success can be simple...

It has been troubling me, that I have posted a blog in a while, but please be assured that I will only post a blog, that I believe is a useful lesson. So it has been troubling me that if I cannot post a blog, have I not been learning anything?

This became the thought that consumed me while I ran for over 2 hours before work on a beautiful, quiet morning in Cape Town.

Eventually I worked out that I had nothing to say, because success can be simple. Basically, success at anything can be broken down to 3 simple steps;

1- Know your goal and understand why you want it.

Life can be very hard when you don't understand why you are doing something. Sometimes you may start doing something on intuition, then you need to keep doing it until the reason becomes clear, like my experience with this blog.

2- Commit to it. Success requires commitment - full stop / enough said / law of the universe type stuff....

3- Pay the price. In IronMan the price is early mornings, facing the daily challenges of balancing work, chores, training etc.
There is always a 'price', sometimes measured in money, sometimes measured in time, measured in sweat, mental toughness, discipline......or all of them. You need to know what the price is and you need to be prepared to pay it... and more often than no "inflation" will hit that price hard *smile*, meaning you will be asked to pay more than you initially calculated - prepare yourself for it, and be prepared to pay it, even if you need some creative problem solving to achieve this.

4- Thank God repeatedly every day that you have the money, lifestyle and health to pursue your goal

If you start having difficulties with your goal, then you quite simply need to go back to steps 1 through 4......

There are a number of things that you can do to help you with those 4 steps;

have a good support group (family, friends, training buddies, coaches, doctors, running shoe specialists, nutrition experts etc....and yes even blogs!). Obviously, unless you are a pro, you are gonna have to pay for some of these, but you need to know who you can count on.

Focus; you cannot chat to your friend, talk to a business prospect on your mobile, eat a chicken salad with a triple decker chocolate cake, all while driving! (though many have tried!). Focus.

Talk about your goal; you never know who you will inspire! (but please for everyone's sake, ensure that the person who you are telling is interested! Understand that you are enthusiastic about your goal, but we are all different, most other people are focussing on their own goals [or lack thereof] and may not be interested in your goal).
Or put another way by the legendary Shaun Thomson; world surfing champion, who lists this as one of the 12 'commandments' that he lives by: "I will pass on my stoke to a non-surfer"
I always wanted to do IronMan, especially after my brother Andrew had done 3, but it took Ashleigh's message of her "journey of personal growth through IronMan" for me to finally make the commitment.

Visualise. I cannot remember ever finishing a training run without imaging running down the IronMan red carpet finishing straight and up onto that stage.....and how I will feel....and what I will do.....

Remain positive. (about everything) .....fact !

Now that I have posted this blog, I feel I have had an energy injection.... wouldn't you like to feel that?