Acceleration.

Another motivational passage I gleaned from a fitness discussion board. I love reading these things; they make me want to go kick some ass (or at least, run harder for longer). It's a little long, but the read is well worth it.

I don't know you. I don't know a thing about you. I don't know where you come from, where you're going, or why you do what you do. I don't know if we'd get along if we met. But there is one thing that I do know: You are capable of much more than you have been led to believe.

As I am writing this, there are 6.7 billion people walking and breathing on our humble rock. The overwhelming, vast majority of them will pass through their 720,000 hours like a match struck in the wind. Hardly noticed, scarcely remembered.

Tomorrow, as you go about your day, take your time to look around. Are there a lot of people around? What do you see? You see mediocrity. You see average. You see everything about yourself that you hate, that you fear, but that you have been conditioned to believe is acceptable. Fine. Enough. A good job.

I'm here to tell you that you will NOT settle for what is fine. You will NOT settle for a good job. Fine is for the loser. Fine is for the guy who skipped the last set of his workout because he just didn't feel like it. Fine is for the guy who cheated on his diet because he just couldn't do it anymore. Fine is for the guy who took a nap instead of sprinting around town in a torrential downpour. Fine is for the guy who got the job, but not the one he wanted. That guy made second place. He has never embraced pain, personal sacrifice, or thrown himself into the fires of dedication. Most importantly, and starting today, this guy is NOT YOU.

You are not this person. You are destined for greatness. You have it inside of you, and you know it. You have always known it, you have felt it as a faint thumping in your gut. It is clawing, scratching, struggling to be set free. It needs your help. As long as you hold yourself to the standard of "average," that is all you will ever be. In your dreams you aren't average, so why the FUCK are you settling for it now? What are you not doing right now?

The time to act is now. You will burn. You will suffer. Your demons will not be defeated easily. Every step of the way they will whisper in your ear that you aren't good enough. That you aren't meant to succeed. "Just give up," they will mutter, "you'll never be the best." "NO," you will reply. You will embrace suffering. You will finish that last repetition. You will claw through the agonizing pain, you will destroy the mediocre pussy in your head, you will break boundaries. You will rise above the rest. You will realize your potential.

You are no average man. Now go do what you were destined to do. End of fucking story.

SHAZAAAAAM!! Or as my mentor Courage Wolf says:

SEIZE THE DAY ... BY THE THROAT

I've been seeing some awesome (to me, anyway haha) physical changes over the six or so months that I've started taking my health/fitness seriously. Granted, almost none of it was without sacrificing something I loved -- usually some type of food -- but looking back it's completely worth it. The potential had always been there; I just never tapped into it. Now that I know I'm strong enough to overcome my old cravings/habits, I can only accelerate forward.

On Reddit, there are a few good discussion forums that I subscribe to; r/running, r/fitness and r/90days are a great start. If you need motivation or just need to talk to other people about fitness and health, there are some valuable resources to be utilized.

Okay. I'm off to crush some miles.

Stay tuned -- tomorrow I'll be posting about the 5K I ran this past Sunday!

Let's Do This!

For those needing a shot of motivation about improving their level of physical fitness, here's a very relevant quote I gleaned from a discussion board I participate in:

If things went all medieval and you had to fight a fit guy like me over your girl, I'd ravage your ass and take her. You okay with that?

When your girl is out with her friends, she's checkin' me out because I've worked to improve my appearance and it shows. You okay with that?

You think you're safe out here in this world? You think it's okay to be this unfit, lazy little monger? You know you're not safe in your job, I'm sure. Every day you go above and beyond to make sure that the cutthroat guillotine of labor supply doesn't mutilate you into an unrecognizable, unemployed piece of shit. Why do you think it's different with your fitness?

How'd you get to where you are? People look at you and laugh. People use you as a benchmark to change their own habits. You okay with that?

Let's get it poppin', kid. No relapses. It's kill or be killed out here; it always has been. Sure, we changed the rules a little and added out own little trifling sense of justice and morality. But nothing's really changed.

Don't be one of these assholes making pathetic reoccurring attempts to change their lifestyle. Don't whine about it. You've got self-discipline and nothing else in this life. You've got one try; to fail once is to fail every time. In six months, you're either going to be a pathetic, guilt-ridden failure, or a fucking tribute to human will. Your bitch of a mother-in-law will make comments like "I can't believe it ..." Your girl will get nervous about how much you can accomplish just by setting your mind to it and start asking you to tell her she's good enough for you. Assholes who taunted you will have nothing -- nothing -- to say. You did something they either simply couldn't even begin, or tried to do and failed miserably.

And then when my girl is out with her friends, she'll be checking you out, motherfucker. Let's do this.

Boom.

I'm extremely motivated to get fitter -- food-wise, I've been reading diet/lifestyle articles, paying lots of attention to nutritional data, recording and tracking calories, and most importantly, regulating what I actually eat. Amazingly, I look forward to the daily pain that is P90X and I'm pretty excited about the changes I'm seeing. Since I'm on my final four weeks, I've started to plan my next workout regimen.

I have goals, dammit.

Obviously, so much of this motivation comes down to mindset. I've found the following phrase helpful:

my motivational poster

Because sometimes it just needs to be said. No more excuses. See you at the top.