Valuable Health Lessons Learned Through the World Series

Hey! I hope your day is going great!

I have had an awesome week.

If you have been reading my articles for a while, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m a baseball fan. If you also follow baseball than you know that The Kansas City Royals just won the World Series for the first time in 30 years. Being that I was born and raised in Kansas City and used to go to the ballpark quite often as a kid, this win was really special for me.

What was even more exciting and more incredible than them actually winning though was seeing HOW they won.

KC set an all time post season record with 7 come from behind wins from 2 runs or more and 8 come from behind wins total. Amazing.

KC made a name for themselves in 2014 when they began a historic playoff run by coming back from a 4 run deficit in the 8th inning of an elimination game to tie it and eventually win in 12. They became known as guys who would fight and persist until the very end no matter what the score was.

They then made it all the way to the World Series, played a very experienced team with two rings in the previous 4 years, took them all the way to game 7 and against the most dominant pitcher in all of baseball, they battled to the end and came within 90 feet of tying the game to force extra innings.

After this loss the players vowed to return to the World Series and win in 2015. That is exactly what they did.

Early in the 2015 postseason they had to overcome another 4 run deficit in the 8th inning of an elimination game and with their backs against the wall, the odds heavily stacked against them and most KC fans (including myself) counting them out before the game was over, they battled back and ended up winning the game. Because of that they were able to stay alive and eventually advance.

After that game the players knew that their “never give up” attitude was what separated them from the other teams and that having that attitude would allow them to battle back from any deficit in order to advance.

Of course, I bring all this up not to just brag on my favorite team or to bore you with baseball trivia but to illustrate a point that is critical for your success in achieving any of your health, fitness or rehabilitative goals- You Can Only Succeed If You Never Give Up.

It’s so easy to get discouraged when we feel like things aren’t going our way. When we feel like we are not making progress fast enough or when things aren’t as easy as they used to be, it’s so easy to let the discouragement ruin our motivation and our desire for something better. It’s so easy to just give up, give in and let things just be.

I’ve been through these same struggles while working to overcoming cancer, obesity, chronic back pain, ADD, insomnia and a handful of other smaller health issues in my lifetime.

What I’ve learned through personal experience as well as experience with working with clients to improve their health is that fighting off discouragement, staying consistent and never giving up is the key to getting the breakthrough.

If you’re feeling discouraged right now, keep in mind that it is NORMAL to feel that way. In fact, it just means that you want something better and are simply learning how to go through the process to get there.

As the quote goes “change is lumpy.” You will have ups and downs, peaks and valleys, good days and bad days. This is completely normal and to be expected. As you persist, the peaks get higher, the valleys aren’t as low and eventually things get better as long as you don’t give up. Eventually you will win!

To help you with that, here are a few things to keep in mind-

1. What is happening today is no indication of what will happen tomorrow, a week from now or a year from now.

So often, people have a tendency to get stuck in believing that if there is a problem now, than that means that the problem will always be there. This creates a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness and causes them to feel like they shouldn’t even try to do anything about it.

Like I tell so many of my clients, your life is like a movie reel full of still shot pictures. What is happening today is just a still shot on the movie reel of your life and you get to choose to a large extent how you want the movie to finish.

Yes it is true that there are a FEW things we can’t change. You can’t take years off your life, go back in time, prevent and control every single possible problem that may ever occur, but you can ALWAYS do something to positively affect your situation.

Are you exercising as much as you could? Are you eating as well as you could? Are you sleeping as much as you could? Are you drinking as much water as you could? Are you managing your weight as much as you could? Are you taking all the vital supplements that you could? Are you managing your stress as much as you could? Are you getting as much expert assistance as you could?

If the answer is no than there is room for improvement.

2. Try to just focus on what you need to do today.

It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by the idea that it might take months or years to change our body to what we want it to be. For many this thought can make them want to quit. The trick is to always discipline your thoughts into simply focusing on one day, one hour, one meal, one workout, one thing at a time. This is the only way to reduce the overwhelm and keep yourself on track to being consistent.

3. Failures are nothing more than lessons learned.

Maybe you’ve tried to adopt some type of new behavior or health habit. Maybe you tried some new program that you thought could help you. Maybe you’ve “given it a shot” and felt like you failed. We’ve all been there.

If you look back on these experiences you’ll likely see some valuable lessons hidden in the details. Maybe you tried to do too much too fast and overwhelmed yourself. Maybe your expectations were too high and when things didn’t happen quickly you got impatient and quit. Maybe you simply didn’t have the right combination of supportive habits to get the success you wanted.

If you feel like you’ve tried and failed, don’t lose heart. Just look for lessons that you can take from your experience, get back up and try again.

Also, be sure to get expert help too. Maybe this means working with someone one on one or it may mean reading books on the topic, but be sure to get educated about what you’re trying to accomplish so you have a better chance of being successful.

Even if you’re not a baseball fan, try to do like KC did and never quit no matter how the “score” looks. Eventually you can win!

God bless!

Chris Vercelli MATm, RTS, CPT

Founder: Non-Fiction Fitness

Announcement-

Are you or a loved one going through a difficult time? Would you like a strong team of spiritual leaders to pray for your situation?

Non-Fiction Fitness has recently partnered with The Sarasota House of Prayer (also known as the Sarasota Hope House) and they have assigned a team of prayer partners to us. They have set up a unique email address for anyone of our readers to send their prayer requests to and they will have people praying regularly for these needs. This could be a health issue, family issue or anything else. The requests are private and will not be shared with anyone including me. The email address is nff.prayerneeds@sarasotahopehouse.com

Feel free to send any request you have at any time.