You have to monitor your fundamentals constantly because the only thing that changes will be your attention to them. ~Michael Jordan
I’m choosing FUNDAMENTALS as my word for 2026. I’ve made great progress to create a life I love. I did it by getting serious about basic fundamentals.
But it doesn’t take much to get distracted and let discipline on the fundamentals slip.
This is my year to get back the gains that I’ve lost over the past few years.
What’s your word for 2026?
And the inaugural Cactus Roulette trail race meant I could have to run that trail a lot! So I chose to volunteer. This race is held in January in Kansas. The weather was good. It may have been 50 Fahrenheit at the start. And only in the 30s overnight. But January in Kansas can be sub-zero with a blizzard.
So after a good bit of a year to think about this, I’m going to run the second running of Cactus Roulette. I mean, how many times could I have to run Cactus Ridge anyway?
I published an article that may have caused my Christian friends to think I’ve lost my faith. As I’ve learned about mindset and how to manage my thoughts and emotions, I’ve reflected on the drive I’ve had all my life to grow as well as overcome the entrenched beliefs that held me back for so many years.
I grew up in church. Stop and read that again! I didn’t grow up going to church. I grew up in church. My parents were after everything God had for them. That passion is still there in them, and I have that passion as well. But my dad instilled in me the need to question. So it’s natural that I look back on my faith journey and ask why the dynamic life and transformation I read about in the Bible and heard in sermons didn’t work all that well for me.
I wrote an article for Brainz magazine about the epidemic of fractured souls in the world today. It was almost two thousand words, and I found myself wanting to explain in even more detail. This post is my way of doing just that.
In my article, I wrote that the doctrine of most Protestant churches is that a new convert gets a clean slate and a new start when he or she becomes a Christian. And that person is changed from the inside out by the work of the Holy Spirit who now lives in them. I went on to say that the common practice of most churches is to use peer pressure and Bible teaching instead of relying on the Holy Spirit. People who join any group will adopt the manners, customs, attitudes, and mindset of the crowd in order to fit in.
Counting on psychology and persuasion to transform your life doesn’t help your soul. You can change the way you think, act, and believe. But this transformation stays in your intellect. The other two parts of your soul, your emotions and will, are barely affected by your intellectual thoughts.
Pastors and teachers use this improper definition of the soul all the time. And most of the time the attitude and tone they use indicates that this definition is all you need to know about the soul. However, the definition of mind is “thoughts, emotions, and will.” So when psychologists and neuroscientists research the mind, they are actually studying the function and workings of the soul. Your soul is your thoughts, your emotion, and your will. Knowing the accurate definition is nice. But being able to look at secular psychology and insert soul in place of mind is helpful.
Thinking and trying to act like a Christian is hard when your faith is based only on your intellect. Psychologists believe that 90 – 95% of all your decisions and actions come from your unconscious mind–also called the subconscious. Your unconscious mind doesn’t respond to logic and reason. This is why you do things you know you shouldn’t. Or you don’t do things you know you should. What we call the subconscious is the two-thirds of the soul: the emotions and the will. And many Christians are locked in a life-long struggle to get their emotions and will to line up with their intellectual Christian thoughts.
In spite of faith being an intellectual exercise, Christians still experience God working in their life. I think this is an example of God meeting us where we are. It also shows that God respects our free will. People will pressure you to submit to the approved doctrine and practices, but God is more respectful. God is the original “free range parent.”
It is true that the Holy Spirit is at work in each Christian. But the Holy Spirit won’t force you to grow or automatically mend your soul. Most Christians will tell you that “it’s a relationship, not a religion.” But if you ask what that relationship looks like, they will talk about what they do that makes them a Christian.
It is my hope to see Christians find how to mend their fractured souls and live in more than their thoughts and deeds. I talk about how to start in my long article in Brainz magazine. Since you’ve read this far here, you can skip down to the last five or six paragraphs to get to my conclusion.
I won’t stop asking questions. That may make some people uncomfortable. But I’m not satisfied with just believing the status quo any more. I haven’t lost my faith. But I want a faith that’s comfortable asking hard questions.
I’ve been working on a balance beam for a couple of months. The physical benefits are huge! The micro-movements needed to stay on the beam condition my muscles and the nerves that fire them to be flexible and fluid.
I’ve noticed a massive benefit to my running. I’m running faster. And I’m sure-footed on technical trails.
Ultramarathon mindset is about the connection between your mind and body for peak performance. A part of this is “body awareness.”
And balance is a key component of body awareness.
I practice the Chi Running form of running. This means I lean slightly forward and land on the middle of my foot instead of my heel.
Since working daily on the balance beam, I can feel the difference between being balanced at my ankles vs. the balls of my feet. And that few inches of difference is all it takes to make my run feel like a hard slog or an easy dance.
The Foot Collective is where I found this information. The video is a 20 minute explanation from Nick St. Louis, a physical trainer, about what beam practice can do for you.
I highly recommend this practice for mental focus and its physical benefits. It’s one of the tools I’m using to hone my ultramarathon mindset.
I had the honor to pace Abby (her trail name) in the Outlaw 100 this year. Her real name is Kathryn Ivey. Trail names are earned. And we talk a bit about how she earned hers.
The Outlaw is one of the toughest 100 mile courses in the Midwest. It’s a 20 mile loop, and runners have 48 hours to complete the 100 miles.
I met Abby through a running group on Facebook when she asked for pacers. Two of us from Kansas volunteered. She had never met either of us until the day we showed up to run with her.
Abby started running as conditioning for mountain climbing in the Himalayas and South America. Trail running has been her focus for now, but the mountains may call her back before long.
Trail Talk is a free-flowing conversation, like heading out with a friend for a run. We cover a lot of ground in this episode. Click the link and listen in for stories from the trail.
With everything happening in the world we need encouragement to stay positive.
My friend, Dallas Amsden, ran only one trail race. His main focus is Crossfit. He joins me for talk about trail running, and he also tells his story of walking through some dark days and nights.
The strategy he shares for dealing with these trying times is to take this as an opportunity to learn a new skill. Or build some new muscles.
We can choose to stretch and strengthen our mindset. It only takes the intention to use it.
One of the most valuable mindset skills is to learn stillness. Practicing meditation or yoga will give you benefits far beyond just a bit of relaxation. For Dallas, and for me, meditation has been essential to keep us moving forward in running and in life.
My granddaughter is a natural athlete. At nine-years-old, and in her first year of competitive soccer, she scores the most goals in her team.
Her coach says she’s likely in the top 1% of girls her age in Kansas City.
I say that she’s a natural because she doesn’t practice other than her regular team practices. No “soccer camp” or private coaching. Not even kicking the ball around the yard after school.
We’re amazed because most of us aren’t natural athletes.
Can you relate to this? For most of my life I always looked for the “easy button.”
I wanted to be in shape and healthy and at my ideal weight. At least that’s the story I told myself.
But I didn’t want to work very hard to get in shape or change how much I ate. Any effort I made to change my life was only half-assed. I did just enough to tell myself that I’d at least tried . . . again . . . and failed.
You may have heard the story of the student who asked the guru how to find success. The teacher led the student out into the ocean and then held him underwater.
After repeated dunking, the teacher told the student, “When you want success as much as you want air you will have success.”
Napoleon Hill says much the same in his book Think and Grow Rich.
“You must have a white-hot passion to get rich,” he says.
I want everyone to have success and to be rich! I want that for me too.
Above all, I want you to know that success and riches are about more than mere money and achievements. You know deep inside that money and status won’t make you any happier.
Don’t get me wrong! Poverty isn’t noble. It’s awful!
Passion for life, along with money and accomplishments are what makes for a rich life.
Last time I talked about how silly it is to make New Year Resolutions we expect to never keep. What good does it do to set yourself up to fail?
First you have to decide what you want. This is the place most Resolutions and goals fail. We all tend to make wishes rather than decisions. Make a decision that you want it.
Second you have to add passion to your decision. Because passion drives action.
Think about how the student feels when the teacher holds his head under water. You’re not operating from logic. This isn’t an intellectual exercise.
The reason so many Resolutions and goals fail is that we decide with our intellect. You know what’s good for you. You know what you “should and shouldn’t” be doing. But logic alone isn’t enough. You need passion . . . your emotions. Commander Spock of Star Trek is fiction. You will remain stuck if you don’t engage your emotions for what you want.
You can hire a coach. You can study. You can watch training videos. But you have to run your own miles. You have to do your own workouts. No one can do it for you.
The same thing goes for developing your mental strength as well.
The thing is that your mindset is what will make or break your success for getting in shape and eating what’s good for you.
But most of us do even less work on training our minds than we do our bodies.
So you have a choice. Leave your Resolutions in the dustbin and forget about doing anything different this year. Because . . . you know . . . it’s not easy.
On the other hand, you can make this year your best ever. All it takes is a little “want to” mixed with a dash of passion. The good news is this: You don’t have to almost drown to find success.
Hope is powerful! You need hope to keep going when the going gets tough.
Hope is that flicker of belief that things can get better . . . that things might get better. Even cranky pessimists have at least a little spark of hope, no matter how they try to hide it.
Don’t get me wrong! You and I need hope. But hope is focused on something “out there” to happen to make everything better.
Hope is playing the lottery. You don’t expect to win, but you know there’s a chance.
What most of us do with New Year Resolutions is no different. We invest very little and hope for massive returns.
This kind of hope is like waiting for a miracle.
I’ve seen miracles happen. God will sometimes step in and act for our benefit.
But I can tell you from experience that more often than not God is waiting for us to get off our ass and do something.
I put up with a mediocre life for years hoping for a miracle. I’d set goals and only put in a minimal effort. I was waiting for divine lightning to strike and make me healthy, wealthy, and wise.
I finally figured out that God gave me the ability and responsibility to choose what I get in this life.
I wrote about how I changed in my previous post.
Turning the page of the calendar into a new year and decade makes us feel almost obligated to make some changes in our life.
Add to this the peer pressure that comes from “everyone making resolutions,” and we tend to make Resolutions about minor quirks or annoying habits that don’t matter all that much.
So we make Resolutions with a handful of hope and a dash of indifference.
You won’t get rich from playing the lottery.
You won’t get the life you want by making Resolutions each year.
Any change starts with a decision.
If you’re like me, you want more from life than what you’ve got right now. I plan to keep growing and improving always.
So why not ditch the resolutions this year and decide to go after something you really want for your life?
It is possible to get what you want in life. It starts with deciding what you want and then going for it.
This could be your year . . . your decade. It’s never to late to start.