“I don’t think we’re going to see another 2011, if that makes sense. If he steadily progresses, keeps getting confidence and moving
forward, he’s going to return and be one of the best players in the game again.” Jim Furyk said in reference to Tiger Woods failing to reach the FedEx Cup playoffs this year.
For those of you who have been following the blog the past year, you may have noticed that my blog posts have dropped off over the past few months, and it is now quite rare if to find an updated post on here at all. There’s a long story and a few key reasons for this decline to oblivion, which I will elaborate on shortly. But I want to start things off this way. I stumbled across the quote this morning as I was trying to find something to write about here on the blog. It has been so long that I often don’t know where to begin….and so I just don’t write. I started to reflect on this and it hit me pretty hard that it is this way in many areas of my life: where I get out of the habit of doing something for whatever reason, allowing time to pass without doing it and before I know it complacency has set in and I just don’t do it. I thought further about this and it dawned on me that I have basically been complacent for the last half of this year, but it all started very gradually with a decision I made on day that probably was not a “good day.” And it was the decision to give myself a break from working out for whatever reason I had that day. Now, I don’t remember the exact day or the exact reason that I did not want to work out but it came and it went…and before I knew it several more days came and went until I woke up and I was miserable, disgusted, and just plain apathetic about it all. And then before much longer it became the way I felt about life. I just didn’t care.
So why is the quote noteworthy to me today? Because it represents exactly how I feel about 2011 and it reflects my attitude towards next year and for that matter the rest of this year. If I don’t want to have another 2011 I must take the steps and make the decisions (no matter how little or trivial they may seem at the time) to make 2012 different and happier and healthier. If it is to be, it’s up to me. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the direction I want to go in life and where I want my life to be this time in 6 months, a year, 5 years, etc. And this is a question that I encourage all of you to consider as well. As 2011 draws to close, think about this past year – the good, the bad, everything – and think about where you want to go in the next year or few years and then take a good hard look at the decisions you make (and have made) on a daily basis and ask yourself if these decisions are moving you toward your goals and dreams or away from them.
For me, I was miserable. I had allowed one small decision not to take care of my health by working out turn into six months of sporadic workouts, social isolation, daily drinking by myself, and not eating healthy. Now for me not eating healthy means NOT EATING at all. I abuse my body and punish myself by denying myself nourishment when I am not working out and when I am not well emotionally. So that is where I was until about 3 weeks ago when a couple true friends helped me see that I need to take control of my emotions , my health, and my life again. I WOKE UP. And I realized that the one small decision I made way back when had turned into a series of decisions I was making each and every day and these decisions were taking me away from the life I want. So I decided to make different a different and very hard decision that day 3 weeks ago. I decided to spend some money on groceries, pull out the nutrition plan that was written for me in 2008, and start pressing play on my workouts again. I didn’t want to do these things and I still fight with myself about making the healthier decision every day but I knew that I had to do things differently if I want next year to be different. The same is true for Tiger Woods and for many other people. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not promoting or agreeing with the things that Tiger has done in the past few years, things that have hurt many people. That is not my point here, just as it is never my point in writing these blog posts. My point is that we can all change our lives but we have to make the decision(s) to do it. We can either choose to do things that move us toward happiness and health or we can choose to make decisions that don’t. And for me, I’ve had just about enough of the way I’ve been in 2011. This was not a good year. I want next year to be different. So I am doing it. I am changing my life starting today, and I encourage all of you who want the same thing to join me on this journey. Two is better than one and four is better than two as Teddy Ruxpin used to say when I was a child. Join me in taking control of our lives and encouraging and challenging each other to stay the course this next year because there will be times when we want to give up or we want to be lazy and there will be days when we convince ourselves that we don’t have to work out, or we don’t have to eat healthy, or we don’t have to go to work, or we don’t have to be nice and help the person behind us in line at the store, or we don’t have to smile at the stranger on the street. There will be those tiny little moments when we have the choice to let apathy re-enter our lives and in the moment the decision will present itself as “just this one time.” But it is in that moment that we must step forward and make the tough decision to continue to move life forward no matter how mundane the decision in front of us appears. We must always strive to move forward and by doing so we shall gain the confidence we need to be our best selves.
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