Just Ask Why

When things seem to be off (i.e. - motivation), sometimes its best to just ask why.

Why do I work? To provide for my family and myself. (And maybe to get a new Time Trial bike) Why should I watch less TV and play less video games? So I can have more time to spend with my wife and trying new things. Why do I wake up every morning to train? Because I love triathlons and spending time with my teammates! Why should I eat well? To take care of my body and give myself a little competitive edge in training and racing.

Be Anti Cubicle

We're stuck in cubicles. Stuck sitting down all day in front of computers. This is not how we're meant to live.

As children the first things we learn are to sit up but then we get to standing, walking and then running. Sitting in a cubicle all day is like reverting us back to our infancy.

I think about this quite often. As a programmer I always wonder how if this lifestyle is what God or evolution intended. I don't think so, I just see people around me getting larger and slower. This isn't the way to live.

Fear of the future

The past couple of days I've been struggling with my swimming. The other day I looked at the distances I would be swimming in my races this year and the thought of having to do those distances paralyzed me. I thought to myself that there was no way I'd be able to do those kind of distances. I believed that I'd probably have to settle for a DNF.

The problem with focusing too much on your goals is that you begin to loose sight of the journey. Someone once told me that the actual marathon is just a victory lap, the training is where the real accomplishments happen.

Too much of anything

I was wrong. I thought if you loved something enough you could keep on doing it without burning out. Good concept, but it violates the old cliche that too much of anything is bad for you.

After the marathon I kept on going. The following week I went straight to winter conditioning for triathlons. I was doing up to 14 workout hours a week. I believed since I enjoyed it so much I could keep on doing it which was theoretically correct. Problem was a little bit of the way I'm built.

I've always been the type of person who zeroed in on something and got completely focused. It's one of my greatest strengths but also one of my greatest weaknesses. My wife often tells people that I forget to eat sometimes.

So I was doing too much of training and forgetting some of my favorite things like hanging out with friends. We used to have people over quite regularly but this stopped because I wanted to wake up early for training.

It's important to find and maintain the balance.