Fitness And Dreams Share Same Hope

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The underlying message of the evening, in addition to encouraging kids and teens to share and reach for their dreams, was hope. In his address, Webster made it a point to offer a staggering statistic – that 65% of children don’t share their life dreams with their parents or adults.

While we can all offer conjecture about the “why” to this unfortunate statistic, the fix begins with a mantra that even as adults we too strive for encouragement, support, motivation, recognition and belief.

That last word, “belief” really had me thinking.  I’m hung up on it, because my epiphany was how little difference there is between kids who wish to go out and conquer the world, and the adults who use fitness to conquer some aspect of their own world.   The reasons are secondary to the importance of having a physical location that motivates supports, educates, encourages and inspires.

One particular take-away was that the work of the fitness trainer, much like the parent figure can accommodate those who wish to regain hope through making physical changes to themselves.  Ultimately, for many, the gym and the positive changes that can be made to ones own body often facilitates a cascade of other positive changes in life as well. Call it self-belief, or self-affirmation, the net change is a good one.

The fitness platform becomes the proving ground of what a person can achieve when they put their mind and focus to something specific.  When people succeed in making positive changes to themselves in the gym, the launching pad of self confidence continues.  I have seen this time and time again, and it struck me that encouragement can take anyone to levels of accomplishment they never envisioned.

Any person, especially the young, always remembers how that chrysalis of hope, incubated with help, motivation, inspiration and guidance can create an outcome that transcended their wildest dream.  The best part is that the fitness avenue is comparable to only one star in a huge galaxy. It just happens to be my work, and the best place to draw these comparisons.

So while I battle with my clumsy metaphor today, perhaps the strongest message is that Dream Big shouldn’t sound foreign to anyone who ever tried to make change.  Whether it was in the gym putting your dream into action, gazing in the distance to imagine the “what if’s” or staring up at the ceiling while visualizing success, at one time or another we’ve all “Dreamt Big.”

For those who were fortunate enough to have someone listen to your dreams, you lucked out.  The best part however, is that right now, there is a young person who just like you, has a big dream.  All you have to do is ask them what it is, and then listen, encourage and most importantly fan that small flame with lots of hope.

Dream Big, Nathan Webster, you’re well on your way.