Believe In Yourself

I read SUCCESS magazine and in the April/May 2008 is an article titled, Climbing Blind, Ignore the Critics to Reach Your Summit by Erik Weihenmayer. Erik, whom the article is about, went blind at the age of 13 and fell in love with rock climbing at a retreat for the blind.

He makes some profound statements in his article regarding the importance of vision and dreaming big.

Your vision will guide you, especially when times are tough, because when you can't see ahead and you're doubting yourself, that's when you really need to understand why you are doing what you and doing and why it is so importnat. I believe in creating a vision for your life to help you stay true to what you want your life to become.

And it's hard to do that when you're facing lots of adversities and lots of doubts. It's hard to stick with that vision. It takes a lot of courage and discipline to live within the framework of that vision so that it just doesn't become a bunch of words.

Erik has climbed to the top of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. He has also climbed Aconcagua, which is in the Andes, Mount Kenya and Ama Dablam near Mount Everest. Failure did greet him on each climb, but he came back the next year with vigor and used his failures to make each climb a success.

I think sometimes when someone fails they are on the brink of something great. Failure and success is not cut and dry. There's a lot of alchemy that goes into it.

Discovery is what motivates Erik. He admits he likes to buck the naysayers, but does not use the negative notion to drive his motives. I want to stay motivated by what I think is important internally and be motivated by a sense of discovery.

Everyone gets affected by negativity in some way or another and you'll get squashed if you're surrounded by it. You need people who are there for you and believe in you. And through it all, you must maintain your vision, because it will guide you like an internal compass.

Today's workout: 6x400 run, 1000 yd swim. RUN ON!