The Mountain
-
I’ve always used the analogy of a Mountain when referencing transformations, climbing a mountain is what it felt like for me when I started the journey of my own transformation. When I would look at myself, my struggles, my behaviors, it seemed like a mountain in front of me that I was unable to climb. It wasn’t until I gave myself permission to not climb the whole damn mountain today, but committed to taking a few steps – even if it was one simple decision towards the climb – that my life changed.
It is a Herculean feat to summit a mountain in one day. But climbing a mountain of change takes longer than a day, or a week, or even a month – sometimes it takes years. It’s a series of events, a series of decisions, a series of growth, resting, plateau’s, that create that thing called “the journey”. And the journey can and will be messy. Prepare yourself to be uncomfortable because growth is always uncomfortable, just ask babies and teenage boys. It gets messy and hurts sometimes when we grow but we always come out the other side stronger and better than we were. It was hard and messy the first several hundred times that I had to force myself to order something healthy at a restaurant instead of my usual double bacon cheeseburger. It was hard and messy to wake up at 3:30am so that I could be to the gym by 4am to get my workouts in because that was literally the ONLY time to get it done.
I’ve eaten tens of thousands of meals since I started by journey and done somewhere near 7,000 workouts or more. If in the beginning you had told me it would take over a decade, tens of thousands of healthy meals and that many workouts to produce what I have created……I would have quit before even starting. I have a strong freaking will and even I would have quit, but I didn’t focus on that. I simply made the commitment to eat a few healthy meals and workout once on day one. That’s it. No more, no less. I made that same commitment every day for nearly a year before it really became a true desire for me. But even after only one successful day, I would celebrate. Every step of the way can be celebrated and should be celebrated, because that’s a step away from the old “life” that wasn’t working for you.
Your journey won’t start Monday, it won’t start after the holidays, it won’t start when you get past that big project at work, or your broken relationship. It starts, regardless of anything else in your life, when you finally admit and believe that you have a problem and start to identify your need and desire for true change.
I conquered the mountain, I KNOW you can. Come join me, let’s climb together.
About The Author
Jeremy Reid
Leave a Reply
