Choosing My Battles

Adidas had an amazing ad campaign a couple of years ago with the slogan “Impossible is Nothing”. One ad featured two of my favorite athletes and people:  Muhammad and Laila Ali.  They used a quote by Muhammad that has stuck with me for a while:

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”- Muhammad Ali

I have always considered myself a “go getter”, “envelope pusher”,  “never accept NO for an answer”, “push the elevator button ‘til it comes”, “fighter” type person.  I have always fought and worked hard for something I wanted and, consequently, always got it.

For example, in high school I was in the JROTC program, a program mostly comprised of boys. We were required to take a physical fitness test to move up the ranks. The test had timed push-ups, sit-ups, and a mile run. The requirement for the mile run for females was 8 minutes and for males 6 minutes. Well of course I wanted to beat the boys! So, I sought out one of the guys in the program to run with for practice and I ran and ran and ran… The day of the test, my mom was there along with the unit commander. I don’t think she or anybody else thought that I could run it in the boys’ time, let alone beat some of the boys. So I guess she wanted to be there to witness! I think I remember one of the guys saying it was “impossible”. Well, I did just that! I ran the mile in 5:57 and beat 3 boys, shocking my mom, my commander, and everyone else out there! There’s also the time I put my life on hold to study for my national board exam, and blew it out of the water getting the highest score in my graduating class, proving my professors wrong!

For me it seems like when someone says something “can’t be done” or gives me a statistic on what’s possible, it fuels me to no end! It’s like the inner Laila comes out of me.  I’ll show you!

But what happens when YOU are the person telling YOURSELF that it’s impossible? How do you fight yourself?  How do you prove yourself wrong?

I have found that I am my Achilles’ heal with weight loss! I have told myself repeatedly that it was too hard, and that I can’t do it. Giving up…. Quitting…  I have gotten in my own way of what I want! It wasn’t until a couple of days ago when I was surfing YouTube that I ran across the Adidas commercial with Laila and her dad that I found my inspiration.

I, of course, changed the message to fit me and my personal battle. “If a young child can fight cancer…If a paraplegic can win an Olympic medal… I, for sure, can lose a little weight!  I decided then to stop choosing the battles I fight hard and to fight them ALL hard, including losing weight!

I CAN and WILL do this!

Don’t let anyone stop you… including YOU!

Impossible is Nothing…  Rumble Young Girl… Rumble!