Sit obediently as your soul cries...

You collapse into the drivers seat, happy yet tired, with a soft ache in your stomach.

All week you've waited for this day, Friday, and a few moments of counting down the freedom.

This weekend is going to be different. You're determined of that. Hit the gym. Take up Spanish. Stop drinking alcohol. Take your family somewhere nice.

This is your time to step up and show the world who you really are. Enough of the corporate bullshit. Enough of the meetings. This is your moment.

You're driving home thinking of the possibilities.

Then it happens. You start to question yourself. If you were better. If you tried. What would they think? What would she say?

Suddenly, you feel your resolve weaken.

Your stomach tightens as you wonder aloud, it can't be another one of those lost weekends, can it?

The feeling of dread starts to grip you like a rope around your waist, your throat goes dry.

You're in a never-ending and always-losing battle between your dreams and your laziness.

Because sure, you DO deserve this weekend off don't you? It's been a busy few days of non-stop work. Why bother doing anything different. Making sacrifices. Investing time in yourself.

Your soul cries out to you. One last panicked cry to make a change. Your hands tremble. Your breath quickens.

You don't want this life. This wasting of time. These passive snapshots of days in a world you've been dragged into. Every day the same.

The fog descends, you drift away into thought and before you know it. Home.

You shrug your shoulders as your reality sets in and think, 'ah well, I'll have an easy weekend and then start my plans next Friday'

But you know how you feel. And how you will feel Sunday night when the torture starts again.

Nevertheless, another empty weekend begins. You try to relax.

Another page of your book is lost to the depths of time. And it's blank.

Another door slams shut behind you.

Nobody told you it'd be this hard. That you can't go back. Your mistakes are made and you must live with them.

It's time to create a better life for yourself.

Deep down you know it. You can feel it.

I used to feel exactly like you. I used to hate my life and had zero self-respect.

I know you have potential that is being suffocated and wants to come out.

Ignoring your potential is killing you and poisoning those around you. Your partner, your friends, your children. They get the 'tired you', the 'beaten down' you.

Comfort is weakening you daily. You aren’t being stretched. You are not learning. You know that something is missing.

Excuses mask your fear. You say you have no time.

But you and I know what that really means. You can’t manage and optimise your own energy levels.

If you had courage you would manage your time.

And so there you are, on a rainy, dull afternoon, staring at your phone and feeling empty.

You feel empty because right now every day is the same. You’re waiting for something to change. Waiting for a dream that cannot come true. Ever. Without that first step towards the light.

Waiting for the right time hides the fact you ARE ready now, just scared to begin.

Scared to step up.

Scared of the responsibility.

Scared of what others would think of you IF your full potential was achieved

So you sit obediently in the shadows as your soul cries out to you.

Yet you can break out into freedom and do things your own way.

When you do breakout others may scoff at you, but you don't care, you're blazing your own trail.

Living your dream starts when you decide to stop shying away from it.

What will you do this weekend?

Rise Above

Ant

Anthony Shaw

Head Coach

Raw Strength Gym, Warrington