There are many people who have done amazing things. I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person that gets pumped up and motivated when I learn about someone who has accomplished something remarkable. I want to write about one today.

I think someone who runs one marathon is an amazing person. I think someone who has run 50 marathons is a very amazing person. But there is one person who ran 50 marathons on 50 consecutive days in 50 American states. I think that person is an incredibly amazing person! Unbelievably, he ran his final marathon in three hours and 30 seconds. This was the New York City Marathon. To top that off he then ran back to the start of the first marathon, a distance of 1,300 miles.

This would be incredible for a person in their late twenties to accomplish, but this man is 44 years old and didn’t even begin running until he was 30 years old.

So who is this superman? He is the quiet and unassuming Dean Karnazes. He is the one that puts “Ultra” into “Ultramarathon.”

Some of his accomplishments:

• Completed a 362 mile run from the summit of Mount Kosciusko to Sydney, Australia.
• Ran a marathon at the South Pole where temperatures reached 40C below.
• Ran the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile race across Death Valley, California where temperatures reached 120 degrees.
• Competed in the US relay race, consisting of seven 200-mile long legs. The race was run by teams of 12 members but Karnazes ran it solo!

The list literally goes on and on. Search his name on Google to find out more of his story. It is amazing. I feel Dean Karnazes is an example of what the human body and mind is capable of. He is a true example of self-mastery in its highest form. When I learn about people such as Karnazes it gives me hope and motivation in my own efforts to achieve self-mastery.

Are you aware of any other individuals who have achieved high levels of self-mastery? What do you think of people like Dean Karnazes? Please share your thoughts with us.

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2009 Gary N. Larson

When you work on muscles, you have to start off with a weight you can lift and then gradually work your way up. So maybe you have to start off at 110 pounds. Let’s say you do the 110 pounds for a while and you do it long enough to where it now becomes easier. So the next thing you do is you add 10 pounds to that. Now you’re lifting 120 pounds. You work on that for a while until it becomes easier. When 120 pounds becomes easier then you add 10 more pounds. You continue on up like this, gradually adding more and more weight to strengthen the muscles in your arms.

We can relate it also to running. I can remember training for my first marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles long. My good wife Lisa was my trainer. We didn’t start off by doing a 26-mile run. We didn’t even start off doing a 5-mile run. I don’t think I had ever even run more than five miles in my life. I couldn’t even run a full mile when I began my training. I’ll never forget the first time we ran three miles. I distinctly remember that when we completed the three miles I collapsed on the ground gasping for air. I remember that I was so thrilled that I had actually run three miles! It was a major accomplishment for me.

The way we trained for the marathon was to run two miles every morning, Monday through Thursday, and then rest on Friday. Then on Saturdays we would do a long run. Each Saturday morning we would add a mile or two to our long runs. So our first long run was three miles. Then the next week our long run was four miles. Then five miles the next week. Gradually, week after week, we worked our way up to where our final training run before the marathon was 24 miles. I remember that day, running the 24-mile long run, and thinking back to our first three-mile run and thinking, “Wow! Three miles is nothing! Running three miles is so easy!” Now we were running 24 miles! We worked up to it gradually over time. If we would have tried to run 24 miles that first day it would have been a huge failure and I would have given up and would have never completed a marathon.

So how does that relate to self-mastery? Well, every thing about a marathon is self-mastery! But a marathon, like weight lifting, teaches us that you can’t do it all at once and this applies to self-mastery in other areas of your life. You can’t change everything all at once.

So I’m relating this all to self-mastery and the changes that you want to make in your life. If self-mastery is like a muscle then you must work on it like you would work on a muscle. You must strengthen that self-mastery muscle by starting off with small and easy things and then gradually work your way up.

So how do you do this? I suggest you look at your life and determine what needs to change. Make a list of all the changes you would like to make. Then take one thing and focus on it. Work on it for a week or two until it becomes easy for you. Then begin the next thing. Gradually strengthen your self-mastery muscle one change at a time.

I have been doing this for a while. In fact I started on August 1st of this year and made some major commitments to myself of changes I desire to make.

More recently, as part of this process, I have focused on exercising every morning except Sundays. That’s what I focused on and now it has become a habit and even perhaps an addiction – a positive addiction.

Currently I am focused on getting to bed on time every night. When I get good at that then I will move on to my next goal. I have a series of improvements that I want to make in my life that I call my self-mastery goals. I can’t do them all at once. So I work on one thing at a time until it becomes a habit, until I strengthen that self-mastery muscle. Then I move on to the next one.

So in summary, the message for today is that self-mastery is like a muscle which needs to be exercised in a gradual, progressive way. Examine your life, determine what you want to change, and then work on one thing at a time.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.

Copyright © 2009 Gary N. Larson

Think for a moment about the visual image of a train. You can visualize a train on a track moving forward at a fast pace to its destination and another train sitting on the side track, not making any progress. It’s sidetracked. Sidetracked is a term we use in life when we get diverted from the goal or the object of our intent.

The Million Dollar Hypothetical Example

Let me illustrate by giving a hypothetical example. Let’s appeal to your baser desires and imagine you have an extremely important appointment and if you make it to this appointment it will result in you receiving one million dollars. If you can make it to this appointment on time and go through with it successfully you will be one million dollars richer.

Now this appointment is 25 miles away from where you live. You must travel on the local freeway to get there. You know the location. You know where you’re going. You have just enough time to get there. You have just enough gas in your car to get there.

So my question to you is this: Would there be anything that would stop you from keeping this appointment? My guess is that nothing would stop you.

The Carnivals of Life

Let’s examine our little scenario a little more. Suppose you get in your car and you start driving to this extremely important appointment. Let’s imaging that you’re headed to this appointment and as you are driving you notice there is a carnival along the side of the freeway. There are Ferris wheels and roller coasters and other fun rides. You see games and food and crowds of people having fun. You think to yourself, “Wow, I haven’t been to a carnival in a long time.” So you get off the freeway and you go over and visit the carnival and have a jolly time.

Do you think that this would really happen? It’s ludicrous to even think you would do this. Of course you wouldn’t. You would be focused on your goal of getting to that appointment.

The Road to Nowhere

Let’s imagine you were continuing along the highway to your appointment and you notice a road off to your left that you hadn’t noticed before. You think to yourself, “Gee, I’ve never been on that road before. I wonder where it goes.” You pull off the freeway and you head down that road thinking to yourself, “It’ll be a nice drive through the countryside with beautiful scenery.”

Do you think you would do that? Of course not! That would be preposterous. What would you really do? You would do everything possible to make it to your appointment on time.

Are You Stuck In Traffic?

In fact, let’s imagine you’re driving along the freeway to your appointment and suddenly you find yourself stuck in a big traffic jam. Of course you know that if you don’t make it to your appointment at exactly the right time, you don’t receive the million dollars.

In a normal situation, such as on your way to work, what would you do? You would just sit there in traffic and wait it out. When you finally get to work you would say, “Sorry I’m late but I hit traffic on the way to work and there was nothing I could do about it.” But was there really nothing you could do about it? If, in reality, you were on your way to an appointment to receive a million dollars, would you just sit there in traffic? I don’t think so.

I know what I would do. I would pull my car over to the side or even leave it parked on the freeway, get out of my car, jump the fence along the freeway, stop the first car I met, waving my arms crazily and say to the person in the car, “I have a huge emergency! If you can help me out it’s worth a thousand dollars to you! I promise you that I’ll pay you a thousand dollars if you can get me to my appointment on time.” I would find a way and so would you!

Diverted from Our Goals

But what do we really do in life? We have these great dreams and plans. We set goals. We really do have important things that we want and need to accomplish. But do we give our dreams and goals the importance that we really should? No! We let things divert our attention. We get sidetracked from the things that we want to accomplish. It’s incredible how this can happen.

Maybe some of the things you want to do aren’t going to get you a million dollars but perhaps to you they are just as valuable. Maybe it’s writing that book that you’ve said all your life that you’re going to write. Perhaps it’s developing that business or changing a character trait. We seem to find everything else in the world to do except for working on what’s most important to us.

One of the Seven Habits

As I talk about this it may remind you of Steven R. Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you’ve read this book you will recognize this concept. He divides our daily tasks into four different quadrants. They are:

1. Urgent and important
2. Imporatant but not urgent
3. Urgent and not important
4. Not urgent and not important

He talks about how we tend to spend our time in quadrant 1, the urgent and important, or quadrant 3, the urgent and not important. We seldom get to the tasks in quadrant 2, the important but not urgent.

Overcome by Urgencies

Those things in life that are of most importance tend to not have a deadline and so we tend to put them off. The tasks that would have the greatest positive effect on our life usually aren’t staring us in the face every morning, saying “Do me! Do me! Do me!” No, they are the ones that sit back quietly waiting for our attention.

I look at my own self and how many times I get sidetracked on different tasks, even in smaller things. One of my goals is to get up in the morning and follow a certain schedule and get to work by a certain time. Everything will be going well and then I’ll see some urgent thing that I think needs to be done and I start working on it and end up being late for work and not accomplishing the other things I had set out to accomplish because I got sidetracked.

Your Book Unwritten

That can be expanded into your life. As you look at your life and examine the goals and dreams you have made over the years, how have you done? You know you’re not getting any younger. You always say that someday you’ll get started on it. Well guess what, someday is today! When are you going to start working on that symphony? When are you going to climb that mountain, run that marathon, start that business, write that play or whatever it is you want to accomplish? When are you going to do those things?

Life moves on and we get diverted and we take those side trips. We stop at the carnivals of life. We seek pleasure and amusement and we don’t move forward to the things that are of most importance to us. Years go by and our books are still unwritten. It’s never going to happen until we make a concerted effort to let nothing get in our way.

Get Back On Track

My message for today is for you to look at the things you are doing and determine which of them are amusements and sidetracks and which are actually leading you to your ultimate goal and destination. Then if needed, switch your train off the sidetrack and back onto the main track of life and move forward, full speed ahead.

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2009 Gary N. Larson

My hiking morning goes something like this: I get on my hiking gear, jump in my car and drive up to the trailhead parking lot. This is about a mile from my home. The hike I usually take, especially in the winter, is up in the foothills of the mountain. It’s consists of a trail that goes in a loop where the trail runs along the lower portion of the foothills and then it heads up a very steep part of the mountain and loops back on another trail across a higher portion of the foothills and then back down to the trailhead parking lot. Got that?

I’ve been doing this every morning except Sundays and I have quite enjoyed it. I’ve hiked this trail quite a bit over the last three years but my consistency has been spotty at best. There would be months go by at a time that I wouldn’t do any hiking and then other months where I would be consistent. The goal is to do it every day. So I’ve been doing it very consistently for the last several weeks.

Well, a few days ago I stayed up late working on a project. (See Staying Up Late – Is It Worth It?) So the next morning I was exhausted. I slept in. When I got up I was very disappointed with myself. I realized I just didn’t have time to go hiking that morning for the first time in a long time.

So, as I went through my morning, running behind schedule, I found myself just dragging and very down on myself. I felt so discouraged and frustrated. I felt like I was missing something, that things just weren’t right. I couldn’t picture myself going through the day without my morning hike.

Finally, as I was sitting there pondering what to do, I turned to my wife and said, “You know, I don’t really care how late I go in to work, I’m going hiking.” So I got on my hiking gear and went out and did my morning hike. It was wonderful. I loved it. When I got home from my hike I felt so much better inside.

I started thinking about what happened there and I realized that I have become addicted to hiking. I was actually experiencing withdrawal symptoms from not going on my hike. It was good to realize that I was becoming addicted to hiking and that when I didn’t do it I was in fact experiencing withdrawal pains.

I’ve heard of people becoming addicted to running or other healthy lifestyles or activities. I can’t say that I’ve ever been addicted to running. I’ve done a lot of running in my life. I’ve run nine marathons. They were tough and the training was tough but I never found myself addicted to it.

For me hiking is different. It’s definitely a workout. In fact, as I tape-record this blog entry while hiking you can hear me huffing and puffing on my tape. But for me, hiking is also a mental exercise too. It gets my mind going and gets me away from the day-to-day cares of home and it gets me out among nature. There is a feeling there that is hard to describe. It’s a wonderful feeling. I don’t know if it’s the endorphins getting going in my brain or what, but I enjoy it very much. I was pleased to see how much it affected me when the thought of not going went through my mind.

So what is my self-mastery message today? It is this: Find something like hiking or biking or swimming that you enjoy doing and do it every day. I know two individuals who do this. One I see out nearly every morning on his bike. The other I know goes every morning to the local community pool and swims laps. I would imagine that they most likely have the same experience that I have where it’s something they look forward to every morning and when they don’t do it their day doesn’t feel complete, like they are missing something and their whole day is affected.

My wife Lisa is most definitely addicted to running. She is the most dedicated runner I know. No matter what, she is out running every morning and if for some reason she can’t go it influences her whole day. I think the morning hike is becoming the same thing for me.

My message to you is to find something that will do that same thing for you. Maybe it’s running, maybe it’s hiking, maybe it’s an aerobic workout on a DVD or maybe it’s running on your treadmill. The idea is to find something positive that you can become so addicted to that your day will not feel complete without it. Once you get to this point you look forward every day to your workout. It’s not something you dread any more.

May you be unstoppable in your efforts to take care of your mind and body.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.
Copyright © 2008 Gary N. Larson

Are you having trouble getting yourself to act on your goals? Is your motivation, shall we say, pathetic? I was experiencing this recently until I did one thing: I made a commitment.

When I say I made a commitment, I don’t mean I made a decision. A decision is good but it lacks power. A commitment is something you do that is more tangible and real.

The commitment I made was to sign up for my 10th marathon. I spent the $80 and registered. Now I am committed.

Making that small commitment has had a great effect on my daily exercise program. I was having trouble getting out every morning to run or exercise. My motivation was anemic at best. I knew I needed something to motivate me to get out there every day. That’s when I decided to run another marathon. But that was just a decision. The commitment came when I actually put my non-refundable money where my mouth was.

I’m reminded of the story of General Cortez when he landed his armies in Mexico to fight the Aztecs. To insure victory, he ordered the burning of their ships so there would be no means of retreat. By burning the ships it gave the soldiers only two options: win the war or perish. Now that is what I call commitment!

There is great power in making commitments. Here are three ways commitments can help:

1. You have a goal to work towards.

When I was getting up each morning to simply go out running I had no real reason to do it. Sure, I wanted to be healthy but sometimes that’s not enough. When I committed to run a marathon it gave me a very clear-cut and definable goal to shoot for.

2. You will experience pain if you don’t follow through.

Let’s face it, we are all motivated to avoid pain. When I was trying to exercise each morning without a commitment, failure to do it wasn’t too painful. Now that I’ve made a commitment, failure to exercise each morning will result in a very painful failure, the pain and humiliation of not completing a marathon.

3. The decision is already made.

When you make a commitment, it locks you into a decision. There is no wondering for me each morning whether I should go running or not. The decision is made. (See article Decide to Decide).

My challenge for you is to examine your goals and find ways that you can make a real commitment to do them. Burn your ships, so to speak. Put your money where your mouth is. Commit!

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Gary N. Larson