I decided to give a friend a call to chat while driving to the gym. I started off by saying that I didn’t feel like exercising. The followed up with the foul mood they were in. Before long, the conversation turn into a complaint festival. It’s not hard to find people that will feed into your negativity. We all have it. Still, I was headed to they gym, so I figured at the least I would get in a sub par work out. I figured some exercise is better than none.

I was dreading the thought of exercising. I had visions of turning my car around and heading back home. I wanted to just go to bed and worry about not working out later. As I pulled up to the gym, I noticed a familiar vehicle. It belonged to a mentor of mine who is a fitness guru. God must have know that I needed the extra push this morning. The first thing he said was “What’s up slim! Man you have lost a lot of weight!” Being the human I am, that immediately changed my mood. To myself I was like “yeah, I’m really going to work out today!”

After putting in about 1.5 miles, I came back inside and started my routine for the day. I was shown a few finer point of some of the exercises I was doing that made them much more challenging. Call me crazy, but a part of me likes the pain and discomfort that comes along with being challenged in the weight room. I guess the more appropriate thought would be that I like conquering the pain and discomfort. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

After three rounds of a strenuous workout, the bad mood I started my day with turned into an appreciation for the challenge. I am so glad I did not turn that car around and listen to the voice in me that was telling me to give up. I battle against this demon on a weekly basis. I don’t know if it will ever leave. What I do know is that the stronger I become, the better equipped I am to deal with things. I always hear that coal must first undergo pressure in order to turn into a diamond. I know that the success I am looking for exists. In fact, it lives inside of me. I will remain constant in my efforts and I will not give up on becoming the person I am supposed to be.

Dreams Mean Work!

It’s incredible to consider how powerful perception can be. We can convince ourselves of anything if we think hard and long enough about it. Sadly though, most of us allow the negative to enter our minds and become our prevailing thought. As the Law of Attraction teaches, we can make heaven or hell out of most things. So many of us have become used to disappointment. Bad things happen in our lives and it comes as no surprise. Some of us would admit to expecting things to go wrong. It’s almost as if we have built in mechanism designed to protect us from disappointment by never allowing us to have hope. This is why many of us never bother to thing big.

It’s even worse once we are in the midst of our depression. We already kick ourselves for the things we either have become or have not become. We drown ourselves in the problem and fail to give any thought to a solution. Things then begin to compound. We feel like we are holding on by the thinnest of threads with no solution in sight. Then, to pour water on your drowning spirit, you have people around you who fall right into misery’s trap. They offer no real words of encouragement. Only cliches and shallow quotes.

Such is the case with weight loss. Many have convinced themselves that being overweight is who and what they are. “That’s how God made me!” Some will explain. They have tried everything and nothing seems to work. To that, the voice in my head wonders if they have ever thought to try commitment. I don’t say this to sound rude or cold, however it has been my own personal experience that whenever I would commit to losing weight, things would work out in my favor. Sure, I could be biased, however, I have only my own story from which to relate. I would fail at losing weight whenever I would allow myself to stop believing. I had to learn the hard way. I got that covered, so now you can learn from my shortcomings.

This is why, in our moments of clarity, we must arm ourselves with positive people and positive talk and positive vibrations. These are the things that get us through the lean times. Those positive voices can be the very thing to move you forward to your next challenge. This is why I love self improvement/development books. I see so much of myself in them. They help me to better relation to people, places and things. It also helps to listen to the perspective of others who have been where you are and have made it through. I don’t focus on weight loss stories at all. Instead, I find books on how people go from nothing to something to be extremely fascinating. If you read and pay close enough attention, you will find certain secrets buried inside the pages. Those my friends are our solutions. Stop bathing in the problem. Knowledge is all around us. We only need to reach out and bring it into our lives.

Until the next time….remember:

Dreams mean work!

Of course this can slow us down a bit. It can break your spirit and kill our momentum if we let it. Let’s dissect this for a second. You find yourself becoming passionate about something you can see yourself doing. You really believe that you can make it happen. That thing has begun to wake you up early and it keeps you up late at night. You really think that you have finally found where you fit. You excitedly run to the people who you believe in most, be it family or friends. When you share with them your great revelation they laugh, shake their head and look at you as if once again you have lost your mind!

You will have to find a way to excuse them. You see, these are the people who have known the most intimate sides of you. These are the people who have seen you in your most embarrassing situations. Sometimes it’s difficult for them to picture you as being serious or committed to something because they had a front row seat to all of the times you were not. In their eyes, this is just another chapter in your book. It’s another phase you are going through and they wish you would just wake up and do like everybody else. Play it safe. Color inside the lines. Good enough is okay. I guarantee that the day you settle for what others expect from you when your own expectations are far greater, a part of you will die a little each passing day. You my friend have just given up on dreaming.

Author, James Allen wrote in his classic “As A Man Thinketh,” this excerpt in relation to dreams:

“The greatest achievement was at first a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg. And in the highest vision of a soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”

If that thing that has you so very excited is truly worth your time, do your homework. Pay your due diligence. Rip it apart and truly ask yourself if this is something you want to invest yourself into. Prayer and meditation are always recommended! Once you have made the decision for move forward, jump in with both feet, burn the bridge and don’t ever look back! Even in the midst of what some may define as failure lies a blueprint for the type of prosperity on a select few will ever know. Sadly, most of us will never do this. It’s just a statistical fact. Actually,only 3-5% of the population will find the freedom they see in their dreams. Maybe that’s why they control about 90% of the world’s money. That’s a completely different subject though….

Right now, I just want you to begin focusing on your dreams. If you don’t have any, get some fast. Your dreams are the only things that will sustain you when everyone else fails you. I recently watched a video where Tony Robbins explains that the only path to having the things you desire is to first experience them in your mind. If you cannot see yourself being successful, you will never become successful. That my friend is the dividing line between living your dreams and having no dreams to live for.

Until the next post….remember….

Dreams mean work!

2 Corinthians 4:16-17 verse

Blog Post #31

It takes more than me to be able to maintain my pace. This journey to losing weight has morphed into the journey to achieve success across multiple areas in my life. Although my videos and blogs have been from a “me first” perspective, trust when I tell you that I have a lot of others who have contributed to my effort. My good friend, who initially challenged me to get back on track was at the gym when I finished today’s Big Run. I told him I just ran 3.8 miles. He asked, “how do you feel?” “Pretty good,” I said. Then he says, “well hey, come work out with us!” I realized I had no excuse that would fly in on this occasion, so after running almost 4 miles in over an hour, I then underwent another hour of weight lifting and resistance training.

I remember just looking at the weights at some point during the workout because there was nothing in me that was saying I could do it. There he was in the background saying “Come on Louis Riley,” and in my sarcastic undertone I said, “yeah, yeah, yeah….” You see, its moments like this when you learn to appreciate how the mind controls the body. I had so many thoughts of I can’t running through my head, until it was slowing me down. I kept looking for a reason to accept the “I can’t” as my truth, but nothing would stick. I knew from a place deep inside that at least, it was possible…and if it is possible, then why not try. I pushed through fatigue and soreness and I completed the workout. I must admit, I would not have pushed myself as much if I were exercising alone. ‘

In every effort of success, we need to be certain we keep certain people around us who can see our lighter side and not settle for our darkeness. We all need someone in our circle who pushes us to become great. We need that someone who believes in us even when we may not believe in ourselves. I have a few people in my life who fit this description. I would supposed I am fortunate to have them. However, it sometimes takes a lot of swallowing my ego. As I state in the video associated with this entry, I have a rather high opinion of myself. When you tell me I can’t, I automatically think I can. When you doubt me, I want to prove you wrong. So when I hear criticism, like many, my first reaction is to push it aside because I feel like I am being attacked. However, I am built for success. I know that these people come from a sincere place. I listen to their opinions and I then allow it to run through my mental process so that I can pull the lessons I was supposed to learn.

Sometimes when we drop our ego, we will learn the it was standing in the way of what we really need in our lives….

Dreams Mean Work!

Last week was good for me. I found myself gaining more control over my thought process when it comes to “needing” to eat. That carried over to today. After eating a sensible first meal, my initial thought was to get more food. I thought about it for a second then decided to drink more water and have more fruit. Watermelon this time of year is like a secret weapon for me when it comes to weight loss. It fills you up and at the end of the day, heck, it’s mostly water. I realized that sometimes you have to trick your body into thinking its satisfied in order for it to be satisfied.

There was a quote I used in my last video that said in order to control your urges, you must first control your thoughts. This is week #5 of this part of my journey and I have to tell you, I am feeling stronger. I am not focusing on lifting heavy weights or anything of that sort, rather, I have incorporated a few very simple techniques that have given me incredible results. I promise in the future, I will do a video to show you what I am talking about. For now, I’ll let you know that I use a combination of resistance bands, kettle bells as well as a few resistance exercises.

I also owe you a glimpse of what I am doing to eat healthier. I have been given numerous suggestions, but you have to understand that I am the type person that wants to figure this stuff out for themselves. I will say this, diet plans are not for me. Food has always been a part of my culture and will continue to be. I’ve envisioned in about 15-20 years becoming a chef of some sort. Maybe this phase of my life is where those lesson are going to be laid? Only time will tell.

Dreams mean work!