Sunday Story...What's Cookin'?

Every day we are cooking something up…maybe today we are cooking up a nice stew of excuses and reasons why we can’t do whatever task should be dong. Maybe today we are cooking up results and the satisfaction that comes from reaching our goals.

Every work out, every class, every coaching session, I see this….there is a certain set of people who just get stuff done. These are the doers”…the ones who do, the ones who just perform. Day in and day out they look at the task at hand and figure out how they are going to make it work….it doesn’t matter how long, or how heavy, or how my legs felt after yesterdays work…they just look at the task at hand and get started.

Then there is the other set of people (and this is most people) that create excuses and reasons why they can’t complete or can’t even start…bad knees, stomach ache, I have never
(______fill in the blank) done that before. It isn’t possible for someone of my age, my size, my disability or my diagnoses. Most people fall into this category, including me. There are parts of my life that are not in control. There are parts of my life I make excuses for…I’m too busy, I’m damaged goods, I don’t have the skill set necessary to make that project work.

There is an excuse for everything. There is a reason you didn’t complete the work out of maybe a reason why you didn’t even show up. There is always an excuse or reason if you just look around to find one. And you won’t have to look very far. There are all right there in front of you. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep, maybe you ate the wrong food, maybe you didn’t have the right parents, the right education or the right whatever. None of these things matter. If you accept the excuses then you are accepting mediocrity, you are accepting the fact that life or fate or God or the Universe has dealt you a cruel blow, dumped you in a hole from which there is no excuse. You will never be anything but average, you will continue to suffer from terminal; normality. And then you will die… purpose unfulfilled, the tasks you were sent here to complete will have to be filled by someone else.

Really? Really? Is that what you want? Is that what you want for your children (because they are looking at you for guidance, supervision, and emulation)? Why would you want that? There is no ticker tape parade for the first runner –up. There are no songs written, no poems penned for the middle of the pack finisher. The ones who finish in the average position get no kudos.

On the other side of that, maybe you get out there and do it (whatever IT is); maybe you start being different with all your children and/or grandchildren. Maybe you are a doer, one of the group that does things, gets things done. Maybe you don’t have any excuses for poor performance….maybe what you do is look at how close you got and start working out ways to improve…there is no failure, there is no defeat. There is only your absolute best with no excuses and no reasons. Just your absolute all out effort…the one that leaves you exhausted and spent, the one that has you knowing in your heart there was no more nothing else to give.

You get to decide in everything you do which camp you fall into…the doers or the excuse makers. Which are you? For a lot of people they have been in one of the two most of their lives. They have been either doing or making excuses most of their lives. Maybe you are a doer in most parts of your life but you make excuses in another. You do however from this point forward get to decide what you are cooking?

Are you cooking up a mess of excuses and reasons and crap about why you aren’t’ everything you could be, about why you aren’t who you think you should be, about why you are mire in terminal normality?

Or are you cooking up a meal of success, a meal of absolute best effort and vision, one that will keep on trying until the bitter end. One that won’t let an excuse (it hurts, I’m broken. I can’t) get in between them and their ultimate success.

I don’t want to eat the bitterness of knowing I could have done better. I don’t want to taste the sour and sharp bite of average, or normal, of OK. I want to dine on the pain of failure to achieve the goal knowing I put it all out there, I left nothing back. The meal I want to eat is the one flavored with effort and pride of getting things done, seasoned in a marinade of individual effort and vision. That’s the meal I want. Not the leftovers and, might have beens or could have beens.

How about you? Are you cooking up some excuse for not eating right, exercising, loving more, smiling more, being kinder, and learning things?
Or are you cooking up a meal of done?
Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://feel-good-friday.blogspot.com/
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/