Never Peak! Always Leave Room For Growth

Image courtesy of Ben

I don’t know if you guys watched any of the Olympics or not, but I certainly enjoyed it.  I am always amazed at the variety of athletes who dedicate their lives for this one specific event.  Having the carrot of a gold medal to fuel their drive.  (Or one for every day of the month for Michael Phelps. )

I think what’s even more amazing is how young these people are.  Many of them are barely into high school.  And yet some of them are nearing the pinnacle of their lives.  I see a 14 year old, standing on the podium, a gold around the neck and the World watching with pride.  They’ve reached that mountain peak of their life.  They have done something that almost no one ever accomplishes and they will have done it before they even graduate high school.  What a feat!

But then I think to myself, “Where do they go from here?”  “Can they go any higher?”  It’s hard not to wonder if the rest of their lives is going to feel “not good enough” compared to the amazing accomplishments that they’ve already achieved.

I know that this is a question that cannot be answered.  It all depends on the individual, what they do with the rest of their lives and how they handle this early success.  You see people like Marry Lou Retton who achieve amazing things so early on and yet continue on to live an amazing life.  People like this are always looking for ways to improve their lives and don’t care how high the bar is set.  And they also don’t sit and compare themselves to those around them OR (and this is a big or) to themselves of years past.  They keep their focus on the present and the future.  But even if you go to Mary Lou Retton’s official site you will see much of the focus on what she DID and not what she’s DOING.  This, for some, may be hindering for their own personal progress.

OK, let me straighten something out.  I am not implying that you strive to reach your goals but that if you are about to actually achieve them, you back off and stop yourself from reaching the finish line.  What I am saying is that you need to make sure that there IS NO FINISH LINE.  Mary Lou Retton is an example of an exceptional gymnast as well as an exceptional person.  But there are many more stories of people who peak at an early age and then spend the rest of their lives living in the past, trying to re-live their ‘glory days’.

I think it’s very important to not have that kind of finish line.  Once we stop moving forward we will slide back.  There’s no stationary position in life.  This doesn’t mean we can never be content with our current situation.  Just that we should always be aware of the next step.  When I am running I find that the moment that I feel the most tired is when I see the finish line that I have designated for myself.  It is in that moment that my muscles ache the most and my breathing becomes the most labored.  The anticipation of being done end up wearing me down.  But sometimes I won’t pay attention and cross this same line without thinking about it and I’ll notice how my energy didn’t drop like is usually does.  I was just cruising right along trying to make it just a little further, not getting ready to stop.

We should always leave ourself room for growth.  There should always be a next step, another goal off in the distance.  We can’t find ourselves at the peak because the only way to go from there is down.  You might be thinking, “You’re kidding, right?  Here you have a motivational blog and you’re trying to tell us never to try and reach our ultimate goals?”  What I am saying is that there IS NO ultimate goal.  We can always improve our lives from the state they are in right now.  It’s just that if we set the bar too high, too early, we will find it hard to keep making progress.  I am not saying you should ever hold back, just keep an idea of the NEXT GOAL in your mind so you won’t reach a feat and then say to yourself, “OK, now what?”

I know there are a lot of people here that are advocates of simple living and being thankful for what you have RIGHT NOW.  I know this because I am one of them.  But what I am saying doesn’t go against this principle.  Anybody who has ever lived on this Earth, no matter how much they were able to appreciate each moment they were in, to the absolute fullest, were still always in an either forward motion or backward one.  Even if it were just in their heads, they were either making forward progress in their wisdom and knowledge or back sliding.

So I just wanted to encourage you, as you pursue your goals in life, that you really make sure to pace yourself and never see a particular destination as the finish line.  Because it is my opinion that once you stop pursuing, you stop living.