Self-Identity

I feel that most of the stuff that I have learned over the past couple of years about people comes from observing my daughters growth and interaction with others. As adults most of us have developed some preconceived way of viewing the word whether its negative or positive. We wake up in the morning and proceed through our daily activities always following these ideas in our heads. Unfortunately most of us follow the first way of viewing the world...in a NEGATIVE way. The mind is constantly viewing interactions as negative and sees the way the world interacts as being negative. When one is in that mindset we also fall into a trap of following the latest fads, worrying to much about what people think of us, worried about what the future holds and most importantly fail to develop our own SELF-IDENTITY.

My middle child Brynn lives her life to the beat of her own drum and always has. She doesn't care what the world thinks of her and if something doesn't agree with her she is always the first to respond "WHY?" Living with four amazing woman you better believe that the one thing that my girls don't lack is clothes. This summer at camp while my oldest was living the life of glamour (in her mind) each day Brynn had what we called the uniform. The same Justin Bieber T-Shirt and pink Justice shorts. In her world this outfit made her feel right at home and comfortable. Everyone at camp must have thought we only cared about our oldest and not her. At the end of the day she didn't care what people thought (I will say that we washed that outfit almost every night and it has since been retired).

Brynn's mind works similar to the way a person gifted in the game of chess plays. She is always 5 moves ahead in her thoughts. Nothing she does happens by chance but is more planned out in her head ahead of time. At 5 years old she knows how people should be treated and she knows how people will respond to the way she acts.

It is important that everyone take time every so often to sit back and reflect on what type of person you have become. Or for that argument what type of person do you want to be. Time may get away from you in the busy life style that we live and you may loose sight of the person you want to be. I know at times if I get busy and let some of the minor stressers in my life take over that I start to loose focus of the goals I have in place in my life. Some of those goals are always having a positive frame of mind. If you start the day thinking about your goals for the day and slowly chip them away your outlook on life is powerful and the energy will spread to others. If you start the day in the dumps and don't focus on the days goals the stress of life will accumulate and soon you will be the one sapping those around you of energy instead of spreading the energy.

So my question to you is are you happy with the identity you display to the world? If not what are you doing to change that image that you portray? Its never to late to make an impact and I challenge you today to step up to the plate.

Make It Count!!!!

On a quick side note...I have been in the sport of triathon for about 15 years and have had many accomplishments during that time that I am very proud of. This past weekend at a triathlon not to far from the house I had the honor of pushing myself and finishing first overall in a triathlon for the first time in my athletic career. The admiration of other racers post race and the joy of being the top racer was a feeling that I could get use to. However the one thing I took away from the race is I love to compete and I love being healthy enough to get out there and try and make a difference.

Self-Confidence

Coaching athletes over the years and treating thousands of patients has taught me one thing about a common trend affecting most people in today's society....an overall lack of self-confidence. I have witnessed first hand people that are on the brink of greatness and the one thing holding them back is a lack of believing in themselves. Most of my patients that take awhile to get better or my athletes that train 100% according to plan but consistently lack execution on race is mostly due to the fact that they don't believe they have what it takes to truly succeed.

I believe that failure can be the cause of why some people can't get over that hurdle. The fear of failing over and over haunts these people to no end. One can have near perfect execution in training or learning but when the big day comes if you don't have the self-confidence in yourself all that hard work becomes hard to apply towards your goal.

I try and not let failure enter my thought process when I develop my goals and go through the day to day task of accomplishing them. The reason I don't give failure the attention that it sometimes steals from us is that I know its going to happen and there is nothing I can do about it from happening. What I can do is learn from my mistakes, bad training days, lack of focus and failures and build upon them in the future. I can take that failure and then apply what I have learned from it and hopefully succeed the next time I try which in turn builds my self confidence each day.

We all have the capability to accomplish anything we set you minds to. There is nothing that should stand in our way from succeeding beyond our wildest dreams. However lots of people fail to believe in themselves 100% and when we start second guessing all of our decisions then we start to fade away from living a life of faith in our abilities.

I recently picked up the book The Power of Positive Thinking and along with having faith the number one goal the author has for everyone that reads the book is developing a deep down believe in ones own self confidence. Without it we are just going through the motions each day and not truly taking advantage of how great we can be.

I have attached two photos for reference in this article. The first one is of me starting the run at Ironman Lake Placid this summer. Going into the race I didn't have the best training the last 8 weeks of training due to the birth of my beautiful little lady. However what I did have going into the race was 110% confidence in myself and my ability to get things done when needed. Coming off the bike I felt extremely confident and ready to drop the hammer on the run. In the end what I lacked in some top end running training was made up for in my confidence in getting things done on the run and I had my fastest Ironman marathon time ever.

The second photo is of my 7 year old at her second triathlon this summer. Anyone that knows her always comments on how confident she is in herself. There is nothing that she attempts that she doesn't go into thinking she will master with effort. She is not afraid of failure at 7 years old and knows that if she gives it her best effort that she will be able to accomplish anything eventually. This girl has taught me so many valuable lessons in her short 7 years that I have been searching for most of my life. As the supportive dad I always try and be there for her and teach her that everything comes from ones frame of mind. If you believe in yourself anything can be accomplished and I can say that she is following daddies words and making the most out of her life.

As always take advantage of what you have been given in life and MAKE IT COUNT!!!!!

Growth

Growth comes in many different fashions in today's society. I have the pleasure and privilege of seeing growth happen every single day I wake up. Being a father is something I always thought would be exciting but I will have to admit that my previous expectations don't come close to how awesome it truly is. Not only do I have a direct impact on guidance and advice I can provide but I can also sit back and watch them become incredible young woman making the right decisions in life.

The baby has allowed all four of us to realized how precious life is. If at anytime we are having a bad day all we have to do is walk up to her and talk in baby language (I have gotten really good at the goo goo ga gaas) and the smile of pure love makes all the negatives melt away. I have witnessed the two older daughters mature into the big sisters I always knew they could be and yes from the looks of it the baby likes to eat.

Growth also comes in how we approach life. Part of being successful in anything you attempt whether it be business, relationships, sports or self confidence is always revolved around failure. Not to sound over confident but I have been blessed in accomplishing lots in my 37 years (more than I could ever have imagined) but it hasn't come without failure and self-doubt.

What stops most people from success in life is the fear of failure or they do fail and don't think they have what it takes to give it another shot. This is the flaw that I feel everyone can work on and push through to accomplish anything they set their minds to. All failure does is teach us what not to do the next time and how to think outside the box on what it would take to succeed. This is where GROWTH really takes over and allows us to succeed and teach the world that nothing can hold us down.

Just look at the recent success of Diana Nyad swimming 110 miles non-stop. She could have easily just thrown in the towel but her determination and ability to learn from her mistakes allowed her to believe in her abilities and push past the previous failures and GROW as an individual. Now her accomplishment is out of this world amazing but I bet if you take a minute and think of your biggest accomplishments you will see how you grew during the experiences and how it has made you a better person for it.

My oldest never ceases to amaze me with her determination and constant drive to push past any limits she may have on herself and grow as an individual. This past weekend her and I ran a 5K in which she told me she wanted to run it by herself and not with me. After I finished the race and cheered on a few people, I told my wife that I wanted to go see how she was doing so I started to back track the course but didn't have to go that far. To my amazement I looked down the road and saw her tiny legs speeding towards me. As she approached I asked her what she was doing (couldn't believe how fast she was) and she simply just told me "I am running dad". She crossed the finish line in 28 minutes holding her head up high and stating that she didn't walk and she was proud of her achievement.

What I would challenge all of you to do is put down on paper what your biggest goals are in life. Draw out a plan of attack and know that along the journey you may fail but if you learn from your mistakes and GROW your dreams will come true. If we could all apply this to our life's and know that nothing can bring us down then the world we live in would be amazing.

Make It Count!!!!