Today’s quote:
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
You ever see someone show up to a sports practice knowing they wouldn’t be playing? Why do they show up? Why do they keep coming to practice when they know the odds are against them ever playing in a real game?
It’s about personal character. The above story is about me on the high school basketball team. I liked basketball, but I sucked. Plain and simple. But I joined the team. I made the cut. I didn’t play much (about 1-2 minutes per game when we knew we would win), but that didn’t matter. I went to practice and worked just as hard as the first-stringers.
The same applies to my workouts. I may not ever be a professional bodybuilder, but I want to be healthy and I want to be the best person I can be. So I show up. I go to the gym. Today, if you’ve read my workout log, you’ll see I had to chop my workout short.
I chopped it short because we had a pre-arranged meeting with friends at our home today. Because I have started an intermittent fasting regimen I can’t eat or drink anything with calories in it until 12 pm. So, I drank my pre-workout at 12 pm and headed to the gym. I worked as hard as I could but knew my workout would be cut short to be back home by 2 pm when our friends were scheduled to arrive.
I could have said, “You know you aren’t going to have enough time to get your workout done today, so why go? Let’s just take today off and just make it up tomorrow.” I didn’t. I am committed to achieving my goals physically.
The moral of this story is to “show up” and do the best you can with what you have. If you do your best, that’s all that matters. Do this with whatever goals you have set for yourself. Show up. Knock that one thing out that you committed to, even if it isn’t perfect or exactly the way you wanted it to be. Do it, even if you aren’t going to get anything back from anyone. You know deep down that all that matters is the person you look at in the mirror.
After I graduated high school I looked back at my time on the basketball team and other sports. They were great times. Yeah, I worked my tail off and didn’t get a whole lot in return, in most people’s eyes, but I got back more than what I put in. I developed the character trait that no matter what the result I would always do my best. I would always “show up” regardless of the accolades or rewards I might receive.
Commit to the things you want. Stick to those personal commitments. Do the best you can with what you have. If you do these things you’ll start building an inner strength that will help you achieve what most only dream about.
I hope all of you had a great weekend.
Until next time…
Dave
