Willpower

Actor Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion:

Courage. What makes a King out of a slave? Courage.


What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.

What makes the Sphinx the 7th Wonder? Courage.

What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?! Courage.

What makes the Hottentot so hot?

What puts the "ape" in ape-ricot?

Whatta they got that I ain't got?

Dorothy & Friends: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again.


The Wizard of Oz being one of my favorite all time movies, I can almost recite that excerpt from memory. I'm of the belief that courage coincides with willpower very closely.

When we have a goal in our mind Willpower is the key factor to us getting up and out, and doing what we set out to do. Courage takes a big part in that. If I didn't have any courage I wouldn't have been able to go to the gym. I feared the gym. I've feared very few things in my life, and I wasn't going to let a simple thing as a gym have power over me. If you fear something, then that "something" has power over you. The thing that drove me to get my courage and overcome my fear, was my willpower. When I seen that first video about the Sixpack Shortcuts program, that ignited my willpower. Gave me that fire to get up off my ass and get in shape.

It is that moment, lately, that I've been having to reflect on. As the weather fluctuates and gets colder, I found my willpower doing the same thing. Usually what I had done until the weather got colder (provided this was only when I was working) is I came home, grabbed my bag and off I went. For me, if I keep going and don't stop then I'm good. But if I come home and have to wait ten minutes or more for the SUV to warm up, I get too relaxed. Especially when it's winter. Get off the bus, walk home and it's freezing out. Get inside and it's nice and warm. Who wants to go back outside, go to a cd vehicle and go to the gym? Plus the wait for the vehicle to warm up, gets you relaxed and warm. Hard to leave when you're that comfortable.

The winter poses a greater challenge than I had anticipated. It challenges me to find my willpower, to dig down a d remember the reason why I wanted to get in shape in the first place. With me lately I've been slacking off for the last month. I've been going to the gym off and on for the last month. I'm trying to get myself back to that discipline I had in the first month and a half. I've found my willpower again by watching YouTube videos about people getting in shape and reading fitness blogs. The only damper part about the whole thing is that I still am not good at my nutrition. Hard thing to get in control.

Willpower I've found is the easiest thing to get but the hardest thing to keep. I'm not perfect with my willpower and I've had many days where it's nowhere in sight. The days that I do have it are the days I remember. Those are the days I remember why I chose to get in shape, why I'm doing this to better my future career, why I'm doing this for my future family, and why I'm writing this blog.

How do all of you find your willpower? How do you keep it?








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