Seeking Ways To Overcome Negative Influence?
How does one overcome negative influence?
Is it easy to not confide in the normal way of thinking that surrounds us?
It isn't always easy.
If you question authority you are looked upon as a rebel, disrespectful, an outcast.
Negative influences surround us all but it doesn't mean we have to abide by what we hear.
How Sport Has Changed Me
This may resonate with you so I am going to share it.
We are involved in a sport where people who are faster, have more clout and who are deemed ‘more talented' then us, seem to take a liking toward talking about themselves.
The common mistake I made until a few recent years ago was doing the same.
I am all about constructive criticism and I am not without fault.
I used to think posting my workouts on social media was something that I needed to do in order to show people I was working hard.
You overcome negative influence by going the opposite way others are going.
I have a close friend, one who is a very prominent figure in the running community who posted on his Facebook wall a couple days ago this statement
‘ran x.xx.xx at the xxxxxx's half marathon while you all were asleep dreaming'
Athletes, find a purpose, a sense of identity outside of your sport.
Don't belittle other people.
This is a terrific athlete I am talking about, someone I aspire to run as fast as, yet also realize outside of running, what will this man do, after his training days are up.
Find a corporate job, have a family?
Will boasting about how fast he ran be as important as helping someone else achieve the same standards he set?
Life is more then running.
It was meant to be lived, not just to exist in and there is more beauty when we take the focus off ourselves and inspire others to do more with their lives.
Running success isn't about bragging about fast you ran but helping others in the process.
This isn't always easy for us who are consumed with our own goals and aspirations
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Elitism and Humbleness
I read the statement he made and then thought of a quote Dr. Joe Vigil said during a talk he gave to the high school students at York High School.
York has had a tradition of winning multiple national high school titles under the tutelage of Coach Joe Newton.
What Coach Vigil said was this,
York has a great tradition, don't get cocky, remember there are other people out there that are struggling just to accomplish one time… just like America gets bent on high heels when the Olympic Games come around, they want more gold medals you know, they have already dominated the sport of track and field and they want more and more and more, many countries go to the Games and they never get a medal
You have to have more of an identity outside of sport.
Inspiring others to live healthier, to seek out knowledge that mainstream media and medicine doesn't seem to talk too openly about.
I have written articles here on rundreamachieve that far exceed anything that there is to do about running.
This site is based on dreaming of big goals, doing something about it, not just talking or writing about it.
Taking action and getting outside of just the want to make it a reality.
There is more to success as an athlete than just doing the workouts.
Have you considered how important your nutrition is?
You have to create the sense of ‘doing' into your life rather than just be accepting of the ‘wanting' the masses cling to.
there are 24 hours in a day, if there are a number of things you have to do, by golly, compartmentalize them so you can do them all – Dr. Joe Vigil
Responsibilities suck out the drive, creativity, the want to do something and that energy that could have been acted upon creating a drastically different reality for you is taken away either by skepticism, the cares of the distraction in your life or being too entertained by what everyone else is doing.
Wanting and Doing
One of the greatest lessons I have learned in this sport and even in creating this site is that you absolutely must love your craft.
You have to care when 99.99% of the people around you may not.
No one cares that I am spending hours writing this article right now or that I will be putting in mileage later this evening.
Whether people care or not is not up to me.
That is up to the individual reading.
It is not my job to change anyone, only to give people hope, motivation, alternatives, provided they are willing to listen.
You have to dream, create the sense that no matter what you have to endure, you are going to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
Why is this so important?
Because unless you do, the ability to overcome negative influence that surrounds you will make you succumb to what it wants for your life.
Retire old.
Who came up with this idea?
You are to go to school, get a job, work for 30 to 50 years at a company and than retire when you are in your golden years.
Doesn't it sound more logical to retire young when you are full of life?
I don't get this.
Why do so many follow this doctrine as if it were fact?
Formal Education and Self-Education
It was the late and great, Jim Rohn who stated
formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune
So I have to beg the question.
Why have we put so much weight on the former, getting a college degree only to spend the next decade or two paying back student loans, and forgoing our focus on the latter?
How is it someone who hold a high school diploma or someone who doesn't even have ownership of that go on to create a multi-billion dollar company that influences millions, if not, billions of people?
The level of thought is different.
Their goals are different as is their thinking.
I have found that overcoming negative influence has a lot more to do with listening to the wisdom and the words used by men and women who do not follow what the masses listen to.
There is a difference.
Do Not Get Complacent
As athletes, you can't rely on your athletic ability.
There has to be focus, a desire to create the reality of that specific goal you have in mind into existence.
It doesn't come about by wanting.
It comes about by doing what 99.99% of people are unwilling to do, not that they are incapable of the same actions you are willing to take, they simply know it will be too painful and aren't interested long enough.
Do you think I would have broken the 2.20.00 marathon barrier if I listened to the 2.16.00 marathoner who told me I was ‘not good enough', that I should quit, while I was still a 2.43.36 marathoner?
My want to do was greater than just dreaming about it, attacking that time and making it a reality in my life was my pursuit.
The same goes for you.
I am sure there has been someone in your athletic life or outside of sport, who has told you how they feel you ought to live, what you are capable of, to slow down.
How did it make you feel?
If you are like me, it only drives you to become more self-driven to accomplish what they think is impossible.
Let me tell you how that is wrong though.
You are letting them control what you do and think.
“I'll show them what I am capable of” ,”I'll prove to him or her what I can do”
Do it for yourself, not to prove anything to anyone.
Spend less of your time worrying what others think about you and spend more of it on creating ways to better your life and others lives.
The negativity can be ignored if we choose to not give it any power over us.
God put in you, in me, a power so great, we hardly have begun to fully grasp what we are capable of as athletes and non-athletes.
Who Is In Control Of Your Reality?
They teach us that earning a college degree will make us more marketable.
This idea that being the owner of a piece of paper somehow makes us more important then someone who doesn't have the same education.
Does someone termed a ‘bum' living in a cardboard box on the street or beneath an underpass have less worth because he or she never went to school?
I used to run by numerous homeless people while training in Colorado springs.
Some were homeless veterans who fought in our nations wars, without a job, living down on the edge of the creek that runs through the outskirts of downtown Colorado springs.
It humbles you to the reality that what we do in workouts, our want to express what we did for our 10-mile tempo run on social media really is meaningless.
It may do something for you but it isn't helping anyone else and surely that guy or gal on the street with no food to eat.
If you get bent out of shape over a bad race or workout, remember there are people who have real problems and your bad performance really is minuscule in the big scheme of things.
I often get over my ‘little heart' syndrome real quick by thunking of the above statement.
Perhaps I am being a bit too pessimistic but as I have gotten older the less concerned I am with sharing my training as I am in helping others create similar or better results then I have achieved.
When you are on top, everyone loves you, but what happens when you are struggling?
Your training and race stats do not dictate your worth.
If I run a 2.19 marathon and you run 4.30 for the distance, does that make me more powerful and noteworthy?
Hardly.
I am not interested in that.
The 4.30 marathoner working at 100 percent effort is just as knowledgeable, can impact just as many people, if not more than someone of my capability.
We have to overcome negative influence that tells us that we are beneath someone else who has more then we have.
What Is Freedom?
I have friends who are training full-time as runners.
They do not have to juggle a full-time military work week on top of the same type of training they are freely doing without any other responsibilities.
Freedom is being able to go wherever you please, not answer to an alarm clock, the ability to have full control of your time rather than someone else telling you where you should be and at what time.
How you should dress.
How you are to be groomed.
The language you are to use.
It sucks the creativity and individuality out of beautiful human beings but because we get so caught up with the status quo we fell to see it clearly.
I often wonder who has more freedom, the one living on the street who answers to no one but has a book he or she can read, time to go for a walk, talk to a friend, freedom of their time or having a cushy, salaried position in some corporate setting?
Does owning a college degree mean you will have freedom or does it mean you will spend the next ten to 20 years (or more) in the servitude of debt based on the choices we have made?
Listen To Your Surroundings
I am all for education but I feel the system is rigged to keep people from being creative and slaves to the system.
We are told by others growing up that going to college and getting a job is the path one should follow.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on your goals, how you were raised and the manner in which you think.
A college degree is not a bad thing, there are people who are in their 60's going back to school to get an education.
What I am saying is I feel one can get even more education via self study, save yourself oneself years of paying back college loans by choosing a different option and truly knowing how to overcome negative influence that says trading time (life) for income is the only way to go.
I was one of those who fell into the trap as well so don't think I am putting myself on a pedestal and telling the reader they are wrong.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physical Education and a Master of Science degree in Exercise Science.
It took over 12 years to pay back all my undergraduate and graduate.
It surely doesn't make me any more worthy then someone who never went to college yet somehow people are indoctrinated into believing that holding a college degree is a way to get ahead, that it makes you superior.
It doesn't and in most cases, it leads people into a trap spending decades being forced to go to a job they are unhappy in simply because they know the loans have to be re-paid.
You can get just as much education, if not more, sitting your rear end in a library 7 days week, for free.
To Live Or Be A Slave
We are taught how to make a living instead of how to make money and income work in our favor.
We are not taught to form businesses but more so, how to be employees and by going to school to get a college degree, that is really what we are doing.
Trade 4 to 5 years of your life, pile on thousands (and over six figures in some cases) of dollars in debt for a peace of paper, only then to work the next 20-50 years of our life in return at a company.
How come there are young millionaires and billionaires and so many who are poor and middle class?
Who has leverage of their time?
The entrepreneur or the hourly or salaried factory worker?
What is more valuable?
Time or money?
I'll take the former.
Are they stuck in traffic to and from work?
Are they punching a time clock making minimum wage?
People are either going to believe that there is infinite amounts of money floating around and a far smaller percentage of time on this earth to enjoy it or stay ‘caught up' in the mindset that trading time for a paycheck is the only option.
It isn't.
We either follow the herd who do not care one way or another how to overcome negative influence or we take action, do something about it.
If you’re thanking God it’s Friday, maybe you should take a closer look at your Monday through Thursday to determine why those days are so awful that only Friday needs a God’s thanking?~MJ DeMarco
You may not see this as a negative influence at all.
Retire Old | The Way To Go?
Working all your life to retire old may be totally fine with you and I most certainly do not disrespect that idea in any way, shape or form.
Every member of my family is an employee.
I can guess that the majority of yours are as well.
My reasoning for writing about this is that sometimes we get so caught up in making a living that we forget that we don't have unlimited time on this earth and fell to realize all the things we could be doing if we chose not to listen to the status quo.
You can overcome negative influence in this sport and in anything you do by first listening to your own intuition.
If you are waking up more and more thinking, something is not right, that I should be enjoying life more then I am, don't buy into the okie-doke idea that trading your life for a paycheck that only arrives every two weeks is the only way to go.
We all have a choice and there are ways to break this train of thought.
If you are not happy, consider your environment.
Does it inspire you?
Is it positive?
Do you hear more negative gossip in your work place then you care to comment on?
Closing Thoughts
You can overcome the negative influence in this sport as athletes and outside of it but you have to be willing to overcome your skepticism sometimes to see what is readily available to you.
The alternative will always be right there waiting for you.
Work the majority of your life never having considered why others who retired in their 20's and 30's did to bring that result about.
Lack of taking action can be the difference between remaining where you are, dissatisfied and unhappy or living a much happier, healthier and wealthier life with the time you do have.
The idea that staying in your work environment because society, your friends, family or co-workers have said this is the only way to go is ludacris.
You can do something different but you have to overcome your skepticism and fear just as I did.
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