We all have our mountains to climb.

Mine started 50 days ago. Today, marks my halfway point up the mountain, and to be completely honest, I couldn’t be happier with how things have gone. 19lbs down. Inches gone. But most importantly, my mind has never been sharper.

Tonight, I want to talk about going after your goals, and how putting your heart and soul into one thing will positively infect the rest of your life.

We each have demons, dragons, and obstacles to overcome. Sometimes, well, most often there are many journeys we know we have to take. We have seen what is inside of us, things that we have let take safe haven inside of our hearts and we fully understand that sooner rather than later, we are going to have to head down into those caves and battle for our lives.

Don’t be mistaken, this is a battle for your life.

I continue to come back to this image that I have in my head, of the end. That moment when I am lying on my deathbed and the two options that are possible. Yes things may be slightly different depending on the situation, but this is about the last moment of life. In that last moment of life, you could be surrounded by light because you have  truly exhausted the gifts you have been given, or you could be surrounded in a moment of darkness, living fully in your knowledge that you didn’t give it a shot because you were scared – that last moment would be filled with regret.

But to take it even farther, for the person who didn’t leave it all out on the field, the ghosts of the dreams and talents they didn’t use would meet them in that last breath, along with the ghost of the person they could have become.

To me, this would be my worst nightmare…to make it to the end only to realize that I had never truly lived life at all.

So 50 days ago, I started a climb that I had never even truly scratched the surface of before.

And here I am, not in disbelief…because trust me I remember the hours that I have put in, but sitting here with a completely baffling thought – what else can I give?

The truth is, along your way, while people may drop off and things get very silent, you start to hear this voice inside of you. Life continues to throw its best at you and this little voice continues to say “Duck…dive…do whatever you have to do! You got this! Don’t sweat it.” Eventually, everything silences and you are left with just and that voice…the voice that no one else in the world can hear.

That voice, when you reach milestones, will ask you if you have more in you. Today, I was asked the question…and without regret I said yes. I have more. I can perfect the routine more. I can give a little bit more of myself to the process. As the weeks go by, and the effort continues, I am sure that the answer will be “Yes I have more.”

I would venture to say that this answer will never change for the rest of my life.

In terms of this goal, success is when I have reached 100 days of clean eating. It hasn’t been about the weight loss, it hasn’t been about creating something aesthetically pleasing to look at…those are byproducts of something much larger. Yes, the primary goal was to take care of my body in the best way I could, in order to take care of my mind and my soul. But in the end…it’s about proving to myself that I can do it. That I can create a vision, and see it through all the way to the end no matter what.

I will have more obstacles thrown at me…I know this is going to be the case…but I won’t be stopped.

This is titled The Mountain – Part 1 because there is another part to this journey. The second leg is the hardest…but the second leg has a different type of motivation – you know you are halfway there and every single day is a day closer to raising your hands in the air in victory.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to everyone out there who has supported this dream of mine and who has encouraged me daily…it means the world to me.

What mountain are you going to climb?

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project