lives. And we've let that disappointment impact us further than it needed to. We wallow in the pain of what could have been but wasn't. We stop believing we can have or be that which have been trying to get but not been able to. It could be a professional aspiration, it could be someones heart, it could be a health goal.

But what this t-shirt is calling on us not to do? It is telling us to keep our focus on our dreams. Or, it is telling us to not dwell so heavily on the yesterday's disappointments we've had that our focus today is misplaced.

Have you ever done this; been so caught up in a disappointing experience that you just stopped trying to live better & accepted just living for a period of time?

Yes, I have, I have done so in previous attempts to get healthy. I've been so disappointed I have stopped caring enough to improve my health for years at a time. I've had projects at work end in failure and have spent months afterwards doing just the minimum to get through the day. I've tried to get the girl of my hearts desire at the time to take notice to no avail and given up on the pursuit of romance for long stretches of time.

So, guess that means we ought to avoid disappointment, right? No, hardly. We need disappointment to become better. Today's failure is the foundation for tomorrow's success. Disappointment ought to be given due focus, learned from, and then focus returned to the dream.

Sounds simple, and it is not that simple. But simple or not, no matter our disappointments; we owe it to ourselves to keep our focus on our dreams.

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!