Tenacity and Perseverance

While I promise that every blog between now and the Closing Ceremony won't be about the Olympics, I do have a couple more Olympic-related thoughts that I want to share today :-). 

My husband and I were discussing the Olympics yesterday and he wryly commented, "Nobody gets a medal by quitting."  It's unthinkable that any alpine skier would get 3/4 of the way down the mountain and then quit because the course was more bumpy than anticipated; they certainly wouldn't be a medal contender based on their strong start or good effort for as long as they raced.  Watching the pairs ice skating long program last night, it was hard to watch several skaters miss their jumps and fall, but they got right up and kept going - nobody fell and then walked off the ice.  Last night, one skier skied with a broken thumb and the sports commentator noted the way the skier's glove had been modified to allow him to grasp his ski poles despite his broken thumb.  Tenacity is a word that keeps coming to mind as athlete after athlete deals with injury or a mistake and just keeps going.

Tenacity is one of the things that makes the difference on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, too.  While on this program, there will be any number of reasons to go off plan, or even to quit.  Staying on plan and getting to goal certainly isn't easy, and sometimes it seems to be next to impossible.  Holidays, celebrations, stress, travel, vacations, company . . . those are just some of the situations that result in decisions to go off plan.  These situations aren't the reasons we may choose to go off plan, but they are the rationale we use.

I draw a distinction between reason and rationale, because the truth is that none of those occasions are truly reasons to go off plan.  Individuals who are focused on reaching their goal deal with all of these situations and figure out how to stay on plan.  However, if we aren't focused on where we want to go, if we don't keep our eyes fixed on what we REALLY want, these situations may provide the rationale we use to go off plan.

Of course, going off plan certainly doesn't mean ultimate failure - not at all!  However, just like the ice skater who falls in competition, it's important to get right back up, pick up where you left off, and keep on going.  Keep on going even when it's hard, keep on going even when you want to quit, because if you keep going, you WILL reach your goal.

The choice is yours, so choose wisely :-)