The spirit of the Olympics is tantamount to life.  I love the commercial that says “Luck does not get you to the Olympic games.  You can’t wish your way onto the podium.  you can’t buy it or hope for it. It is not enough to dream about.  Luck did not get me to London, I swam here.” http:/You have to believe in yourself enough to take action.

I watched the Fab Five, McKayla Maroney, Kyla Ross, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber, dominate the Olympic team finals.  In an interview, it was clear to me that the Fab Five was clear about their future.  They believed in themselves.  And today, they are at the Olympics.  They’ve won the gold and fulfilled their dreams that were created when they were children watching the olympics.

The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius, a Latin expression meaning “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. Ideals are further expressed in the Olympic creed: The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.  Just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

How did all of these athletes make it to the Olympics? They believed in themselves.  They had people who believed and stood for them.  They created their work, did the work, believed in themselves and acted upon their dream.

If you are waiting on someone to give you what you want, then you are not taking responsibility for your actions. You must accept that you are turning over your power to another person.   Where are you waiting for something to be to your liking? Do you get yourself upset because your boss has not given you what you want?  Your partner does not want you to be you? Your money is not the way you want it to be? Take the initiative and start believing in you.  It’s is up to you to increase your productivity and improve your performance.   Everything that you want is already in your own hands.

Be willing to give yourself permission to do what you want with your life.  What are the things that you could do that are necessary, keeping in mind that your life in not linear? There are a lot of things that have to be done so that you can have a full life while pursuing your dreams. Relationships have to maintained, money still has to be made, work still has to be done, food still has to be eaten, bodies and health have to be taken care of, fun still has to be had, vacations to be created. (You can’t forget vacations.)  There are no real excuses for not living your dreams, only the excuses you make up that stop you from taking action. There are still, and will only ever be, 24 hours in the day and what you do with them is entirely up to you.

Now you know that life is not linear.  Blaming people, places and things for your inability to take action on the things that you want is your way of saying and believing that you cannot have what you desire.  Making others wrong for sharing their thoughts and feeling is you not taking responsibilities for what is important to you.   In life, your timeline does not have to agree with anyone else’s.  Just because timelines, thoughts, feelings and agreement are not in alignment with yours, does not mean the other person is bad or wrong. All it means is it’s different.  Different is never bad or wrong.

Check in with yourself. Are you holding yourself back?  Hiding who you really are? Pretending to be something other than who you are?  Not sharing yourself and what is important to you?  Feeling fearful hurt upset and living in the past while pretending you’re present?  Believe in yourself and remember, you are the captain of your ship and any success you desire truly comes from you. Citius, Altius, Fortius Faster, Higher, Stronger. Or as they say in Hip Hop Go Hard.

How are you going to be Faster, Higher and Stronger? We invite you to share your ideas in the box below.