Overcoming Adversity

Everyday we are faced with challenges and adversity. Some challenges might effect us for that moment, some for the rest of the day, some for the week, maybe longer. Some challenges may have effect us for the rest of our lives.
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But one thing about challenges and adversity is that they don't need to define who we are.

Just because something goes wrong during the day doesn't mean it should ruin your whole day. Just because you get sick or injured doesn't mean you need to give up. Many people will use an injury or a sickness as an excuse to give up!

I was a perfect example of this type of mentality. For most of my life, I was afraid of failure, as may of us are. And many times that fear would come up right before a test, tryout or some type of sporting event. Although I was plenty good enough at whatever it was or knew the material, I would find an excuse to fail or give up. As I got older, I struggled with my weight and staying healthy and active. It seemed that every time I would finally lose some weight, get active or start playing a sport again, some type of injury would pop up. Maybe it was a knee, my back, shoulder or possibly a broken bone somewhere. Whatever the adversity would be, it would be my excuse to give up, fail and gain all my weight back again.

For many of us, we look for a challenge or adversity so we have an excuse to fail! It's so much easier to use those problems as viable reason to just give up instead of embracing the adversity, facing those challenges and taking them head on! But for those who do take on those challenges, have you ever noticed that those are the people we celebrate and admire.

The internet is full of those people who have faced some incredible challenges. Not only have they overcome those adversities, they have excelled in ways we could never believe possible. There are so many examples of people who have overcome so much more than any of us could possibly imagine. One person in particular I'll use for this example is Noah Galloway. If you don't know who he is, he was is an Iraqi War veteran who lost an arm and leg while serving his country. Noah became well known to many after he was on ABC's Dancing With The Stars. Noah's story is one where he did not give up, he didn't allow his personal challenge to effect the rest of his life. He faced this huge challenge head on and has become an incredible inspiration to so many people.

I think one of the problems many of us have is we plan to fail, not planning to succeed. We look for ways out of things or who can we blame because we didn't finish. Or we have the perfect excuse, I got sick, or work is so busy, or the kids or blah, blah, blah! We've heard it all before or probably have said it ourselves. I shared a post this week that shows that there are 168 hours in a week. We spend 40 hours at work/school and 56 hours sleeping. That leaves 72 hours in the week. Are you telling me you can't find 3-5 hours to take care of yourself and go workout?

Plan to be successful, don't plan for failure. Tony Robins, who's an incredible motivational speaker says, "You want to take the island, burn the f***ing boats. With absolute commitment comes the insights that create real victory." Leave yourself no alternative—you will succeed and overcome any challenge or adversity.

Some of you who know me know that I had a heart issue that started effecting me in October 2015. The old Dan would have been able to use this challenge as an excuse to give up and worry whether or not he should go to the gym. But I was not going to stop living a healthy lifestyle that I had worked so hard to maintain. I continued to go to the gym, continued to eat healthy and kept the weight off as to not put extra strain on my heart. I got educated about my condition and found out the exercise would help keep me in rhythm. So, over these last 15 months, not only did I learn to live with atrial fibrillation (a-fib), have my right knee operated on as well as two injections in my arthritic shoulders, I continued training to compete in the Ferrigno Classic in Palm Springs, placing in the top 5 and receiving a medal.

I have burned my boats. I have made a commitment to my kids to be stay healthy so I can to be around for them and someday their kids. I have made a commitment to Jen that I will do everything I can to stay active and healthy so we can live a long life together. I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO GO BACK TO 350 POUNDS! I AM COMMITTED TO THIS LIFESTYLE 100%.

Here's what I suggest you do to help over come adversity and challenges that are put in front of you.

1. Surround your self with positive people. These people will motivate you and encourage you to succeed.
2. Get rid of those people who drag you down and keep you down. Some people don't want anyone to succeed because they're not succeeding! You know who those people are. Keep them outside your inner circle or group of trusted friends.
3. Plan for success! Prepare, plan and create an environment of success! And lastly...
4. BURN THE BOATS! Don't leave yourself an escape plan. If your only option is to win, you better win! You better be motivated to make this work, because there's no going back. 

I'm going to wrap this up with another quote from one of my favorite movies. I'm from the Rocky Balboa generation. I have seen all the movies and I can quote pretty much most of the dialog from the first four movies. But this quote comes from the movie Rocky Balboa, where he's talking with his son. I think this sums up my point about overcoming adversity.

Source: http://www.drunkmonkeys.us/film/2015/7/24/the-drunk-monkeys-movie-club-rocky-1976

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that! —Rocky Balboa