Good morning! Inspiration is the word of the day. Don’t expect a word of the day everyday. I don’t want to submit to that precedent. But today, there’s a word. My swimming days were either exploding with inspiration or miserable repetitions. But what I recall the most now are those days of abounding inspiration. I am still on a hunt for something that inspires me like my swimming aspirations did.
I just concluded my nine months of teaching swim lessons at the DeMont Family Swim School. Rick DeMont was my coach for my last two years in the pool and his lovely wife, Carrie, runs their family swim school. It’s a booming success. Carrie manages to keep her head whilst operating a business and raising two little girls. When swim school students achieve a certain set of skills they graduate to the next level and earn a ribbon. I earned a ribbon on Tuesday for graduating to the level of “awesomeness” and Carrie also gave me a book meant to rile up inspiration. It is formatted like a children’s book. Hardcover, easy to read through, blanks to fill in. That style never loses it’s appeal.
It’s called “5: Where Will You Be Five Years From Today?” It’s authored by Dan Zadra, but really is full of quotes from wise people and statistics backing up the advice. A lot of the advice it offers seems so simple. Write down your goals. Share your goals with people who will help you reach them. Write down your ideas. Write down places you really want to go. Basically, write it down. There’s something about putting ink to paper/text to document that holds us accountable. Not that I want to put pressure on myself to do everything on my life goal list, but it is SO easy to get distracted from those goals that float in and out of our heads. I have yet to jot down my goals in the book, but as soon as I do, I will share them.
The second message of the book is, stop waiting on your dreams to fulfill themselves. Sounds so outlandishly cheesy as I write it, but I am so guilty of this. I tell so many people how interested I am in massage therapy, counseling, speech pathology, nutrition, blogging (yep, not all that consistent) and the list goes on. I’m really good at talking about things and not doing them. So that’s a goal…I want to DO more.
I don’t want to line up anymore cliches in this entry, so I’m going to pull the plug now. But thanks, Carrie DeMont, for a book full of reminders of how to keep growing 🙂
