Scorn and Ridicule

Fitness-oriented blogs tend to break down into two categories: Blogs that people use to list their daily routines and diet and blogs where people rant on about what's wrong in the fitness world. Inevitabley, the ranters will touch on someone at their gym who verbally, by body language, derides their efforts in spite of them having no business deriding anything anyone else does. The ranter (correctly, I might add) is pissed about how these people who lack the -tions (motivaTION, dedicaTION, inspiraTION, etc) to get anything meaningful done in the gym. Now, in a perfect world, we would all reocgnize those who work hard and hold them in high regard, compliment them on their good work done, be inspired by their example and go about in same manner.

It would be nice if we were all eagles in the gym flying high together but the reality is that there are very few eagles in life and quite a few turkeys. People who don't chose to soar but stick close to the ground where it's safe with the others and easy will do little more than pick your efforts apart. Too many people would rather spend their time giving you shit behind your back and to your face about how hard you work, call you a fanatic and obsessed, and that you need to eat a cheeseburger and fries more often. Their definition of fairness is to make everyone as miserable as they are.

If you're ever going to succeed, you need to free yourself from worrying so much about what they think. The turkeys will always have something negative to say about anything that gets you to an elite level of fitness. If you worry about doing things they won't approve of, then you'll fail. If you sit around waiting for them to follow you on the right path, you'll never get started on it yourself.

Years ago, I learned about a book through Matt Furey called, "Thick Face, Black Heart". Basically, the idea of the book was that to succeed, your heart has to be totally commited to do your goal at the expense of all else. There could be no grey area. There was only getting it done and nothing else. Your face had to be thick and strong to withstand the scorn that you'd receive while you were setting out to achieve your goal. In a sense, your face is your shield to the world that tells you that you can't do what you set out to do.

So, don't be moved by criticism of your actions. Don't wait around for those who criticize to follow your lead. If they want to join you in a persuit of being as strong and healthy as possible, then proceed accordingly. If they don't, keep soaring. This is yet another example of how important your mind is with reaching your fitness goals.