Burning Desire: I'm Not Afraid To Dream Extreme

Dear Boys and Girls,

I don't normally receive requests to blog about certain topics. But tonight a friend and coach on my team, Nick, asked me write about desire.

Hm.

Okay. At 8:04 pm, after bringing it hardcore with Plyo-X at 5:30am, working all day, coming home to walk and play with the dogs, cook, post on my forum, answer a few emails, and then co-lead a Team Meeting, do I have energy to write about this elusive thing called desire? Actually, yea, I do.

The day I started my fitness journey--it was July 30, 2007--I had decided that I was done for good with excuses. I had been there, done that. Look where that had gotten me: feeling fat and miserable. Nothing was going to stop me from getting fit and living the life I knew I deserved to live. That feeling is called desire.

I reached my original goal within six weeks; I had lost 10 lbs with Slim in 6 and surpassed my wildest expectations. Since then, I've lost 10 more lbs, become a Double-Star Diamond Coach with over 200 coaches on my team, am loving my job and the people in my life. Yup, life is good, and believe me when I tell you, it's only up from here.

What drives me? The desire to be the best me I can be. I know, how cliche. But, it's true. If you want something, you have to be willing to work for it.

Barbie, how do you stay so motivated? This is a question I get often and my answer hardly ever really varies:

I don't always feel like getting up and bringing it at 5 or 6 am. I don't always feel like eating clean. I don't always feel like making the responsible choices in other areas of my life, for that matter. I don't always feel like blogging. I don't always feel like posting. I don't always feel like sitting my butt down to write and work on my book (G*d knows that's the truth!). But, I do it anyway because I know that if I want to be fit, healthy, happy, and fulfilled, I have to be willing to put in the work. That's desire.

True desire, the kind that brings about change is unmovable, it is engrained in us. It is not the fleeting, "Oh, I don't want to work out tonight." It is not the, "Ugh, I don't feel like working on my book." It's the knowledge and acceptance that we need to do this to get that. Yea, that's desire.

Close your eyes. Imagine yourself as you'd like to be. What's been stopping you? When are you going to be done making excuses? When are you going to get out of your own way?

Decide. Commit. Succeed. Yea, I think BeachBody was on to something.

Truly, your partner in success,

Barbie, PhD