Splash for Cash - Official Lap Sponsors - Pledge Here!

Pushed to the limits for my favourite charity event!

Anyone who knows me knows I live and breath Splash for Cash - a swimathon that raises money for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children that is hosted by Rotaract. Every year I challenge myself both in the pool and in my fundraising!

It should be noted that when I started training for my first Splash, I could barely swim 150 metres...

KRISSIE'S SPLASH SWIMMING RECORD

2006... 154 laps (7.7km)
2007... 260 laps (13km)
2008... 277 laps (13.85 km)
2009... 310 laps(15.5km)
2010... 342 laps (17.1km)
2011... 100 laps BLINDFOLDED! (5km)
2012... 442 LAP GOAL! (22.1km)

I am already in heavy training. By Splash day, I will have swum over 200 kilometres in training!

To keep me motivated this year - pick a number between 1 & 442 for every $10 you donate,

and you will be an official sponsor of that lap. 

Just comment on this post with the lap numbers you would like to sponsor at $10 each.

To see the list of current pledges, click on the Charity Challenge tab at the top of my blog.

To fulfil your pledge, visit http://event.splashforcash.com.au/krissie2012 to pay up! Preferably pay now, but you can pay later (I swim in March, 2012).

Interested in swimming? Visit http://www.splashforcash.com.au/ for more information!

So get behind my 2012 Splash for Cash campaign for glory for my favourite charity the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children!

Thanks a million for your support!

Love y'all!

Krissie

Addiction... Not Always A Dirty Word!

ad·dic·tion [uh-dik-shuhn]

noun

the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

I'm just going to throw it out there, that contrary to popular belief, many addictions can actually be very healthy. Surprised? Shocked?

They can definitely be healthy when you take a broader view of addictions like I do. I sometimes start a speech by warning everyone in the room that I am about to make a public confession - I'm a woman with an addiction. I can't stop, and I don't want to stop, because I'm a smile-aholic/hug-aholic/enthusiasm-aholic/<insert other appropriately positive addiction here-aholic>.

Everyone I know has both good and bad addictions, and at this very moment, I would like to challenge everyone to kick at least one bad addiction out of their lives and to put in place at least one new good one.

I'll give you examples from my own experiences. Remember not to judge. What is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder, and though I am often referred to as superwoman, I am also a living, breathing human with many foibles, and I am about to give you a window into several of them!

ADDICTIONS I AM WORKING ON KICKING

• Procrastination (Am culling back my use of Facebook)
• Being the Queen of Mess (I have already successfully deep-cleaned my room last month, but I don't consider the addiction completely broken yet. I still have more habits to break before I can declare myself cured.)
• Use of 'The Snooze Button' (Hitting the snooze button every three minutes for 30+ minutes is simply ridiculous)
• Some slightly OCD habits (I can only microwave things in time increments that are multiples of 21, I always use my towel with my name embroidered on it with my name facing away from me and to the right, when going to sleep I start on my back, then roll to my right side, then left side, then onto my stomach, then curl up with my left arm dangling off the bed before I can doze off, and many more absurdities)

ADDICTIONS I HAVE ALREADY BEATEN

• Computer card game FreeCell (1500 wins in a row means it was time to stop playing)
• Slurpees (other people have coffee or caffeine addictions, I had Slurpee issues!)
• Facebook game Bejewelled Blitz (widely known as the cause of a year of insomnia)
• Insomnia (alot of my issues with getting to sleep were self-inflicted - I perpetuated the problem constantly for years and years)

GREAT ADDICTIONS I CULTIVATE

(and would be thoroughly traumatising without them in my life)

• Smiling (my goal in life is to make the whole world smile)
• Hugging (my brother would describe this as a bad addiction though)
• Helping people grow (nothing feels better than assisting someone to step up to a new challenge)
• Laughing (if you cannot find humour in your everyday life, just give up now)
• Rotaract (love having an outlet for making a difference in the world)
• LIFE - the best addiction of all! I have a never ending passion for wanting more out of my life.

So take a moment to reflect on your addictions - good, bad and ugly - and see what changes you might like to make. Feel free to share your addictions by posting a comment below. Admitting these things to yourself outloud (or in a written online forum) is the first step to instigating the changes you want.

In the very least, my suggestion - get addicted to life - it is marvellous!

Ignore Your Limitations

Ever doubted your ability to complete a task? Ever thrown in the towel on something because you did not feel you were capable? Ever aspire towards something great, but second guess yourself along the way?

My advice?
Ignore your limitations.
90% of the time it is simply a case of working out a way to get around them.
100% of the time you are better for the journey towards a goal regardless of whether you got the end result you were after or not.

Ignore Your Limitations

Limitations are just guideposts.

They may signal different routes

or different ways to reach a destination.

But they won't prevent us from getting there,

unless we empower them to do so.

Ignore them,

focus on the journey.

One of my biggest pet hates in my circle of friends, is seeing people with the potential for greatness, hold themselves back from even trying something out. I can never understand what they are so afraid of? The best thing about stepping up to a challenge and giving it a whirl, is that if things do not go according to plan, you have a great group of people behind you - lifting you up, encouraging you, supporting you, helping you to acheive your goal. It is better to have tried and failed, than to not have tried at all.

When a friend of mine came to me and asked me if I would take on running a Splash for Cash swimathon for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, I balked. I had the passion to do it for sure, but I knew that my biggest limitations - procrastinating and leaving things to the last minute - could potentially lead to failure which was not an option when volunteering for my favourity charity. But I stepped up anyway. I ignored my limitations and worked my way around them, putting measures in place to make sure we were successful.

Looking back now, I am so grateful that I took that leap of faith, as it has taken me on a completely unexpected journey. That Splash for Cash swimathon - at Macquarie University in 2009 - saw 60 swimmers raise $12,000. With the support of an amazing network of Rotaractors, I am now busily working on taking our event onto the national stage, with Splash for Cash swimathons in the work in various locations around Australia and the aim of raising over $100,000 in 2012. Would any of this be happening if I had let my limitations dictate my life back in 2009? Not a chance.

So what are you waiting for? Take a risk! Take a leap of faith! Chase a dream.

Where there is a will, there is a way! So go for it!

For more information about the 2012 Splash for Cash,

please visit www.splashforcash.com.au or

email me at krissie.mchenry@gmail.com