Strength Training To Carry The Weight Upon Our Shoulders

Each of us have a certain amount of weight we carry. By weight, I mean our responsibilities, contributions to society, serving our families and workplaces. There are things each of us just need to get done. As a leader, you are in a position where you take on more weight.

As I was thinking about this my mind went to weight lifters, or any type of strength training. As people get stronger they are able to lift more weight. Take a simple example, doing push-ups. If you haven't done them in a few weeks, months or even years, the first time you try to do them, maybe just getting to 10 is a chore. Your arms are shaking as you push yourself up and you are astounded at how out of breath you are. But you keep doing them every day. Pretty soon your arms don't shake any more, you can crank out those 10 with no change in your breathing. You realize you can now do more than 10. So you push yourself and keep getting stronger. Day by day your total increases and suddenly you are doing 20, 30 or more. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes time to build up the muscle. We also all don't start in the same place, for some just getting that first 1 push-up is hard, for others who haven't done one in years can just drop and give you 20 with seemingly no effort. 

The weight we carry in our world is no different. We are able to get stronger by exercising those muscles every day. Getting stronger to the point you can carry more weight. 

What I see too often is how we want to take the easy way out, we want to see how much weight we can offload. What weight can I take out of my backpack to lighten my load. Statements like, "That's not my job." and "That is what they pay my manager to have to deal with." Those ideas don't make us stronger and it just puts more of a burden on others to carry what should be our weight.

If you only do 10 pushups every day, you aren't going to get stronger. You have to push yourself to the point where your arms start shaking a little and your breathing increases. We don't need to take the weight of the world on our shoulders, but we need to take on a little more than we usually carry if we want to get stronger. We need more strong people in the world.

Strength Doesn't Come From What You Can Do


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