Patience is the essential companion to success. Patience and hard work allow personal growth and the ability to overcome adversity. Without patience, we grow anxious and impulsive with the current result and cease moving forward. Without patience, baby-steps seem like no steps at all and minor hurdles derail us far too easily from our pursuits. Without patience, we resort to making rash and miscalculated choices. However, with patience, proper forethought has taken place resulting in a far more likely successful outcome. Patience also allows us to take the time to reflect on past experiences, learn from them, and determine a better solution to continue moving forward towards success.
Patience is Nothing New Patience is a human quality that has paid off handsomely for us in the course of history. Our ancestors displayed great patience as they hunted wild game. With the right tools, training, and due diligence, they knew a big kill would result if patience was practiced. Other examples of great human works throughout history that encapsulate the importance of patience are the following: The Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and Magellan’s voyage around the world. Another example of patience can be embodied by an Olympic gymnast. Gymnasts of this caliber place over ten years into learning skills and conditioning their minds and bodies to perform at this level. Through countless practices, devastating injuries, at times, and sacrifices, gymnasts understand that all this patience and work demonstrated will pay off for their long term goal. So whether it be one more brick on the Great Wall of China or one more repetition on the balance beam for an Olympic gymnast, these human successes were not birthed without patience observed. As John Wooden quotes, “Success comes slowly. Expect change to happen slowly and to have patience along the way....Whatever you’re doing, you must have patience...” and “...there is no progress without change, so you must have patience”.
An Olympian in Everyone, Everyday Just as an Olympic athlete must display patience to reach their goals, everyone can benefit from this skill to better their life. One dimension of life is your health. The quest and journey to have lifelong health and fitness requires great patience and hardwork. It requires constant learning and practice of healthy habits. Each day you awaken, cook breakfast, and decide how to allot your precious minutes of the day, you are practicing the baby steps that will get you to your long term success. Many might think to reach their goals, such as to lose 15 pounds, to maintain their current weight, to lower their cholesterol, or to start eating better, hard work and sacrifice are all that are necessary, but that is not the case. Again, patience is the companion of hard work. These goals will not be met if one is not willing to be patient, make a solid sustainable plan, and work hard at it everyday. Your goals will also fall short if you are not willing to persevere through the highs and lows. Inevitably, mistakes are sure to be had when starting a new regimen or exercise routine. We are only human and our tendencies to revert to what is known or comfortable will soon bring back those poor habits. However, with patience and a process of learning from these mistakes, one can pinpoint how the pitfall occurred and will be willing to fill the hole with cement so that, once again, they can get back on the bandwagon and cruise smoothly to their success. Without this patience, many loose site of their long term goal and either reach to a quick fix-- AKA a trendy diet or exercise plan, or give up altogether and revert back to their old habits. This is what we call the yo-yo effect. This is detrimental to your health and teaches those who practice this nothing about creating the sustainable lifelong plan for fitness.
Intertwining Patience into your Plan:
- Lay the foundation to your sustainable plan: Do you research, evaluate what has worked for you/ not worked for you and why? Once you have highlighted this, start to shape your new approach, new goals, and a new road map about how you are going to accomplish your long term success.
- Fill those potholes, now: Determine what those trigger are from the past that have caused your plans to fail. For these triggers, decide how you will overcome these obstacles so that you stay on track.
- Bring patience into the equation: Any long term goal is going to take time. Hold yourself accountable by writing out checkpoints. These can be short term goals that you will revisit through the course of your journey that are pivotal to your success. Revise and make new ones every month. Not only will these small accomplishments motivate you, but they are also proof of your patience and hard work paying off that will keep you on track.
Success is not mere goodluck bestowed onto individuals, nor is it magically created. There are no magicians, here. Success is created from those who possess the ability to practice patience, work really hard, and view life’s obstacles not as bad luck or a force pushing them off course, but as an opportunity to tackle a challenge and push through the storm so that the success is far greater than they could ever imagine. I will leave you on one last quote that is one of my favorites from John Wooden, "intentness is the ability to resist temptation and stay the course, to concentrate on your objective with determination and resolve".
Go, now, and make those dreams a reality :)
Erin
