Good morning! I want to talk about equating Self Mastery to a muscle. Think about the muscles in your body and how you go about exercising them. Have you have ever gone to a gym and lifted weights on a bench press before? Suppose you’ve never done this and you decide you’re going to get in shape by lifting weights at the gym. You start your training by putting 300 pounds of weights on the barbell. When you go to lift the barbell with 300 pounds on it, guess what? You’re going to fail! There’s no doubt about it, you’re going to fail. It’s just too much weight for you to lift. You can’t start off lifting 300 pounds! You have to start off with any easy weight, a weight you can manage, something that you’re able and capable of lifting.

When you work on muscles, you have to start off with a weight you can lift and then gradually work your way up. So maybe you have to start off at 110 pounds. Let’s say you do the 110 pounds for a while and you do it long enough to where it now becomes easier. So the next thing you do is you add 10 pounds to that. Now you’re lifting 120 pounds. You work on that for a while until it becomes easier. When 120 pounds becomes easier then you add 10 more pounds. You continue on up like this, gradually adding more and more weight to strengthen the muscles in your arms. Read the rest of this entry »

Several weeks ago I made a commitment to myself that I would exercise every day with my primary exercise being hiking. My goal was to get out there and go hiking every morning. I’ve been doing it very faithfully.

My hiking morning goes something like this: I get on my hiking gear, jump in my car and drive up to the trailhead parking lot. This is about a mile from my home. The hike I usually take, especially in the winter, is up in the foothills of the mountain. It’s consists of a trail that goes in a loop where the trail runs along the lower portion of the foothills and then it heads up a very steep part of the mountain and loops back on another trail across a higher portion of the foothills and then back down to the trailhead parking lot. Got that?

I’ve been doing this every morning except Sundays and I have quite enjoyed it. I’ve hiked this trail quite a bit over the last three years but my consistency has been spotty at best. There would be months go by at a time that I wouldn’t do any hiking and then other months where I would be consistent. The goal is to do it every day. So I’ve been doing it very consistently for the last several weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

I once had an old car that I drove back and forth to work. It was pretty beat-up, but it got me where I wanted to go. One day I noticed that the engine was getting awfully loud. So I climbed underneath the car to see what the trouble was and found the muffler pipe had rusted through. Instead of fixing it correctly by taking it into a muffler shop and having a new pipe welded on, I decided to be clever and patch the hole in the pipe myself.

I took an empty tin can and cut both ends out and split it on the side. I wrapped it around the rusted hole in the exhaust pipe and clamped it on with hose clamps. I started the car up and it sounded so much better. I was so proud of myself for fixing my car with very little cost or effort. My worries were over – or so I thought!

The next day as I was driving to work I began to smell a strange odor in the car. It got worse and worse and suddenly I realized it was smoke. I looked down to see where it was coming from and saw smoke coming from the carpet on the floor between the two front seats. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the beginning of time man has been fascinated with eternal life. We have been intrigued with the idea of living forever. Let’s face it. We don’t like the idea of getting old or dying. It scares us.

Ponce de Leon

In the early 1500s the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon heard fantastic tales of crystal spring waters flowing from living springs among the Bahama Islands in which he who bathed in these waters would be instantly endowed with immortal youth and great beauty. He was getting older and dreamed of finding this “fountain of youth” and bathing in it.

He sailed from Puerto Rico for the Bahamas with several ships outfitted at his expense. He went from island to island tasting of and bathing in every stream and lake that he found but with no luck. He continued on and came upon a wooded shoreline with large flowering trees that filled the air with their fragrance. He believed he had finally found the fabled paradise. Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning! I’m standing in the foothills above my home. Just last night it was pouring rain. We had a big storm come through. This morning as I stand in the foothills it’s not raining on me, but as I look across the valley I see heavy rain and lightning flashes from one end of the valley to the other. What I’m witnessing is an amazing and wonderful light show. It makes me feel like God is putting a show on for me. It’s a delightful thing to watch. Wow, there went another one! It lights up the whole sky and valley. It’s a beautiful thing.

What does this have to do with self-mastery? Probably nothing except for the fact that if I wasn’t up here on my hike I wouldn’t get to see this. There are a lot of things I wouldn’t get to see if I didn’t get out every morning and go hiking. I get to see a number of amazing things that I think a lot of people don’t see. I feel blessed for it and I feel that’s one of the reasons that it makes it worth it for me to get up early and to get outside and exercise my mind and body. It allows me to be among nature and not miss the unexpected and wonderful things in life like this wonderful light show this morning.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Recently I read of a man who had tried for years to overcome his drinking habit. He knew his drinking was taking a toll on his life and was costing him many opportunities. He tried every way he could think of to quit and failed each time. Finally he developed a habit, whenever he was offered a drink or when temptation arose, to say firmly, “I have quit.”

It wasn’t “I’m trying to quit” or “I’m going to quit.” It was “I have quit.” End of discussion. There was no more deliberation or debate after that. The decision was already made that “I have quit drinking.” He didn’t have to think about whether he should take the drink or not. He simply said, “I have quit” as if it were a simple, ordinary fact of life. As a result of using this method, the man hasn’t taken another drink in twenty years.

You can use the same technique for a number of obstacles in your life that you are trying to overcome, whether it’s smoking, overeating, lack of exercise, cutting out fat in your diet, overcoming pornography or drugs or any challenge you are dealing with. You don’t have to deliberate or debate it any more. You can simply say, “I have quit!”

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

As part of my quest to achieve self-mastery, I have made the goal to exercise every day except Sundays. I have done a lot of running in the past with my wife and she definitely was a motivational force for me. She and I have completed nine marathons together. They each were amazing experiences. Talk about Self-Mastery! Running a marathon takes an enormous amount of self-mastery.

However, I have found it very difficult at times to get myself out in the mornings to do a daily run. So a couple of years ago I began hiking and trail running and have since fallen in love with it. I am blessed to have a mountain with several different hiking trails within a mile or two from my home. So now my daily exercise consists mainly of hiking.

I find hiking to be so much more interesting than running on the streets. Running consists mainly of watching asphalt go by, mile after mile. Boring! Hiking and trail running, on the other hand, have so much more to offer as far as keeping it interesting. Yes, you do have to keep your eye on the trail, but you are also surrounded by nature. And nature never stays the same. It’s always changing. The transitions from each season to the next are wonderful to witness. The change from hiking in the morning daylight of summer to hiking in the dark, like I do now in the fall, is stimulating and challenging.

So, most every day I go out in the early mornings for about a half-hour hike in the foothills and canyons near my home. On Saturday mornings I go on longer hikes for about two hours in length. Here are some photos from last Saturday’s hike. The fall colors were dazzling!

This morning’s hike was marvelous. It was dark yet there was enough light from the quarter-moon to light my trail to where I didn’t need my flashlight. There were thin clouds moving quickly past the moon in the dark that were simply beautiful.

I have to admit, I didn’t feel so great this morning when I got up at 5:30 a.m. In fact I felt lousy. I was so tired and had a headache. So it took a lot of self-discipline to get myself going. I was amazed that as I went on my hike I began feeling better and better and by the time I was done I actually felt great and still do. That just goes to show you that you have to stick it out and don’t let aches and pains or fatigue stop you from your daily workout.

Have a great day!

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Good morning! As I mentioned recently, part of my quest to achieve self-mastery is to exercise every day, no matter what. As I looked outside this morning I saw that it was pouring rain – cold rain! I must admit that thoughts of climbing back into bed went through my mind. How was I supposed to go hiking up the mountain in this?

Then I thought of my amazing wife. I call her amazing because she is! She goes out running every morning with her running partner Ramona, no matter what. Rain, sleet, snow, wind, darkness or extreme cold doesn’t stop her. As I looked out the window this morning I knew that my wife was already out there in this miserable storm doing a 10-mile run.

So with that thought I forced myself to get on my hiking gear and drove up to the trailhead for my hike. I pulled on my rain poncho and headed up the trail. By this time it was beginning to get light. Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning! Well I’m learning already about obstacles to getting to bed on time. I came across an obstacle last night. As I analyze last night, in a nutshell I ended up getting to bed one hour later than I planned. My goal is to be in bed with lights out by 10:30 p.m. I should know ahead of time that that’s going to be a challenge with a family having three teenagers still living at home.

This is what I ran in to. I thought I had prepared well so I could get to bed on time. It was on my mind. I was conscious of it.

First of all Halloween is coming and our kids are actively working on their costumes. My son Preston and I had gone on what we call a daddy date. About once a month I take each of my children on a date. We call it a daddy date. We go out and do whatever it is they want to do. Typically we go eat at some fast food place and go to a movie. But these days it’s hard to find a decent movie that we haven’t already seen. So we couldn’t find a movie to go to, so I asked Preston what we should do. We decided to go to a couple of the local thrift stores and look for costumes. Preston was excited about that. He’s my thirteen year old son. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it worth it? I heard that question this morning. If was from my wife Lisa. She knows me too well. Let me back up a bit. I was in the bathroom shaving this morning when my wife walked in. Her greeting wasn’t, “Good morning dear, how did you sleep?” It was, “Soooo…you stayed up until 2:00 in the morning. You know what that does to you. Is it worth it?” I didn’t give her an answer. I didn’t have a good one to give.

I have a character flaw. It is not knowing when to quit a project and go to bed. I was working on some articles last night and before I knew it, it was nearly 2:00 a.m. Lisa had long since gone to bed and was sound asleep. When I crawled into bed she didn’t wake up or roll over or even move a muscle. I thought I was safe and she would never know how late I went to bed. How she knew what time I went to bed is a mystery to me. It’s one of those mysteries of women that men can’t figure out.

So she had me. She asked me if it was worth it because she knows from past experience the price I usually pay for staying up late. Read the rest of this entry »