I'm not sure why I'm finding so many articles and videos analogous to our lives and our journeys towards better health lately, but as I lay in bed this morning listening to the sound of silence, my beautiful little 3-year old daughter asleep in her room.... I read another.
 
This article tells the story of a young athlete from Tennesee who stops mid- race to help a fallen competitor.  Pretty selfless right?  A kid forgoes the chance to potentially win  to help someone else - their competition no less.

How many of us reading (or writing) this post get/ are so caught up in our own lives, our own goals, our own accomplishments that we overlook the people around us who are struggling with their lives or with things in their lives.

It's great to utter a few words of encouragement as we breeze by.   Shit, it might just be the right words that this person needed to hear at that particular time.  Lucky huh!?  It would've been easy for Seth (the boy in the article) to utter a quick "come on man, get up, finish strong" as he ran by his fallen peer en route to finishing his own race - he might've even won the race, clocked a PR.

Sometimes people need more than a word or cliched race slogan as we blow by them in our lives.  They need us to stop what we're doing and actually care about them.  There's a big difference between appearing to care (lip service) and actually giving a rat's ass.

So be honest... Do you know someone that if you gave them 5 minutes of your time... maybe 10.... maybe an hour out of your busy schedule, it might make a marked impact on their life?  Hey, I'm not suggesting that you forfeit the race... you can carry on when you feel that they're in good hands.

As human beings we are innately wired for this type of interaction - I think it's engrained somewhere within the definition of humanity.  We as human (or maybe that's humane) beings are meant to be compassionate, it gives us a sense of value, a feeling of contribution to the communities in which we were intended to dwell. I guarantee, seeing someone else's life change for the better because of something you've said or done far surpasses any physical award or commendation.

While Oprah terms it "paying it forward", others tote it as "karma", one of my Twitter chums (and yes, my awesome Dad) @FC4A tweets "it will start a reaction of the same. Observe how far a little kindness can go".  I dare ya.... try it!

I watched a pretty cool video yesterday.  “A Toy Train in Space” documents a father and son sending the boy’s favorite toy, a toy train named “Stanley”, to the reaches of space. With the use of a weather balloon and a box that housed a mounted HD camera and an old cell phone for GPS, the toy train took an hour long trip to the stratosphere and then, once the balloon burst, he took a quick 20 minute free fall back to Earth for the father and son to retrieve 27 miles away from their original launch site.

I’m not sure how the correlation was made in my head (ask my clients, synaptic firings often leave me a bit perplexed) but I began to think of the journeys towards health and wellness that we embark on.

After our initial idea, the journey typically starts out with some deliberation and planning following which we develop something of a loose flight plan.  We figure out our strategic approach to moving towards our selected objectives, regardless of what they are.  We do some reading and ask some questions.  Maybe we put pen to paper and do a bit of fine tuning to our original strategy.  Then hopefully we put this into action and set it free.  We start journaling our food intake, maybe even do some food preparation.  We join the local fitness centre, maybe we actually go.  We get some personal training sessions or buy some DVDs.  We sweat a little and curse a lot, and eventually start to gain some momentum.

Hopefully this flight path continues.  Unfortunately far too often we reach the metaphorical 18 mile mark and our balloon bursts and all of the progress that we’ve made comes crashing down – usually a little ways away from our original starting point (a few pounds heavier, a few more injuries or a little uncertain about what we just endured and what began as a solid game plan – how could this not have worked).

But from here we have a few options:

1/ Pick ourselves up and resolve ourselves to being content where we’re at.  Shit, we tried didn’t we?  “Maybe I’m just not cut out to [insert goal of choice here]”!

2/ Find another weather balloon and try all over again to see if we can get a bit higher this time.  Well, we might, but chances are that at roughly the same proximity to the sun, that balloon will burst.  And after a few weather balloons, this game will just get plain ol’ tiresome.  Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different outcome.

3/ Look at other ways to get our train into space.  There is more than one way to skin a cat after all? (is it still okay to say that or am I going to be condemned by animal rights activists?)  Maybe we try the approach of Icarus and mold wings with wax and feathers – maybe it’s a slower ascent, maybe we can’t go as high, but perhaps our goal was too lofty in the first place.  Perhaps we spend a bit more time planning and take the approach of the Wright brothers.


And here’s where I move away from my train-in-space analogy...

With respect to The Law of Gravity, Newton was right in claiming that “what goes up must come down”.  But as with space travel, we are able to move beyond gravitational pull and we can align our efforts to exceed any forces or urges that we experience that cause us to plummet.  We can call this triumph... SUCCESS.

Yes it takes planning.  Yes it takes perseverance.   Yes it may even take some time.  But it is possible. What stands between you and your dream is the willingness to start, the courage to move ahead and the faith to finish.


Suggestions:

1/ Dare to dream.
2/ Develop your game plan.
3/ Follow your game plan to the best of your ability... no half measures, no excuses.
4/ If you don’t meet your objectives, re-evaluate.  Honestly.  Did you follow your game plan? Did you give it your best shot?  Was your initial goal too lofty?
5/ Don’t give up.  Don’t give in.  Be strong in your conviction to achieve greater heights.
6/ Become addicted to constant and never ending self improvement.