Attitude is key to making a successful transformation in any area of your life. This week, mine has frankly sucked. As I step on to the treadmill I think back on the work week I've had. I managed to drag my attitude up from the cellar and end on a positive note. But it's not enough. I fall into the familiar rhythm of my run; thud, thud, breathe, thud, thud, breathe. I don't want to be here. I want out of this town, I want out of this body. I wish there was a magic lamp that could take me away from all this. I don't want to wait, I want it now! It's an immature, but very human thought. When you think about it, that thought explains a good deal about why Americans look the way we do. We want everything now. Instant pudding, instant banking, shopping on-line. We are so focused on getting there that we have forgotten about the joy of the journey. My shin starts pulling, the precursor to an onset of shin splints so I make a slight modification to my stride and drift back to my thoughts. My hamstrings are still tight from my leg work yesterday. My lower back is a bit sore, and my knees chose minute 15 to make their displeasure known. The pain draws me back to my purpose. Running. I watch the minutes tick by and force myself to keep upping the intensity. I want to feel like I'm ready to lose a lung today. For just a few minutes I want to forget work, forget the state of the world, and forget how scared I am. As the minutes tick by there is nothing but my pain and me. No room for spare thoughts right now. This is about survival. If I trip, my chin and the rail will become best friends. There's no quick fix lose weight now supplement that will do this for me. There's no 5-minute miracle workout that will keep me from falling on my face. Just me. I just need to hang in there a bit longer. Everything will come in time.

3am on a Sunday. Time to pause and reflect on the past week. Time to ponder the future, what I could be, what I want to be. There's not much time for that though. Right now I have to focus on where I am. I've always had trouble focusing. My attention span resembles that of a gnat due to a learning disorder. I've struggled with it my whole life. When I was young I would squirm and wiggle in my chair and the mental discomfort I was experiencing manifested itself physically. As an adult, I still have the same problem. I squirm like a 3 year old when faced with a very difficult intellectual activity. My mind never wants to stay here. It wants to go wandering. Today I have a quote before me on a 3x5 card. It tells me to forget everything but what I'm going to do right now. And for a time, all that exists is the treadmill and me. I'm not visualizing a beautiful beach. I'm not dreaming of what I'll look like. One minute at a time, I focus on now. I focus on the thump-thump of my feet hitting the ground. I focus on the burning in my lungs. I focus on nothing but me. It doesn't last terribly long. It's a minute here, a minute there. But gradually the duration builds. One minute becomes two, two becomes three. By the end of the 20 minutes I've managed 12 minutes of focused effort. My head hurts a bit. It's not used to that type of effort. Like all pain, this will pass. And today, I'm just a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, and a bit wiser. After all, anyone can focus for just a minute. All it takes is focusing one minute at a time over and over again. I can do this. I can do anything one minute at a time.