Posts Tagged Persistance
The Self Fulfilling Prophecy…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on June 17th, 2010
Many people have heard the term self fulfilling prophecy at one time or another during their life. Although having heard it, many have never thought about what it is.
Simply put, our beliefs affect our behaviors. Most of the time it is the negative beliefs that will manifest themselves. As I was working out this morning I started thinking about some of my own thought patterns in the past and how almost all of the negative things I said to myself did or began to become true.
Let me give you an example. When I first won The Biggest Loser, I would read the internet and see that people were saying that I was going to gain all of my weight back. I had never met these people, these people didn’t know me, but somehow what they were writing about me stuck with me. At first I would say that they had no idea what they were talking about. After being away from the show for nearly a year, I did begin to gain weight. When I first realized how much weight I had gained, my thoughts weren’t: “I’ll just get back to work.” They were: “Oh my gosh they were right.”
I was letting what other people had said affect me so deeply that I began to talk to myself in negative ways. I remember thinking, “You always do this, do something great for yourself and then try and wreck it.” Do you see the pattern? Rather than appreciate the weight I had kept off and work to re-lose the weight I had gained, I began to behave worse. It is almost like, rather than try and prove the nay-sayers wrong, I has trying to prove them right.
There will always be detractors to your success. People who don’t want to see you succeed. DO NOT be your own biggest detractor. Think about what you are saying to yourself. The more negative things that you dwell on, the more negative things YOU are going to produce. There will always be plenty of people who will tell you that you can’t do something. The only person who can make you not do something is you.
I have had my struggles with weight, but I am going to win because I believe I will. As I have mentioned in some of my past blogs, I have hit a plateau and the numbers haven’t been dropping. I am not going to sit back and say, “Well I guess this is just what I am going to weigh. I’m not going to be able to be as fit as I would like.” I am going to focus on the solutions. I have seen progress and know that I can reach the level of fitness that I desire.
One thing I do know is that having a negative attitude can only hinder my progress. How are you speaking to yourself? Are the words you are using going to help or hinder your success?
I hope you will work with me to change from negative self talk, which will lead to self defeat; to positive self talk which will open doors in life that you may have thought were permanently closed.
Still On Track….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 15th, 2010
I want to thank my readers who asked if I was still on track with my blog and workouts. I am! There was a glitch on my site and my new posts were not appearing on the home page. I believe it is taken care of now. To all of you who sent me messages asking how things were going, thank you. If you hadn’t asked I probably wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. The post are now up so I hope you will go back and read them.
I had an amazing talk with a good friend of mine last week. We were talking about getting and staying on track and he said something that really resonated with me and I think it will be beneficial for all of you as well, regardless of where you are at in your life right now.
I was telling him how in the past I have always felt like things need to be difficult for me in order to feel like I am accomplishing anything. When I was losing weight I felt like it needed to be hard. When it came to finances I felt like even though I have plenty of money I still feel like I should be struggling for some reason. In my speaking career I have felt like there should be times where I don’t have a lot of events booked so that I work harder.
Turns out I can be an idiot. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle. More times than not we make it a struggle so that we have an excuse in case things don’t work out like we plan. If we make losing weight hard we have a reason to give up. “It was just too hard.” “There must be something wrong with my metabolism.” “I don’t know what’s going on with my weight.” We build excuses for ourselves based on not only our own experience but the experiences of others as well.
My friend listened intently and then said this. “I don’t care.” I was a little taken aback. How could he not care after I had just spilled my guts to him. The answer is simple. It doesn’t matter what you’ve always done, what matters is what you are doing now. Things don’t have to be hard just because that’s the way it’s always been.
He then took a sheet a paper and drew a line on it. He pointed to the left side of the line and said that the left side reprresented the past. He didn’t care that I had won The Biggest Loser. He didn’t care that my parents had gotten a divorce or that I didn’t do as well in school as I should have. He didn’t care anything about those things and neither should I. What happened in the past doesn’t have to affect us today. If I am going to be truly successful I need to draw the line and move forward.
I have talked for hours about the importance of not reliving the past. For some reason the first place I go when things get tough is straight to my past experiences. Not the good ones that show I am capable overcoming, but the bad experiences that lead me to think “See, this is what you do all the time. Now you have done it all over again.”
It’s time to draw that line. I have had tough times in the past but I have also had good ones. Times that showed me that I am tough and that I am an overcomer. For all the bad times there were a lot more good ones. The good ones are the ones we need to draw strength from. The bad experiences are like an anchor that is weighing us down. Until we pull that anchor up we can’t move to a better place.
I hope you will join me in drawing that line and striving to not cross back over. Let’s draw from the positive things in our life and stop setting ourselves up for defeat by reliving and speaking the negatives. We have too much life to live to allow ourselves to be weighed down with those negative anchors.
DRAW THE LINE!
See you tomorrow!
Get Back Up!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 22nd, 2009
A couple of days ago I was at wrestling practice. I have been working with some high level athletes after being away from competition for a while so I was a little timid. My biggest concern was how my body would hold up.
During a live match I got thrown hard. I landed hard and I layed there for a second and thought about what had just happened to me. I realized that I wasn’t hurt and the landing didn’t hurt as much I had thought it would.
I continued wrestling and a short time later I got tossed on my head again. This time it didn’t phase me. I got back up again, made some adjustments and didn’t get thrown again the rest of the practice.
After practice I was sitting down and I got to thinking about what happened during that workout and what I could take away from it.
That is when I realized just how significant those two crash landings were. Prior to getting thrown I was worried about what it was going to be like when I did get tossed. Would I get hurt? What part of my body would get hurt? How long would I be out for when I did get hurt. I built it up in my mind that getting thrown, which was inevitable, was going to be a terrible experience.
The crazy thing was that it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought and wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I had built it up to be. The second time it didn’t even phase me and after the second time I was able to make some adjustments to keep it from happening again.
On my drive home I thought about how I could relate this lesson to people in their everyday life. Here goes. I think many of us have faced times in our lives when we were feeling a little intimidated by a situation. Perhaps we were timid and afraid to go full blast into a situation because we were worried about what might or might not happen. We hold back because we are afraid that the consequences of committing whole-heartedly may hurt.
For some people, when they do face adversity; like taking a fall for example, they lay there and think about how bad they hurt. Unfortunately, a lot of people will lay there focusing on the pain instead of getting up and going back for more.
On the other hand, if that same person simply took a moment to process what just happened, realized that it really wasn’t that bad, and then got back up and started again, they could then begin to see progress.
It is very possible that they may get tossed around again, but after having already experiencing what it feels like to fall and get back up again, it is more likely that they won’t focus on the pain and will begin to make adjustments so that it doesn’t continue to happen over and over.
I guess the short summary of what I am trying to say is this. We all take a fall now and then. In those moments it is easy to lay there and think about how much it hurt and how much easier it would be to stay down. In those times it is important to get back up and take the chance of getting knocked down again and possibly again. Only when you get back up can you learn from what just happened and what changes we need to make to keep whatever it was from happening again.
When things get tough, we are much better served by looking at what we can learn from the experience rather than focusing on how much we hurt.
Running With Rex
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 16th, 2009
This past Sunday our family ran in the Seattle Jingle Bell Run to benefit arthritis. We have done this race for four years now and each year we decorate the stroller to look like Santa’s sleigh and all dress up. Suzy and I go as Mr. and Mrs. Claus and the boys dress as reindeer.
This year Rex decided he was old enough to run himself and didn’t need the stroller. The race is a 5k and Rex is only 2 yrs old but we let him have at it. This was actually his second 5k this year. Last night I was talking to a good friend of mine about the experience.
Rex is an active boy and he loves to run so it was no suprise to us that he wanted to do this on his own. It is so fun to watch him because he has so much fun. He had on a snowsuit and then his costume on top of it so he looked liked that kid on A Christmas Story, if you remember that Christmas classic movie. Rex looked like a little ball going down the road.
He would walk, run, wave at the spectators and other races but he was really having fun. As we hit the 2 mile mark we realized there weren’t very many people around us. In fact, we noticed a police car with flashing lights right behind us. Of the thousands of people, we were pretty much dead last.
As we rounded the last turn we saw the finish line in front of us. Little Rex or “Kid Rex” as he likes to be called since he has informed me he is not a baby anymore, saw the finish and ran the last two blocks as fast as he could. He zigged and zagged all over the road and made sure that he took time to wave at people cheering for him. As I followed behind him pushing our “sled” with his brother, I cheered for him like he did for me numerous times this summer at triathlons.
It was so fun to yell “Go Rex Go!” and see him respond with such joy. When we crossed the line we gave him a high five and told him good job. He was so proud and loves the feeling of running across the finish line. At the age of two Rex is already learning that it is fun to finish what you start.
The race took us almost 2 hours with all of the pit stops and waiting for Rex to explore his surroundings, but we finished. Once again I am reminded that it isn’t always about finishing the fastest, but finishing. The cool thing is that Rex is learning to enjoy exercising and he is learning the importance of finishing the race set before us.
As a very competitve person I am learning from Rex too. I am learning that it is alright to enjoy the journey and take in your surroundings. I am learning that being active as a family and enjoying these moments is more precious than getting to the finish as fast as possible.
This weekend, it really hit home that regardless of your age, it is important to get to that finish line no matter how long it takes or how many pitstops you need to take. I also learned that my son is wise beyond his two years! (A little fatherly bragging)
Kona Ironman 2009 part III
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on October 19th, 2009
I came out of the water feeling really good. I had finished the swim well under the time that I had set for myself and was excited to begin the bike portion of the race. All year biking has been my strongest part and I was confident that I would be able to get myself even more minutes going into the run.
I have heard epic stories about how hard the ride is in Kona. According to most of the athletes that I had talked to who had raced Kona, I could expect some crazy wind and extreme heat. I was fully anticipating both.
I left the transition area and the could feel the energy from the crowd. It was the closest I will ever feel to being a rockstar. I could hear the announcer calling out my name and people were screaming encouragement. As I rounded a small turn to head up the hill I saw my wife and boys who were yelling support. I got a little teary seeing how much they supported me. Rex, my 2 yr old, had the most intense look on his little face. I know he may be too young to understand what was going on completely but he knew daddy was doing something important.
The first part of the ride is a loop through town in which my adrenaline made it seem almost easy. After town I headed out onto the Queen K Highway to make my way up to Hawi, the turn around. I didn’t really notice the wind or the heat that much until I made the turn up the hill for the last 19 miles to the turn around.
The hills are long and steady and I really began to feel it. The other thing that I was noticing is that there is absolutely no shade along the way. I remember going through stretches where trees lined the road thinking “How can there be no shade here?” I made the turn around at about 4 hours, nearly 40 minutes behind my goal. I swtiched out my water bottles and headed back to town. There was a pretty good stretch of downhill here I was able to coast and try to dry out my shoes.
I live in Seattle where it rarely gets hot. During my ride out to Hawi I was dumping water on my head at the aid stations. On the last stretch up to Hawi my feet began to hurt really bad and I couldn’t figure out why. As I was coming back down from Hawi I finally figured it out. Much of the water that I had been dumping on myself to keep cool had been running down my leg and into my shoe. The moisture was turning my feet into mush. You know that feeling you have when you stay in the hot tub too long, that raisin feeling? I had done that to my feet and it was beginning to take its toll. I kept taking my feet out of my shoes to dry them a little but it didn’t really help.
The thing that I really began to notice was the wind on the way back. It really didn’t seem bad on the way out, but on the way back it was brutal. On stretches that seemed like I should have been able to tuck and pick up speed going down hill, I had to pedal hard to keep moving. The way back seemed twice as hard for me as going out.
Every now and then a car packed full of my friends and family would drive by yelling support and holding up bright yellow signs with words of encouragement. For a moment I would forget about the pain in my feet and have a few seconds of joy.
I think it really set in that I had a long night ahead of me when I got to the energy lab and saw all the people who nearly done with their run. Here I was still on my bike and they were about six miles from becoming Ironmen and women. I kept plugging along knowing that I had to keep moving so that I would make the bike cut-off.
I came into transition at 5:02 the cut-off was at 5:30. My bike leg had taken me over an hour more than I had anticipated. Once again, the crowd urged me forward. I got to the transition area and my first steps off of my bike were some of the most painful steps I had ever taken. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but my feet were already numb before I had even taken my first step of the run leg. I walked and jogged through the transition are to the changing tent. Got changed and headed out for my first marathon ever.
I was excited to be starting the last leg and knew that it was going to be long night. I’m glad I didn’t know then just how long it really was going to be.
See you tommorow!
Sometimes It’s Hard to See The Shore Through The Waves
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on August 24th, 2009
This afternoon I went for a swim in the ocean. From the bluff we were standing on it didn’t look to bad. There were waves crashing on the shore as you would expect at the ocean but from where we stood it didn’t look that bad once you got out a ways.
Once I got down to the beach I could tell it was choppy but I was still confident that things would calm down once we got further away from shore. The plan was to swim out to some buoys about 1/2 mile off shore. I took off with the guys I was swimming with and encountered exactly what I thought I would, some rough waves. As I continued to swim I realized it wasn’t going to let up.
After swimming a few minutes I stopped to see where the buoys were. I couldn’t see them. In the bottom of the trough there was no sign of any bouys. I could no longer see my goal. At first I was a little nervous. How on earth was I going to get to my goal when I couldn’t see it? I was in the ocean and I couldn’t see where I was going.
As I rose and fell with the sea I realized that when I was on top of the wave I could catch a glimpse of the spot I was aiming for. I knew that if I kept swimming in the right direction and stopped to look for the buoys when I had a chance that I would eventually get there.
I did eventually reach my goal, a half mile out into the ocean. Once I got there I turned around and headed back to shore. It was rough going back too, but at least this time I could see the shore line. I was confident I was going to make it back.
When I got back to shore I realized I had just had an amazing learning experience. There are a lot of times when we seem to be getting tossed around in the ocean of life. Sometimes when the sea is choppy we panick and just try to keep our heads above water. Rather than to keep swimming toward our goal and truly fighting to stay afloat, we will sit and tread water until things calm down.
In this moment we have to trust our ability to swim. The waves may push us or pull us and make it seem like we are going in every direction but forward. This is the time that we need to press on. Keep swimming and look at where you are going when you have the chance. Even though we may not be able to see our destination at the bottom of the trough we have to be encouraged by the fact that once we get on top of the next wave we will be able to catch a glimpse of where we want to go.
Our daily swim in life may not always be in smooth water, but we need to be encouraged by the fact that we have the ability to push on and keep swimming even when it’s tough. When the water is rough, keep swimming!
The only way to reach our goals is to not give in when things get rough!
