Channeling The Energy

So I spent the last week on vacation. Overall it was one of the most fun weeks I have had in a long time. My cousin got married in a little town in North Carolina then I spent 3 days on the beach at Nags Head. Growing up in the middle of the country I can truly appreciate being at the beach for a few days and I am jealous of those who get to live there. 

I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.

As  I settle back into my life of graduate school and lots of work I am trying to make up for lost sleep and work to make sure to get all of my work done up to standard. However even with being tired and overwhelmed with things that I have to get done I can’t help but smile about the fun and memories I had over the past week, knowing those memories and experiences have made my life better.

So I am trying my best to take advantage of that energy and channel it to the things I need to do. It already has started to be a challenge. Upon my first morning back coaching I was faced with lots of negative attitudes. This was frustrating because I am trying to channel my energy to my work and before I know it it gets hit with a wave of negativity.  This however is not something that I am going to let get to me. It just takes a little perspective and focus to get past.

 My swimmers are in a very heavy training portion of the season. They are worn down and tired. I spent my Saturday at a swim meet with them and the advice I was giving them the most was to get their heads in the correct (positive) state of mind. When faced with a challenge when worn down they, like most others, try their hardest to get out of it because they feel they won’t get the result they want. I encouraged them to think about their races because if they can put themselves in a positive state of mind they will benefit from the swim even if it is not a personal best time. Even though they were not swimming their best times (they aren’t supposed to be as a part of training style) the swimmers that were able to take the message to heart came out of their races with an overall better attitude.

Working out and exercising is something that most people don’t get excited about and want to avoid but it can also be the best point of your day and be a determining factor in how a person’s day goes. It is all about challenging your energy to make changes for the better. Getting yourself in the right state of mind may be the determining factor of your workout result, or any part of your day for that matter.

When you have good times, ride the wave, channel the energy and let the positivity spread.

What do you want to do before you die?

In the spring of 2011 I was enjoying my last few weeks of my undergraduate college career. I was lucky and was able to prioritize my time enough that I could spend most of it with my good friends. On a beautiful Saturday my good three friends and I went golfing. Now I am not good at golf, at all. But that day wasn’t about the golf it was about relaxing with my good friends. I would have been willing to end my adventure at this point and I would have been completely happy, but there was another plan in store for me that night to help me get rid of the angst of leaving my friends and school. 

Later in the evening we met up at one of the local bars to hang out with an extended group of friends. It was a quiet Saturday night at the bar, so a few of us decided to walk over to my favorite bar in town. We walked in and started looking for a place to sit. I turned and looked there four guys sitting at my normal table, no big deal. Then I took a closer look. They were the guys from The Buried Life tv show from MTV, who were in town for a speaking event earlier in the day. Being the friendly Canadians that they are they said hi and asked if we wanted to sit and have a beer with them, I wasn’t drinking that night but I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss out hanging out with them. So we pulled up some chairs and started talking. After talking with them for about half an hour they were wondering what our small college town had to offer and they wanted to hit up some different places, and there was getting to be a crowd of girls wanting to take pictures and oohh and ahh all over them. So it looked like it was getting to be that time where we parted ways. However, when they said they were going to the next bar they invited us to go with them. We obliged and found our way into one of the craziest most fun unexpected experiences that I have been a part of.

 There was lots of dancing, meeting people, a few pictures, tons of people, a dance stage full of stressed college kids and a trip to the local 70s bar equipped with light up dance floor. It was a blur of a night and I was sober. By the end of the night people had gotten separated but I made good on my promise I made earlier in the night and gave one of them a sober ride to their hotel just outside the town.

This whole day is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was something totally unexpected that made me realize to stop worrying about what was going to happen when I gradated school and was going to be away from my close friends and enjoy what you have.

After meeting with all of the guys from the Buried Life you realize that they are doing what they love to do, they are helping inspire my generation to go find what they want to do. This in turn helped inspire me to see how fortunate I am even if I am always striving for more. 

The monotony of a routine can be depressing and debilitating for being creative. Sometimes there are external triggers that you didn’t realize you needed to show you how to break out of your monotony.  When you feel lost in shuffles of life, realize what it is that is making you feel lost. If it is a variable that you can easily change, then change it. If it is something that is seemingly too complicated to fix in a short period of time, break the variable down piece by piece and take care of it. 

Take a note from the guys at the Buried Life and answer the question; what do you want to do before you die?

 Then go do it.