Watching the Olympics these past couple weeks still leaves me in awe of all the athletes. Growing up as a year round athlete, I still remember quite well the two-a-day practices, long yard runs for field hockey in the August heatwaves, unlimited gut wrenching suicides for basketball, dry dusty fields, scabbed knees and hips from slide practice for softball, and freezing mornings in the pool for swim team. I can only imagine the training, exercise regimes, diet restrictions, time, mental preparation, and sacrifice the Olympians have to make to chase their dreams. Some sacrificing family, friends, and even children to accomplish everything they’ve set their hearts and minds too. We all can’t be Olympian bobsledders, figure skaters, down hill skiers, or Giant Slalom snowboarders. But we can live our lives like an Olympian! We finally need to start putting ourselves first, taking time for our specific needs, health, desires, and mental stability.
We need to start asking questions about what we’re consuming and where our food is coming from. Focus on our community, support each other, be our own advocate, give back, take time to relax and recharge. We’re letting our number one priority go first. Without your health you have nothing. You can’t take care of your spouse, children or other loved ones, if you’re not healthy enough to care for yourself.
For far too long we’ve let everything else control our lives and it has come back to haunt us, especially Americans. We’ve become lazy, sedentary, technology dependent, fast food junkies, schedule slaves, and insomniacs. Don’t you think it’s time we started to put our wellness, life’s ambitions, and health first before we can’t do anything about it anymore. The number one question I get all the time is “how do you have the energy?” All I can say is I live my life to the best of my ability. I decided to set goals for myself, follow my passions, chase my dreams (even when people thought I was crazy), surround my life with people who believed in me and truly cared about my happiness and wanted to see me succeed. For a long time I kept around the ones that held me back and it ruined myself esteem, my drive, and health. I decided one day enough was enough and looking back I wasted a lot of time that I can’t get back. So now I am motivated to catch up on lost time! 🙂
Also what I put in, is what I get out. I am an extreme believer in what you eat, getting exercise, drinking water, sleeping the required hours of sleep you personally need, keeping loved ones close, having faith, and giving back, make life go round so that’s what I strive to do everyday. We never know when our time is up, don’t you want to live for today and be the best you can be just in case tomorrow changes your life forever? No regrets! So finally, live your life-like an Olympian! Go out and change your path, your diet, your health, your heart, your soul, learn to love a little more, use your time wisely, take time to put you first and find your happiness. Here’s to all the Olympians that put their blood, sweat, tears, and all their sacrifices into living the lives they always wanted and chased their dreams to the highest level!
