"Beliefs"

"If the results of your actions do not meet your needs over time, then there is an incorrect principle on your belief window"

I learned this little bit of wisdom from a guy named Hyrum Smith, who is an author and self help kind of guy.  I had the pleasure of meeting Hyrum on several  occasions, and despite being a Mormon he's a pretty decent guy.  He developed this "belief window" concept, and in fact it is probably the centre piece of most of his writing and speech making.  The theory is that we all have a belief window through which we see the world, and when there is something not quite right on that window, we don't reap the rewards we want…over time.

I liked his theory from the first time I heard it, and have at times tried to apply it to relevant parts of my life.  Usually that meant very altruistic things, like peace of mind, stress levels, or just plain happiness in general.  Those things are of course very complex, and like every other miracle cure out there,  Hyrum's belief window, by itself, only goes so far.

But it occurred to me today that applied to more mundane, less complicated, things, it could perhaps have a greater relevance, and in turn a bigger impact.  The simpler the issue at hand, the easier it might be to take advantage of the theory.  

And I hope this isn't too much of an indication of my obsession, but of course I'm talking about Ironman training.  And while I wouldn't normally call what I do uncomplicated, certainly everything is relative, and compared to the daunting task of achieving peace of mind, this swimming/biking/running stuff is pretty simple.

So here's the little epiphany I had today.  On my belief window it says….

"If I can finish a workout, it was not too hard!!!"

And while I try my best to have easy days,  I know I think this way on a regular basis when it comes to my hard efforts. If I'm not totally exhausted by the time I'm done, then it wasn't hard enough!!

Maybe, just maybe, you're not supposed to be near death's door every time you finish a training session??  I'm gonna think about that.

Of course I know it's a very fine line, but looking back at some of my reading material there's lots of warnings about what can happen if you constantly live in the danger zone.  Also I think Odd John maybe had a point about my age and experience being an issue that most of the training plans don't consider.  The primary target audience is more likely to be in the 35 to 50 year age groups, as that is where you will find the bulk of amateur Iron man competitors.

So where does that leave me?  Somewhere in the middle I suppose, because I still have a strong belief that "you need to do some suffering to get better", but I'm gonna try to temper it with the belief that, "you can get too much of a good thing".

Lets see how it goes.  For the next few days I'm gonna practice my softer skills as I want to get a good long run in either Tuesday or Wednesday.  One more time the weather will probably make the decision which of those it will be.

I've also decided to refocus on my diet and towards that end I made a deal with the devil.  In this case the devil is yours truly, but the she devil in the house has agreed to be my guardian angel.  Of course she has to approve all deals around here anyway, so getting her participation was not optional.  I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Today was a bike workout and in the spirit of backing off a bit I simply picked a workout from the first week of the program.  I suppose it means something that it was pretty well effortless, since it was structured based on my fitness at the time…about 4 months ago.  

So that's it for today.  What's on your belief window that's preventing you from getting what you need?

computrainer, 75 mins

"I work very hard, and I play very hard. I'm grateful for life. And I live it - I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it."---Maya Angelou

Love

Peter