The Otherwise Wasted Reserves....On Motivation

Whenever I go on a jog it is always easier at the very beginning but after about 15 minutes it becomes difficult as the lactic acid begins to build up in the muscles that are active. And then its downhill from there; every single step, every breath, even the cadence of tapping feet on the ground and swinging arms demand more and more effort. Each strained breath and drenched attire attest to the effort being employed to move the body closer and closer to the finish line, the final lap – the end of the road. Sometimes I have to run against a hindering breeze that feels like invisible strands slowing me down or sometimes I have the wind behind me pushing, urging me forward like a yacht with a gale filling up its sails. But through all this one fact remains, an hour into the jog I have used up all my energy and consequently I am tired, smelly, aching, my throat feels parched and sometimes I am even blinded by the sweat constantly dripping into my eyes because my arms are too tired to even mop them up quick enough. This is when I feel like quitting; stopping for a breath, or a sip of water – my heart is racing furiously and my ankles may be reluctantly obedient but my knees are on the verge of mutiny. Almost without fail this happens approximately an hour my jogging session (my target is 2 hours at 2 or 3 miles per hour) – and I am always faced with the same quandary, should I go on, should I rest a while or should I just stop? This is when I have to dig deep into my Reserves, that 95% of my mind that is just being not utilized and wasting away until such a moment when it becomes critical to the achievement of the goal at hand.

Any experienced athlete, especially long distance runners will tell you that once you begin to run you must never stop until you reach the end of the race, or you achieve your target. They will also tell you not to either run too fast or to slow but to maintain an even pace from the beginning to the end, whether going up a hill, down a ravine, against the wind or riding in front of a breeze. They will also tell you to regulate your breathing and to endeavor to take long deep breaths instead of short shallow breaths that are tempting and almost unavoidable but with training can be overcome. When I begun to jog a few months ago I couldn’t do any of these things and it has been an incredible [and ongoing] struggle to become disciplined enough to jog constantly and correctly. In the very beginning I could not even jog for 10 minutes straight without stopping 4 times; I used to take water breaks constantly, I used to wheeze, run out of breath, cough and generally do more walking than jogging. But I dug deep into my normally wasted reserves – that part of the mind that is just kept tucked away until a mother’s baby is trapped underneath a car and she is suddenly strong enough to lift the heavy car to save her child, or a fellow soldier is shot and wounded and needs a brave soul to run into danger to the rescue. Human beings are constantly outstripping their perceived limits to achieve impossibilities especially in the face of insurmountable odds. For me its every time I defy 5 years of heavy smoking and jog for 2 hours non-stop; its every time I take 10 – 15 hours of my week to write and correct this blog (YES! It sometimes takes that long to craft these 3 paragraphs or so); its every time I wake up and stare depression and unhappiness in the face and smile regardless; its every time a business deal goes awry, I am cheated, circumvented, unpaid, disappointed or things just don’t work out and I still press on with essential lessons and more experience; its every time I work out when I wake up, and every time I refuse to regress and smoke another cigarette.

For though my victories may be small, my realization is that digging into my Reserves for these minor things on a constant basis has begun to transform me into a more motivated and disciplined individual than I have ever been. I can still remember clearly the first day I jogged for a full 2 hours and almost 5 miles; that night I couldn’t sleep because my knees and ankles felt like lead weights and my whole body was undergoing fierce agony. To top it off, my morning was even worse! But I dug into my reserves, even deeper than before and got some Deep Heat medication liberally soothing all the ‘trouble spots’, bandaged my knees and wore double socks and went running again. I did this for a week by the end of which all the pain was gone, and I could push myself for 2 and a half hours, sometimes three hours even and I didn’t have to do so with trepidation because it was becoming easier and easier to reach deep into and utilize my innate Reserves. I spent my whole summer jogging, pushing up, crunching, lifting weights and there were times that I slacked, I injured myself a few times and even now I just don’t have enough time to work out as much and also take care of all my responsibilities. But I can say one thing for myself – I have learnt one of the most important lessons in my short life so far: I can do anything if I put my mind to it. If does not matter how impossible it seems, how difficult it will be, how much effort, time, energy and sacrifice that will be required but so long as I can dig deep within myself, within those reserves that God put in each and every one of us, I CAN AND WILL ACHIEVE ANY GOAL! If you don’t use your reserves, then they will just waste away and you will just not fully achieve your true potential. Dig deep into your reserves and Success will be inevitable.

Cheers and God richly bless you all!