The Power Of Showing Up For Yourself

He’d be the first one to tell you it wasn’t his best effort.

But he showed up. Like he always shows up. Giving the best he could give at that moment on that day.

Often our inner demands and expectations of perfection cause us not to show up. If we can’t give our best, we rationalize, perhaps we should wait until we can. Being willing to show up when you really don’t want to overrides the pride and ego and creates a very sacred space.

A space where you honor the commitments you’ve made to yourself.

Momentum is an ever-present force in life. Fueled by consistency, it is either working for you or against you.

Consistently showing up for yourself is one way to make sure it’s working in your favor.

Photo by Teemu Laukkarinen on Unsplash

The Self-Inflicted Pain Of Self-Discovery

My ego was far more ready than my body was when I joined 1,500 other runners participating in a local half marathon a few years back. An avid and seasoned 5k runner, the jump up to the 13.1 mile distance was going to be a huge challenge. And quite a challenge it was.

I wasn’t in it to win it. I was there to push myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself before, six month past my 59th birthday. I’d never come close to running a race of this distance, but I signed up for it anyway just to see if I could find my way to the finish line. And eventually I did.

It wasn’t pretty. It’s wasn’t enjoyable.

But it told me something about myself.

In a life which often presents us with hard things, I guess I’ve become quite willing to inflict hard things upon myself. Challenging, uncomfortable, even painful things, things that force me to dig deep and endure and rise above the self-inflicted pain of self-discovery.

It’s in the doing of hard things that I am reminded of my ability to deal with hard things. That the resistance builds my resilience, a resilience which expands my capacity and confidence to better handle the times when life does present us with those unwanted yet inevitable hard things.

The half marathon certainly broke my body. But in that brokenness I learned it would take more than that to break me.

Growth is hard, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. It requires a willingness to become uncomfortable, to push beyond the limitations we have accepted, and in doing so the process will remind us of a self-resiliency we may have long forgotten or doubted we ever had in the first place.

Growth is inconsistency incremental, never linear, often frustrating. Paradoxically, though, it’s our commitment to grow which creates our capacity to grow and the ability to overcome the challenges of becoming more aligned with the person we know we were created to be.

Photo by Pedro Sanz on Unsplash

Sometimes You Need To Be Reminded What You’re Fighting For

It can appear subtle, even innocuous. Yet to the recipient the impact of their words and actions can profoundly influence the direction of a life.

Life can lull us into settling in, where making peace with the less-than-desirable situations is preferred to the isolation of standing your ground and honoring the vision and the intention of the life you’ve told yourself you want to create. There is a level of comfort in surrendering and accepting, until you’re eventually made uncomfortable as you’re reminded of the price you’ve paid for your emotional appeasement.

For those willing to move forward with an intentional life, those intentions are often tested in order to evaluate just how committed you actually are. The Universe knows that talk is indeed very cheap. It’s quite easy to espouse your intentions, but it’s a whole different story if you’re Continue reading “Sometimes You Need To Be Reminded What You’re Fighting For” →

On The Days You Really Don’t Want To

I was looking forward to it all day.

Nothing.

As in doing nothing when I finally got back home.

Life can get rather busy, can’t it? Commitments, obligations, and responsibilities can collectively get quite heavy at times. But on this night, there was nothing to carry.

The start of the year marked a re-commitment to taking care of my physical self. A recent series of ailments and injuries sidetracked my exercise efforts for the better part of a year, and now I was determined to get back on track.

I mapped out a schedule, I knew what I was going to do, and I started doing it.

But this night was a welcomed night off.

Until I remembered it wasn’t.

While relaxing and decompressing, excited that I’d be able to get to bed a bit earlier than usual, Continue reading “On The Days You Really Don’t Want To” →

Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold

Growth should come with a warning label. Not to dissuade anyone from starting, but just to let them know what lies ahead.

For some, growth is a luxury, a curiosity-based exploration into the further reaches of human potential. For others, growth is a necessity, driven by the consistent and crushing emotional weight of unresolved trauma and pain, to the point where a journey through the fire becomes the only viable option.

Mine was more of a necessity.

A commitment to growth signs you up for a process of learning and unlearning, of discovering and uncovering, of defining and re-defining, of anxiously diving into the deep end of your emotional pool while questioning your ability to swim.

And knowing nobody is coming to save you once you hit the water.

The journey through my own fires has been a challenging and meandering undertaking, at times Continue reading “Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold” →

Changing Everything Ends Up Changing Nothing

I just couldn’t wait for the ball to drop. Because in that moment I would be reborn anew, ready to live the best year I would ever live.

New Year’s Day. It’s January 1st and I’ve been gifted 365 pristine days to evolve into the highest, most elevated version of myself. A new year. A new me.

And this time I mean it.

The vision of what I’ll grow into just one year from now is rather exciting. Those personal and professional goals all accomplished just as they were planned. New habits, new belief systems, new energy collectively elevating me into this unstoppable force, an epic transformation and a life redefined.

Sometimes, though, trying to change everything ends up changing nothing.

And nothing usually did.

Failure and frustration have taught me that heading into a new year one of the first things I need Continue reading “Changing Everything Ends Up Changing Nothing” →

Maybe Your Non-Negotiables Actually Are?

“Watch out for the bridge…if you hit it wrong you’ll go flying over the handlebars.”

I came to trust Tom very quickly. We were riding side by side on a rather poorly marked trail through the woods and gravel fire roads of a local nature preserve, a 10 mile mountain bike trek to benefit a local charity. The bridge could have been a disaster, but I crossed over with ease.

Tom knew these woods. “I’ve been riding these trails for years”, Tom said, as often as three times a week. As this was my first time riding through the wilderness, I felt rather fortunate to find a guide to help me navigate my way to the finish line.

At a less intense moment on the course Tom mentioned recently celebrating his 76th birthday. I was silently stunned by his revelation. Seventy f’n six? His relentless energy and stamina were Continue reading “Maybe Your Non-Negotiables Actually Are?” →

Embracing The Discomfort Of Commitment

“It’s like running from Boston to Dallas.”

Julie is a dedicated fitness and wellness professional, and as a personal trainer running has become important to her. She shared that this past week she set a personal record for miles run in a week. Annualized, that total would cover 1,768 miles, the distance from Boston to Dallas.

“That is crazy!”

I sense that people fully committed to meeting their goals encounter that word often. Crazy. Those who show up daily, driven, fueled by a vision others can’t see nor even understand, those with zero tolerance for excuses, those willing to hold themselves accountable for the commitments they have made, especially the ones they’ve made to themselves. Behavior like this is for the most part unordinary, dwelling outside the realm of what is considered “normal” which can then easily be categorized as crazy.

But it’s never labeled as such by others also honoring their own commitments. Because they know what personal commitment demands and they forge ahead anyway.

It’s never the easiest path.

Life give us a choice as to how we decide to live it. We can take what comes our way, or we can Continue reading “Embracing The Discomfort Of Commitment” →

Life Lessons From A Brick Oven Pizza

It was the best pizza I’ve ever had.

And I’ve eaten a lot of pizza.

Pizza has somehow become rather important to me. I’ve baked my fair share of pies and I’m always trying to improve my results, often reverse engineering each bite of my favorite pizzas to try and uncover the secrets hidden inside. Having done my best to befriend my server she eventually revealed the four ingredients used to make the dough which I hoped to replicate at home.

“Flour, water, salt, and yeast” is what she told me.

“And…time.”

Time. An often overlooked ingredient. Time is what’s needed for flour, water, salt, and yeast to come together and fully develop their flavor profile. While some may try to manipulate the process, like most things in life the best results usually can’t ever be rushed.

Ours is a world at odds with patience. It’s a world which rewards the immediate, even if the immediate is inferior to what could instead be more fully developed if given the time to do so.

As I’ve worked to more fully evolve in life, I’ve come to understand that my evolution is a process, a process which takes time. At times I, too, am at odds with patience, trying to force a process which Continue reading “Life Lessons From A Brick Oven Pizza” →

Are You Waiting To Become You?

Commitment without the commitment.

The best of both worlds?

It’s early December and New Year’s Resolution season is just a few weeks away. For me, early December had always been a great time to reflect upon where I was in life and to set the resolutions for what I wanted to accomplish starting on January 1st.

It really was the best of both worlds. Or so that’s what I would tell myself. I made a commitment without the need to yet actually commit. For the next few weeks I could still be the person I was while feeling good about the future commitment I had made. Like, sure, I’m committed to getting myself in better shape, but until the first of the year I’m just going to keep doing the things which got me out of shape.

Sometimes logic isn’t so logical. But I never let that get in my way.

When I knew where I wanted to go, why was I content on waiting until the first of the year to actually start?

Often we know what we want to accomplish in life. We know who it is we want to grow into. Yet, for some reason many of our aspirations remain left undone, leaving us undone in the process. Change and Continue reading “Are You Waiting To Become You?” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: commitment