Glass

How you look at things will determine how much energy, time and effort you put into something. As most of you know, I approach most things in life with a certain positivity and excitement that – in most cases – is on the brink of really fracking annoying to anyone I’m around. Sometimes it’s contagious, sometimes not. It allows me to put 100% into what I do, whether it be work, gym, football…the list goes on and on.

This lesson never felt more tangible than it did during my lunch workout today. See, some of the recumbent bikes at the gym on base overlook the food court (yes, it’s unclass’ed, I can talk about it, hah). On one side of the glass: hamburgers, Chinese, Italian – your typical food court fare. On the other: the gym. In the gym, you could see people eating delicious food. In the food court, you can see people working out. I swear it’s like the architects intentionally planned to torture everyone, hah!

I chose to pull some positivity from this. Instead of the normal “omg, that pizza looks delicious” train of thought and being distracted by it, I upped the resistance on the bike and cranked up the RPMs. Looking through the glass I saw what I used to be, it was more of a mirror into my past than a transparent divider. I got more motivated, more excited to work harder. I chose to look at my workout as a path towards self improvement instead of a task that I had to do just to get done that day. There was a visible difference, you could tell who was in a positive mindset about being in the gym and who was just logging a workout for the books.

This is true for pretty much anything: the more positive of an outlook you have going into something, you’ll work harder, longer, do whatever you need to in order to accomplish it. If you have a negative view of it, you’ll be more likely to do the bare minimum, to just get it done, and, in the long run, to give up.

Positive. Negative. Excitement. Dread.

It’s all about your point of view.

Which side of the glass are you on?