you got this Chad… you can do this.

My feet are hurting.

God I am out of shape

Maybe I should stop for a second.

NO! This is part of it. It is hard….. I just need to keep pressing through.

I can go for 30 minutes.

It’s not going to kill me to keep going for 30 minutes straight… i am sitting down for crying out loud.

Perseverance. A word neglected by us fatty’s. I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked me how the gym was going. My response… “I hate cardio…….but I am trying to get over it.”

He responded, “Yeah, well anyone who say they like it is full of it.”

“Well that makes me feel better. So it’s not just a fatty thing.”

“Dude, It’s a human thing.”

It is part of the human condition to persevere…. I think we forget that our challenges have a breaking point and so we just quit too easily. We justify our quitting.

I was at my gym (Dekalb Medical Wellness Center) on the stair stepper and I was feeling the burn after 5 minutes much less 30. So I talk to myself. I tell myself, “No, you are not going to quit… you are going to keep going.” I want to quit. I want to make excuses. It is like I am in rehab going through the withdrawals of fattydom. But I have to press through the withdrawals. The only way to get healthy is to persevere through, not go back to the drug of apathy and uncontrolled appetite.

The bottom line is… we quit to soon. That is what keeps us where we are… miserable, fat and dying because we don’t fight for anything anymore. People don’t fight for their marriages daily. They don’t fight for their kids when it counts. They fall asleep and sign their life away in debt agreements and they cease to live. They breathe, breed, consume, make excuses, and live far lower than they are capable of and designed for. Wake up, you who sleep. Fight the mediocrity of the day that wants to enslave you. Fight for your marriage. Your family. Your identity. Your goals. Your health. Your convictions. Yourself.

Do whatever you got to do. What do you have to do? Do you have to write it out? Do you need to expose yourself and push yourself out there a bit to get back on track? Then get a blog. They are free. What do you have to do to motivate yourself. Not Motivated? Well check out my blog daily. Check Anthony Robbins blog, Check out fatladySingN’s blog. Check out Steve Pavlina’s  Blog. Don’t know what to eat? Sit with a Nutritionist. Can’t afford a nutritionist? Dekalb Medical Wellness Center has a service where a Nutritionist will go shopping with you called a Grocery Store Tour. It cost $40. Can’t afford that? Then go back and check where you are actually spending your money….. because your poor eating habits always found a way to get paid for. Resources abound. Make no mistake there will be an outcome… your choices lead to your outcome. So look around…. what choices got you there?

“But you don’t understand my story… you don’t understand my circumstances, you don’t understand I don’t have time. You don’t understand my limitations…they prevent me from…….  You don’t understand!”

Ok, get it all out. Write out all those arguments that hinder you from attaining the self progress you actually want deep inside of you. Write them out. Read them over a couple of times and make sure you get them all down on paper. Now hold them up and look at them. This is your legacy. This is how you are choosing to be remembered. Is it starting to bother you at all? Write a new legacy of things you can do versus what you can’t. Figure it out. You can do it. I believe in you. You are far more capable than anyone realizes. George Bernard Shaw says in the Maxims of Revolutionist, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Quit finding reasons to stop. Be the unreasonable man.

Fatty Pumping Iron.

Find success stories in your local gym. Be the success story in your local gym. Quit making excuses and do whatever you have to do. Quit waiting for the right circumstance. The right circumstance is right now.

What ever the challenge is get some grit and push through. You have grit inside of you. There is no way you got where you are without some grit. It takes grit to earn money and pay bills. It takes grit to have kids. It takes grit to make your own way in the world. You know this. You have done this. Start applying you grit to all areas of your life that are important to you. Not just the ones with a bill.

Perseverance. It has a breaking point.

Breathe Chad. Breathe. Push. Breathe.

Keep Going.

You can do this.

I don’t care if you hack up a lung you keep going.

Don’t Stop. I make the decision to keep moving forward.

Press Harder Chad. Pedal harder. Harder. HARDER.

Turn up my music if I have to. Avoid looking at the clock. Focus on the pushing not the countdown Chad. Focus. Push. Press. Harder. Keep Going.

And you just keep going. You make your decisions. You set the bar of what you can and can’t do.

This morning I got on the step machine for my 30 minutes of cardio. I was tired and feeling the burn and wanting to stop within 30 seconds. Then I made it to 5 minutes. I pushed myself. I coached myself. I told myself…..I kept going and then I made it to 15 minutes. I felt a breakthrough and plowed through to 20 minutes. At 22 minutes the breakthrough was gone but my resolve was stronger. 25 minutes another break through after some tough few minutes. At the 27 minute mark I decided that I was going to not settle for 30 minutes today. I was going to apply my own extra grit. I was going to do 45 minutes. I committed. Pushed myself to 32 minutes. Tired. Sweating. Aching. 35 minutes. Turn up the techno music louder. Pumping as hard as I can. Pushing through the pain 40 minutes. And then the breakthrough at 41 minutes. I was flying for the last 4 minutes pushing myself as hard as I could. I got off the machine at a little over 45 minutes feeling good. Feeling pumped. Feeling fire in my body with adrenaline. I am alert. Clear minded. Breathing. Ready not for the locker room but my upper body workout followed by crunches until I can’t do crunches any more.

I earned these numbers.

You know what I realized? That 45 minutes I never had before during my day. 45 minutes I slept away. 45 minutes I didn’t make time for. Over 5700 steps under my belt that I start my day off with. What did you start you day off with?

You can do it.

Perseverance is like a seed. Add it to your vocabulary. Water it with your life. And watch you grow. Today is the day. Today is your day. What are your going to do?