Reflections and Challenges

The past year has been a time of reflection for me about my past, present, and future; what I have done in life, what I am doing in life, and what I plan on doing in life. Perhaps all this reflection is due to things that have happened in my life over the past year, or long hours on planes and in cars due to a lot of recent traveling, or maybe just sitting on my surfboard more frequently in between set waves. Regardless, whatever it is, I have done a lot of reflecting and thinking over the past year.

This brings me to one of my reflections: Lately I have found myself focusing and dwelling much more on the negatives, rather than all of the positives in my life. I'll be honest, the past week was not the most fun as I bumped into a car, backed into a pole two days later, did not surf much, lost badly in a soccer game, got into a verbal bout with a sarcastic Yankees fan at a gas station, and a few other interesting incidents.

However there were a lot of great things that happened over the past week also including going up to Santa Barbara to see many old friends and celebrate two friends' joyous event, winning my softball game, catching some big waves, and taking a much needed "night off" to relax and just watch some football!

Too often lately, I've felt myself getting caught dwelling on the negatives like bumping cars and overlooking the many more positive events and things in my life.

This brings me to my next point: I tend to focus on the outcome much more than the actual process. Working with students on a daily basis to help them create meaningful, successful programs, I encourage them to think first conceptually about the outcome they want from the program, and then focus on the methods. An important person in my life suggested to me recently though that all this focus on outcome and future was taking away from me just being able to enjoy the present and the amazing life I have right now. The more I think about this, the more sense it makes sense to me.

Over the past few months, I have worked hard to create physical challenges such as surfing big waves, training to climb a mountain, staying busy, etc. However, I put mental and personal development challenges aside. So, I have decided to challenge myself in two mental, personal ways throughout the months of September and October that I think will lead to positive, happy outcomes in my life:
1. Take the negatives in life and/or things that are bringing me down and make something positive out them. Instead of constantly thinking about a few negative things in life, think about all of the great, positive, happy things I have in my life (I have much more of these, than any negative or downers) I really want to focus on all of the amazing things I have in life right now such as my family, friends, health, job, and so much more. In essence, I plan on channeling all of the negatives into creating something far more positive out of them!
2. Focus on the present and the process of things in my life more, rather than the future and outcomes. I think this will allow me to enjoy life and just continue having fun, like I want to do!

I don't mean for this blog to be a downer at all. Rather it is meant for me to challenge myself and grow from the challenge. I love finding new challenges, and I think these will be two interesting, tough challenges that will lead me to ultimately becoming a stronger, livelier, happier person when I complete them.

I challenge you also to turn something negative or tough in your life and make something positive or good come out of it. I would love to talk to you all about my challenges and have you coach me through them. I also want to learn more about your challenges as well and if I can help in any way. Check in with me throughout these next two months and push and motivate me to complete these personal challenges. I would love to check in with you also and see how your challenges are going as well!

I believe that the next three upcoming Forever Young Project activities relate well with this theme of Challenge. I can't wait to reveal to you on Wednesday what they are and tell you more about how you can help out with these activities and organizations! Also in the next blog, a description on last month's amazing first event!!!

Until then,

Rock n' Roll!
Justin Young