Motivation Monday posts are tips, stories, and information put out every Sunday evening to give you a boost to start your week off the right way with positive energy and motivation to dominate each week. Each week the post will be made by a different trainer; we each have our own take and perspective on different subjects but one thing that is consistent is that we share the same mission.
This week’s post is about perceived barriers, and more importantly the transformation process from a barrier to a frontier. Our mission at Sisu is to focus on the transformation process through fitness and teamwork with the ultimate objective of transforming your lifestyle. We want this to be who you are & not what you do.
Skydiving is a scary activity to most reasonable people; I mean you are jumping out of a perfectly good plane. The night before you go to do your first jump you don’t sleep an ounce due to the anticipation and nerves eating at you that go with doing something with such critical consequences such as skydiving. When you are walking to the plane with all of the gear on your back and your nerves are almost unbearable because you know you are close to that moment of no return. As the plane climbs you know it is really too late now, and finally the moment you have replayed in your mind dozens of times arrives and you get the signal to jump. You decide to make a commitment and stick to it and you leap into what is the unknown for you up to this point. And then something crazy happens: as you free fall through the sky the panic is completely gone, and you sail through the sky in bliss. At this moment you realize that the whole time you were scared, there wasn’t actually a reason to be scared. The night before you were in your bed, or the morning of you were eating breakfast on the ground there was no risk of anything happening to you, but yet you are the most terrified. Your mind was in a way working against you. At the moment when there is actual danger and you have a legitimate reason to be afraid (falling through the sky) you are not scared at all. As you free-fall towards the earth with the wind in your hair you realize the ultimate freedom you are experiencing, and you wouldn’t have known unless you jumped.
Making serious life-changing decisions is scary! Apprehension is an aspect of attaining a healthy lifestyle that I talk about more than anything with people thinking about making a change. Even in Sisu from the outside looking in it can be intimidating, but if you were to talk to anyone that has been in the program they couldn’t imagine training anywhere else. Your mind is the strongest tool that you have, but you have to work every day to harness that power towards turning what you perceive to be a barrier (jumping out of a plane) into a frontier (an opportunity, or a different perspective). I can be the most motivating person in the world until my face turns blue, but no matter what YOU have to choose to jump. So I leave you with this: make the choice to jump every single day. You don’t even know what you are missing out on!
Jeff Coder
