I confess. I’m an Olympic junkie.
I guess I always have been. When they show those vintage (I like the word vintage, don’t you? It’s so much classier than ‘old.’) clips of previous trials and gold medalists, I remember watching the athletes at that time, too. I enjoy all of the behind-the-scenes info about the athletes, how they share their struggles and sacrifices and how their families support them.
Television coverage is so much more amazing now with all the technology. Watching the parents in the stands makes each endeavor all the more exciting. And this year has been exciting.
My favorite summer competitions are beach volleyball, gymnastics and swimming, and I try not to miss a minute. The women gymnasts had us on the edge of our seats this year, didn’t they? We cried with Jordan Weiber when she didn’t make it into the top two for individual competition. What a ridiculous rule. She’s better than many who made it through, but just because only two per team are allowed, the best athletes are not up there! Frustrating, isn’t it?
We held our breath when the did the USA team did the uneven bars and floor exercises—and cheered with them when they won. What a heart-pounding evening that was. With the men’s relay thrown in between, so we could be in suspense there too.
Watched a special on Marlen Esparsa’s journey through matches and world competitions to fight her way to a spot on the USA team. She will fight for a medal on Monday. Watching the Olympics is exhausting, I tell you!
I do love technology, but it can be very dangerous and incredibly distracting.. I can watch live television on Kindle or ipad anywhere I go that has WiFi. It’s a Dish perk. That means I can have Olympic coverage right at my desk. Sick, huh?
I had to turn it off today. I do have a deadline, after all.
We can liken what the Olympians do to reach their goals to any endeavor we might take on. Most of those athletes have prepared for this competition since they were children. They trained and sacrificed to get where they are. Anything a person wants badly enough is worth working toward.
Publishing a book doesn’t just happen. It’s a rare author who wakes up one day and says, “I’m going to write a NYT best seller this week,” and then sees the dream come to pass. Most dreams take an exhausting measure of effort and work. An extreme amount of sacrifice and dedication go into the successful writing and publication of a book.
Nobody else can make your dream happen. The people who make their dreams come true work on them every day. I look at those young people in London this week and am so impressed by their dedication to the Big Picture. They eat right. They train every single day. They get up early. They sacrifice other things to reach that one goal–the dream.
One of the commercials that’s been playing quotes several of them: “I haven’t watched TV since last summer.”
They set their goals and then they set their priorities to meet those goals. They have taken the steps, and the steps were huge and hot and sweaty and difficult. If we don’t set a goal and then commit to take steps to make it happen–we end up where we’ve always been. There’s the stickler—the uncomfortable word: COMMIT. Pastor Dale Marples always said, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.” Change is hard, but we have good examples around us.
We can apply these principles to any endeavor we wish to pursue. Every dream is worthy of a chance.