“He is only 32? How did he achieve so much at 32? What in the h*ll have I been doing with my 37 years on this earth? I better get a move on!”

It’s difficult to put perspective on our own lives, and easy to look at others as achieving beyond our wildest dreams. We wouldn’t look at our own accomplishments as so great, even if we achieved the same. Why? Because our achievements happen gradually. It’s like a frog in boiling water.

When it’s our achievement, we know how sloppy the process was to get there. We know the many failures and incremental improvements that make the achievement seem like nothing. We are aware of our own insecurities throughout the process despite our outward success. We understand it’s really a sh*t show no matter what it looks like from the outside.

I recently read this guidance from my strength-training program:

When you log your workouts, it’s automatically recorded in your history. You can go back to prior months and see what workouts you were doing and where you were strength-wise. It’s not easy to see improvement day to day, but stepping back and looking over a period of months will encourage you.

~ Gymnsastics Bodies

I think we would be wise to track our own process towards our goals in the way that I log my workouts into my Gymnastics Bodies database so that we can step back and see our improvements for encouragement.

Of course, it could also be true that by recognizing the success of others in areas we want to improve in could give us a kick in the pants to get out there, stop making excuses, and start acting and kicking butt in our own lives.