My Own Olympian

This past week or so I have talked about the amazing athletes who have paraded, skied, jumped and crashed in my home.

I have posted about focus here, strength here and being a good sport here.

It occurred to me Tuesday night around 7:30 P.M. I have my own Olympian. He's a little smaller than the ones in Canada but he has shown perseverance, strength, focus and drive in the few years it took him to get his Eagle--all before he turned 14!

My oldest son went on a 50 mile hike when he was 13; he completed 48 merit badges before receiving his Eagle; he showed he could be a leader and he has helped other scouts with their Eagle projects.

A few of you who don't know my son might think he is a scouting nerd. I might have sided with you about 5 years ago. But I watched him play video games, jump on the trampoline, play ball, tease his siblings and leave stinky socks around the house.

And sometimes he gave up on his merit badges. But not for long.

You see, this son is a self-starter. He set his goal to get his Eagle before 14 and he did it! All this Mom did was pay for camps and merit badge classes. He did the rest.

It helps to have an amazing scout master who REALLY wants these boys to succeed in more areas than just scouts. Our scout master deserves more credit than we can give him in this life time.

My Eagle Olympian is a good example of hard work, achieving, winning and enjoying the journey.

Focus, Stay Focused

Watching the Olympics I see every athlete focus in a different way. Some wear noise canceling headphones, some iPods, others close their eyes and image their course and how they will run it (my kids got a laugh out of a female athlete, eyes closed, arms limply in front of her as she made the turns on downhill skiing), and a few sit and watch their competition but most don't show up until close to their turn.

But they are all focused. What in our lives do we need to focus on? Is there some goal we want to achieve but haven't yet? Is it for lack of focus? Sometimes it scares me to focus on one goal because I might fail/succeed/lose myself/find I love what I do.

My son earned his eagle recently. It was his big goal he focused on but he didn't focus to the exclusion of everything else. The Wii and Xbox got their fair amount of focus. He knew what he wanted, knew how to get there, and achieved his goal. It wasn't easy and it took two years but he worked.
He is already onto his next big goal.

And when the big goal is won, how great is that victory! And how strong we become!

What about you? Do you have a big goal? How do you focus? Have you recently achieved a goal that made you feel good?

		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1.		United States	6	6	8	20
2.		Germany	4	5	4	13
3.		Norway	5	3	2	10