On Being Realistic.

The stopwatch doesn’t lie.

Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity. – Will Smith

Or is it?

Well I have been fairly unrealistic with my expectations of life thus far, sometimes I’ve been proven right by reality, other times wrong.

But what I realised is that I overestimate my capabilities for today, end up over-reaching and not making the best out of the day constantly.

For example I would go to the track thinking I will run my 8x200m session with a pace that I should have been targeting at for this time of the year if I had trained according to schedule.

But I have not.

And by the 4th rep I’m horribly off pace, demoralised and utterly exhausted, wasting the session instead.

So I tried a different tactic last week, this time I under-estimated myself and deliberately set a very slow time, gradually running faster when my body allows me to.

I completed the session and felt that I’ve gotten the best out of the session.

I then came to a conclusion, the whole concept of being realistic, is relative to time.

You have to be realistic with what is going on right now, and accept that what you see today are the very real circumstances and limitations that you have to deal with right now.

But that does not have to be the reality of tomorrow.

In fact, you can be completely unrealistic about tomorrow, because the truth is: anything is possible.

You work with what you have to the best of your abilities today, then yourself up to achieve the amazing in the future.

Gotta get to work.