Stress

Stress is a word which always carries a negative feeling when it is brought up in conversation. Many of my patients come in complaining of how stressed they are and how their upper back/shoulders feel like concrete, I hear friends talk about how the economy is affecting their business thus making them stress more about tomorrows pay check and I often see people who don't prioritize their day or goals fall into a state of panic or stress trying to find a way out their situation.

I always take pride in really not letting stress get to me but so far this year I have started to become friends with the negative side of it (will talk about positive stress later). Over the past couple weeks my wife and I have bought a house, are trying to sell ours, one of our cars transmissions died, we are both busy professionals, trying to keep up with three amazing, amazing girls, building a coaching business on the side, trying to carry out 10-15 hours a week of my own endurance training, lack of sleep due to a fast growing 8 month old and on top of it always trying to remain open to friends and family that need us.

Yesterday for about 15 minutes I will say I broke down  but then went to my safe haven. A 4000 meter, arm falling off, lung searing swim workout. There is something peaceful about seeing that blue line at the bottom of the pool. As hard as the workout was it allows my mind to wander and re-collect any negative thoughts that I might be allowing in. First off I realized that in the big picture I am extremely lucky to A) have an amazing family that surrounds me 24/7 and B) a healthy body and outlook that never slows down in the face of anything that tells me otherwise.

This now leads me into the positive affects of stress and in my day to day activities and mentality it falls into two categories...1) exercise and 2) is what I call "What are you gonna do about it". Everyone that exercises typically goes into a session or season with a particular goal in mind. i.e. loose weight, performance gains, competitive edge or just to feel good about ones self. After 15 years in triathlon I have come down to stress meaning constantly improving myself year after year. Whether its a workout like the one above or an easy run they both have a stress on the body that tomorrow, next month and later in the year will make me a better triathlete. The second stressor "What are you gonna do about it" is a little more broad. Most people have stress in their life of varying extend and situations but some people let the stress continue to build into there life is overwhelmed by what is stressing them. This is when I ask them "what are you gonna do about it"...when that stress comes on its the positive actions that are needed next to either solve the problem or start building the blocks needed to take you towards breaking out of the cycle. Once I started to fall into the negative stress cycle I describe above I quickly started to develop the steps needed to make every one of those stresses disappear.

Sometimes the answer is an easy fix and is quickly taken care of. Other times you need to be patient and know as long as you keep following the necessary path you will make it out on top.

The picture above is my daughters goals for 2014. The reason I share them is that goals can sometimes feel stressful and out of your comfort zone (stress) but when you surround yourself with the right people, gadgets, thoughts and most important your right frame of mind then anything can be accomplished.

Make It Count!!!

Success

Success is not something that happens randomly but is something that has foundation and is a by-product of putting the right pieces in place. I have recently been seeing all these posts on major media outlets about what the key factors for success are and if you don't do them then you will never succeed. I will agree that some of them have truth but at the end of the day we are all very individualized and need to survey what it is within ourselves that needs to be done to succeed.

The picture above (once again of a child of mine...I am telling you children expose the truth in life and if you just take a second to watch you will learn 50 different rules of how to be better) is of my little lady. It is a pretty basic picture and besides a cute smile and an outfit daddy dressed her in the picture itself doesn't describe much. However to me it explains in lots of detail what is needed to succeed. Over the past 2 weeks she has started to crawl (I think I have a sprinter and not distance runner if we can quantify her crawl times to the 40 meter dash), stand up and now survey the seen with intent to walk. All of these movements are littered with the idea of what it takes to succeed in my mind so follow my logic: 1) she had to figure out the cross crawl mechanism to start moving 2) she immediately found out that solid immovable objects were easier to stand up on compared to the opposite...she learned from her failures immediately 3) while standing she is taking small steps trying to understand how this balance game works 4) she stood without holding something for 20 seconds yesterday. This has all happened within a 2-3 week span and goes to show you that even though she took some tumbles along the way she didn't let the pain or failure stop her from reaching her goal.

I try and not push my ideas of success on other people but I do have 10 core beliefs that I like to implement in my life as when I follow these daily I always feel I can accomplish my goals.

1. Wake up not later than 5AM everyday...whether its to get training in or to self study...this is a time when the world is quite and I can build on who I am in peace.

2. Don't worry about what others will think of you. We live in a world where there will always be people trying to bring you down or suck the energy out of you.

3. Consistency. Nothing can be accomplished without a dose of consistency to get you there. In the world of triathlon success and accomplishing your race goals are only done with consistent intelligent training. There is no easy road or magic pill (well I guess there are magic pills but I wouldn't recommend going that route).

4. Never go to bed angry. For me this is telling my wife and children every night how much I love them. My wife and I have the greatest relationship because we are always open and don't harbor negative feelings.

5. There is nothing that one can't accomplish. Yeah failure might happen but learn from what didn't happen and next time around teach yourself the steps that need to be in place to move past that goal.

6. Always take the higher road and never talk negative about people either to their face or behind their back. I believe that this is a character flaw that exposes weakness and the person that talks negative of someone else typically has other shortcomings that will hinder their path to success.

7. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable positions in life as if you stick within the box of whats controllable/comfortable then you will never truly learn what type of individual you can become.

8. Never stop learning!!! Everyday try and snag a little nugget of information that will make you a better person. Life is about being well rounded so grab something that is not in your wheel house and educate yourself.

9. Teach. One way to concrete principles and ideas is to teach someone else. Educate them on the information you have learned. One of the joys of being a parent is that every day I wake up I have the gift of teaching my daughters something new. Also be willing to learn from the teacher also. Some people think they know everything and I can be the first to say...you don't know everything. I learn something new everyday from my kids, my wife, my patients, my self and the world around me.

10. Live in the now. Don't wait till tomorrow to start something that you could start today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and there is not better time to start pursuing a goal than right now.

The joy of this blog is that I can share my thoughts with all of you. Some of you will take some of this information and start using it today. While some of you will laugh and move on in life. Either way at least you took the time to read what I had to say and I appreciate that.

As always I love to live via my mantra....MAKE IT COUNT!!!!