I am very much into positive self-motivation. I have Parkinson’s disease and is so easy to be negative in certain situations. With Parkinson’s you get so frustrated because simple things can be a big challenge. But the way I look at it is, if I can get my shirt buttoned then I have just scored a victory. When I was competitively racing, regardless of what went right or what went wrong throughout the race, as long as I could get across the finish line first and throw my arms up in the air, that was an immediate gratification and a payoff for all the effort. I still focus on victories and the payoff, only now the victories are of a different sort. Each little moment that you can denote as something positive in your day must be acknowledged as a victory. For example, when my daughter runs up and gives me a big hug––that is an absolute victory. Every victory counts!
Source: Surviving Adversity
Davis Phinney was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2000. Between the late 1970s and 1993, Davis Phinney won 328 races--more than any other U.S. cyclist. He now devotes his time to The Davis Phinney Foundation (DPF). The objective of the DPF is “To fund research that validates and develops cure-like treatment options to slow or even halt the progression of Parkinson’s disease and extend a patient’s quality of life.
http://www.davisphinneyfoundation.org/
