Swimmers
This is a Netflix Movie based on a True Story, about 2 girls from Syria who emigrate to Germany without their family to escape war and with the hopes of gaining an asylum-seeking status so they can bring their family over through the family reunification process for refugees. Both are swimmers and have been coached by their dad, who was a professional swimmer himself. Along the way the faced tremendous obstacles that ultimately ended in a happy ending for them.
The younger sister has aspirations of swimming in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Her spirit was tremendously inspiring to me and obviously to everyone else hence they made a movie about it, and I thought it was a good reminder for all of us.
Set Backs / Resiliency / Determination
Set Backs. These girls faced set back after set back along the way. Heartbreaking and discouraging too many times and yet they had no choice but to go back to war and possible death or keep moving forward towards Germany and the unknown journey to get there.
The younger girls aspirations to swim in the Olympics carried her a little during the hard parts and really lit a fire under her when they reached the refugee encampment in Germany. Her clock started ticking and she was determined to take action. She started training in the refugee camp by running, doing calisthenics, using a leather belt as a TRX and a water cooler as weight for lower body and core exercises.
Then her sister and her approached a professional swim coach who said he was full and had no openings for them, and she countered with rebuttal after rebuttal until she finally told him her swim times and he got them some swim gear and he made time for them.
Then after watching her swim for a while, she asked him to write Syria and ask them to put her on the Syrian swim team and he told her her times weren't good enough and that she could be a championship swimmer, just not an Olympic Swimmer. Oh boy, does this girl not like hearing no for answer. Every time she heard him say no, she would swim more, longer, faster, harder, more often. It was so inspiring. And she would do it instantly. She manifested her dream by working harder and harder.
It was understandable that she didn't have good times because of all the trauma and hardship she faced emigrating. The coach knew it and saw it. She knew it too, but it didn't matter. She had a goal and if the results from her efforts weren't lining up with her desired outcome, she would change her efforts to change her results to meet her desired outcome.
This is where I thought of you.
When I ask people what their goals are:
what are you looking to change over the next 12 months?
what needs to change to make this happen?
or
what are you looking to change and by when?
why must you make this change?
what happens if you don't make this change?
People share really deep goals, deadlines and why it's important to them.
Sometimes though, the amount of effort needed just to start boot camp is a lot, but not necessarily enough to reverse patterns and reach their goals. Then we check in and the results they were expecting (weight loss, body fat loss, inches, more push ups or pull ups, faster run times, etc...) didn't happen or even got worse. This can be discouraging if you've been putting in tremendous effort compared to before and the results aren't matching your efforts and worse they're not necessarily moving you closer to your goals.
Here's where the movie comes in. Sometimes in life your effort is honest and true, but it's rusty. You're out of practice working hard on this particular task. Just like the girl, she was working hard, but not as hard as she did when she was in Syria, being coached by her dad, sleeping in her own bed, going to school and being taken care of by her parents as children are. She had to work harder to shake off the rust. She had to step up, get mad, get focused and do even better. And she did. And then it still wasn't good enough. So she worked harder and got more focused and kept going. And again and again until all of the set backs, got overrun by continuous effort and the continuous effort led to momentum, which led to results, which ultimately led to her ... go watch the movie!
Take Home Message
When you give effort and don't get the results you were expecting. Smile. You've just started shaking off the rust. Get mad, get more focused and do better. #KeepGoing. It's a metaphor for life. Set backs are the universe's way of testing you to see how much you want something. Don't like your results. Double down. You double down and see some progress, but not what you expected? Double down again. Keep repeating until you're no longer rusty and you change the momentum towards the path of results and your goals.
E.g. if you want to lose weight and you're not seeing results. Move more. Are you hitting your cardio goal? If not, get out walking and go hit it. If you are hitting your cardio goal. Add 30 more minutes / week.
Are you eating right before bed? Try finishing 2-3+ hours before bed.
Are you eating oatmeal? Start if you're not. Add another day if you are.
Are you hitting your daily water goal? If not, figure out how to easily do it. If yes, add another 8 oz.
There are many different ways you can do more and get refocused depending on your goals. Don't be discouraged by set backs. Be encouraged that you got started, took action and have begun shaking off the rust. Get mad if needed, refocus, increase your efforts and #KeepGoing. Anything worth achieving is made sweeter by the effort. You'll be glad you did, I'll help you along the way and your peers will support you and cheer you on. #KeepGoing!
Next week is the last week of the year. Then a 2 week break (No Boot camp between 12/18 to 1/1. We return on 1/2/23 for the start of year 14 (and the party planning for year 15).
Make it count,
Mike
p.s. change happens the fastest during record weeks. piggyback on this!
