Loving things you don't.

I had to take a health class in 9th grade.  It was completely run of the mill don't do drugs, always eat healthy, exercise this and this amount, etc.  Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot from it.

Here is the one thing I remember.

It was a story.

(Got that teachers? Stories stick.)

My health teacher said when he was in high school he played soccer.  He loved soccer, but unfortunately during off season all they did was run.  Running was boring, it was hard, it was stupid.  He hated running. His  teammates hated running.  In fact they would curse and generally repeat how much they HATED running on all of their runs.

Sounds kind of typical high school to me.

But anyway, their coach got a little sick of it, so he outlawed the cursing, he outlawed the word "hate".  He told them whenever they wanted to whine, they just had to say:  I love it.

The team laughed at him, like pfft yeah right, but after a little coaching, even just to make fun of the stupid suggestion, they would say it.

When the sweat was rolling off their foreheads as they were pounding the burning hot pavement uphill, someone would shout: I LOVE IT!

Then the chorus would break out, they all LOVED it.  They said it like a swear, but it was a good way to make fun of their coach and they kept doing it.

And then a strange thing happened... the more they said it, the more they joked about loving running... loving the heat, the sweat, the muscle cramps, the more they actually did...

They loved it.  

I used to really hate doing the dishes, and even though it took some strategizing  on how to make this easier, it also had a ton to do with attitude.

I read these suggestions on how to like doing house work, one of the suggestions was to do a fist pump in the air and yell: GIVE ME A HELL YEAH FOR THE DISHES!

This wouldn't exactly go over so well in my house, because then I'd have a one year old and a 4 year old screaming H-yeah!

Anyway, all this was to say... you can change how you feel about something by the words you use, by your attitude.

So go pick something you "hate" and give "lovin' it" a whirl.