Yesterday was my first day back at the gym since my nasty fall, last month, that resulted in broken ribs. I must admit that grabbing hold of a twenty-pound dumbbell to warm up my biceps felt really really good!
Honestly, though, I never thought I would make it! I mean, five weeks without the gym seemed like an eternity to me. The old wise saying, 'patience is a virtue' was not sitting well with me several weeks into healing. The injury was a pretty unexpected setback not only to getting closer to staying on task to achieving my personal fitness goals, but also a setback which smacked me in the gut professionally, forcing escape practice to be put on hold. I was getting itchy and restless, cursing the world for having put the debris on the sidewalk and cursing myself for tripping over it! Like a broken record in my head, I kept thinking
what if, what if, what if. . .
At the gym, I took one look in the mirror and thought to myself,
ugh it's going to take forever to get back what I put so much work into! Part of me was like, maybe I should just forget it and leave the gym. Well this 'funky' mindset, and maybe you can relate, enters my mind more often than probably should, especially when I get blind-sided by unexpected detours in life. Not a good place for me to be mentally, because I start believing that maybe the universe doesn't want me to succeed.
Then, reality checks in. . . and I remind myself that,
Shit! I have been through a lot in my life! I can't let this setback screw with my focus, determination and passion to live life and fight for my success; achieving my personal and professional goals. I guess what I am trying to say is I have to be careful that I do not start to categorize setbacks as failure.
I really had my hopes set high that I would have achieved my fitness goals by mid-April and have my new show "Beyond-Belief" ready to debut in May. Very likely that both will not happen in time as I planned. It has me in a bit of a funk.
Here's the thing, just because I took a detour, does not mean I failed nor does it mean I won't ever achieve these goals! I am simply delayed. And that's okay, because all I have each day I wake is time (and lots of it!!) to make 'em happen. In the past, I tried using HIV as an excuse to want to hurry and get things accomplished in a jiffy. . . well 10 years later that excuse is pretty lame. . . since I know I am going to live a very long healthy life! So I guess the delay, or being detoured is not such a big deal at all. It's just a disappointment; and definitely by no means have I failed!
What I need to continue to work on is how to deal with the unexpected bumps in the road of life a bit more gracefully (
if there is such a thing); learning to jump over the hurdles rather than block my mindset telling myself I will never get there. That kind of thinking will just drown me in depression and then what!?! I don't want to live like that! I don't ever want to think that I will never make it or succeed in life, just because something is not happening when I want it to or isn't on schedule as I perfectly planned out in my head because some unexpected splash-of-wacky interrupted my focus and course of path. I know that if I stop, take a deep breath and refocus I will be back on track in no-time. I will jump over this hurdle! Actually, now that I think about it, I already have by picking up that twenty-pound dumbbell. . . a light, but damn good start in the right direction of getting back on track! It's all about how I pick myself up today. . .
Without a doubt there will be more setbacks to come my way and who knows when they will blind-side me; taking me on all sorts of whacked-out detours and windy roads in life. Today, setbacks just make me more determined to stay strong, to think positively and to forge ahead with limitless determination! Setbacks fuel my creativity. Setbacks will shape my success!
I am Daniel and I am
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