I believe the two most self defeating words in the English language are "I can't...". Man, if I had a dollar for every time I've heard those two words.. As a personal trainer, I hear them a lot with the people who are coming to me for the first time. We'll get into a workout and I'll demonstrate an exercise or ask somebody to push themself to another level and they'll respond "I can't do that..".. To which I reply, "Of course you can, and you will!".. The body is a very powerful thing, but the mind is even stronger. If you tell yourself that you can't do something then you are done before you even begin. And the worst part is that if you fail you accept it easily because you already decided that you couldn't do it... We were at an early morning workout a few weeks ago doing kettlebell presses and one of the women was really in a groove with an 8kg kettlebell so I asked her to try the 12kg.. Her response was "I can't do that, it's too heavy..", to which I responded "Of course you can".. She really works hard on a daily basis and I knew with the proper motivation and mindset she could easily press the 12kg.. So loaded with the mindset that she could press the heavier weight we started out with just one rep at a time. It's important to focus on just one at a time so the mind has an easy goal to focus on.. She easily got to 6 and then got another 2 reps out of it.. She was very proud, as she should have been, and what's more I don't think I've heard those two words "I can't" come out of her mouth since..
We can all achieve anything with the right attitude.. There are times when we may not be at a point where we can achieve a goal yet, but if we keep trying we can get there. Don't ever give up. I'm reading a book about an old time strongman, Joe Greenstein, who was known as the Mighty Atom. He was a sickly, small boy of 12 years old given no more than a few more years to live when he came across a champion wrestler named Volanko who took him under his wing. When Volanko asked Joe to perform a task and Joe responded "I can't", Volanko showed him an ant carrying something about 10 times it's own weight.. Volanko said, "you know why the ant can carry a burden many times it's own size? because he doesn't know he can't".. The same is true for all of us. Be strong mentally and you can achieve anything..
Kevin
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