You Can Give a Panda Wings, But You Can't Make Him Fly

Remember when you were a little kid, and any time past 8 PM was some kind of magical, forbidden hour you weren't allowed to ever see? What went on at that time, while you were shackled to your race car toddler bed, curtains closed even though the sun was still up on a July night, and told you had to go to sleep?

Sometimes, you might dare crack open the door, you could hear the TV, maybe your mom was knitting yet another scarfsweaterblanket, and you older sister was doing brain busting math problems, calculating how many grapefruits Sally would have if she multiplied her current supply times five, added "x" and ate the rest. A stomachache and diarrhea. That's what Sally would have.

You would run past the scene to "go to the bathroom" and investigate this magical land of the night. There didn't SEEM to be anything special. No flying pandas, no glitter and fireworks in the kitchen. WHY were you never allowed to see this time then?! "GET BACK IN YOUR ROOM AND GO TO SLEEP" your parents would soon shout, having caught on to your plans. You'd sulk back to bed, and swear you couldn't wait to be old so you could just stay up all night!!

Anybody seen this guy?

Well, eventually that time came, and you went from going to sleep at 7PM to waking up then. You realized there WERE indeed flying pandas and glitter and fireworks in the wee hours of the night, and they could often be found at the bottom of a bottle of Jack. There was no "bedtime" anymore.  As a matter of fact, your parents would call you a lazy ass and scream every weekend at you to get OUT of bed during daylight hours. It was awesome....for a while.

Then you got like, a j-o-b. They wanted you to start at the ungodly hour of 8 AM. Suddenly, staying up till 8:30 AM all summer left exactly....negative 30 minutes of sleep every night. Wasn't going to work..... So  you started to go to sleep earlier. First 1 AM, then midnight, then 11, then one night in your mid twenties when you found yourself in between the sheets, alone, in your sweatpants at 8:42 PM it hit you....you grew up. You were going to sleep at this time without your parents yelling at you. You got up at 6 AM because YOU WANTED TO. No one had to tell you to. You had lived and learned. And only then, were you able to realize the serious value of a proper sleep schedule. No one could have told you at four years old that there was nothing special about the night. No one could have told you at 16 that it was worth getting up before noon. You had to make this discovery and conclusion on  your own. (Some people are still working on it ;) )

The point there is, as I was thinking this week, I realized, you just cant make anyone do anything that they don't want to do, and do it well. Its so simple, yet we continue to try. We offer incentives. Most of them monetary. If you get up and mop this nasty floor or analyze these numbers for 8 hrs today, I will give you the money to get those new kicks you've been wanting, or pay your rent! That motivates us to do what we just don't want to. We slog through. We collect $200. We pass go. We circle the board again. 

I see the same in the fitness world. You tell people they have to do this, this and this to get in shape. Time and time again they "slip up". Ooops, I just HAD to eat that cake, my mom was in town, and I just love sugar! You were too sore to do your cardio, so you didn't. You had a stomachache so you couldn't lift at all this week. Your dog had to go out so you couldn't leave home. I've heard all those and more as to why people cant do something. It's to a point now where, when I offer fitness advice, I go in expecting you NOT to listen. Most people simply do not. If you do, you have blown my socks off. I realize you WANT this. YOU and only YOU want this. I didn't make you want it. You made that choice somewhere inside you, that you wanted to hit that goal. That goal became more important than any piece of cake, it propelled you through being sore, it helped you find a way to let the dog out AND make your lifts.

The same goes in this career path I've chosen. My dad told me for the longest time it was a great idea and I would love it. But I resisted. I wanted to do what everyone else was doing and just work a normal job and go to work picnics and wear a skirt. I did that. I had to learn the hard way, that it wasn't what I thought. I then started my business, not because he wanted me to, but eventually it was ME that wanted to. I wasn't happy, and I had to reach my OWN breaking point to change.

Funny thing is, a lot of people seem to have a much higher bullshit tolerance than others. Most people seem to figure "this is the way it is" about everything, from the state of their fitness, their job, their life. They shut off and tamp down their desires to do anything else long, long after they want to. They resist other people telling them what they could do to improve their situation and get mad when its suggested. They don't want it bad enough, they think its too hard.

But whats harder, secretly wasting  your life slogging away, a slave to money, to other peoples expectations, to your own idea of what it "should" be? Or is it harder to put in the work necessary to make a change? BOTH are hard. Pick your poison.  It was hard doing a job I hated. It's also really really hard doing a job I love, for entirely different reasons. The path isn't laid out for me, I'm not just grinding my days out. I'm instead fueled by a new kind of grind. its a much lighter feeling. Its electric almost instead of dead and flat. I'm out there pushing but the rewards when they come are that much sweeter, despite the failures being that much scarier. Its what keeps me doing this. Id rather work doing new things for this, than ever be stuck in a passionless position. If I ever do return to working elsewhere, it will be because I needed/wanted to to attain a goal, be that pay the rent, or a change of some sort. Ill dance in a lobster suit if you'll notice my biz and become my customer as a result. I'll do math and keep spreadsheets and calendars. I'll be late for the gym to make a delivery. I'll call people I don't know whereas when I was a kid I wouldn't call ANYONE and I hated the phone. It all changes when there's a PURPOSE!

Same thing with fitness (as usual, there are so many parallels!) It hurts to do cardio sometimes yeah. Lifting is hard, sometimes I want to eat ALL the chocolate and peanut butter and I'm HUNGRY. I choose not to eat cake because my family is in town. I instead choose to hang out with my family and enjoy their company. I do this every single day, because I WANT TO KNOW that I did everything I could to get as far as I could. The only person that loses if I "slip up" is ME. Why do that to myself, aren't my goals worth more?

Put you first. YOU only get one life here. Get fired up about something. If you've told your inner voice to shut up for so long, let it speak instead. Find the motivation to do the things you have always wanted in yourself because if you don't find it, YOU WILL NEVER, EVER DO THEM. If you're waiting for someone to make you, you ll be waiting a long time. You need to want it for you. I can't tell you to do something and make you do it. Your mom cant make you. Your friends cant make you. You need to live out the experiences to get you where you are and LISTEN to them. Don't tamp them down and continue to be mediocre. You need to get to the point where you've had enough and then you need to make the change rather than ignore the signs as so many do. YOU need to stop making excuses for yourself. Only you can do that. Otherwise, you may as well sit around at 2 AM looking for flying pandas in the dark to take you to the perfect life in a cloud of glitter and highly advanced pyrotechnics. Well hey, let me know if you see any! That'd be pretty cool....