Hurdles

While working on the requirements of my Ten Tigers Program, I am making all sorts of discoveries.  I have discovered that with a little practice, it is easy to do 100 pushups and situps in a day.  It is easy to do an act of kindness in a day.  It is even easy to find time to do 20 to 30 minutes of forms training in a day.  It is easy to make a blog entry once a week.  There are, however, hurdles to meeting these goals.

There are hurdles, such as, caring for a toddler, doing the necessary marketing to grow my business, going to work each day, yardwork, family schedules, insomnia, and the list could go on and on and on.  There are lots of hurdles, on some days more than others.  With all of these real hurdles to overcome it becomes very important to avoid the fake ones.

There are fake hurdles that get in the way too.  "I'm tired", "I don't feel like it today", "I'd rather play a video game, watch a movie, watch TV", the list could go on and on and on.  Imagine an athlete about to compete in the 400 meter hurdles.  In that race, the first hurdle is 45 meters from the starting line, then each hurdle is 35 meters apart.  Now imagine that this athlete has for some reason decided that there is another hurdle halfway between each of the actual hurdles.  For every hurdle his competitors jump, he will be jumping two.  What are his odds of winning, what are his odds of even placing when he adds these imaginary hurdles into his race?  

Why do we insist on adding these artificial hurdles?  Why are there days when "Good Morning America" takes precedence over my workout?  Why are there days that I put off the things that are good for my martial arts skill, my health, my mind, and my spirit until there is barely time left and energy left to do them?  Why do I insist on adding hurdles that aren't really there.  

Let's all make a commitment to start recognizing the artificial hurdles.  When you have a task to do, that you want to skip becuase you "don't have time", do it with a stop watch running.  Figure out how long it actually takes you, then remind yourself the next time you hear yourself say you don't have time.  When you tell yourself you are too tired, do one more pushup, or situp, or front kick, or wash one more dish or whatever it is that you need to do.  Then do one more.  Take note of how much time you spend aimlessly wandering the internet or watching TV shows that you could skip.  Let's make commitments to ourselves to use our time and energy more wisely.

We have enough hurdles in our lives.  Don't add any imagined ones.