I like hard. Hard is good for us. Since I started being active I have completely changed as a person. The change I'm speaking of is much more than physical. I have learned to think of myself as someone who doesn't give up.
When we do hard things we know that when life goes south we can do hard things again because we did hard things in the past. Doing hard things has made me tougher. I need that toughness not only in my life in general but, yes, in getting older. When I'm in the middle of something that I think is way over my head, I realize when it's over that accomplishing those challenges is what life is all about.
In my training today I tried to do something hard. I arrived at the gym dead set to perform a pull up with a pause at the top of every rep.
Talk about hard. Some call this an isometric exercise. It's suppose to improve not only your strength but also your stamina -- and I'll need both in spades when I try to climb the Riffelhorn this August.
You can see that my arms are literally shaking trying to hold myself up at the top. This was so hard I almost peed my pants. But I'm not giving up. I've got a long ways to go but that's half the fun. When we do hard things we gain a hard-won confidence. We know we can do hard things again. Not just physically demanding things, but things like heartache, betrayal, loss, even overcoming trauma.
I want so badly for my grandkids to learn that lesson.
I think we are well on the way.