The new year is fast approaching and we will soon be faced with our “New years resolution”. The fresh start of a year always seems like an opportunity to start something over or start a new habit. This opportunity is usually embraced by almost everybody going into the new year. The tough part that everyone is aware of though, is the ability to keep your resolution for a the entire year rather than falling back into your same ways and old habits. Making a commitment to yourself and keeping that commitment is never an easy task. It’s even more challenging because you have to be your own parent. You have to force yourself to do things you simply don’t want to do.
Normally the person you are most willing to let down in your life, is yourself. If you make a commitment to do something for a friend or family member, you will almost always follow through for them. You will always feel guilty for letting someone else down. Feel embarrassed of what they may think of you for not doing what you told them you would. When it comes to yourself for some reason, its’ much much easier to bail on your own commitments. To sell yourself short and to accept a much lesser version of yourself.
I have made a commitment to myself to get fit. Lose my spare tire and put on some solid dense muscle in the process. I started this commitment right before Halloween rolled around. I’m making another commitment to myself, that commitment is to be stronger, healthier, have a lower body fat percentage, happier and aesthetically better looking by the end of 2018 than I did in the picture below.
This picture was taken right before I turned 20 years old. So just about 6 years ago. I had just reached my max flat bench press of 250 pounds days before that. I weighed about 168 pounds back then too. I was single, lived rent free, and didn’t really have much more to worry about than working out and playing music. I had pretty much more free time than anyone should have.
Now six years later I am married to the love of my life, I have a beautiful 5 month old baby girl, and I am busier than ever. Not to mention through the last 6 years at one point weighed in at just over 200 pounds. I owned a restaurant at the time with my best friend Jeff and those burgers weren’t gonna eat themselves! That was the heaviest I have ever been though. Last year I got married and killed myself, quite literally, to get in shape for my wedding. In two months I went from 190 pounds to 176. I ate nothing but chicken and rice and worked out 6 days a week, sometimes I would even work out twice a day. After the wedding, we went on our honey moon and I was so burnt out, I didn’t step foot in the gym again pretty much all year (we got married in July). Slowly but surely over the next year I gained it all back and then some. In October, when I started this blog, I decided enough is enough and it was time to get back to it. So that picture of me when I was at my best is the commitment I am making to myself this new year. I want to get back to that and then beat it. I want to make that guy in that picture look like a chump. Right now, I’ve got probably around 15-20 pounds of fat to lose and another 6-10 pounds of muscle to go to even get back to that. Luckily I have an entire year to get there.
So here is to the new year that will be upon us shortly. Here is to not giving up on yourself and your dreams. Go out this new year and don’t let yourself down. Don’t look back on 2018 and wish you would have started something you know you would be better off now because of it. You should look back on all the times you disappointed yourself and be embarrassed. Embarrassed that you didn’t fear letting yourself down as much as you would fear letting down a friend. Embarrassed that your no better off now than you were a year ago. Embarrassed that you didn’t believe in yourself enough to try. I want you to understand that in this life we either decide to do something or we decide to not do it. So obtain the life you have always wished for yourself and be the person you need to be to get there. Stop waiting for the right time and hell, stop waiting for the new year! Just go out and get what is yours, and grind every single day.
I want to leave you with a story.
There was once a young man who had a mentor. This mentor taught this young man everything he wanted to learn and know. The young man wanted to be a millionaire and an extremely successful investor. But no matter what he learned from the mentor, he could never follow through with his plans, never stay on task, and never finish what he started.
So one day the mentor asked the young man to meet him down on the beach.
When the young man got there, his mentor was standing chest deep in the water. He called the young man over. When the young man reached his mentor, the mentor grabbed his student by the collar, and plunged his head into the water.
The young man started panicking, kicking, and fighting, but couldn’t get free of his mentor. He couldn’t breath, he was under the water still going over 40 seconds now, still doing everything in his power to get some air. He could feel his brain telling his body to breath even though he knew it would be nothing but water.
Then suddenly, the mentor released him. The young man sprung his head out of the water gasping for air as if he was breathing for the first time.
The mentor looked at the confused and scared young man and said to him
“Until you want something as bad you want to breath, you don’t want it bad enough”
You’re not getting any younger!
The Cardinal Gift 