Stop Disappointing Yourself

How often do you disappoint yourself with the things that you do (or don’t do)? I know that sounds like a funny question to ask, but it’s a legitimate thing to be aware of. Feeling disappointed with your thoughts and actions is a normal, human thing and we all do it. But, most of the time those types of feelings are happening for a reason and those reasons are important for you to think about and understand. Taking the time to sort them out and making changes because of them is something that’s helped me out a lot emotionally and I wanted to tell you more about it.

If you’re anything like me you experience moments in your daily life where you think to yourself “Why did I do that?” or “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to anyway.” or “I hate when I do this to myself.” or even “I know what I should be doing but I’m not going to do it.”. These thoughts come into our head all the time and it’s important to recognize them and to understand why they’re happening. You can usually feel these in your mind but a lot of times you can also feel them physically in your gut. Most of the time they’re easy to recognize but hard to do something about and many of them happen over and over because we never do anything about them.

One of these things for me is getting enough sleep. I have a history of always staying up too late and then trying to get up early, which isn’t sustainable. When this happens I wake up feeling tired and then I go through the entire day trying to find energy any way I can. It’s harder for me to think, my head feels foggy and my mood is terrible, which makes me not want to talk to anyone. I can still make it through the day, but it’s a struggle and the worst part is that I know it’s all because of not getting the sleep I need.

This then leads me to being disappointed with myself for not getting enough sleep and knowing that if I had gotten more shut-eye I would feel so much better. But for some reason I never do anything about it and before you know it I’m doing the same thing all over again and the vicious cycle continues.

As I’m writing this out it sounds so ridiculous, but it’s what happens to me over and over and over and it’s not easy to stop. The good news is that I’ve always known how to make the change, I’ve just never done it. I’ve disappointed myself so many times even though I’ve always had a pretty good idea of how to make it stop. Is that crazy or what? Silly humans.

The good news is that starting this past month I started to make some changes. Even though I fumbled through the first couple of weeks with some disappointments here and there I’m now getting to where I need to be and it feels amazing. All it took was a little bit of thought, discipline and follow-through with a plan and some structure (and boundaries) that I set up for myself.

I can explain more about what my plan has been in another blog post, but I just wanted to let you know that making the plan, starting it and sticking with it is the most important (and hardest) part (another big thing is not letting your day to day emotions change your overall plan, which I can talk about later, too). Once you get through the grind of getting that started you’re almost guaranteed to say goodbye to some of those feelings of disappointment that we’re all sick of having.

 

Learn To Enjoy The Grind

Sometimes I find myself looking at amazing things that people have accomplished and fall into the trap of only appreciating what I’m seeing at that moment. Take the Olympics for example, those athletes are amazing and they look so cool doing their thing on the world stage. They’re the best of the best and I’ve found myself infatuated with watching them perform at the highest level possible.

I’ve never been so excited in my life to see someone do the backstroke than when 17 year-old Missy Franklin grabbed her gold medal. I was literally cheering on my couch. For swimming.

Seeing her grab that gold was really awesome but trying to imagine what all she went through to get there really blows me away. I played basketball at a Division II level on scholarship and I know how much time and effort it took me to get there. Now multiply that by about a thousand and you’re should be in the ballpark of what one of these Olympians have put themselves through to be in London.

I call all of the practices they didn’t want to wake up for, all the injuries they never wanted to have and all of the things that they missed due to the time commitment of being at their level “the grind”. They’ve gone through the grind and have made it through to the other side to show all of us what can happen when you stare it in the face and, amazingly enough, enjoy it.

Did they enjoy all of it? No way, they are human after all. But they learned to like and at least respect the grind that they knew would eventually separate them from everyone else at every, single level of competition. These are some physically gifted human beings but what helped them get to where they are is the grind. No one sees the grind but it’s the most important thing.

I’m not sure how this post turned into an ode to the Olympians but hey, that’s what happens when you’re writing and just go where your thoughts lead you while typing away on the train. I’ve been personally thinking about the different grinds in my life (work, relationships, fitness, faith, etc.) and have been working hard to not just make it through them, but to respect and even enjoy them. It’s amazing how it can change your attitude and help you see things more clearly in your life.

Don’t avoid the grind, learn to enjoy it.

One more thing, if you want another good example of a real person (a non-Olympian) putting this way of thinking to work, be sure to check out Randall Degges’ post about how he’s learned to see his grind of losing weight and being healthy as an opportunity to better himself. Nice work, dude.

photo credit: NYTimes.com

How To Splint, Tape and Heal A Broken Pinkie Toe

So this happened on Sunday. I broke my pinkie toe and it’s not very awesome.

My pinkie toe moved and the steel leg of the coffee table didn’t and now I have to deal with it.

The good (and somewhat hard to believe) news is that the doctor told me I’d still be able to run the SF Marathon at the end of July with no issues. She said I should be able to run in less than two weeks and It’s only a little over a month away so I’m not sure if I’m so confident in my superhuman powers of healing, but I guess we’ll see.

Going through this process I figured out some answers to questions that ran through my head initially after accidentally kicking the leg of a coffee table and I thought it might be helpful to lay them out for any of you who might happen to find yourself is the same situation. If you have any other questions you need answered, let me know in the comments — I’m more than happy to help.

How do you know if you broke your pinkie toe?

Oh, don’t worry — you’ll know this answer within 5 minutes of hitting it on something. I’ve hit my toe into things many, many times but this one was different for a few different reasons.

    1. It started throbbing and felt numb when I touched it.
    2. It physically looked broken as my pinkie toe was separated much more from the second toe than it should be.
    3. It just kept hurting and within 10-15 minutes the swelling was starting to show up and the pain was only getting worse. It actually didn’t hurt that much after the initial pain when I was just sitting there with no pressure on it, but when I tried to walk on it there’s no way that was happening.

Do you need to go to the doctor for a broken pinkie toe?

Most people you talk to would that you don’t need to go to the doctor for a broken pinkie toe and they would mostly be right. But, I had read that some people needed to have their bones reset to get the back in place so I didn’t really want to risk it. All you can do once you’re bone is all lined up is to splint your toe with some tape and wait for it to heal. If you can see the doctor for cheap then I say go for it, but if not there’s a pretty good chance you can just splint it and your pinkie toe will heal up just fine. If you have any questions or feel like you broke it really bad, go to the doctor asap.

How do you splint a broken pinkie toe with tape?

Being shown how to tape up my pinkie toe is the best thing I got from going to the doctor. She used a thicker, stretchy, one-sided tape that I haven’t been able to find online anywhere that really worked great for splinting and has no problems staying on all day long. The splinting method is simple and it looks like the photo below. That was the splinting job that was done by the doctor during my visit to the hospital so it’s a good example of how to do it.

 

How long will it take to heal a broken pinkie toe?

I’m not sure about this answer (since it just happened two days ago), but the doctor told me that the bone should be healed enough in 10-14 days to be able to jog/run. She said within 5 weeks it will be really strong and pretty much back to where it was (although there might be some pain to deal with). I’m two days into my healing process and I am already to the point to where I’m not needing to limp anymore. It’s bruising up, but the swelling is really the only thing that’s slowing it down. I’m elevating it as much as I can and that’s really the key to making it heal faster. In other words all you should focus on is splinting it, staying off of it and keeping it elevated as much as possible.

I really hope all of this helps you out and if you need anything else let me know. It’s never fun going through these things, but they happen. All we can do it take care of the injury as much as we can and get healed up as soon as possible.

 

Love Isn’t Robotic

New habits (both good and bad) all start out as feeling awkward or unnatural and we’re born with abilities that make some easier to acquire than others. The rest of the habits we end up developing throughout our lives happen due some type or motivation and require repetition, time and effort.

Habits are forced, but they’re forced for a reason. Some reasons are personal and affect us individually. Others are meant to affect those outside of ourselves and have a wider impact on lives other than our own.

Personally I’m building a habit to run and to get in shape for the upcoming San Francisco marathon. On the other hand I’m building habits to be a better employee at work and they won’t only affect me, but my co-workers, investors, customers and others. I’m also building habits that will help me be a better husband and they will affect my wife and others who are invested in our relationship. Some groups get more affected than others, but you get the idea.

Habits are learned and although foreign to us initially they quickly become part of our routine. While we’re in the process of creating the new habits we aren’t being a fake or robotic version of ourselves, it’s more than that. We’re showing that we’re willing to invest the time and effort to change or improve something we’ve recognized we need.

With your significant other, building the right habits shows you’re willing to change for the benefit of the relationship. That’s something that should never be overlooked or taken for granted.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that love isn’t a habit, but the habits you create or change to support love really shows how much you care. Some of the habits aren’t going to feel natural for a while, but the fact that they’re being built specifically for the relationship shows more love than you might realize.

Love is learned and yes, love can be awkward but the struggles over time and the willingness to build habits for love are what will make it last forever.

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Do you have any thoughts/experience on building habits for love? Share your brilliant knowledge with us in the comments below.

We’re Not Meant To Go Through It Alone

It’s really hard being a human sometimes. We’re built to be in community with one another (why do you think Facebook is so popular?), but at the same time we also want to be able to stand on our own. It makes us feel good knowing that we can do it ourselves and proving that we’re happily independent. I don’t need your help, I’ve got this taken care of and I’m actually a little offended that you thought I couldn’t take care of it. How insulting.

We also don’t like sharing the things that we’re struggling with. We’re embarrassed, we’re ashamed and why would we want to drag someone else into our problems? Sometimes we not only keep them to ourselves, but we brush them off and ignore them hoping that they will just go away on their own.

Personally, I’m getting better at this but I used to be able to brush things off with the best of ’em. For one reason or another I just didn’t have the tools or maturity it took at that time to deal with situations like that. At the time there was just no way that me, Ryan Hupfer, was ever struggling with anything. I had everything under control and I didn’t need any help from anyone. Wow, was I wrong.

Now things are a little different. More and more I’m able to recognize the things that I need help with or need to change in myself and I feel like that’s a good first step. Taking it to the next level for me was sharing what I was going through with others who cared about me. The thing that triggered this thinking for me was finally running into something so big I knew in my heart that I couldn’t handle it on my own. It took me a while to figure this out, even after the struggles I was having at the time kept telling me to seek the community I needed. I guess sometimes we just need to listen to ourselves and stop being so damn stubborn. As a human, this isn’t easy.

So where am I at now? I’m still struggling with some significant issues in my life (aren’t we all), but my faith and the people I’ve surrounded myself with help keep me grounded in a way that’s healthy and sustainable. They are people who don’t just want to keep me happy, either. They’re giving me the truth and support I need without only telling me what I want to hear. I’m so thankful that they’re willing to tell me the truth and that I hope I can receive it in a way that that’s positive. It really sucks go through tough times and it’s easy to try to control everything all myself, but I honestly don’t know what I would do if I didn’t bring these other people into the mix.

If you’re struggling through something and trying to fix it all yourself you should really think about sharing it with someone who cares about you. It’s not always easy and it’s extremely humbling, but through sharing you’ll start down the road of healing and that’s exactly where you need to be. How do you start? How about when the next time they ask you how you’re doing you don’t just tell them “I’m doing good, how about you?” and you open up about what’s really going on instead? Doing this will not only get you some interesting reactions but it will start the process of enabling your community to help you through your struggles.

 

Training For A Marathon And Learning The Value Of Pressure Over Time

If you didn’t know this about me, I like to run. Most people I talk to hate to run. They sometimes say things like “I’m not running unless something’s chasing me.” and other witty remarks when I tell them about my multiple mile adventures on foot. There’s just something about putting yourself through pain on a regular basis for a significant amount of time that some people just don’t get. I guess when you put it like that it’s kinda hard to blame ’em, huh?

Running is a complicated thing for me, but it’s also very simple. It’s become a part of my life that I can’t imagine living without yet it’s also something that I struggle with the most. Running, if given the right opportunity, can become as addicting as any drug out there. But go a couple of weeks without it and you’ll drop it like a bad habit. You put in the months invested and the miles ran and it’s like you never started running in the first place. Running is awesome and can give you energy beyond belief, but let it go and it can be unforgiving.

One way I’m making sure to keep up with my running is by signing up for the San Francisco Marathon that’s on July 29th. Buying a spot in the 26.2 mile race around the city locks me into something far enough into the future that it makes me follow a training schedule and a long enough distance to where if I don’t train I won’t be able to run it.

I’ve never ran a marathon before, but I know a lot of people who have and they’re no joke. Running for nearly 4 hours straight is nothing to take lightly and if I’m not to where I need to be by July then running it would be dangerous if not impossible. I’ve run plenty of half marathons in my day, but if you can run 6-8 miles you can make it through one of those. A full marathon on the other hand takes some serious dedication and you can’t just hope you’re in good enough shape for it, you need to be sure you are.

I’m following a training schedule from a guy named Hal Higdon and he’s keeping me on pace to own this marathon come July. I’m usually not one for planning and following schedules like that but when I do it’s amazing how well it works. Sometimes I think the results I need will just happen naturally and I’ll be able to get to where I need to be without any type of planning or critical thinking and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Can I make some good things happen through gut instinct and good ideas? Sure, but it’s nothing that will be sustainable for the long run and it won’t get me to where I need to be long term.

The one thing that training for a marathon shows me is that when I put a plan together and actually stick with it good things will happen and I’ll be able to achieve the goals I set for myself. The day-to-day grind of following the plan isn’t always going to great and there will be times where I miss a day, feel bad or something else unexpected comes up that could throw me off. As bad as it seems at the time, none of those day-to-day issues will really matter in the long run. As long as I can follow through until the end and do my best with following the plan the results will speak for themselves.

Case in point, I used to struggle to get my runs in during the month and it was hard to stay motivated. Now that I have a plan I’ve ran farther in one month than I ever have in my life and I still have a full week to go (check out my mileage in the above image). Before this month is over I’ll have put in over 100 miles, which is nearly double what I’ve ever done before in the same amount of time. It’s kind of amazing and while I’m going through the daily routine it’s not that exciting, but when I can look back at the results of sticking with it I’m blown away.

I call this act of following a strict plan over a longer schedule “pressure over time” and usually I really suck at it, but I’m doing my best to wrap my head around why I need to create and stick with plans in all areas of my life, not just running. Since this same idea of pressure over time could work my job, marriage, friendships, etc. I’m hoping there will be some crossover. Here’s to creating a plan and sticking with it. May the force (and patience) be with you.

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p.s. if you’re wondering why I’m running a marathon in the first place it’s because of my  friend who’s always kicking some ass (and running a lot, too), Jason Shen.

 

The Benefits Of Getting Up Early

Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not a morning person. When I was younger and living with my parents I never had a designated time when I had to go to bed. I can remember being in elementary school and laying with my dad watching Johnny Carson kill it on the Tonight Show. That guy was hilarious.

In college me and my dorm mates were known on our floor for consistently making 2am trips to the closest Steak ‘N Shake. After college I was practically paid to stay up late. I worked as a bouncer, bartender, party promoter and online community evangelist which meant that there were lots of nights that I didn’t sleep at all. Caffeine was my partner in crime and I was the farthest thing from being a morning person. I was a night owl and it was a hard lifestyle to keep up with. Would I ever get up early? Sure I would, but burning the candle at both ends can only last so long and I would eventually crash for sometimes an entire weekend at a time.

At this point I’m a different person, or at least I’m trying my best to be. Even though it’s not something I’m great at I like getting up early now. From a work perspective it makes me more productive and there’s just something about being one of the first people to the office. Getting a head start on the day has never been a bad thing, but it’s not easy to do.

I also like to get up early on weekends, especially now that I’m running more and training for the San Francisco Marathon. There’s really nothing more energizing then getting up and getting an early run in before you start your day.

Seeing the sun starting to come up and getting a workout in before most people are hitting snooze for the first time just makes me feel good. It also takes the pressure off of squeezing in a workout after work which can be a real pain and often ends up in me skipping it altogether. Knocking out my runs in the morning guarantees that they get done and gives me energy for the rest of the day. I walk into work feeling like a boss and I can do whatever I want once I clock out for the day.

Tips For Getting Up Early

Say what you want, but there are some serious benefits to getting up early and I’m just starting to get to a place where I’m taking advantage of them consistently. I’m no expert when it comes to getting up and moving, but here are some tips that might help you get there:

1. Set early calls/meetings: If you set early meetings you’re motivated to get up early. There’s no sleeping in when you’re locked into an 8:30am conference call about this month’s TPS Reports.

2. Don’t hit snooze: The snooze button is your enemy and it’s benefits definitely don’t outweigh it’s costs. If you need some extra motivation to not hit that extra ten minutes of nap time these four tips by Austin Hatfield might do the trick. It also never hurts to move your alarm across the room so you physically have to get out of bed to turn it off. It might sound crazy, but it works.

3. Go to bed early: You want to get up earlier? Go to bed earlier. We all need different amounts of sleep and you know more than anyone how much that is. Shut off your Facebook, Netflix video games or whatever else you’re wasting time on at night and go to bed.

4. Start running: Running (or walking, biking, working out, etc.) is an amazing way to wake up in the morning and it will give you some extra motivation to get yourself moving. There are some pretty sweet benefits to getting your Forrest Gump on in the morning, too.

5. Drinking only makes it harder: The only thing harder than getting up early is getting up early after you’ve been drinking.

Do you have to be a morning person? Of course not. If you feel ok about staying up late and getting up later then more power to ya. I personally feel better when I get up early and I know it’s the best way for me to start the day and that’s why it bothers me when I don’t follow through with doing it. We’re all different and figuring out how you work best is the first step in getting the most out of your day and feeling like you can take on the world with the energy you need.

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Thanks to the guys at Fangbot for the photo and more awesome tips on getting up early (and feeling like you can slay a dragon).

 

Are You Ready For A Relationship?

You know I’m married when I’m writing about things like this. Who would of ever thought that I would be giving relationship advice? Mr. non-committal himself has now turned into Dr. Phil. Awesome.

But there is something to be said about having experience with a fully committed relationship and the things you learn from it. I’ve been married for almost three years now and our relationship is far from perfect (believe me, we have our moments) but I’ve learned a lot of things along the way that I think could be helpful for those of you who are still looking for that Mr. or Mrs. Right.

Here are a few things I’ve learned up to this point. I’m by no means an expert but I do feel like I know a lot more than I did a few years ago. Take it or leave it and who knows, it might just be what you need to hear.

We’re All Selfish

This is a simple fact of life and part of being a human. We’re all programmed to take care of #1 before all else and to make things worse our culture is always telling us this over and over again. We can take care of ourselves, we don’t need anyone else’s help and I want what I want when I want it (or else). In a relationship you’re going to have to chip away at this little by little and eventually you’ll need to get to the point to where you’re giving more of yourself than you ever imagined possible. This might sound like a scary thing, but it’s actually a great place to find yourself if you can make it there.

The things in your life that you think make you who you are will need to become less important, which is going to be a hard pill to swallow. Your workouts will be harder to squeeze in, your work will have a beginning and an end time and you’ll find yourself doing things that your significant other cares about that you never paid attention to or ever wanted to do before. Oh, and you’re going to be communicating more than you ever have in your entire life. Sounds awesome, huh? (it actually is if you can get it all figured out)

Are you losing who you are? No. You’re just becoming the person you never knew you could be.

Relationships Take Work

This sounds really bad when you say it to someone who’s single but anyone who’s been married for longer than a year will tell you that there’s a lot of work needed to keep a relationship going. A lot of people think that things will just happen the way they should in a relationship, but that’s just not the case. Can it move along smoothly for a while without too much effort? Sure, but that’s going to eventually fade away and then it’s time to get to work on what you really want.

This isn’t the traditional roll-up-your-sleeves kind of work. This is being aware of what you need in a relationship and communicating it to others in a way that can be understood. It’s also understanding what the other person in your relationship needs and how to make sure they’re getting what they need in a way that’s healthy for your relationship as a whole. It takes planning, forethought, being intentional and communicating in a way that the other person in your relationship understands (not just in a way that you do).

This work shouldn’t scare you away from being in a relationship but it should help you set some expectations so you’re not completely blindsided by what it takes to keep one going in the right direction. Communicate on a ridiculous level to each other even when it feels so awkward you want to throw up. That feeling is you being molded into someone who can help build something special with another person. Embrace the work and it will pay off, just don’t shy away from it or avoid it. It’s the easy way out and it’s tempting, but you’re better than that.

Don’t Be Who You Think They Want, Be Who You Are

One of the early mistakes I made in my marriage and even in some of my earlier relationships was becoming who I thought someone else wanted me to be and not who I actually was. With the other relationships it was just an easy way to keep things smooth, exciting and moving along at a pace I liked but it can only last so long and it was exhausting.

This isn’t necessarily being a completely different person when you’re around someone else — it can simply be not speaking up about things you feel you should talk about or avoiding conflict for the sake of not upsetting someone else. This is something I dealt with in my relationships with women, my close friends and even family and I still struggle with it today. I feel like this topic could be an entire series of posts for me, but we’ll leave it at that for now.

I think the reason why I always did this was simple, it got me what I wanted quicker. Whether it was getting a girl or a group of people I just met to like me faster, it just made things easy. I could turn on the charm and it would fast track me to where I wanted to be. I still find myself doing this in certain situations and to be honest it’s a great quality of mine but it’s only good for getting people’s attention should never be a long term way to manage my relationships (great for networking events, traveling, etc.). I’m figuring all of this out even today and it’s exciting to learn more about myself and how I create, build and manage my relationships with my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I’m learning to be who I am and to be ok with it. More and more I’m finding my identity in my faith, which is another topic I’ll write more about in the future.

If you’re going to be in a relationship that lasts you need to be who you really are — the good, the bad and the ugly. You can change some of the things that need some improvement, but you need to do that together. That’s part of the messiness and what will bring you closer to whoever you’re sharing these types of things with. Someone once said that people admire you when you seem perfect but they love and respect you when you’re open with your own weaknesses. None of us are perfect and I think they might be right.

I’m not sure if all of this makes sense but it does to me and I’m realized that whatever I’ve gone through others have or are going through the same things, too. If you’re someone who needs to hear what I’m saying I hope it helps and if you have any comments for me I’d love to hear ’em.

Patience, Persistence and Passion

In the four years I’ve lived in California I’ve met a lot of what I would call “successful people”. Some have been successful in business, some with their marriage/family and others with various personal goals they’ve set for themselves. With each of these people I’ve noticed some traits that makes them different from others. They have something driving them that most don’t have access to. They have patience, persistence and passion and a mix of these three is what gives them the seemingly superhuman power to do the amazing things they do.

This isn’t something that is only unique to a select amount of gifted people. If any of us can get this mix right with the things that we’re trying to accomplish we can have similar success, too. It’s usually not all one or the other, but it’s a nice mix of patience, persistence and passion that keeps them moving along. Here’s some more detail about each of them and how they can help you get to where you need to be.

Patience

No matter what you’re doing you need to be able to see it through to the end. This requires more patience than most people have access to and no one wants to spend a lot of time doing something that has a high likelihood of failing. Time is always against those who are trying to do something new, innovative and important but if you can wait it out longer than others then you’re much more likely to be rewarded.

From a business standpoint this is being able to outlast your competitors or waiting for a market to mature despite all signs saying it probably won’t happen. Personally this is having the patience to lose weight the right way, with good nutrition and exercise and not with stupid diets and weight loss pills. Giving yourself the right amount of training on the way to running a marathon and not ditching it a couple months in. This is also having the patience to stay in a relationship that doesn’t seem to be working at the time and needs some time for issues to be resolved and not pulling the plug just to make it easy. Valuable, sustainable things don’t happen quickly and you need patience if you want them to be successful.

Persistence

If patience is being able to wait for the right things to happen, persistence is doing all of the right things (and some wrong things, but pushing through them) along the way and sticking to a plan of action no matter what happens. Patience without persistence is just dragging out the inevitable result of failure and persistence without patience will burn you out and take away your focus. I guess this would be a good time to give an example so this makes more sense.

Let’s say you’re training for a marathon that’s six months away. In your head you really want to run the race the best you can and you’re prepared to do whatever it takes. That’s a good first step, nice job. You decide to make some time for your training and you’re going to run in the morning. You look up a training schedule and start to follow it. You have a long time before you’re running the race and the training moves up your mileage slowly, so sticking to it will require patience. If you run on all of the days you’re supposed to and get up in the mornings you’ve got the persistence taken care of, which is great. But, you also need to follow the training and not push yourself too much, too quickly. You need to have the patience to follow what the training says and even if you feel like you can do more you should stick to the plan.

If you don’t have the patience and push yourself too much and don’t follow the plan you’re going to get injured or burn yourself out. If you don’t have the persistence to run when you’re scheduled to run, keep the pace you’re supposed to or run the right distances you won’t be prepared for your marathon and the results will show it. Will you finish? Most likely, but your time won’t be the best it could be and you might hurt yourself in the process. Be patient, be persistent and you’ll be prepared and perform like you should.

Passion

Personally I feel like this is the most important of the three because being passionate about something can all of a sudden give you the patience and the persistence that you never knew you had before. Passion is what keeps you up at night playing around with that thing you’re building or that canvas you’re painting or that video you’re editing. You love it and what you’re doing gives you the energy you need to keep on going, even when other people think you’re crazy.

Whether it’s public knowledge or not, nothing and no one starts off awesome. It always takes patience, persistence and some real passion to keep pushing through pain, failures and setbacks but the ones who do get rewarded for it. Need proof? Just look at some of the most famous people who you admire the most and find out their story. The things they’ve done and the time it’s taken to get to where they are is nothing short of insane, but they somehow made it through. It’s awesome and intimidating at the same time.

So, I ask you — what goals do you have and what things are you pushing for right now and how does your mix of patience, persistence and passion look? Are you missing one of them with what you’re doing? If you are it’s likely that you’re not doing the right things with your time. Take a good, honest look and see where you’re at. It’s something we should all be aware of.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to Dan Oshinsky and Brittany Lauren for helping me get some insight for this post. Thanks!

 

It’s More Than Just Communicating

You hear it all the time, right? Communication is key. It’s the most important part of any relationship and without it there’s bound to be trouble. I totally agree, but I think there’s something missing. You don’t just simply need to communicate, you need to communicate the right way.

I used to not communicate at all and that was a problem. If there was something I didn’t like I could brush it off or ignore it. If I thought my opinions and feelings were going to upset someone I would just rather keep them to myself. If I could simply avoid the situation altogether that was probably the best option for everyone. I wasn’t communicating and it caused lots of problems for me that I’ll have to go into in another post. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now it’s easy to see how my lack of communication was an easy short-term solution but unsustainable in the long term.

If you’re not communicating the way you should be to other people in your life (especially the ones you know and love the most) you need to fix it as soon as possible. Open up, speak your mind and when that feeling in your gut tells you that something isn’t right, do something about it. Don’t ignore it — it’s there for a reason. Making this change is worth all of the uncomfortable feelings you’re going to have in the process and then some. It’s not going to happen fast, I’ve been making changes for the past 3-4 years, but you need to start. Now.

Now that I’ve seen some positive changes in how I’m communicating to the different people in my life there’s something that I’ve found to be just as important (if not more important) than the act of communicating itself. The more important thing is *how* you’re communicating your thoughts and feelings.

Just because you’re communicating doesn’t mean you’re doing it the right way. There’s a balance of grace and truth when it comes to communicating and you don’t want to be on one side or the other. You want to have a good balance of both. Yes, you should tell the truth, but if you tell it without any grace you’re going to come off as too harsh or with a sense of not caring. Basically you’ll seem like more of an jerk than someone who actually cares about the other person. The truth is always needed, but taking some time to speak the truth in a way that’s loving and full of grace will go a long way.

Not giving enough truth can be just as bad. This is also known as sugar coating and while it makes the truth easier to communicate, it doesn’t have the intended effect on the person you’re talking to. I used to do this all the time and still find myself wanting to soften up the truth when having a discussion with my friends, family, wife and even strangers. Don’t take the easy way out and not tell the full truth, it’s only going to make things harder in the end.

One last thing, avoid sarcasm at all times when communicating something you feel strongly about. It never helps get your point across and only make the other person feel like they’re being attacked. Skip it and do your best to communicate with some grace and truth.

This will take time to get right and I’m still trying to figure out how I communicate to others in the ways I should. If you take some time to think and don’t just react when you’re in a conversation you’ll be able to get the balance of grace and truth you need. Take a second before you respond, think about how you’re going to communicate and go from there.

Any thoughts or questions, I would love to hear from you. Let me have it and here’s to having better communication!