Words Made Easy

Yay, today is the 30th of June – the end of the financial year and more importantly (for me anyway) the end of the 30 day Global Bender Bikram Challenge.

It’s a good time to reflect on your goals, financial and personal and take stock of where you’re heading in 2009. What plans did you make for yourself and your business at the beginning of the year? Six months in, how are you tracking?

You know that I set myself a challenge of improving my health. June saw me ramp it up a notch with the Bikram Global Bender. Now at June 30 it’s almost complete.

Thank God.

I have been practising Bikram on and off for a couple of years now. Going through patches of a few days a week and long periods of none. This year it came back on my training calendar to improve my flexibility after long runs.

Its both a serious workout and serious time-out from the every day hustle bustle. As well as improving my physical condition it improves my outlook.

Clearly I enjoy it, but I had never considered myself one of those extremists who live and breath yoga. Then the Global Bender came along.

Our Bikrams Brookvale studio often runs Challenges, many of which go for 60 days. They have always seem a reach too far for me. But the Global Bender was only set for 30 days, and right slap-bang in the darkest, coldest month of the year when early morning beach runs have definitely lost their appeal.

I had recently opened a new arm of business and had retired my long-time personal trainer, so the timing seemed perfect to sign up for The Bender.

I knew it would teach me discipline and I hoped it would see my practice advance. I also knew it would be a tough undertaking completing 30 classes in 30 days while running two businesses and raising a family.

Little did I know how hard.

Its inevitable that I would have missed a couple of days here and there due to timetable pressures. The trouble with that is – making them up. I have done 3 days of back-to-back double classes now to make up for the missed ones.

This afternoon at 5:15pm will be my last.

The commitment and dedication and sheer perserverance required to pull this off have been enormous. There is absolutely no way it would have been possible without the support (albeit begrudging at times) of my husband.

Little did he realise that when he felt ready for me to throw in the towel, I felt doubly so-inclined.

Until I thought to myself…

What am I proving to myself, my children and my clients if I can’t even complete a 30 day course in something I am supposed to enjoy? Something that gives me clear and obvious benefits. Something which is designed ready-on-a-plate and requires little else but merely showing up?

If I can’t do that then how on earth am I supposed to be able to raise two little heroes, grow self-sustaining businesses or have the audacity to coach other business operators to do the same.

So day in, day out, early in the morning, late at night, and sometimes twice a day I have dragged myself off to the yoga studio and sweated my little heart out.

When the going got really tough

I remembered a recent talk given by reigning Iron-Woman Champ, Naomi Flood. Just 23, Naomi is mature beyond her years thanks to a punishing training regime and personal hurdles she has had to overcome to reach her goal.

In 2005 Naomi collapsed just 2km from the ‘Coolongatta Gold’ finish line, due to a failed liver from poor nutrition. She simply didn’t know any better.

Since then she has improved her diet. Which has led in turn to less illness and more consistent training. Naomi says when her alarm goes off at 4:27am each morning, she gives herself 3 minutes to battle with her mind about whether to get out of bed, visualises the winning moment, then throws back the covers.

She says it can take weeks of training in the pool, every day, for hundreds of kilometres to see even one, tiny, incremental improvement in time. ‘A bee’s dick’ of an improvement as she and fellow Club athletes describe it.

Yet its over weeks and years, that each of those  precious seconds add up to precious minutes that ultimately make the world of difference between First and Second place in that one crucial race finale. Where it literally come down to a few seconds between winning and losing and making those years of effort pay off.

Now I’m no hero

Nor aiming to compete as a world athlete. But in completing this Yoga challenge, I have proven to myself that it is the ongoing, perseverance of everyday grit and determination that makes the difference.

Its not a difference you see overnight. But after 30 days I can hold myself in a ‘Standing Bow’ pose for one minute and see my foot sweep high above my head.

This from a girl who couldn’t balance for 5 seconds on one foot two years ago.

And struggled to hold the full minute just 30 days ago.

If you have a goal

Then the difference between making it and not, is your ongoing, everyday practice. Some days you may be tired. Some days it may just feel all wrong. But if you just do it, it’s amazing what you will learn. How strong your mind and your skills become. Simply through repetition.

Its not rocket science.

The greatest success comes simply in showing up.

Happy End-of-Financial-Year and congratulations to all the Global Benders. Its the 30th June. Hip, Hip Hooray.

Photo credits:

Standing Bow: no – that’s not me yet, I wish!

Naomi Flood:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23220740-5014066,00.html

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 @ 11:24 am on the category Performance Goals, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.