“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Confucius
What’s the difference between the person who quits when it gets hard and the person who gets hard when it’s the time to quit?
Not an easy question to answer.
It’s something that’s been weighing on my mind these past few weeks.
Another little wrinkle into the equation just to make it a bit stickier, what is the difference between quitting out right and pivoting when necessary?
A much more difficult question to answer.
It became all too real the past weekend for my family and I as we stared down a monster dilemma over our family vacation.
We were scheduled to camp in the UP in Michigan, an outdoor lovers paradise, and a place that reminds us of the rugged Great Lakes shores of Lake Huron we’ve grown up with back on the Ontario side of the Lakes.
Camping trips are crucial in helping us slow down our pace of life (frantic most of the time) and reconnect with the simplicity of being immersed in nature.
We take bike rides, jump in the water, read books, play games, day dream, cloud watch, cook over the fire, tell stories, huddle in our sleeping bags, go on hikes, paddle canoes, and fade away from the hustle and bustle and into the rhythm of the forests, streams, and lakes.
When we moved from Canada to America in 2025 we missed our annual camping trip.
I put my foot down for 2026 and demanded a family camping trip to Lake Superior, the only Great Lake I’ve never swam in, knowing it would be potentially our last chance to camp here before heading back further east and north next year when we plan to move back to Canada and settle in Quebec.
To say we were excited to get lost in the woods was an understatement.
But then everything changed.
July brought incredible instability to our family and life here in the North Shore suburbs. We didn’t have time or space to properly prepare for our camping excursion, life gets in the way.
Then the fires hit, wildfires north of Lake Superior in Canada, and the smoke billowed down and blanketed the entire Great Lakes region. For a few days, we had the worst air quality in the ENTIRE WORLD.
Add in a forecast of multiple thunderstorms and potentially hazy days, it didn’t seem like we were going to be having a successful camping trip.
Faced with this looming decision, do we ‘quit’ on the vacation, pivot to something else, or endeavor to force our way up north no matter the circumstances or adversity?
Short answer, we changed our entire plans the day before and headed hundreds of miles south the the rolling hills of Tennessee for days of hiking, exploring, and recharging in the woods.
To find the answer, I turned to the deep lessons I get in my endurance training and competing to help guide and aim us towards the right choice.
Remember team, the truth is always in the training.
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How do you make it through an ultra endurance event?
There’s a not so conformable reality, you have to move through extreme levels of adversity.
When the legs feel like they can’t move any further, weighed down like anchors, refusing to budge forward, emboldened by the mind pleading with the body to simply stop, how do you keep going forward?
When it’s mile 27, and you’re cooked, how do you muster the courage and composure to finish out the final 23 of a 50 mile trail ultra?
The true secret isn’t superhuman strength, or a superhuman amount of training to prepare you for the moment.
This is a gift won in the mundane moments of each workout day to day in your overall training process.
When you engage in exercise for spiritual purposes, the focus of each session isn’t the primacy of the body and how it’s moving and performing.
The true aim is on your character, how it’s growing, how it’s shrinking, how you are knowing yourself, and how you can overcome a lesser part with a greater part.
The real battle is the internal battle.
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” - Aristotle
The key to all of this is daily consistency.
Just like any skill, the more you practice it the more proficient you become deploying it.
I noticed myself engaged in a heavy spiritual battle this past week during my Monday swim. I just didn’t have the mental energy to keep swimming until the clock hit 1 hour in the pool. My body was lagging hard after a week of vacation and a couple long drives and late nights packed onto each other. At times my eyes started to close in the pool because I was so tired.
I could have quit on the entire effort, gotten out of the pool at 30 or 45 minutes and lived to fight another day. But I have enough experience to know that I need to reach deep and find the courage to keep going.
I simply changed my approach mid swim and began counting down laps to help give my mind something positive to attach on to, rather than swimming without the ability to orient myself in time (my style of training in the pool for the past year).
Once I did, I felt light, energized, and determined to finish. Which I did.
The key is the recognition of the internal battle. The moment when you start negotiating with yourself. That’s when the real training begins.
Because physical training always presents an opportunity to conquer a lower part of yourself with the corresponding higher part.
Here’s a quick way for you to start applying this in your own training.
First: Recognize physical training tests your body, mind, and spirit and not just the body in isolation
Second: Recognize that not all workouts will present the challenge directly in the body. Oftentimes it’s in the mind and spirit.
Third: Observe yourself and when that moment of ‘internal doubt’ pops up. Identify which part of you is lagging and then bring another part to bear. In my swim example above, my body and spirit were down, so I used my mind to switch strategies and was able to win the day and stay locked on my session and goals.
Fourth: Repeat and iterate so you become an expert in observing yourself. In this fashion you train yourself to always be on the lookout for this exact moment in the workout.
You’re all set up to start using your physical training as spiritual training to stop quitting.
The aim is correct, internal and towards the ideal of conquering self.
And my promise to you, if you work hard to implement this observation into your fitness process you will become ADDICTED to seeing yourself consistently winning over yourself time and time again.
This is how it was easy to pivot and move forward without regret and with a full heart towards open potential and possibility when it came to our family vacation. I’ve done it so many times to get through difficult moments in training that it became almost automatic in my life outside of the training.
And the truth is this kind of stuff happens everyday for me. In the big and small moments that could derail the entire day, I practice the same patience and grace I’ve embodied for so many years in my training.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to get addicted to such a process that amplifies body, mind, and spirit?
If you have the drive but aren’t sure how to navigate the course, shoot me a reply or send me a message using the button below about how my fitness and life coaching can unlock this powerful process in your life.
You deserve to win, let’s win together.
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