Giving 100%

Last night I was watching Dancing with the Stars and my favorite dancer is Bindi Irwin. She is adorably cute, outgoing, full of life and most of all, she gives 100% to every dance she does. If she trips up, she keeps going and gives even more "spit fire" to her dance to make up for the mistake.  The judges commented last night on how they loved her ability to give everything to every single dance. You could sense the pride they had in her. Despite not holding her shoulders and head back quite right in the dance, they kept commenting on how they loved her fortitude and willingness to plow ahead. They were also amazed she kept at the practicing despite her feet being torn up and even losing a couple of toe nails! She superglued them on! Now that's what I call someone who has fortitude and is completely undaunted. 

How many love it when they see someone just plowing through life despite what life hands them? How many people are inspired by their actions when someone gets hurt, or injured or has a whole bunch of lemons handed to them in life, yet they never complain and keep at it? 

I know I am completely floored, encouraged, inspired and want to be like them, when I see a person like that. 

Giving 100% is difficult sometimes. Sometimes we have things weighing us down, whether it be finances, illness, pain, fear, depression, and so on and we just can't seem to get our feet back under us. There have been days I've not even wanted to crawl out of bed. I've not always been the most positive, uplifting person. But I realized last night that those, "We all have bad days, it's ok" saying, really is a saying we give meaning to by choice! We don't have to have "bad days!" Bad days happen. It's inevitable. But what makes it bad for us is our choices and our attitude. We chose to let the bad days bring us down. We chose to slum around in a pity party. We chose to allow the stress and frustrations of life bring us down. 

I saw on Dancing with the Stars last night, the wince on Bindi's face when Derek asked her if she was ok. She kept saying, "I'm fine. Let's keep going! I've got to keep going!" It didn't matter that she literally had holes on the bottoms of her feet, or that her toe nails were falling off. It didn't matter that her ribcage hurt and was bruised from practicing. She saw the goal in sight. She knew she had a purpose, a reason, to keep at it. 

Some of us have to stop and say, "Well, where is my purpose? Where is my goal?" Some of us feel lost on a daily basis, not knowing which way is up and which way is down. We feel overwhelmed because life keeps handing us lemons and we've made so much lemonade, we're sick of it. We just want iced tea now. (analogy!) But sometimes we have to just keep smiling. That is what becomes our goal. Smile. Be happy. Chose, chose, chose happiness. Every day is a choice to be happy or depressed. If you don't have a huge goal to reach, set little goals. 

Here's a few ideas I came up with for myself, because right now, I don't have a lot going on in my life to have goals for. 

1. Brush my hair every day and do something nice with it, at least twice a week. 

2. Enjoy the sunshine on my face. The extra vitamin D is always good. 

3. Enjoy the prattling, the non-stop prattling, of my kids. (Heaven help me!)

4. Clean up the house every night before bed. Waking up to a relatively clean home always makes one feel better. 

5. Do something to make someone else smile. Helping others always brings a smile to my face and heart!

After having my baby, I plan on having some work out goals and goals for eating healthy, etc. Life always has something to offer that is good, no matter what bad things are happening. Let's learn to give 100% during every circumstance in our life. Let's let our lives inspire others to be happy! When we give 100% in the face of struggles, we will be laying the groundwork in our hearts as well as others to be women of fortitude. Undaunted. Fearless. Lionesses. We can do this, ladies! Let's be the inspiration we want to see in the world!