5 Principles I have learned at the Gym

1) Don’t compare yourself to others

When running on the treadmill we somehow tend to compare ourselves with the person next to us. The comparison is unrealistic because you’ll find that a 21 year-old slender girl is comparing herself to a 45 year old overweight woman.  Obviously, the 21 year old has more energy than the 45 year old! If you still compare yourself, your achievements, your success, your personality, to other people, I would encourage you to stop. When you compare yourself to others it leads only to frustration and a low-self-esteem, you rob yourself the chance of being authentic in your own personal domain. You cannot be dark in complexion and expect to compare yourself to someone who has a lighter complexion. You cannot be short and expect to compare yourself to somebody who's tall. You cannot come from South African and expect to compare yourself with somebody coming from the States. Basically- you cannot compare yourself to anyone who is not exactly, and I mean exactly like you because that would be unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for an Education student to compare herself to a Medical student. It’s unrealistic for an Author to compare her achievement to actress’s achievements. It’s so unrealistic for a slender girl to compare her speed on the treadmill with the overweight woman’s speed. Be yourself. Run your race. At your own pace.

2) If you keep allowing yourself to fall, it takes longer to reach your God-given destiny

When we run on the treadmill we set ourselves a specific time objective. I always have my ten minute warm-ups before most of my workouts. If my speed is intense, I usually just pause the machine, take a few grasps of air, and continue with my workout. Most of the time when I pause it though, I stand there for a very long time staring at people at the gym or thinking about the deli chips on campus! What I have learned is, even though I pause my workout many times to rest, at the end of the day I have to reach my target time. The more I pause, the longer it takes, and the more tiring it is, and the harder it is to resume the workout. It’s the same as falling into various kinds of sins. We have the power within us to refuse to fall and keep running the race until we reach the end point. If we allow ourselves to constantly “pause” our spiritual life, and only feel spiritual on certain days, then it’s going to take extremely long to get to your destiny. And you want to know what’s sad? If you are called by God you cannot back down on this race. There are dreams that God wants manifested in this world and they can only come through you! So avoid the sins that cause you to fall, and keep fighting the good fight of faith!

3) Small hinges open big doors

If I skip gym longer than normal, to wipe away the guilt, I come back with “full force”. I would set myself an unrealistic goal of running on the treadmill for 20 minutes at 12,0m/s!!. And guess what, in just half a second already my lungs feel as if they’re going to pop out, therefore, I stop running altogether. What I have realized though is that I’m able to accomplish my goals if my speed increases little by little, from 7,0m/s, to 7,5, and then 8, and so forth. If you can do the little and remain consistent in your doing, you will effortlessly reach your goals. By the time you get to your target time you’d think, “Oh, that was fun”, or “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!” It is the same with our spiritual life and our dreams. We cannot expect to get born-again today and already the next day we are high on cloud nine. Well some can, but anything that is God-ordained will come through hard, consistent labor and patience. That time is called the “pruning” time where God works on your character to approve you as a good and faithful servant. Can you stand to be blessed friend? Be patient. Be consistent. Take it one step at a time!

4) Have fun while on earth

If you want to see bitter people, go to the gym. It’s like some of them were dragged there and told, “If you don’t lose weight, I don’t want you anymore!” There is no fun in working out with a grumpy, angry attitude. Gym is fun and you should make the most of your time there! It’s the same as people who have given their lives to God. They want to be forced to attend church meetings, conferences, home cells, and all this overwhelms them. They develop anger towards those people who are availing themselves to equip their spiritual needs. If you have given your life to Jesus, you must make peace with the fact that your life cannot be as it was before. If you go to gym, accept that you pay a monthly fee for it and you cannot keep the unhealthy eating habits you had before. The spiritual journey is not easy but it’s not boring either! Have fun and enjoy the journey!

5) Be humble

Last but not least, be humble. Humility doesn’t come easy with many of us. For instance, a person only signs up for membership gym today and already in a week he thinks that he has it all covered. He is the first to give advice but never takes advice from those who have been working out years before he even arrived in the scene. I have learned that if I am going to reach my weight loss goal, I will have to humble myself and enquire advice from the veterans. The other day I worked out with a couple of new people, and they had many new things to teach and show me. Yea, I didn’t feel like I am “miss know it all” afterwards, but despite how I felt, their advice has made my workouts even more effective. You can’t be a skinny guy and say to a muscular one, “Yoh bro’ you need to work out bro. You need to carry heavier weights man.” You see what I mean? You’d rather ask him how he got where he is.  When you become born again you might feel like you know it all, but frankly you know nothing. You cannot teach about marriage if you haven’t gone through the process of marriage. You cannot command people to stop fornicating or masturbating if you haven’t endured the process. You cannot teach that which you haven’t learned. So my advice would be, rather listen to the advice of people who have endured the process, read books, and get as much wisdom as possible.  If you are going to become all God wants you to be, you have to stay under delegated authority. It’s ok. You don’t need to know everything. You don’t have to get everything right at a go. All you just have to do is remain humble. 

I have the power to change the shape of my body in the gym. I have the power to change the outcome of my life through the choices I make!