The Secret to Giving Up

 This is where it's at.

I was never really one for the whole, happy clappy 'if you believe you can achieve' stuff that's constantly pedalled by New Age personal development gurus. No, the only way to get on in life is to get out there and do it - put in hundreds, maybe thousands of hours mindlessly grinding away towards a goal.

When you're young it's easy because your body just keeps on going and going. There's little to no fatigue and any tiredness is usually cured by a good night's sleep, or a few pints. Or both.

Father time has a habit of catching up with us all. One moment we're speed merchants; human powerhouses that refuse to stop doing what we do. The next, our limbs and joints ache after a once hard ten mile run. We try to relive those glory days, but every year it gets a little harder and takes a bit more effort. As the decades slip by we get slower. At first, we barely notice the differences in our mile split timings. Realisation only dawns on the day we stare down at the stopwatch and realise the time is a full thirty seconds slower than it was five years earlier.

Of course, it is possible to maintain and improve your fitness and timings. But we work long hours and sometimes it's simply not possible to fit in our day jobs, quality training and the required recovery time i.e. sleep.

So, what should we do?

The answer is simple: give up!

A gasp of surprise? Seven months of planning and hard work down the drain? A promise faded to nothing?

No.

The only thing I've given up on is the mindless slog. You see, I sat down and read a couple of those books - the once reviled mantras of the personal development authors - and I was surprised.

What they say makes sense. Well, not all of them; there are definitely a few looneys out there, but, in the main, the science is valid. I know because many of the methods they talk about are the same I used before, during and after a major course I attended, and passed, during my time in service. But I'd forgotten how to keep myself going when my body said 'No more!'

The good news is, now, I'm back on track. Okay, I was never really that far off - I'd simply pushed myself too hard and neglected to redevelop my mental stamina.

Napoleon Hill said,

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve regardless of how many times you may have failed in the past.”

And on that note, I'm off to practise visualising before a ten mile run.