Recently, a good friend of me challenged me to do something I've never done my entire life.
If you've been following me for a while, you know I love nature, hiking, and running. As much as I love the outdoors and work on my physical health, I've never run a marathon, or even a 5k. Recently, my friend challenged me to run a marathon, so I told him, "All right, cool—you're giving me the opportunity to challenge myself with something completely new, and because I know how much I'll grow from that, I accept." Deep down, though, I was thinking that running that marathon would be impossible. I love attacking the notion of impossibility, but I thought of that marathon as pretty near impossible anyway. Regardless, I knew that I wouldn't lose a thing by trying.
More often than not, social media has us trying to elevate our lives too quickly.
Let me tell you something—I'm not saying to stop progressing, because I truly believe in the importance of progression. I'm not telling you to put in the work, but I am telling you to take time to worry about your foundation. When I was in the NFL, one thing I did was always keep track of the little things. I'd make sure to stretch, do deep tissue therapy, and have ice baths; all things to prevent the risk of injury. Today's message is something that applies to both football and life—work on your foundation first.
Don't be in such a rush to get married, because faking love results in failing love. Don't try to run a marathon before you're ready—prepare for that marathon instead. Don't go out and do something you're not prepared to do, and stop setting yourself up for failure. If you can get the basics sorted out before everything else, you'll have the foundation you need to build something great.
Too many people want to skip the process. Listen—I get it. The process isn't beautiful, and the process isn't easy. The process sucks, and more often than not, we're tempted to skip the process entirely and go straight to the reward. We reach as high as we can for rewards we don't deserve yet, because we've forgotten one crucial truth—the first step to elevation is taking care of your foundation. It doesn't matter how far in the sky you can reach when your foundation is crumbling into dust.
You owe it to yourself to take care of the small things, the things that aren't beautiful, and the things that don't get accolades or praise. You need to take care of those things in every area of your life, because you don't just deserve to stop settling—you have no other choice.
It all starts with you.
