"Ultimately our success is more greatly impacted by our response to failure. How you get up off the mat, dust yourself off and get back into the ring says more about you than any other successful strength you possess. Take the knowledge learned from your disappointments and avoid repeating the same mistakes. Failures help us to determine strategies that do not work in order to learn successful ones that do. Nobody can argue with truthful outcomes can they? Despite setbacks, disappointment and failures those athletes who repeatedly get off the mat, get back in the batter's box and pin on a race bib number possess a character trait I like to call "stick-to-it-ness."
Some athletes are born with stick-to-it-ness while others must learn it the hard way. If stick-to-it-ness is never learned then I'll show you someone who either complains a lot or wrongly believes life should come easier to them without hard work. Sure, they may be there to compete and give you the impression they've got a high level of stick-to-it-ness, but their lack of commitment when you aren't watching is the determining factor in their compounding failures. Another impacting attitude on one's stick-to-it-ness is unjustified expectations in relationship to where their ability is in the moment. Rewards do come at a personal cost. If you aren't willing to invest the patience and hard work to achieve rewards then you should not expect to achieve your full potential.
What got you here won't get you there. I challenge you to challenge yourself to aim higher, put yourself into difficult situations, get slightly in over your head, and find out what you're truly made of – not just as a bicyclist but more importantly as a person. It does not matter if you're 20 or 60 years old because we are forever evolving as people. Bicycle racing is the perfect opportunity to learn about yourself while simultaneously stretching your boundaries of personal growth. I attempt to do this in nearly everything I do and strongly believe I am a better man because of it."
I like that. Really perfect for me right now. What got me here won't get me there.
What do you all think?
Oh, and I forgot to point out this other little phrase that I liked a lot : "willing to invest the patience." Are you willing to invest the patience required for your journey to your healthy living goals? We beat ourselves up about the investing hard work part of it all, but do you remember the patience part of it?
ReplyDeleteStick-to-it-ness. I love it! Let's face it, that what this is all about. This is a long road we are all on (possibly the longest road of life) and there are ups and downs all along it. Perhaps the most important quality along traveling this road is stick-to-it-ness. Just, stay on the road! Pull over and re-fuel when we need to; if we break down, pick ourselves back up and put us together well enough again to get back on the road.
ReplyDeleteStick-to-it-ness, I like it.