The six inches in front of your face
The only thing you can control is right here and right now. Your next set, your next rep, your next meal, your next rest. That is all that matters right now.
The past has already happened. You can’t change it. I don’t wanna hear that you used to be able to lift heavy or that you used to be able to run fast. Why on earth did you stop? I don’t have time for your excuses, nor do I care.
Same thing applies to your past mistakes, whether it be the unplanned cheat meal that you ate yesterday or a lifetime of poor diet and exercise or some other mistake completely unrelated to bodybuilder. Neither you nor I can change what happened but we can learn from it.
We can learn from and apply it to today with a steely determination like never before. Use it to train harder and live better. Focus on now, the six inches in front of your face.
For it is the next six inches, the next six minutes, hours, days that will shape the future.
Long term goals are great and everyone should have them. I certainly do, for what I am going to make my body into and what I will teach it to be able to do. I also have them in my career. The long term for the future are vital.
But without action right now, the future will also just be the future and the long term will always be a long way away.
So that leaves us with 3 types of people. The has been who lives on past glories that probably never happened. The gunner because they are always "gunner" do something next week or next month or next year and never does.
Or are you the one who takes control with both hands by taking that next step forwards right now. The one who achieves anything that they set their minds too. The ordinary person doing extraordinary things that other people just shake their heads at in amazement of what you can do.
Like it or not you are deciding right now who you are going to be either by your actions or inactions.
Who are you?
January 25, 2009 at 4:22 am
once again, an awesome read. im not going to be that ordinary person, no no!
January 25, 2009 at 4:48 am
That was the best Sunday morning sermon I’ve read in a long time! Amen, brother! That’s my signature…..Control what you can, and PHUNK everything else! On that note, I guess I better get off this damn computer and do my Sunday morning cardio!
January 25, 2009 at 5:23 am
Brilliant read. Thank you for sharing this, it will make a difference to everyone who reads it.
January 25, 2009 at 7:09 am
Have we met before? How did you know all those things about me?
Now I’m the Action Girl!
January 25, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Ryan..u blow my mind with ur words and thoughs..i never looked at fitness or life in general like this before..
January 25, 2009 at 6:18 pm
It’s hard to be in the moment, especially when you carry around so much baggage from your past. Thanks for the post. Keep moving forwards, and enoying your journey.
January 26, 2009 at 11:27 am
tough love works for me:-)
as for other people who keep giving me excuses not to come to a workout with me and then later bash their body I change the subject immediately….your right I don’t want to hear it……no more whinning about this past weekend it’s over I’m moving on
January 26, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I take action now, I use to be a gunner, I’m glad I outgrew that.
January 29, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Wow dude, great post… I’ve got people (Soldiers) all around me telling me that I’m either crazy for all that I do in the gym, or that I’m in the gym benching cars again (sarcasm), or that what I do just looks painful… Well, sometimes it is, but that’s all part of the fun and the challenge…
January 31, 2009 at 12:24 am
Wow, great post! I was a "gunner" for a long time. Way too long.