Sunday Story…Mindfulness

We are too often focused on what’s next, or what just happened. The past is past. The future is not here yet. The present is what is real and present. Yet we spend all our time looking back or looking forward.

The practice of being present is exactly that, a practice. It is a way of being that must be cultivated and grown. It doesn’t just happen by itself. We are conditioned to look forward and back. We set goals, work for goals, make plans for our futures. Yet in order to achieve those goals we need to be in the present moment. If we aren’t present all those goals will just sit there doing nothing.

By the same token, we look back to learn from our experiences. We take pride in past accomplishments, often resting on our laurels. We need those past experiences to build a trove of wisdom. But we can’t live there or nothing will ever get done. We will spend all our time remembering what was and no time doing what needs to be done.

It is in the present moment where living happens. It is in every moment, every inch where we must live and work and play. If we miss the present by looking forward or back it is gone forever, the game is lost.

Often we talk about an athlete being in the “zone”. In that zone is a complete mastery of the present moment. There is only the task directly in front of the athlete. No worry about the last shot or the next play, the only thing that exists is what is happening at that very moment.

Mindfulness is a practice we cultivate by being mindful. In the simplest of things…eating, walking, and breathing. When was the last time you really focused on your breath…the one you are taking right now? Or the food you are eating? Your mindfulness muscle may be weak presently but you can make it better, stronger, more resilient. When that happens tasks that are more complex and difficult will become easier. And by easier I mean more likely to be completely centered and grounded at the task at hand.

Mindfulness…get some.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…21-15-9

Is a rep scheme we see quite often in our daily workouts. In many ways this is a microcosm of life. We start with a big goal in mind. We are excited and charge hard into the work in front of us. Then we hit the middle…the round of 15 and the work looks daunting now. It is the same as we just finished but now we are tired and the task looks really, really hard. Hit the round of 9 and it’s over. Any goal in life is similar.

Start strong, trudge through the middle, sprint home. This is life. And it is in the trudge through the middle that real shift happens. Sometimes you just need to slog through. There is a point where getting through is the point. Put one foot in front of the other and make it to the end.

When you start something and do it for the first time, it’s exciting. When you are near the finish line, it’s exciting. It is the middle where the hard work gets done. It is in the middle where the growth really occurs. It is the middle where you want to quit.

Quitting in the middle is easy. It is easy to rationalize that you didn’t really want to finish. It is easy to get distracted by the next shiny new thing. In the round of 15 your mental strength is tested. Can you keep on keeping on? In the round of 15 you are going to want to quit; throwing in the towel and walking away. Keep your eyes on the prize, put your head down and slog through.

Before you know it you are in the round of 9 and the end is in sight. You can easily summon the strength and fortitude to sprint home. What you need to do is look at the round of 15 differently. That is the round where you can make the biggest difference. That is the round where your opposition is the greatest and you can make the biggest impact on your bottom line.

There are so many aphorisms about this…when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Tough times don’t last but tough people do. The bottom line is simple…in the middle you need to pull yourself up, stare the task down and get to work.

This is the way of our people.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…#23

Many of you have asked how my competition season has gone. Here are the bottom line results: I finished 23rd after the Master’s qualifier, 15th in the Open. What this means is there is no automatic invitation coming my way to go to the CrossFit Games. This obviously is not the result I would have liked. There is still an outside chance I get an invite but that means that 3 people will have to decline their invitation so I am not counting those chickens!

On the other hand…I was very happy with my performance. At age 59 I am at the top of the age group and in the top 23 people there is only one other 59 year old and he is #17. Over the course of the 5 open workouts my performance improved. And on the qualifiers my workouts were, again, top notch. The goal is to finish with the knowledge that there was nothing left; that you did everything you could do today to finish as well as you did. There is nothing I can do about the performance of the rest of the field. The only thing I can control is my performance.

Life is like this. You can only control the things within your purview. The list of things you can’t control is very long. The road to un-happiness is paved with worrying about things you can do nothing about. You can’t fix the weather. You can fix your attitude about the weather. You can’t conjure up a huge deposit in your bank account but you can change your attitude about the state of your bank account. You can’t change someone’s opinion of you but you can decide to not let their opinion bother you…it isn’t any of your business anyway!

Going through life worrying about what other people are doing, saying, or thinking is not a recipe for success. Doing that will only result in frustration and unnecessary stress. Stress about you if you need to stress about something. Do something about you if you need something to do. Worrying about other people is like teaching a pig to sing…it doesn’t work, and is very irritating to both the pig and you.

If things are not going the way you want, you need to look to yourself not the rest of us. You and you alone are in charge of your attitude. It isn’t just in competition where Full Effort is Full Victory…it is in Life.

This is #23 out.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Moving Day

This weekend was moving day for CrossFit Odyssey. Moving is considered one of them most stressful things you can do in life. We moved back in July to the location right next door to where we moved this weekend. This move was less than 10 yards and it was still stressful.

We are accumulators. We gather stuff and stash it and store it for reasons often unknown to us. Then when we have to move we uncover all those things we “saved.” Many of those things remind us of forgotten chores, others serve to remind us of failed tasks, and still others dredge up memories both good and bad.

Moving gives us an opportunity to clear all that stuff out. We don’t need hidden reminders pulling us back to things we can’t do. We don’t need to be reminded of the little failures in our lives. Moving is the chance to shed both physically and psychically all those tendrils holding us back from moving forward.

In a bucket of crabs when one tries to climb out the others pull him back into the bucket. These items are like the other crabs in the bucket…pulling you back into the morass, into the bottom of the bucket. If you want to move forward in your life, you need to jettison those reminders that hold you back. Moving always makes room for more success, more work, more creativity, more ease, and more open-ness.

If you don’t want to move your location, you can move metaphorically. Get in those old closets and clean them out. Go through the photos and re-sort them to be more relevant. Save the best and pack the rest. Your phone probably has more photos on it than you will ever look at. Save the best to a folder make room for what’s new and what’s coming.

You will find hidden gems. You will remember dreams you forgot. You will rekindle interests. This process of clearing and cleansing should be performed more often than you think…and, yes, that means more often than every decade!

Don’t be a crab mired in the bucket. Clean it out and get moving forward! You will feel freer, lighter and when you really have to move it will be much less stressful!

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Everybody Dies

One of my biggest fears is to die with my stories still inside me. The stories I tell myself, the stories I have seen and lived and done. The stories that I need to tell. The people I need to help transform and inspire all left undone. I am driven to get my stories out, to do all I can do.

Yet fear holds me back too often. Why am I not telling those stories? Why am I not sitting and writing and getting those things down on paper? How is that I can jump off of cliffs, out of airplanes, step into the unknown but I can’t sit and tell these stories?

Fear stops a lot of us. Fear owns too much of our lives. Fear is the reason we don’t move. Fear is the reason we don’t step off the edge. Fear is the reason too many of us live lives of quiet desperation. Fear is the reason we hold to the status quo, to flawed visions of the present, we think we can’t, shouldn’t, or won’t.

When you die, and you will die, will you die regretting all the things you didn’t do? Will you wonder what could’ve been, who you should have talked to, the places you might have seen. Will you die before you live?
This video talks about this:
https://www.facebook.com/PrinceEa/videos/10154538480184769/
Watch it and see. Don’t let fear chase you away from being/doing/thinking/saying the things you really want to. Don’t die with your gifts held tight. Sharing them is what they are for. Hiding your gifts is selfish and mean. Be generous and give the world your gifts. Most of all give us the gift of yourself!

Fear is a voice whispering quietly in your ear…”you are about to grow” (Michael Molin-Skelton). Will you shrink from growth? Will you creep back into your safe little cave? Will you step into your light and become the one all your gifts have been provided for? It is up to you. Completely up to you.

Don’t die with your stories inside you. Just. Don’t. Do. It.

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412