Sunday Story…Harmonious Balance

We often talk about the need to be balanced in our life. When we get out of balance weird things start happening. Balancing work, family, career, school, me time, exercise, etc, etc, is hard work. It is easy to get overwhelmed and out of balance…then you get sick which forces you to slow down and re-balance.

That really isn’t a balance problem, though, that’s an overcommitted problem. You bit off more than you can chew and now you are choking on it. If you keep on like that too long bad stuff will happen.

But if we are going to get anything done…any really big project…we are going to find ourselves out of balance. We need to be super laser focused on one thing. And that lets other thing fall by the wayside.

BUT we can still be harmonious. Even when I am consumed by my one big thing I can still manage the rest of my life…sleep well, eat healthy nutritious food, give the attention I have 100% when I can give it.

In other words…multi-tasking is the enemy here, not balance. Turn your laser focus on your family, then on your career, then on your school work. Divide and conquer rather than trying to get it all done at once.

Being out of balance isn’t the problem, not having harmony is. Be harmonious and balance will be found.

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

Sunday Story…The National Time Bank

Imagine your joy if you had a magical bank account that was filled every morning with $86,400. You get up, check your bank and see almost 100 grand in the bank. But like many things magical it has some rules that are attached (like Cinderella and the coach at midnight). At the end of the day anything left in the bank account disappears. You can keep what you buy. You can reap whatever benefits those dollars give you. Wow! If you had a bank account like that it would be amazing. I bet you would be super conscious about how you spent that money. You would plan it out, set goals around it and you would leave nothing to chance when morning rolled around every day.

Guess what? You have that bank account right now. It is the National Time Bank. Every one of us receives 86,400 seconds every day. Every one of us gets the same time every day. At the end of the day there isn’t any more. You can’t save it for a rainy day. You can’t use more than those 86,400 seconds. That’s all there is and there ain’t no more! Those seconds are going to disappear no matter what you do or don’t do with them.

Soooo…how did your spend your 86,400 today?

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

Sunday Story…Losing and Winning

In most things we do we perceive there is a winner and a loser. Someone ends up on top and someone else not so much. 2 teams play and 1 wins. When I do something on my own I can say I won or I lost. The games we play and the interactions we have all have the perception of a winner and a loser.

But life is not a zero-sum game. There is not a fixed pile of wins for us to compete over. As a matter of fact, there may be no winners or no losers. This doesn’t mean everyone gets a trophy by the way. Just because you played doesn’t mean you won. UNLESS you learned something. There’s your trophy…new knowledge you didn’t have before. You still didn’t get to do the victory dance but you took something home that may be more valuable than the trophy.

You need to be willing to lose, to fail, in order to learn the lessons that will be required to win. This is the real lesson of the “trophy generation”…they have no idea how to learn from not winning. No idea how to take the lessons of failure, apply the learning, and go back to risk it again and again, learning more every time.

Learn something from every interaction…good and bad, winning and losing, defeat and victory and I will guarantee a win every time.

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

Sunday Story…NOW VS LATER

It doesn’t taste as good as fit feels…NOW. Unfortunately this isn’t true. It tastes good NOW. Fit will feel good LATER.

This is, regrettably, is the real problem with lots of delayed gratification decisions we make. We know that getting fit, or losing the weight, or buying life insurance is going to be of great benefit LATER. But LATER is well, LATER and that just isn’t as much fun as NOW is.

Eating that box of thin mints is good NOW. Spending the money on me is good NOW, providing for my loved ones when I die (LATER) is hard to imagine. Kicking my ass in gym so I will look really good in my swimsuit (LATER) isn’t as much fun as sitting on the couch and watching TV NOW.

NOW always looks like more fun than LATER. NOW is always easier to feel than LATER. But LATER is way more fun when it becomes NOW and you are getting both what you worked for and what you want NOW. In this way LATER always defeats NOW.

The problem is getting you to feel and understand and realize deep in your being how much better LATER is going to be especially when compared to the fleeting pleasure of NOW.

Engage your future mind NOW to enjoy the fruits of LATER. It’s the only way to get what you really want both NOW and LATER.

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