Are you looking for a way there or a way out?

​With the 2024 Summer Olympics beginning, I thought this article from 3 years ago was worth editing a bit and re-sharing.

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I spent a little time watching the Olympics over the weekend. It's easy to be awed by these young men and women. While watching them compete among some of the most accomplished athletes in the world, it's easy to be lured into believing I am watching the larger than life, the supernatural.

But I am not.

What I am really watching are people who have decided what is important to them. They have decided it is important enough for them to find a way to do it, and not a bunch of excuses why they can't.

I am watching people who appear to be larger than life because they've spent a larger amount of their lives than me saying yes to a way and hell no to excuses.

I also spent some time on the trails this weekend with my friends Celia and Meg who are attempting to run the entire Appalachian Trail. My friend Celia was battling stomach issues. Yet, here she was, 4 days and 120 miles into their recent segment, it was hot and she was feeling awful, and all she was talking about was finding a way.

Finding a way to keep going. Finding a way for her to be larger than her life as she's known it.

She had the perfect excuse in front of her, but she said no to the excuse and yes to finding a way.

The more I watch the Olympics, the more I hang out with Celia and Meg, the less I am awed by THEIR superpowers and the more I begin questioning why I so infrequently tap into MY OWN.

Because the only thing separating all of them from me is the number of excuses I buy into. When I'm finding a way to say I can't today, they'll be finding a way to say I'll do whatever it takes.

Sometimes it's not good for us to watch the Olympics or hang out with friends running the unimaginable run. Because we can walk away from them making THEM our newest excuse.

-They have some special gift I don't have.

-They have more time, money and resources.

-They have a better support system.

No, I'm sorry, that is not what they have that you and I don't have.

What they have is total clarity about what is important to them. What they want and deserve in life. And if you ever try to give them an excuse why they can't pull off what is important to them, they'll tell you what to do with that excuse.

Maybe we should think about that a little more. Whatever it is we're thinking is important to us, there's a good way of measuring just HOW important it is.

Are we making a way for that important thing to get done or to become a part of our lives, or are we making excuses why it can't?

So the next few weeks, during these 2024 Summer Olympics, I think I'll spend a little more time thinking about what is really important to me. And, maybe, challenge myself to spend a little more time thinking about the way to get there, and not the way out.