this weekend just gone saw the occasion of a mate’s buck’s party, it was 110% “away from the goal” and there were no redeeming qualities (in terms of health and fitness) except that we all had a bloody good laugh.
I mention it mostly because it was an event where I caught up with quite a number of mates that I’d not seen for a few months – in some cases even longer. it took me by surprise, especially given that this was a very blokey day, that so many catchups started with “wow – where’s the rest of you?”
now obviously it’s nice to see and hear the reactions of other people, get the positive feedback and all that.. but there were two things that really struck me about a number of conversations that took place…
i was surprised that people were “impressed”
when I say that, it’s not an ego thing or anything like that… it was a genuine surprise that people were using words like “impressed” when it’s really been such a simple, logical and obvious thing for me to do.
it hasn’t taken superhuman effort, it hasn’t taken massive amounts of willpower, it hasn’t even required me to make massive and drastic changes to my life (yes there have been significant changes, but they have built up little by little, step by step).
so while I glady accepted the congratulations and the compliments, I simply don’t think it’s anything like as “impressive” as others seem to believe.
viewing these things as “impressive” is a bad thing, because if something is “impressive” then it must be “hard”. if something is “hard” then that’s the perfect excuse to put off doing it…
which brings me to the second thing I noticed
there are people I know who would love to make changes to their own lives. some of them want to lose weight. some of them want to get fitter. some of them want to make changes in totally different areas of their life.
but during my conversations with these people, the excuses appear. not direct, obvious excuse-making, but interesting choices of words, slightly negative spins on things. subtle excuses.
all this is simply observation, but observation made with an expert’s ear. expert, that is, in the art of making excuses.
I recognised the situations that others were in, and started hearing what could easily have been my own words not so long ago.
and that’s when it struck home…
we can all be “impressive” if we simply decide to be so
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