The Value And Price Of Personal Victory!

What do you do when the economy deals you a blow like it has so many of us in the last couple of years?

As we look around us we see so many people who have allowed the loss of a job or a career to wreck their lives.

Let me tell you my story of how, when one door closes in your face, there is always another one somewhere else that opens for you!

Sometimes the way God catapults us out of our comfortable complacency is to completely jerk the rug out from under our feet! It's the definition of a "wake up call!"

So what do we do when that happens? It can seem like our whole world is falling apart, especially when it's a financial problem.

I've learned that the best way to keep our attitudes up and keep pressing forward is to realize that finances, as important as they are, are only one part of our lives.

What has helped me tremendously is to make sure that I don't stop moving forward in all the other areas of my life.

This is the story of how, this past year, I've been able to set and achieve a huge goal for myself even while other parts of my life weren't perfect.

The funny thing is, I have never been a big goal setter before. I think that's going to change after this experience!

It all started about 5 or 6 years ago when the basketball team I played with kind of dissolved. I needed something to do to stay active, so I took up running.

I've never really been a distance runner before, but I figured that I could work into it and maybe even one day run a marathon.

For several years I did it fairly regularly but never very consistently. I had fun keeping myself motivated by keeping track of my Personal Records (PR's) at different distances.

Occasionally, I would run in a 5K race, just for fun, but the longest distance I had ever gotten to was 12 1/2 miles. That's a far cry from a full-blown marathon.

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Inspiration From Past Victories!

So last spring I was talking with another friend who was kind of a casual runner too and they suggested that we start training more seriously and do a half marathon at the end of the summer.

That sounded interesting, but I didn't think it would be much of a challenge. I figured there was a pretty good chance I could run one right then if I wanted to.

So the next day being a Saturday, I decided to give it a try. I made it 14 miles, slightly more than the 13.1 required for a half marathon, but it took everything I had!

As I was recovering from that, I was still being driven by the desire to set some kind of a big fitness goal for the next year to push myself towards.

With my construction business falling apart, I really needed a win in my life right now.

It was then that I remembered my grade school P.E. teacher Mr. Ken Harris and a contest that he created for all the kids in school from 5th through 12th grades. He called it the Mullinville 500!

The object was to start tracking our running and walking mileage and see if we could accumulate 500 miles, no matter how long it took. No pressure. You could totally do it at your own pace.

The funny thing was, I was one of the first 10 kids to finish out of the whole school! I also held the record for several years of being the youngest one to finish by more than a year.

It took me 2 years to do it back then as a fifth and sixth grader.

So fast-forward to 2010, almost 40 years later. Could I, at 49-50 years old possibly do it again, but this time in only 1 year?

As I started calculating what it would take, I realized that if I'd just do a 4 mile run with a half mile warm-up and a half mile cool down walk 3 times a week, I'd easily get it done in a year. That would even allow for several bad weather days in the winter and spring!

Hmmm... so why not?

Plus, by being consistent, maybe I'd be able to get in good enough shape to do a half marathon a little easier. Then the big one! Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually finish a full marathon? That would be a big check mark off of the ole "bucket list" for me!

So I created for myself what I called the IPFC 500! The International Personal Fitness Challenge!

As part of my goal I created several different charts and then some award certificates with my IPFC 500 logo on them, that I could earn for reaching certain milestones along the way.

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Can Your Goal Become An Obsession?

Now I had a goal! To run/walk 500 miles between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011! I also had the means to track myself and reward myself for achieving it.

What happened next has literally boggled my mind!

What started out as a simple goal to keep up my basic normal pace, except to become consistent with it, soon became an obsession!

I started out the first month on my 4 miles 3 times per week plan with some longer runs thrown in on the weekends.

Then the second month two things happened. Because of my consistency, I started getting in better shape and consequently started breaking some of my long time PRs!

Secondly, I ended up going over 100 miles for the month! I had never really planned for that to happen.

So in August, I decided to step up the pace to 5 miles 3 times a week. Nothing that spectacular happened and I didn't quite hit 100 miles that month but it did set me up for a great September!

I was cookin' in September! I broke 9 personal records that month, almost 1 every other time I ran! I was feeling great!

Then as the end of the month drew nearer, it dawned on me that if I could step up the pace just a little bit more, I was on track to hit my 500 mile goal by the end of October! That was only five months into my year!

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Chasing A Dream!

This is where the real obsession began!

I'd tried a couple of times to run a marathon on my own around our area, but had only made it 16 and 20 miles respectively. By the end of September I felt I was ready to try again.

On the morning of October 1, I headed out. The area we live in is laid out in 1 mile square blocks, so it makes it pretty easy to track your distance.

5 hours and 8 minutes later I put a big fat check mark on one of my lifetime dreams of completing a full marathon!

It really went fairly well too. I didn't experience running into "the wall" that most people talk about. But rather, just kept plugging along till it was finished!

A lot of my friends were amazed that I could do it by myself without the pressure of competition to keep me going.

But I was just getting rolling!

On my next 2 runs I smashed a couple of more PR's again! I ended the month with 6 new PR's including running a half marathon on each of the 4 weekends after the full marathon!

I closed out October with 510 total miles on my charts!

Mission accomplished!

I had never pushed so hard for a goal in my life! I couldn't believe that I had actually run 500 miles in 5 months! That was a huge morale booster!

It also proved to me that I could actually set a goal and be driven to achieve it! Maybe there were some lessons to be learned here!

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Pursuing Excellence Has A Price!

But wait... We are not done yet!

I still had 7 months left in my year! Could it be possible that even with Idaho's nasty winter and spring weather, that I could get in another 500 miles and actually hit 1000 before my original deadline?

Hmmm... let's go for it!

Almost immediately I hit some huge obstacles to that goal.

I hadn't done enough studying to know that you are supposed to take a 3 week break from running after you finish a marathon to give your body adequate recovery.

Oooops! I don't think that running 110 miles including 4 half marathons in the next four weeks, quite fits that proper training picture!

I quickly found out that I had hugely elevated my lactic acid levels and that my potassium and electrolyte levels were seriously depleted.

For the next 3 months, I literally could barely run and ended up with pulled muscles in my legs 3 or 4 times. It was frustrating!

But I kept on persevering. When I couldn't run, I would walk. Unless the temperature was below zero, I'd still get out and do 4 miles or so. I learned not to listen to "Eye of the Tiger"and other motivational music on my iPod because it would get my adrenaline up and I'd blow another muscle out!

By the end of January, I had only added another 116 miles in three months, but I was starting to feel better.

The next problem was that February in Idaho is a very cold month and then March through May tend to be cold, very windy and miserable.

How bad did I want this goal? 1000 miles in a year was something that I never imagined I could do, even when I started this journey.

Here it was, well within my reach if I could just buckle down, deal with the weather and stay healthy.

I needed to put together almost 4-100 mile months to put this thing in the bag!

So I settled into just disciplining myself and getting consistent.

Bad weather... Oh well!

I managed my way through February and ended up right at 100 miles.

Then into March. At first it was still really cold but then it started to warm up. Unfortunately with the warmer temperatures (if you call low to mid 30's warmer) also came the spring winds. Most days in the spring here there can be anywhere from 5 to 45 mph "breezes" and usually on the higher end of that scale.

Let me tell you, running into a stiff breeze in the cold weather of spring is way worse than running in a snowstorm in January.

When the wind feels like it's a hand on your chest holding you back, those miles can take forever to add up!

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What Is The Price Of Your Victory?

But... How bad did I want that goal? Apparently, pretty bad!

I found myself drawn to be out running the roads no matter how bad the weather got. I remember one day trying to go 14 miles on a cold, windy, rainy day. I just couldn't make it. I totally ran out of gas at 12 miles and had to call home for a ride. But two days later, I was back out running again!

Then towards the middle of April and beginning of May I realized that I really was going to make it!

I finished another 100+ mile month in April and that left me less than 75 miles to go in May! That should be a piece of cake!

Plus, by now my body was fully recovered and back in great shape again! On my second run in May, despite the cold weather, I completely obliterated my best 6 mile time ever by almost a full minute. The funny thing was I didn't set out to do that. I just realized at about the 3 mile mark that I was ahead of my fastest pace ever!

So here it is May 12th. Yesterday I did a 6 miler that put me at 979 miles! That leaves me almost 3 weeks left to either run a marathon or put in less than an average week of running! I'll finish up what's probably the biggest, toughest physical goal that I've ever set for myself!

Now, I realize that a lot of big-time marathon runners probably put in a lot more miles than that every year to keep themselves in shape.

But I am just an average guy who took up running for fun and has done something that most people can't even fathom! Almost everyone I talked to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. It's one of those things that allows me the sense of accomplishment of having done something that most people aren't even willing to try!

Those are the kinds of victories that change your life!

Not necessarily that you were the best that ever lived at something, but that you proved to yourself that through a lot of discipline and hard work, that you could accomplish something you never thought possible!

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Victory Brings Belief In Yourself!

For me, the take-home lesson from this past year, is to look at the rest of my life and determine in what other areas I can set similar goals. Goals that will drive me almost to an obsession to get better and accomplish some more things that I really dream of making happen!

Life is out there for the taking. Many people just naturally take to the goal setting process and it becomes a way of life for them.

There are a large percentage of the rest of us though for whom goal setting is not a part of our lives.

Some of us find it so uncomfortable, or have never found something we wanted bad enough to discipline ourselves to get it. Others of us, like me for instance, have found that the simple act of setting a goal would trigger some unfathomable rebellion response deep down inside us and we just wouldn't do it. Strange... I know... But real.

What I learned from this experience is that the goal has to be 100% completely my own, not something that someone else imposed on me or even suggested. But instead something that, deep down inside of me, I really wanted to accomplish whether it made any sense to anyone else or not.

When it was my own real heartfelt dream, then I would chase it until it became an obsession to get it. No pulled muscles, nasty weather, or disbelieving naysayers would keep me from getting it!

What is it in your life that you secretly want that badly? If you don't have something like that, I challenge you to start digging. Find something! Rekindle an old dream! Find something that you have to stretch to get and then create a plan for yourself. Create some charts and track your performance. Reward yourself.

Take my word for it, the sense of accomplishment that you feel from a victory like this will bolster your belief in yourself tremendously!

That's what we need in these times that try men's souls, the self-respect and sense of accomplishment that comes from the victories that we can all have in our lives!

Each one of us is capable of winning and excelling at something in our lives! Whoever you are, what ever your situation may be, you can have a victory in your life! In fact, you can have as many victories as you choose because you don't have to beat someone else to do so.

And...who knows? You might just inspire someone else along the way!

You only have to overcome yourself!!!

To wrap up this article here are the stats from a couple of my charts just for fun!

Cumulative Total Miles By Month

June 1,2010.................0 miles
June 30,2010..............71 miles
July 31,2010..............174 miles
August 31,2010..........268 miles
September 30,2010.....373 miles
October 31,2010.........510 miles!!!
November 31,2010.....550 miles
December 31,2010.....578 miles
January 31,2011.........626 miles
February 28,2011.......726 miles
March 31,2011............826 miles
April 30,2011.............929 miles
May 12,2011..............979 miles

21 more to go!!!

My Personal Records (PR's)

100 meters.............13.56 sec '06
200 meters............28.06 sec '06
1/4 mile...................1:03 min '06
1/2 mile...................2:42 min '07
1 mile...............................6:15 '10
2 miles..........................14:36 '08
5 kilometers................25:02 '08
4 miles...........................31:41 '10
5 miles...........................41:45 '10
6 miles...........................50:13 '11
8 miles........................1:11:47 '10
12 miles......................1:57:26 '10
14 miles......................2:16:57 '10
16 miles.....................3:09:26 '10
20 miles.....................3:48:22 '10
26.2 miles.................5:08:00 '10
(First ever Marathon!)
Best Distance In 1 Hr...7.1 miles
Max Distance..............26.2 miles
Most miles Per Month..........137
Most Miles 7 Days...................45
Total 1/2 marathons/yr..........9

The Power Of A Compliment

Reading this morning about the power of a sincere compliment!

That's a lesson that has been driven home to me very forcefully over the years.

Somewhere our society has developed this totally screwed up idea that saying something nice to someone else is this personal weakness called "brown-nosing". Also that becoming the King or Queen of the "put-down" is something to aspire to.

Why are we so gullible and foolish?

What I learned the hard way, is that every time I laid a great put-down on someone thinking to impress the others around me, not only did I not impress anyone, but I did immeasurable damage! Not only to the one whom I attacked but also to my own reputation!

Everyone around me was wondering what I said about them when their back was turned or when I might think it was socially to my advantage.

Stupid-stupid-stupid!!!

Do you think people will respect you more if they always have to wonder if they will be your next victim, or if they know their name is sacred with you?

People trust those who they feel like "have their back"!

So take every opportunity you get today to give someone a sincere compliment! Watch how it affects them and ask yourself if that doesn't make you feel good or what?

Think 10 years down the road. Will you have more influence in your world if you have made it a practice passing out compliments every day or put-downs?

So have a great day today and help someone else do the same!!!

The Power Of Association

One of the most powerful principles I've ever learned is called the "power of association" It says you become like those you most associate with!

Are the people we spend the most time with the types who are always encouraging us to excel at whatever we are trying to accomplish? Or do we spend our time with "friends" who are constantly telling us that we can't accomplish something because we are "this"... or we are "that"?

Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, find someone who already has it or something like it and will be your cheerleader or mentor and spend as much time around them as possible!

Things will begin to change when you put yourself in an "Atmosphere of Achievement"!

You can do anything you set your mind to! If you are surrounded by people who try to tell you otherwise...RUN!

Common Denominators

Ran into an old friend the other day and they spent the entire 15 minute conversation telling me how they had "told off" this person and that person and some other person.

What a sad way to live.

Kind of hard to have many friends when they always feel like they have to cuddle up to a porcupine to be around you!

If your life seems like a never ending series of rotten experiences, maybe it's time to wake up and look at the common denominator in all of the problems....you?

I'm not ragging on anybody here, just saying that life is a whole lot happier when you have a great attitude!

Realize that people make innocent mistakes, cut everyone a little slack, greet the world with a smile on your face.

Learn how to say, that's OK, and no problem, and I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

You'll actually be stronger for it rather than weaker!

Look for the good in other people and praise them for it!

If you think the whole world is out to get you, it's time for a reality check! News flash...the whole world is so busy dealing with their own problems that they don't have time to plan to make your life miserable!!!

So go out and have an awesome day! Whether the rest of the world wants you to or not!

Please and Thank You

All right everybody! Back to kindergarten! Or maybe back to Barney! Yeah the purple dinosaur!

Incidentally that's not back for me it's forward...and yes, I realize that makes me older than a dinosaur!

Please and Thank You ARE the magic words!

I was reading this morning about the power of sincerely using the words Thank You daily as often as possible! Seems to me that this is getting to be more and more of a lost art. My kids mumble it like it tastes bad and I see so many of us adults forget to say it on a daily basis that it amazes me!

This goes along so well with the idea of praising people that we talked about yesterday! Think about how it makes you feel when someone sincerely tells you thanks, sometimes even when you didn't totally deserve it!

When someone gives you credit for a great idea and thanks you for it, doesn't that just make you want to perform a little bit better next time! I know it does me!

I think that saying Please goes a long way towards changing our orders into requests too! Especially with our spouse and kids!

Big weakness there for this Dad! How about you?

Seems to me like for some reason we have really gotten away from these simple little common courtesies.

Please, Thank You, Good Job! All are great motivators and definitely build people up which is always a good thing!

Common courtesy, it's a good old fashioned value we need to build back up!

By the way, a big THANK YOU to all of you for your positive feed back and compliments on my posts! It's tremendously rewarding to interact with all of you!

Have an awesome day!

The Power of Praise

Reading in a book called, "How to Have Power and Confidence in Dealing With People!" There is a whole chapter just on the power of praising others.

Interestingly, he quoted scientific studies that showed that words of praise actually imparted a measurable increase of energy to the person receiving them!

I think we all kind of know that. But do we work hard to practice it everyday? I want to, but I know that I fall way short of being effective at it all the time. It is way too easy to find something to criticize and it just seems to flow out of our mouths without any effort.

Ha! Maybe that's the answer right there?

Anything worthwhile requires effort!

Hmmm...have to think on that one for a little bit!

Isn't our natural reaction to changing a bad habit like that, something like, aw...that's just too hard. It's not worth the trouble to change.

Well, I'm sure my kids and Penny think that it's worth the trouble for me to get better at praising them!

I know that, not only do I like a person better who constantly seems to be praising and sincerely complimenting me, but I'll also bend over backwards to do something for them if they need me too! Sound familiar?

Why don't we become that person who gives the gift of praise to others?

It's good for our marriages and our family relationships! It's good for our businesses and our church responsibilities! It's good for our jobs, our friends, our dog, and even perfect strangers!

That probably means it's good for us too!

The book said that studies are actually showing that praising anything, even an inanimate object like a plant causes it to perform better! There just seems to be some unexplainable actual power in words of praise!

It's probably another one of those eternal laws of the universe that God has been trying to teach us all along!

So have a great day!

Eldon Tapp thinks you are awesome and thanks you for being a great friend! I know you are capable of doing anything you set your mind to!

Family and Priorities

Pondering what to share this morning and the saying, No other success can compensate for failure in the home keeps coming to mind! Maybe someone needs to hear about this today!

Don't feel condemned if you haven't exactly gotten an "A" in this class so far! You can always retake the class with some extra wisdom under your belt!

Most of us would say that our priorities stack up something like this; God, Family, Country, Work, etc...right? But if we graphed out the way we spend our time everyday on a pie chart, I'll bet it wouldn't match up with what we just said our priorities were would it? Especially when we throw in things like electronic entertainment and sports right!

So here are a couple of hints that have blessed our lives! Your relationship with your spouse is the single most important relationship in your life. It's way too easy to let our kids take priority over our spouse.

Here are 3 books (besides mine!) that have had a major positive impact on Penny and my relationship: Personality Plus by Florence Littauer, 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. Highly, highly, highly recommended reading for every married couple in the world as well as those wanting to learn to deal with people better!

With the kids, this principle from the bible has helped us weather many storms: Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!

In our society today, it seems like the standard is to send them to school and involve them in as many extracurricular activities as possible. While neither of those things is bad in and of themselves, I believe what we miss way too often is taking time to teach our kids the true principles that this world operates under.

When they understand truth, they tend to choose truth as a lifestyle. But when their perceived truth comes from a source that either ignorantly or purposefully teaches false ideas as truth they end up living a messed up life! They never seem to figure out that you can not live a truly successful life based on false principles, no matter how much you want to believe them!

If we say our family is a priority in our lives, then lets let our actions prove it!

Have a great day!!!

Urgent vs. Important

I've been thinking today about what's important vs what's urgent!

I talk to people all the time who are just too busy doing this or that to do something that might be really important in their lives.

Ever feel frenzied, frazzled, or realize that you're just busy being busy? Join the crowd!

I have a few suggestions.

First; Stop and smell the roses! Even dandelions will work! Just stop and smell something (beautiful of course)! Taking time out to ponder and wonder at this amazing world we live in is a great way to help us see our priorities more clearly! Busyness is really just a distraction.

In fact a mentor of mine told me recently that he considered Busyness and Laziness as two different symptoms of the same disease, Lack of Focus!

Second; Take some time out to examine your priorities. Figure out what is really important in your life and what is just urgent.

If you graphed out how you spend your time each day on a pie chart, would it reflect your priorities or someone elses?

Most of the urgent things will pass without any significant consequences.

Third: Spend your time (Your most valuable gift) only on things that really matter to your priorities and your life will begin to fill up with value and meaning!

Nobody on this earth is unimportant except as they allow themselves to be! No matter who you are, your life has meaning and it's up to you to find it and open the door!

Your life really is important in the grand scheme of things! If it doesn't feel that way, start looking at what you're spending your time on! Find out what your purpose is and pursue it with a passion!

Have an awesome day my friends!

Double Standards

I was pondering the other day why some people have such interesting belief systems in place in their lives.

I end up in discussions frequently with people who hold some really strong opinions about some thing or another only to find out that, if they really thought about what they were saying, that idea is not consistent with everything else that they say they believe.

It's interesting how easy it is to hold different subjects to different standards in our lives.

It's the old "Double Standard" idea. Or maybe "Riding the Fence".

I guess what it really boils down to is a saying that I love from a guy I listen to alot named Tim Marks, "I'm not going to try to tell you what to believe, I'm just saying to make sure you know WHY you believe WHAT you do believe!"

Sometimes when we really get down and think about what our beliefs are on any given subject, we should ask ourselves why we believe that way?

For instance, if we think that doing a certain thing is right or wrong, let's stop and look at the logic behind what we're saying and see if it's consistent with everything else we believe in life? Or are we just following a crowd of some sort?

Think about alot of our hot political topics today. Much of our conflict arises because some of us want to apply a certain standard of reasoning in this situation and that one but not in the rest of our lives.

It's okay to do this or that but if we dress the situation in different clothes we'd never agree to it!

Often it's OK for one segment of the people to verbally attack another, but if the second group responds in a like manner, they are accused of bigotry, hatred or fear-mongering, etc.

So let's make sure we are applying the same standards to all of our beliefs.

Seeking for truth is a much more healthy way to live than to have our poor subconcious mind trying to figure out our double standards and keep them straight!

Think about the why behind your beliefs and always seek for truth. Your life will go much smoother!

Have an awesome day!