Failure

It is a word that many enthusiasts frown upon. It is a word that many people don't think belongs in our vocabulary. I am here to tell you otherwise.

You see, even champions fail. Everyone fails. The problem occurs when we let our failures take control of our lives or when we are incapable to seeing our failures as a learning experience. Somewhere along our life timeline we forgot that failure was OK. We forgot that sometimes failure leads us to success.

When we were growing up we learned so many things. We learned how to speak, how to walk, how to ride our bike and so many other things. Was it easy? To be honest, none of us probably remember when we learned how to speak or to walk, but I can almost guarantee you we failed numerous times. Think about when we learned to ride our bikes. How many times did we fall? Probably many. Not only did we fall, but our falls varied in intensity. One day we riding for a few seconds before we stumbled off our bike and caught ourselves before we went face first into the street. Another day we couldn't even get the bike moving. Then one day we fell face first off our bike and scraped up our face, arm, and knee.

We've failed numerous times before, yet as we grow older we seem to forget that. As we grow, we tend to let our failures define who we are and who we are going to be. We dwell on the mistakes we made instead of the choices that left us happy.

Each day we will fail but, like riding our bike, some days these failures will be so trivial that we simply brush them off our shoulders. Other days we will feel like our day has been ridden with failures that we struggle to get through it. Other times our failures will knock us face first into the pavement and cut us up.

What is the point?

The only way we can move forward is if we acknowledge that our failures don't define who we are. When we failed ridding out bike we got back up and tried it again. That is the most valuable lesson we ever could have learned. When we fail we need to brush it off, learn from it, and keep living. Instead of letting our failures eat away at us and remind us of our weaknesses, we need to learn from them and attempt to prevent them from happening again.

Failures happen. We need to raise above our failures and learn that they do not define us. We are defined by how quickly we can get back on that bike and continue to learn.

Change

Change. It is probably the hardest thing we ever attempt to accomplish in our lives. We look at ourselves and see who we were. Many of us see who we are. Few of us see who we can become. One of my favorite sayings was discovered on a church message board. It read:

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

Now, on the church message board this saying was meant to carry religious meaning. It is there to remind us that the saints, like us, have sinned in their past but have changed and become the saints they now are. This blog isn't here to discuss religious belief, but I felt the saying can relate to our personal growth as well.

There is who you were. There is who you are. There is who you can become.

The first cannot change. Who we were was who we were and there is nothing we can do to change that. It is who we are and who we wish to become that we can change. I wrote in a previous post about us realizing we have to power to change ourselves. We have the power to become whoever we wish.

And the beauty of it all?

It is never too late. We can be young, middle-aged, or older, but we can always become whoever we want. Our future is in our hands. We have the choice to try and let it pass us by, or we can shape it and make it our own.

We, like the sinners, have a future. This future is as bright as the sun. We can shape it by inspiring to be who we always hoped to become.

Who do you hope to become?

Power of words

We have all been insulted by other peoples words. We also all probably insulted other people by using our words. Our words are the strongest weapons we possess. They can build people up or break people down. They can make people smile or make people cry. The impact our words have on other people can often go unnoticed, but then again there are the words "I'm sorry." When we say "I'm sorry", we are usually apologizing for something we said or did. This shows that there are times when we do understand the impact our words have on others. We are able to see that something we said did not make the person we said it to feel very good.

How many times have we apologized to ourselves?

THIS is where the power of our words truly goes unnoticed. We can sometimes see the impact our words have on others,  but we can rarely see the impact our words have on us. Our words have stopped us from being who we wish we were. Our words have stopped us from reaching our true potential.

How many times have we told ourselves we can't do something? There is one way our words have stunted out potential growth.

How many times have we told ourselves we weren't good enough? There is another way our words have impacted us.

So, what can we do about this? Well, here is the plan. We try to remove these negative words from our vocabulary. We need to consciously be aware of our thoughts and words. We need to take it one minute, one hour, one day at a time. It won't be easy. We will mess up, but we need to be aware when we are messing up and we need to fix it. Practice makes perfect, so the more we do it the easier is will become.

We have to allows ourselves to believe we can accomplish anything.

We need to believe in our potential.

Why the new name?

That's right! One at a Time now has a new name!

Building a Better Us!

Yes, the name sounds weird. Shouldn't it be "building a better you"?

No. It shouldn't be "building a better you" because you aren't the only one who needs to be better. We all do. Therefore this blog is about building a better us.

I decided to change the name because I want to blog to have a newer focus. I want the blog to be an opportunity for all of us to grow together. I want to grow with you. I need to grow with you. I figured why not do this together? So we will. Each post will be about opportunities for us to grow as people. Some may be simple short explanations and others may require a lot of work, but we are going to do it....together.

As always, I appreciate your dedication.

Stay tuned for more

The First Step

How do we become the best version of ourselves?

We all want to know the answer. The problem is that many times we tend to look outward for the answer. We look to others, we look to movies, we look to music, we look everywhere for that one true answer.

The problem is that we don't look into ourselves.

This was a powerful lesson that I've realized over the past few weeks. You see, I am not perfect. None of us are, but I am trying to become a better person each and every day. If we stop growing then we stop living. I, like most people, always looked for the answer. I always looked for someone who was going to come along and tell me "you can become a better person by doing x,y,z."

These people don't exist. The truth is we all know exactly what we need to do to become a better person. The first thing we need to do it learn that we have the power. We have the control over all of our choices in life. The sooner we discover this, the sooner we realize that we have the power to make ourselves better.

Maybe you are a smoker who is trying to quit. Maybe you are struggling to keep your diet going because that craving for sweets gets you every time. Maybe you are an athlete striving for that last chance at proving your worth. Whatever we are struggling through can be solved by learning that we have the power. We have the power to say no to the cigarette, or the candy, or the negative thoughts we may have.

We have the power to say no and we have the power to say yes. We are in complete control of our lives even at time when it seems like we aren't. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can take the next step in our personal growth.

Realizing we have the power over ourselves is the first step.

Are you willing to take it?

The Issue At Hand

At Marist, we have a baseball and softball team and a baseball and softball field. Basketball teams and a basketball court. Water Polo and swimming teams and a swimming pool. The Volleyball team has a volleyball court. Our football team, lacrosse team and soccer teams, all have our nice new turf field. Tennis players play on our tennis courts and crew rows on the lovely Hudson river. Even our intramural softball team and club rugby team have a field to play on. That covers every NCAA Division 1 team at Marist....

...Except for the Track and Field team.


Running can be hard to understand. In fact, runners can be hard to understand too, but that is a different topic. The main question most people ask is "can't you run anywhere?"

Yes, technically we can. Our "distance runs" can be on a turf field, the roads, trails, or a track. When we do our daily runs from campus we can and do go out on the roads. However, for a track team to not have a track is like a baseball team having a batting cage, but not field. It is like a basketball team having one hoop, a ball and a painted foul line in the parking lot. It's like hockey without a hockey rink. The fundamentals of the game can still exist, but the specifics don't. It's like eating only a piece of chicken for dinner without any sides. It is the sides that complete the meal.

Picture this: You are a Division 1 athlete and each week in order to get the proper training for your sport you have to go a local high school, or a Division III school just to use their facilities. Not only are you wasting your time traveling back and forth, but aren't you also embarrassed? Here you are, a collegiate athlete and you have to practice at the local high school.

How would you feel? Put yourself in that situation. Would you feel appreciated? Respected?

I don't. I am not the only person who feels this way.

Please take a minute and put yourselves in our shoes.

How would you feel?

You have your main athletic resource...help us get ours.

Judgement

I'm not perfect. No one is perfect. In fact, these blog post I write about bettering ourselves are just as much, if not more, for me then they are for others. Yesterday, Saturday, was another example of a moment in my life that helped me learn how to become a better person.

You see, in the running world there are bug track meets. At these bug track meets there are the first few heats, where those runners who are the best of the best run. There are the middle heats, where I like to think I run most of the time. Then there are the last few heats which consist of runners who aren't as quick as those in the first two sets of heats. Often times you wish that the first two sets of heats are filled with people who simply work harder and more than those who are in the last few heats. As life has taught us, often times that isn't the case. Not all, but many in the last few heats work just as hard as the others.

What is my point?

When you watch a track meet you usually lose focus towards the ends of the races. After 5, or 10, or even 15 heats have gone off, you usually stop paying attention. I have seen many people in slower heats either win their heat or run a certain time and throw their arms up in the air or smile and high-five all their teammates. I have sat there numerous times and made remarks to my friends about how their time was MUCH slower than mine and I didn't react like that, or I would mention how they need to realize they won the 20th heat out of 21.

Yesterday however, I was the kid who smiled after the race. I was the kid who received all the high-fives and I was the kid who ran a very mediocre time.

Suddenly I began to realize that my teammates and my close friends and family all knew that yesterdays race was important to me. I didn't run the best time. I didn't even run my fastest time, but I ran. I finished and I couldn't have been happier.

Everyone has their own life story. These are stories that 99% of the people around us do not know about. I thought about all those kids who I judged because they were happy about a time that I believed was mediocre. Yesterday helped me understand that I should NEVER judge someone for accomplishing something they believe is important.

We are often so quick to judge, yet we almost never fully understand the situation. We need to try and remember that everyone has their accomplishments and we should be happy for them.