"Do you ever feel like you are missing something in your life? If so, do you consistently focus on that loss to the point where you forget about all the other things that you do have in your life? How do you not let that loss become the focus of your life? How do you switch from focusing on the negative to the positive?"

I saw Michael Phelps compete at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Victoria, B.C. in 2006.  I am a fellow swimmer and find him, like many of his fans, inspiring to watch.  Prior to this time, I had only seen him on magazine covers, talk shows, and at the 2004 Olympics.  I will admit that before seeing him, I thought he was this amazingly talented swimmer who had innate talent and did not have to practice.  Also, I thought because he was a celebrity he was somehow different than other swimmers.   However, when seeing him in this environment, my views changed and I became even more impressed with him.   I realized he works extremely hard and that all those medals are well-deserved. He is human like the rest of us.  He may have the physical strength yet it is his mental strength that I admire most and makes him excel.

Over my lifetime, I have experienced great loss.  Death and goodbye are parts of life.  Hard aspects but are parts none the less.  When it happens to others around you, it makes you reevalaute how you are living and shows you that life goes by rather quickly.  Losing friends and family has made me realize what matters in life and what does not.  Since I love music, here is the song "Things that matter" by Rascal Flatts which reinforces what has been on my mind lately.

I just found this amazing video of the Canadian Men's Olympic Rowing Team which was shot at Elk Lake in Victoria, B. C.  I thought I would share this of some incredible athletes since the video reinforces the mental training component of athletics which I blogged about yesterday in my post .  Also, this is where I learned to row :) .

Practice makes perfect, right? Or, if you keep training and improving, you will win medals, right? The common motivational advice from other athletes is: "Keep practicing and never give up!"

When I hear statements like these, it seems that athletics can be simplified into a formula.  You train for this many hours (10,000 hours as said by Malcolm Gladwell)  or repeat the motion 50,000 times, and you will excel at it.  In many sports programs, the focus is on the physical and technical aspects.  The athletes constantly train to improve their technique to become the best they can be.  They go to practice and do drills to better their performance.

Hi everyone!

I haven't written in a while, there was a death in the family that caused me to take a break  from writing.  I'm back now!

Lately, I have been hearing songs that inspire me and relate to things that are currently going on in my life and the lives of others closest to me.  I heard the song "Jet Lag" by Simple Plan featuring Natasha Bedingfield and it made me think of how I fell for a silly boy (who will remain nameless).

“How do people persist despite setbacks?”  This is a question I have been asking myself recently.

I think we can learn a lot from athletes.  Last semester, while I was rowing in the provincial race, my seat fell off the track and stopped four times.  It wrecked my performance and the performance of our eight boat but I quickly took the seat off the track four times and put it back on and continued rowing.  I didn't even think for a second to stop rowing, quit, and not finish the race.

I learned a lot from this competition and many other experiences over my athletic journey .  No matter how hard you try to control life and practice for the perfect race or game (in sport and in life), things can go wrong.   As much as you try to control it, you can never control the actions of others and the environment around you.  The aspect you can control, however, is how you react to the situation (i.e., your attitude).

Here is some advice that I've come up with for you to follow if you would like to feel better about youself:

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day, which made me think about an earlier blog post I wrote, "The Value of Authenticity in Relationships." My friend and I have known each other for a number of years, and we have tried to be authentic with each other.   While I thought we were close, recent events happened that pushed us awayfrom each other and made us only discuss superficial topics.  My friend then brought up how I was a "frustrating friend," as I only talked about superficial topics; so, the friend had lost interest in our friendship. We were both going through hardships, yet we did not share with each other.  This example shows that it is even hard to reach out to share with your friends. 

I heard Natasha Bedingfield's  song "Strip Me" on the radio the other day and had to share.  Such an important message:

"I'M ONLY ONE VOICE IN A MILLION BUT YOU AIN'T TAKING THAT FROM ME!"

We all grieve in different ways.  I'm turning to writing to express the thoughts that are in my head right now.

I just came home from taking our family cat, Comet to the vet.  She usually loves to eat and will come running whenever you put kibble in her bowl.  Also, she constantly would wake us up by either bunting our face or slightly nibbling our hair when she wanted to wake us up at night to give her a midnight/early morning snack.  Well, when she wouldn't eat and would sniff her favourite foods and walk away; we knew something was up.

The dream starts out with a University Crew Women’s Eight at the starting line competing in a 6k race against three other boats.  The boat begins the course with eight rowers and one coxie.

At the starting gate, one of the athletes focused on how she was treated rudely by one coach and overlooked by the others because of her abilities. Suddenly, she - including her seat and her oar -disappeared from the boat!

The other athletes decide they would continue the race without her, since they had worked so hard during the season.  The race started off really well. Then at the the 5,900 metre mark, there is an equipment failure where one of the oarlocks breaks.  The athlete who’s oarlock broke doesn’t know what to do, and stops rowing. Then “poof”, the second athlete disappears.