Ain't that the truth.

After a rather pathetic performance during this morning’s running drill, I fell into the trap of beating myself up; the voice that tells you “to just give up already” was loud and clear! But in the few nano-seconds just before giving in and agreeing with it, I thankfully remembered a perspective-shifting story that I heard recently. So I thought I would share.

During a conference last Fall I had the absolute pleasure of attending the keynote address delivered by a woman named Yvonne Camus who spoke about how she prepared for and competed in Eco-Challenge 2000, the world’s longest and most difficult race, a race so challenging that it’s not about who finishes first, but rather who finishes, period. What was so motivating about her particular experience was that she was the only female member of a four-person Canadian team who not only finished the race but were the first-ever rookie team to do so.

Her one-hour speech was filled with awe-inspiring tales, tears, life lessons and “ah ha” moments to which anyone could relate but there was one story in particular that resonated with me.

To prepare for the 10-day, 24-hour, 500km race through the jungles of Borneo, her team trained twice a day for three months with the Canadian military. Their daily routines consisted of a grueling 4:30am bike ride and run, followed by a day of work and kids, and then another three-hour workout before collapsing into bed.

After one particularly tough training session, she had lost hope; it was all just too much. The voice that told her to “just give up already” was loud and clear and in a moment of defeat, she told her trainer that she was ready to quit, to which he said the following.

"You can quit if you want to; I won’t stop you. But what I will tell you is that today is not the day to make that decision."

He explained.

"When you’re working toward a goal like learning to run or bike or ski, or anything that is a challenge, you have to look at it like this. If you were to practice 10 out of 10 days, you will have 8 days that you do ok. You will have one day that you feel like you can’t take another step and then one day that you will feel like you can go on forever.

The mistake most people make, and therefore end up sabotaging their success, is judging their potential on that one “worst” day instead of the one “best” day. So if you want to quit, quit. But be very clear, a bad day does not determine your potential, just your fortitude. "

Ain't that the truth.