Happy New Year - A Blessed Beginning

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. A joyful Christmas and rang in the New Year with lots of family, friends and joy for the special time that it is. Everybody thinks about new beginnings this time of year, it’s only natural. In fact all the newsletters that I get, everyone has already talked about making your new year’s resolutions and keeping your new year’s resolutions and everything that goes along with it. I too think this is a great time of year for assessing your progress and making new goals. For taking a look at your life and seeing what you’d like to change.

I’m not going to give you the same deal that everyone else has already said about resolutions, etc. Frankly most people’s resolutions fail. Not because they don’t have great intentions and not because it’s not a great thing to set new goals. For most people they fail because they don’t truly understand what they want. It’s easy to say you want to live better, act better, eat better, get leaner, stop smoking, stop kicking the dog, get stronger, whatever the case may be. But most of the time we’re actually pretty happy with the way we are. Generally it takes something nearly catastrophic to motivate us to really get it together. Why? Because much of the things we make resolutions about are simply esoteric. They don’t deal with our immediate or long term survival, or the root of our happiness. You can get as fit and pretty as you want to be, but if you’re not happy with yourself to begin with, you’ll just be an unhappy fit person.

The same counts for money, job, relationships, whatever. If you really want to know what your resolutions should be, then you’ve got to know yourself. Now I don’t mean this as an excuse to say, “Well I really know myself and I won’t follow an exercise plan or diet or business plan or take out the garbage on a regular basis.” I’m not trying to give you an excuse to have bad self discipline. I’m saying that whether you accomplish a difficult life goal or not has to do with emotional investment. When the going gets rough about achieving that goal, just thinking that it would be a nice thing to have won’t get you through. Most of the things we think we want are actually just something we think would be nice to have. Not something that we truly, passionately care about. Everyone who is successful long term at anything has significant passion about what they do. It may come from some crazy place inside of them, but they are emotionally committed to their endeavor.

That is the difference between ten extra pounds on the bar or an extra rep on every set or 100 pounds on a lift in a year. It’s the difference in whether or not you keep going at the end of a workout when the pain is almost unbearable and keep coming back, hammering at that goal until you get it done. It’s the difference in whether you keep going or working at anything regardless of set backs, hard times, criticisms, idiots and any other obstacle that chooses to present itself. It’s the difference in living a conscious life where your actions are focused and those who know you know that you care because they’re overwhelmed by your passion. It’s how much of yourself you invest in what you do. When you think about what you want, these are the things you should be considering.

Don’t look for or expect the easy way on anything. Expect and embrace the hard way. Now I’m not asking you to look for obstacles for fun, I’m telling you that regardless of all the sales pitches around the world for fitness, business, making money, being happy, whatever the case may be… nothing lasting comes without serious work. But there is tremendous joy, deeper than anyone who simply coasts through life will ever feel, in the achieving of a deeply held goal that you’ve invested your whole being in. I hope for this year that you recognize and understand your own passions. That you live life filled with them. That you resolve to know yourself, to know God and to stand atop the mountains of your personal goal as the victor. I hope that we can help you do that.

We have lots of surprises in store this year to help you get there. One of the best things you can do to boost your training is to pick up one of our books. By the way, the eBook version of our newest training manual, “Super Strength & Endurance for Martial Arts” is available for immediate download at http://strongerman.com/martial_arts.html