Ordinary vs. Extraordinary

This personal growth stuff is really powerful stuff! And I like it!

I’ve always done physical exercise like yoga, running, weight training, adult competitive kickball, etc. to strengthen the body. Now, I’m exercising my mind and spirit to build my inner strength and attain some personal growth. This is something that I'm going to do from now on and it requires practice, time and energy. I am so very lucky to have wonderful personal trainers like Janet, “Not Steve” and so many of you to guide me and who lead by example.

I know that this is going to be a slow process with tremendous rewards and some aches and pains. But, I have grown more in just a matter of weeks than I have in twenty years.

Many of you may be asking “What do you mean?”
Well, for starters, Janet and I developed a mantra, “Aim Low.” We figured that any step forward would be a success, even if it is only one tiny step in the right direction. Instead of feeling the weight on the world on our shoulders at all times, we would break the world down (in my case the world consists of lots of To-Do piles) into tiny pieces and deal with each piece one at a time.

In the last blog, I blabbed about being stalled in our website and book writing efforts. The next day, I opened my brain extra wide and the website question, “What is Knitwits?” was answered. Janet must have done the same thing, she came to work with several pages for our book. We found our direction and focus again and we can now keep moving forward. Our roadblock has been unblocked!

Then, I put a little extra into my flying duties. I interacted and made connect with my passengers and crew instead of just trying to do my job and get through the trip. I enjoyed getting to know the different people on each flight and it put the fun back into flying again. When you spend most of your time doing something, you better have fun doing it!

My last example is a biggie. I took the first step in mending fences with my family. For many reasons (some known and some unknown), my family and I have grown distant and remote. We’re not great communicators and our pride built walls around our true feelings. There was a perpetual pattern of my mother talks, we listen, we get mad, she gets her feelings hurt. To avoid this cycle, we just stopped talking to each other. I sent an e-mail to my mother, brother and sister-in-law about my Christmas plans to stay in the 41017 and included that the best gift for me would be to forgive and be forgiven for any differences we may have, set pride aside and repair this family unit. I received immediate responses back-all wishing for the same gift!

I read a quote the other day and I want to share it with you all:

"The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra." Jimmy Johnson

Isn't this why we knit!