After stepping off the treadmill in a bit of a daze last Thursday following my 20 minute run, I believed I could do just about anything. My first thoughts were "If I can do that, what else can I do?" Another physical goal that has been eluding me for months is to do 50 crunches. Crunches are part of my regular ab workout and I simply do three sets of as many as I can do. The aim was to get to 50 and then I'd move onto a more challenging exercise with a ball.
I wrote out that goal on December 4th when I'd managed to hit 40. That's two months ago! I have not been able to squeeze out 10 more reps in two whole months. This has been my pattern:
Dec 4th: 40
Dec 11th: 42
Dec 29th: 40
Jan 8th: 44
Jan 16: 46
Today: 54!
As you can see I was just creeping up by a couple of reps. I had a bit of a setback just after Christmas (all my training suffered slightly that week!) and then I made a little more progress. Now it is possible of course that since my last workout I miraculously developed enough strength to do 8 more reps than before. However, I think its far more likely that I could have done it weeks ago if I had simply believed I could. It's annoying really, because that was a goal I really wanted to hit by Christmas.
So there you have it, yet more reasons to let go of those limiting beliefs!
Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Thursday, 1 February 2007
Even Greater Things Can Happen When...
... you totally destroy your limiting beliefs.
Hopefully you've read yesterdays blog entry about what can happen when you find the right motivation. If not, read it now!
All week long I've been listening to Tony Robbins banging on about the power of focusing on what is it you really want. He says that you should always ask yourself "What's my outcome?" for any situation, whether its something as big as your life or as small as a lunchtime workout. So I'm in my car driving to the gym and I asked myself out loud "What's my outcome for my workout today?". Well I want to get rid of my headache, shake off this tiredness, have a really great workout and feel vitalised. And as I said this I imagined myself on the crosstrainer at level 10 managing to keep up a fast pace for the full 20 minutes.
Straight away I had to change my approach as the gym was full today, the crosstrainers were in use so it had to be the treadmill again. I set myself a new standard yesterday of doing 3/2 so I had to do the same again. It was tough going, my legs were really aching and I wished I had remembered to stretch beforehand. I looked down at the clock and I'd only been going for 90 seconds. I had to change my state if I was going to do the full workout!
So I decided to focus on something positive - when was I going to go for my five minute goal? A few years ago (about 2002 I think) I joined a local gym and went fairly regularly for a couple of months. I used the cross trainer then too but secretly harbored aspirations of being able to run again. I set myself a vague goal of being able to run continuously for 20 minutes as an ultimate goal. Of course thats too big to tackle in one go so the first step was five minutes. Amusingly, at the time I tested myself to see how long I could run for and I had to bring the machine to an emergency stop after about 40 seconds!
Anyway that was then, this is now and I'm much fitter now. The five minute goal is within reach. Heck, I did almost 4 minutes yesterday! I could do it real soon. Yeah, first of March! Hmm, why wait a month? Why don't I just try it RIGHT NOW just for a laugh? It won't matter if I can't do it. I'll try just for fun. By now I was so busy thinking about this that I hadn't noticed the time, I was almost at my three minutes so I didn't stop - I decided to carry on and go for the goal!
The time is passing, my legs are screaming but four minutes comes and goes and I just KNOW I'm going to do five. Suddenly my mind starts racing. Can I do more than five? Who knows? I don't know what I'm capable of. Maybe I can do six, or seven, christ maybe I can really go mad and try for ten whole minutes!
Well five came and went! Oh yeah baby I did it, I got my five minute goal but now I didn't care about that because I had a new goal - I wanted ten! Minute after miute went by. At about 8 minutes I checked my heart rate and it was 180. To give you some perspective, on the crosstrainer I train at around 160, when running I go to about 172 then I start walking so this was high but not dangerously high. The biggest problem was the burning in the back of my calves. But that's just pain! Who cares about a little pain when 10 minutes is within my reach!
You know yesterday after my successful workout I had started planning how I was going to reach not only the five minute goal (as that seemed much closer) but the ten minute one. I figured that each month I'd increase my jogging duration by 1 minute so it would take 7 months to get to 10 minutes. Damn, seven months is a long time and by that time it would be a over a year since I started training and 10 minutes didn't seem like all that much for a years worth of training. Oh well, maybe I can up it every fotnight then - 30 seconds a week instead.
So yesterday I was thinking that I could reach 10 minutes in maybe 3-4 months and here I was just a couple of minutes away from it!
In the ninth minute I almost flaked out. NO, YOU CANT GIVE UP NOW, I screamed at myself inside my head. I kept going and then I had another big shift in mindset. Just a few minutes before the only thing I knew was that I could run 4 minutes. For years and years and years I've told myself that I can't run. How utterly absurd! I have two legs, no disabilities, I'm healthy and I'm young, OF COURSE I can run! Suddenly all my previous beliefs about what I could and couldn't do just evaporated. I was approaching ten minutes, this was brand new territory and I no longer had any idea what my real capabilities were. Right then I DECIDED, I made an absolute decision that I was going to run for 20 minutes. My absolute ultimate goal was happening TODAY, RIGHT NOW.
With every single step I took I was setting a new record for myself. I imagined that I was running a hurdle race and each hurdle was a limiting belief that I had about myself but instead of jumping over them I just ran straight through them blasting them to peices! I started getting really excited, adrenaline was pumping and that must have been what kept me going. Each minute felt like an eternity but by about 16 minutes I knew I was there; all I had to do was endure a little more pain.
Another thing that Tony Robbins talks about is avoiding pain and gravitating towards pleasure. He says that we'll always do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. So why is it that I was able to put myself through that much pain? Because the pleasure of already having completed my five minute goal, and my ten minute goal and the idea of actually doing twenty minutes was the most pleasurable feeling I could imagine in that moment!
17...
18...
19...
Did I make it? You bet I did! I counted down the last 10 seconds in my head and pressed the slow down button as hard as I could! I stopped the treadmill, leaned on the bars and just breathed for a few moments. Then the reality of what I had done really hit me. I was so excited that I told the guy on the treadmill next to me! He must have thought I was a little mad! He asked me how far I'd ran. I hadn't even thought of that! I was so obsessed with the time that I didn't even notice the distance. He looked over at my machine, pointed to the indicator - 2.63 kilometres. Thats over a mile and a half!!!
18 months ago I could barely get up the stairs. I couldn't even run to the end of the driveway. Six months ago I managed 10 minutes on the cross trainer at level 1. Today I ran for 20 minutes. Today I ran over a mile and a half. Not a year from now, or six months from now but today. And why? Because I believed with all my heart and soul that I could.
To anyone reading this who is a reasonably fit person, it may seem like I'm making an awful lot of fuss over a little light jogging. After all, 20 minutes at a pace of 7km/hour is not much - it's a mere warmup to many of you but to ME, it's huge. Everybody has strengths and everybody has areas that they feel are weak but next time you catch yourself saying or thinking "I can't do that", think again. Really? Why can't you? How do you know?
You know what else is so great about this? It's an achievement that can never been taken away from me. Anytime I want to feel as powerful and triumphant, as elated or ecstatic as I did today I can just think about it. And of course, I can use it to help me destroy other limiting beliefs I may have. In what other areas could I be holding myself back? The more references you have for doing what you thought you couldn't, the more you start to realise that you can do more than you think!
Destroy your limiting beliefs and take it to next level baby!
Hopefully you've read yesterdays blog entry about what can happen when you find the right motivation. If not, read it now!
All week long I've been listening to Tony Robbins banging on about the power of focusing on what is it you really want. He says that you should always ask yourself "What's my outcome?" for any situation, whether its something as big as your life or as small as a lunchtime workout. So I'm in my car driving to the gym and I asked myself out loud "What's my outcome for my workout today?". Well I want to get rid of my headache, shake off this tiredness, have a really great workout and feel vitalised. And as I said this I imagined myself on the crosstrainer at level 10 managing to keep up a fast pace for the full 20 minutes.
Straight away I had to change my approach as the gym was full today, the crosstrainers were in use so it had to be the treadmill again. I set myself a new standard yesterday of doing 3/2 so I had to do the same again. It was tough going, my legs were really aching and I wished I had remembered to stretch beforehand. I looked down at the clock and I'd only been going for 90 seconds. I had to change my state if I was going to do the full workout!
So I decided to focus on something positive - when was I going to go for my five minute goal? A few years ago (about 2002 I think) I joined a local gym and went fairly regularly for a couple of months. I used the cross trainer then too but secretly harbored aspirations of being able to run again. I set myself a vague goal of being able to run continuously for 20 minutes as an ultimate goal. Of course thats too big to tackle in one go so the first step was five minutes. Amusingly, at the time I tested myself to see how long I could run for and I had to bring the machine to an emergency stop after about 40 seconds!
Anyway that was then, this is now and I'm much fitter now. The five minute goal is within reach. Heck, I did almost 4 minutes yesterday! I could do it real soon. Yeah, first of March! Hmm, why wait a month? Why don't I just try it RIGHT NOW just for a laugh? It won't matter if I can't do it. I'll try just for fun. By now I was so busy thinking about this that I hadn't noticed the time, I was almost at my three minutes so I didn't stop - I decided to carry on and go for the goal!
The time is passing, my legs are screaming but four minutes comes and goes and I just KNOW I'm going to do five. Suddenly my mind starts racing. Can I do more than five? Who knows? I don't know what I'm capable of. Maybe I can do six, or seven, christ maybe I can really go mad and try for ten whole minutes!
Well five came and went! Oh yeah baby I did it, I got my five minute goal but now I didn't care about that because I had a new goal - I wanted ten! Minute after miute went by. At about 8 minutes I checked my heart rate and it was 180. To give you some perspective, on the crosstrainer I train at around 160, when running I go to about 172 then I start walking so this was high but not dangerously high. The biggest problem was the burning in the back of my calves. But that's just pain! Who cares about a little pain when 10 minutes is within my reach!
You know yesterday after my successful workout I had started planning how I was going to reach not only the five minute goal (as that seemed much closer) but the ten minute one. I figured that each month I'd increase my jogging duration by 1 minute so it would take 7 months to get to 10 minutes. Damn, seven months is a long time and by that time it would be a over a year since I started training and 10 minutes didn't seem like all that much for a years worth of training. Oh well, maybe I can up it every fotnight then - 30 seconds a week instead.
So yesterday I was thinking that I could reach 10 minutes in maybe 3-4 months and here I was just a couple of minutes away from it!
In the ninth minute I almost flaked out. NO, YOU CANT GIVE UP NOW, I screamed at myself inside my head. I kept going and then I had another big shift in mindset. Just a few minutes before the only thing I knew was that I could run 4 minutes. For years and years and years I've told myself that I can't run. How utterly absurd! I have two legs, no disabilities, I'm healthy and I'm young, OF COURSE I can run! Suddenly all my previous beliefs about what I could and couldn't do just evaporated. I was approaching ten minutes, this was brand new territory and I no longer had any idea what my real capabilities were. Right then I DECIDED, I made an absolute decision that I was going to run for 20 minutes. My absolute ultimate goal was happening TODAY, RIGHT NOW.
With every single step I took I was setting a new record for myself. I imagined that I was running a hurdle race and each hurdle was a limiting belief that I had about myself but instead of jumping over them I just ran straight through them blasting them to peices! I started getting really excited, adrenaline was pumping and that must have been what kept me going. Each minute felt like an eternity but by about 16 minutes I knew I was there; all I had to do was endure a little more pain.
Another thing that Tony Robbins talks about is avoiding pain and gravitating towards pleasure. He says that we'll always do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. So why is it that I was able to put myself through that much pain? Because the pleasure of already having completed my five minute goal, and my ten minute goal and the idea of actually doing twenty minutes was the most pleasurable feeling I could imagine in that moment!
17...
18...
19...
Did I make it? You bet I did! I counted down the last 10 seconds in my head and pressed the slow down button as hard as I could! I stopped the treadmill, leaned on the bars and just breathed for a few moments. Then the reality of what I had done really hit me. I was so excited that I told the guy on the treadmill next to me! He must have thought I was a little mad! He asked me how far I'd ran. I hadn't even thought of that! I was so obsessed with the time that I didn't even notice the distance. He looked over at my machine, pointed to the indicator - 2.63 kilometres. Thats over a mile and a half!!!
18 months ago I could barely get up the stairs. I couldn't even run to the end of the driveway. Six months ago I managed 10 minutes on the cross trainer at level 1. Today I ran for 20 minutes. Today I ran over a mile and a half. Not a year from now, or six months from now but today. And why? Because I believed with all my heart and soul that I could.
To anyone reading this who is a reasonably fit person, it may seem like I'm making an awful lot of fuss over a little light jogging. After all, 20 minutes at a pace of 7km/hour is not much - it's a mere warmup to many of you but to ME, it's huge. Everybody has strengths and everybody has areas that they feel are weak but next time you catch yourself saying or thinking "I can't do that", think again. Really? Why can't you? How do you know?
You know what else is so great about this? It's an achievement that can never been taken away from me. Anytime I want to feel as powerful and triumphant, as elated or ecstatic as I did today I can just think about it. And of course, I can use it to help me destroy other limiting beliefs I may have. In what other areas could I be holding myself back? The more references you have for doing what you thought you couldn't, the more you start to realise that you can do more than you think!
Destroy your limiting beliefs and take it to next level baby!
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