Thirty Minutes That Will Change Your Life
Dear Friend,
Can I take the liberty to speak outside the subject of bodybuilding in this issue?
I hope so because there is something my conscience forces me to tell you.
Please don't take what I'm about to say lightly...
When is "some day" going to be today? When is "one of these days" going to be YOUR day?
It has taken me almost 40 years to learn this:
Your biggest regrets in life won't be the things you did... your biggest regrets will be the things you didn't do.
Read that again and take it to heart.
Your biggest regrets in life won't be the things you did... your biggest regrets will be the things you didn't do.
Trust me. Those kind of regrets are "kicked in the gut" painful. Those kind of regrets hurt deep down to your soul. They can suck the life right out of you.
Of all the pain I've experienced throughout my life, I can't think of one single thing more painful.
Whenever I talk to some 16 year old kid with a dream... ANY kind of dream... I feel like grabbing them by the shoulders, shaking them and saying, "Please... PLEASE! For the love of God... PLEASE just do it! It's a great dream! Get started NOW! Just put the blinders on and go for it! The worst that can happen is you lose a little time. At least you TRIED!"
My 16 year old niece likes theater and acting. I've seen some of her performances and she is pretty darn good. With some more experience and coaching she could probably make a living at it. Maybe even a VERY good living. Maybe a life filled with fun and excitement doing something she loves. Sounds like the description of "success" to me.
Or the worst case scenario, she could possibly spend a few years doing some acting gigs, having a lot of fun but not being able to make a living at it. OK, no big deal. So she gets a day job to support herself and continues to audition for productions. At the very least, she is still involved in her passion and having fun. And that's the WORST case scenario.
My niece starts college next year and she wants to study acting. Her parents and teachers are telling her, "You need to study and get a degree in something that has a future. Something you can support yourself with. It's not realistic to study acting and hope to make a living at it."
I know from experience it's that kind of advice that will kill your dreams. It will leave you with regrets that will hurt the rest of your life.
Look, it's better to give it a shot for a few years so you can look back and say that you at least TRIED. It really hurts to know you had the talent, intelligence and determination (the most important of the three) to achieve your dream but you never even made the effort because you listened to the dream stealers.
And here's what doesn't make any sense at all. Those dream stealers will most likely be your family and friends. The very people who you would think would most want your success and happiness!
I don't think they do it to deliberately try and hurt you. I think they do it for a couple reasons...
1. They really think they are giving you sound practical advice to keep you from getting hurt or disappointed.
2. If you succeed (or even just start the process of pursuing a dream) it is just too hard for them to cope with because the implication is that they could do it too. They too could be pursuing their dreams and improving their lives. But instead they choose to spend their free time watching TV or socializing with their friends. They'd rather avoid you or bring you down than be faced with your silent accusation every day that they could have a successful life, too.
Wouldn't it be a shame if you died not having achieved anything of note? Not ever pursuing or accomplishing any of your dreams and goals?
I guess I'm unusual. Downright weird even. In fact, I didn't know how unusual I was until recently. A quick poll of ten friends and acquaintances revealed a grand total of....ZERO people who felt anything similar. When questioned, none of them had life-plans which were grander than the possibility of a new flat screen television or a vacation next year. No ambitions. No drive. No enthusiasm. Nothing. Are your friends the same?
Imagine a life just like billions of others before you - sleeping, eating, shopping, mowing the lawn, washing the car; until one day...you grab your chest, slump forward and check out of this earthly existence.
About ten billion humans have lived and died on this giant ball of mud hurtling through space. (Interestingly, that's not much more than double the number of people who are alive today.) How many of those ten billion did anything of note during their lives? Maybe a tenth of one percent?
What about the rest? Well, incredibly they were willing to squander their irreplaceable, limited, precious life in dull, repetitive, mind-numbing boredom. And in many cases, this was a choice - it was not imposed on them like previous generations.
These faceless, nameless millions left nothing behind apart from a new generation of the same. They are all gone now; their names forgotten. They pushed humanity forward by not one inch. They were born; they consumed; they died.
It's sad to say but if the truth be told, 98% of gravestones... if they were to be honest, should simply state:
"Here lies John W. Doe. He was born; he consumed; he died."
You think I'm kidding? Look around you. Talk to people. Do they have any burning ambitions? Any creative energy? Do they wish to leave their mark? To accomplish ANYTHING with their life?
Do you know anybody who is actually taking action (as opposed to just talking about it) toward a dream, no matter how small? I doubt it. There are very precious few.
Read what one of my favorite writers, Stuart Goldsmith, has to say about your dreams:
You probably had the glimmer of a dream when you were a youngster, but this was soon knocked out of you. Your parents undoubtedly called your dream unrealistic. Then, to the sound of a points-lever being pulled, they suggested to you that you get a 'practical' education in order that you might follow your dream at a later date.
I am not implying any malevolence here, you need to remember that your parents, and all preceding generations did not have the luxury of fancy life-planning. The name of their game was survival. To survive you needed money. To get money you needed a good job. To get a good job you needed a good education. They pulled those levers on you for the best of intentions, but the result was a disaster for your fledgling ambitions.
This message was reinforced by teachers, friends and careers advisers, until by the time you left full-time education you were almost certainly way off the main line and heading fast down some insignificant branch line.
Throughout these years, you learned the trick of suppressing your dream. You simply could not maintain this dream in the face of such ordered opposition and so you buried it in a secret place within you.
Then the pace of life started really to heat up, and problems started to come at you like a pack of hungry jackals. No time for fancy, childish dreams now. All of your energies were involved, and probably still are involved, in fighting off the pack of slavering dogs. Dreams are... well, for dreamers. There is a life to be lived, food to put on the table, a mortgage to be paid and other people to worry about. If you even remember your dream, you probably fool yourself into thinking you'll pick it up later, when the family has grown up, when you are retired. Some time.
The tragedy here is that most people's dreams become so deeply buried they not only forget what they are, but even forget that they had a dream in the first place.
Certainly, few people can put a name to their dream. Instead, they sit in the sidings, rusting away, perhaps (if this is not pushing the railway analogy too far) hoping that some bright, gleaming locomotive will arrive one day to pull them to safety. Is it any wonder that they are depressed?
Here's another thing I've learned:
That bright gleaming locomotive ain't ever coming. You can hope, pray, cry... go through all the motions, rituals, ceremonies, recitations, chantings, etc. required by your religion... or you can read a million positive thinking books. It doesn't matter... that locomotive is not coming to magically pull you to success. No magical, spiritual or celestial force or being is going to float out of the sky to pull you to the realization of your dreams. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can do what you really need to do to realize your dreams.
YOU are the locomotive, my dear friend. The help you are waiting for is YOU. But only you can do the work needed to get the locomotive moving forward.
What does all this have to do with bodybuilding? EVERYTHING!
Successful bodybuilding is all about taking action toward a goal. You can take all the supplements and steroids in the world, while sitting around talking about taking action. But not until you take the action in the gym, change your eating habits, etc. will you ever make any real progress.
But this article isn't really about bodybuilding. I wrote it for the person who was ready to hear it.
Can you really stomach the thought of a life filled with gut-wrenching regrets? All because you kept putting off that dream until "tomorrow"?
When are you going to get started on those dreams you've been talking about? Days have turned into weeks, months and now years. And ya know what? You really don't have a whole lot of time left.
Tomorrow is today, my friend. For God's sakes... set aside 30 minutes today to get started toward your dream. Just 30 short minutes! Do SOMETHING in those 30 minutes that will move you a little bit closer to that dream. Then do it again tomorrow.
Please don't squander your time (your life) waiting for "some day" to arrive. Take action NOW.
Please don't look back at age 40, 50, 60... or whatever age, with regrets for the things you didn't do. Believe me, I really don't want anybody to have to feel that kind of pain.
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