Defying the Odds.

Defying the odds. Overcoming all the obstacles.  Not letting anything or anyone hold you back. Triumphing over challenges and reaching up to snatch your goals right out of the air. To defy the odds means that you are overcoming the obstacles in the way of your dreams. It’s the classic story of the underdog. We've all heard these clichés, and they seem to inspire. Becoming the best “against all odds”, pushing through all the obstacles in your way to come out on top.

But really to view these challenges as obstacles is just wrong. This is a journey, not a battle.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal – Henry Ford

They aren't tests to be won, but lessons to be learned from. You cannot conquer your way to your dreams. Rather than simply reaching your dream, become what you've always dreamt of. The “odds” that seem to be against you are simply opportunities waiting to be turned into advantages. Challenges aren't meant to hold you back, but propel you forward. If it doesn't challenge you then it isn't going to change you. You cannot start and end your journey as the same person; change for the better allows us to become the person we've always wanted to be. It allows us to be the best that we can be.

 This process doesn't have to be an uphill battle; instead of defying the odds, use them for improvement.

Whimzical Update: Dreams

Setting expectations is like putting an expiration date on your dreams.

But dreams only end when you give up on them. It isn’t a matter of timing; they don’t end because you’ve “lost”. In fact I don’t believe you can legitimately lose. Losing is just a fancy way of saying you’ve given up. Every goal is reachable, but you have to be willing to hang in there. If you let go too easily, your dreams will slip away from you.

You cannot rush your dreams.

They take time to develop, and it takes time to reach them. This is why we set goals in the future. But the funny thing about time is that you never really reach the future…the future simply becomes the present.

Have a dream so big you can never achieve it, then become the person who can.

We never reach our dreams either, we become them.

Recycle Success.

A lot of people seem to get caught up in the final results, they seem to connect success with placements and titles and awards. When in reality those things are a byproduct of success. The pride and joys of the sport aren't printed on a sheet, they aren't timed, and the pretty rosettes we collect at the end of the day don’t represent them. Yet some how people tend to focus on only the final artificial product, not the journey. 

The longer I play this sport, the more I think about how the byproducts of success are truly toxic. About how competitors' attitudes can spoil from over exposure...Its a rather scary thought, to know that as you progress you'll come in contact more and more with these pollutants.  But I think with some work this type of results-oriented pollution can be reduced. 

Success should be recycled. 

Constantly in motion, shared in the name of sportsmanship and productive competition. Keeping success bottled up in one person causes it to spoil, it loses its purity. And as a community it's our job to continually challenge one another to keep the sport evolving. We have the ability to plant new seeds, to keep our sport growing in the right direction, without contaminants limiting its existence. 

Keep our sport clean, and our earth too. 

Happy Earth Day. 

Planning Ahead

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Plans are nothing; planning is everything ~Eisenhower

To reach the clouds, you have to climb. Spontaneous jumping only takes you so high, and you fall back to the ground fast. It’s one thing to set a goal, and another to actually reach it. When we say we are on a journey, what do we really mean? Is there a start and a finish, or do we wander aimlessly forever moving forward towards what we perceive as better than before?
 

My journey truly is a never-ending meandering path that takes me gallivanting through the most peculiar of situations and experiences. But that path has always been planned just a few steps ahead.  I know where I’m going, and I *think* I know exactly how to get there… but even if those steps fall through my staircase to the top, I’ll still have something to stand on. It’s not me hacking through the brush one step at a time, fighting past the vines just to see what’s ahead.

Planning ahead might not always work out exactly as expected, but it’s better to have a plan then throw yourself blindly into the future. Even with all the steps, and goals, and breaking down of dreams in the end we aren’t taking a journey at all. The journey is sweeping us along, our control is so limited in terms of the future because we can only effect what happens today, what happens now. 

...but then again, the smallest things today can make the biggest difference tomorrow.

The Bright Side.

It's really easy to see the flaws with a run, and it's really easy to know where you faulted on any given run. But on any given run it isn't the big things that go wrong that matter, it's all the little things that go right that make even the ugliest of NQs some of the most important runs you'll ever have. Those little moments will always out weigh any fault I ever incur, because its one thing to Q in the ring, but to get back exactly what you've been training in the ring. Wow. What a fantastic feeling. 

Granted, sometimes it is hard to pull the good out of runs. But there is always something, you just have to find it. Just pick out 3 small, maybe what seem to be insignificant successes out of each run. Those three little things, help a lot. They remind you that no matter how bad it was, shit could have been a lot worse. That while you might not have Q'd or gotten exactly what you wanted, you still got something, anything out of the run. And its those little somethings that overtime evolve into real improvement. 

And if your really feeling sad, just smile and remember that somewhere in this world there's an idiot pulling a door that says "PUSH". 

Own it.

The goal of climbing the mountain is to reach the other side, because that is where the real journey begins. Now some people may say I’m wrong, that climbing the mountain is the journey, and that reaching the peak is all there is. But shouldn’t there be more, something beyond reaching the top… If you’re doing it for them, you’ll stop at the top because that’s all anyone around you can see. If you are doing it for you, you’ll keep going.

It comes down to goals. Not so much what, but why. Why do you aim to change your name? Is it to gain clout or learn what agility is really about? I know you hear what people say, but do you care… A real journey isn’t about doing what they said you couldn’t, it’s about doing what you said you could. Screw what they say, what do you say?

Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.

What you become depends on how hard you work. You define your own future. You set your own limitations. You decide which opportunities to take. You have to raise the bar yourself. This begins and ends with you. This journey is yours.

Own it.