….continued from “A Key Insight”

It was three months of hard work

Of sweat

Of balancing fitness with life

Of finding something deep inside

Of becoming something better

Of becoming proud

It was three months of decent eating

And 0 sips

I mean absolution

Not 1 sip of alcohol

Not because it’s a problem

Because it’s an ingredient for a different type of life

One for a life I used to live

A couple drinks here

A couple drinks there

Money vanished

Memories forgotten

Emptiness found

This new road required a different standard

For three months I was on it

The only person who could stop me, was me

And that’s when it almost happened

When I let weakness creep in

When I began to think that I could integrate this new path of fitness with poor fillers of gratification

Most people can and do

But to me, even a sip takes me away from being the person that I am setting out to be

And worse, 1 day spent hung over, has always been enough to derail all physical progress

And here I was

At the crossroads

a St. Patty day dinner party with my family and 300 other enthused and lit up goers

Live music from the 50’s and 60’s

Drinks all around

I started with a bottle of water and some pink salt

An electrolyte cocktail

But then it moved on to an innocent drink

One after the next as we spent the night dancing

It was fun and it was safe

What most people would consider a necessary night out

But it was enough to throw me off balance

To question all of the work

To question this desire to keep pushing forward

To keep growing and chasing

This is how it happened every time before

Some people climb mountains

Some never leave a sofa

Most live somewhere in between

Which is fine, if you keep growing

But I was settling

And settling is dying

I couldn’t do it

I couldn’t throw away the work

Not this time

I was back in the gym pronto

And back on a road that needed to be built

A destination that needed to be chased

There would be more similar bumps along the way

And it would take months before there was another “Enough is Enough” moment

But the test of persistence started on that day

3 months in

5 months ago

The next stop

… “Performance over Perception”

Getting hit is inevitable. Getting back up is the true test of courage. I know you’ve been hit and you may fear getting hit again. Greatness comes when you stand back up and FIGHT.