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HOLA Learning Spanish Newsletter
Se habla Español
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Motivation II
by Richard Brownkatz
This is a story about gently getting it done.
About 20 years ago I moved from New York to Tampa to join a friend and start freelance writing. For a variety of reasons, I ended up broke and having to live with my parents in a senior citizens trailer park in a little town an hour from Tampa.
True hell. I struggled to make a start as a freelancer and began eeking out some money. After six months, I had $200 to pay a friend of mine who was a slumlord in Tampa so I could get out of hell, and enough money to get some car insurance. I had to walk to the car insurance office.
Now, here comes the point. I was horribly depressed. It was a six mile round trip walk to the insurance office. All I had left was my old pair of dress shoes. I did not feel motivated to do anything. All I had the energy to do was light cigarettes. It was one of the lowest parts of my life.
But I have this image in my head, of my shoes, in the wet grass alongside that road, step after step for six miles. I did the walk. I didn't feel like doing it, I decided to do it, and I did it as I had learned from 12-Step Programs, one step at a time.
That I could handle. Not the whole six miles, not the situation I was in, not that I was going to blow all the money I had and risk starving when I got back to Tampa, not two steps, just one step, just picking up one foot, moving it ahead a bit, and putting it down.
One step at a time.
So now it’s what I tell my clients when they feel overwhelmed thinking about all the reps they have to do in this set or all the exercises they have to do in this workout or all the days they have to exercise in this life.
“One day at a time,” I tell them.
“One workout at a time.”
“One exercise at a time.”
“One set at a time.”
“One rep at a time.”
One step away from your desk and out the door and into the car and into the gym, each one, one at a time.
Whether you feel like it or not.
Oh, by the way. When I did get to my slum in Tampa, I felt free!
It was worth the walk.
Contact Us Richard (cell) 813.763.1855 Sherri (cell) 813.763.6333 (home) 863.533.9161 2055 S. Floral Ave. #164 Bartow, FL 33830
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