I wish I had your [insert something here]...

More and more, I hear people tell me “I wish I had your determination…” “I wish I had your drive…”.  I just want to respond with “How do you think I got the determination?” “How do you think I developed this drive?” I know they mean well, but at the end of the day you can get the exact same thing.

There is no magic formula for motivation. There’s nothing special that will create a drive to get healthy. It’s taken me years of mental retraining (and a lot of help from some incredible people). Hours upon hours of fighting the Blerch – many times the Blerch winning – before I improved my batting average against it. In my opinion, it takes much longer, and is much harder to train the mental aspect of fitness than the physical – and the physical aspect has much longer to go, still, if that tells you anything!

I really hate it people tell me they wish they had my drive. I know they mean it as a complement, and I’m not trying to sound arrogant here, but I think it really discounts all the effort, and quite literally, all the blood, sweat, and tears it’s taken to get to this point! I have a drive right now, yes. It comes from a goal that’s staring me in the face, and a belief that I can hit that goal. It also came from months and months and months of creating a no-excuse mentality.

Don’t tell me you wish you had my drive – GO GET IT! There’s nothing special about me. I would not be where I am if I didn’t intentionally change my surroundings, and my mindset. To keep my humility in check, that wouldn’t even be possible if Christ didn’t give me the grace to consider changing those things, and the ability to execute it. I really am nothing without Him and I hope that what I’ve accomplished will glorify Christ because it really is all because of Him. Not me.

Don’t discount my efforts of getting where I am now by making my journey seem easy. It hasn’t been. If you want to change something in your life, figure out what it takes to make that change and do it. Don’t look to the people who have what you want and think they’re something special about them – trust me, they’re not! They started off in the same place, or many times in a worse place, than you. Instead of telling me you wish you had something I have, ask me how I got it and let me help you get it too.