Challenge Yourself

As a dad I am faced with challenges everyday. I have to get the boys ready for day care each day. Some days they don’t want to cooperate. I can make them dinner and they probably won’t want to eat it. It’s challenging to get right.

But I try to challenge myself so when I am faced with a challenge I can overcome it. This is what got me working out. I have mentioned in a previous post about focus and in the same vain it is also a challenge.

I try to push myself each work out or each run. I try to do something that I haven’t done before. I try to push past that wall and go through it. It doesn’t take one time for you to become immune to it, it takes 100 times or 1000 times. I listened to a speech and for the guy to beat the world record in pull-up he ended up doing 67,000 to beat the record of 4,030. That’s the type of dedication I am talking about.

When you challenge yourself, the “hard” things become easy. I walk on lunch everyday. I walk for about 45 minutes. Now, most people would say, “That’s not too bad. A nice stroll…” Yes it is a nice stroll but how many people do that every day? There are 8 people in my office and I am the only one who does. We have some people who might go to the park or they might walk for a little bit if someone else is, but no one does it every day. When I say everyday, it’s not an absolute but as long as I don’t have a meeting scheduled or if it’s raining, I’m walking. I’ll walk in 100 degree weather and I’ll walk in below freezing.

I’m not putting myself in a challenge because I am preparing for a race or competition I am challenging myself for life. For my kids. For my future. I am challenging myself for when I need to do that report and I’m out of energy I can focus and push through or I need 20 minutes of hard work to make a deadline, I can just muster up the strength to get it done. That’s why I encourage to challenge yourself to be a better of you for tomorrow.