Skip to main content

Giving 110%

I have been thinking about this concept a lot over the last few days as my "I don' wanna" starts to kick in:

I don' wanna...go outside and walk. It's too cold.
I don' wanna...get out of bed. It's warm here.
I don' wanna...get up and work out. I'm tired (or warm in bed, or not in the mood, or...fill in the blank).

When I was at Rescue Swimmer School in Pensacola, FL (during my time in the Navy), I had a stint where it was just me and the instructors for a week while I waited for the next class to build up. This school is the second most physically challenging Navy school; second only to BUDS training. All day long, all the instructors did was work me out. Push-ups and sit-ups and flutter kicks and jumping jacks in the sand/dirt by the O-course and pull-ups and chin-ups (which I couldn't do at the time). Runs along the beach and through the forest to the lighthouse with a guy who was really a runner...which I was not...I was a SWIMMER! LOL! And then to the pool where I could stay all day if they would let me. Swim side stroke on your left side for a million laps, now on your other side, now sprints...REPEAT! The only thing I hated in the water was the underwater swim--75M end-to-end--and if you came up before you hit the wall, you had to come back from the deep end. I never had to do that, though, because I would have aspirated water just to NOT have to do it again. SERIOUSLY! It was that daunting to me that it would have been worth it!

When the instructors first used to yell at me to give 110%, I remember thinking, "There is ever only really 100%. Where are they getting this 110% bullshit from?!" And then I found it. It was there all along. I never had to use it before then because no one had ever pushed me past my limits. Now, when I had nothing left, my mind had to force my body. My mind had to believe I could. And I DID! So, now, when my "I don' wanna" comes out and is encouraging my underachieving, I remember that anything before me is nothing compared to what I have done before. So, Jillian, bring on your best and let's show pain where it can go!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes, Reality is Worse

What if I told you that Joseph/SAM was created to hurt me? Made up to be everything I'd ever want and more? What if I told you everything I believed and knew him to be was an enormous hoax? All because someone wanted to give me what she felt I had given her. All that she felt I had taken from her. I have to admit that while people have hurt me before with their actions and decisions it has been for their own personal and selfish reasons. Usually not with malicious intent.  There has to be a lot of pain and hurt within a person to invest so much into the creation of a fictional character. Someone who would really take the time to know me. Someone who would enlist others to make the ruse real. To call me on the phone, to send me cards from the web, to pick out a card and leave it at a bar where the bartender who gave it to me told me how cute my guy was, to create a Facebook account with pictures and friends, to bring an ex-wife into the mix, pictures from the desert and your trave...

Join the Navy, See the World!

There are things we want in life and make happen, but they don't always happen as we'd planned or imagined. My dad had gone to Ohio University in Athens, OH on a wrestling scholarship. I, too, wanted to go to OU, but since he'd dropped out and it had a reputation as a huge party school, it was going to be a tough sell. So, I did my homework and sell I did. At the time (1990), OU was one of the top 10 colleges for Communications in the U.S. That was the degree I wanted and I wanted to go to OU to get my degree. I graduated early and during the time between my acceptance to OU and the College of Communications and pre-college, I had become further enamored with marine life and sharks specifically and wanted to change my major to Marine Biology which at OU was actually a Zoology degree. The girl tried to talk me out of changing my major because it was so hard to get into the College of Communication and if I left, I would have to reapply and hope for the best in my junior year...

A Mother's Love

A mother's love is not a perfect love, but it is her best. It is all that she has in that moment that she shares it with you. Growing up, I didn't understand that. I didn't see that. I saw only the things it was not; the things I wanted it to be and that it fell short of. Expectations can steal your joy if you let them. They blind you. They keep you from realizing what you have been given because you become so focused on what you wanted to be given. There is joy to be had in what you get if you just give yourself eyes to see it. Now, I see my mother's love--in it's imperfection--and feel blessed through it just the same. Yesterday was Mother's Day and I spent the day with my mom. As we were leaving my house to go to church, she asked me if I got the e-card she sent me. No, I hadn't. She then remembered that she must not have sent me one. Oh well, she said. My other two sisters live out of state and she sent them both e-cards, but then got caught up in some...