Motivational Monday 2/26/12

This week's Motivational Monday video includes the underlying message of how important it is to show up, and how important it is to push yourself to be just a bit better than you were yesterday.

I've written about this before, about how we see the success stories but not the blood, sweat and tears that happened along the way to success. By only seeing the end results, we are cheated out of how success is typically achieved. We know it doesn't happen overnight, but it certainly can seem that way when we aren't privy to the struggles. Unfortunately many of us tend to expect quick results as we reach for our own goals. Because that rarely happens, we instead focus on where we aren't or how far we still have to go to reach our goals rather than how far we've come even since yesterday.

 I catch myself doing this as I try to transition from walking to jogging. There is a 5k in October that I want to run, but the very best I can do right now is a 2 minute jog. Thoughts creep into my head about how hard it's going to be to maintain a run for a full 3.2 miles. I even wonder how on earth I'm going to make it up the hills along the course without having to take a break.

Then I stop. I stop comparing myself to the future and start comparing myself to the past. A few weeks ago I couldn't walk faster than a 2.8 pace, but just last week I jogged for almost 2 minutes at a 4.8 pace. Today I walked at a 3.2 pace with a 2.0 incline. Those are hugely significant, and it has only taken about a month for those improvements to occur. So yes, I have a very long way to go, but not as far as I did a month ago.

I attended this high school, and even at

124 pounds I couldn't run one .2-mile

lap; I want to do this so badly!!

Every day I'm improving. Every day I'm a little bit better than I was the day before. At some point, all of these days will compound into one great mass of success on the day I cross that finish line. Until then I'll continue reminding myself to focus on how much better I'm doing with each passing day.