Colin R. Stuckert's Blog, page 20
January 8, 2021
Resistance Is Out To Ruin You
Pressfield’s advice is targeted at artists—writers, painters, entrepreneurs, playwrights, etc.—but are just as applicable for those that want to be healthier, happier and better human beings.
A word he is most famous for coining (or capitalizing) is “Resistance.” Resistance, as Pressfield defines it, is the inner hesitation and aversion to doing work that we all feel on a regular basis. It is the source of power that causes us to procrastinate and to watch Netflix instead of working. It is the joker that tells ourselves things like, “I’ll start tomorrow.”
And it is real. O boy, is it real.
As you read Pressfield, you will recognize what Resistance looks like for your life—it’s different for everyone. Maybe it’s going to the gym, or working on your research paper, or writing. Resistance shows up everywhere with one fundamental goal: to redirect you to the path of least resistance. Whenever you have the choice between doing what’s hard and what’s easy, Resistance will do everything it can to take the latter path. And for many of us, Resistance often wins.
The way to fight Resistance is to start recognizing Resistance when it shows up in your life. The more you can identify it when it is manipulating you, the better you will get at combating him. Because Resistance is so insidious, and comes in so many forms, it takes real practice to recognize and overcome it.
Here are some examples of Resistance in my life:
Getting sucked into research and reading instead of writing
Feeling the need to be perfectly organized before doing real work, and thus reorganizing my spreadsheet and “Do” list over and over
Running errands so I can check off low priority tasks on my list instead of sitting in front of a computer where I am most productive
And so on
I’ve been writing two hours a day for about two years now. And even though that’s a long time, I still struggle with Resistance each and every day that I sit down to do the work. Imagine that.
The deepest work in your life is always what you are most Resistant to because it requires the most creative energy expenditure. Your brain totals only 2% of your body weight yet consumes 20% of your energy. No wonder people try to avoid thinking: it’s exhausting.
Resistance makes you logon to Facebook instead of into your spreadsheet. It is what causes you to constantly check your messages and notifications when you are working. It is the essence of every distraction in the universe. Resistance is an aversion to doing, starting and finishing. And it never goes away. It’s always there. But you can get better at managing it with enough practice.
So how can you overcome Resistance?
Well, you can’t. Not totally, anyway. You just have to get better at breaking through it, and the first step is recognizing it. When recognize Resistance, you tell it to “GTFO,” and you get back to your work.
There is one thing useful about Resistance, though, and that is taking it as a sign that you are doing exactly what you need to do. When this happens, you use Resistance to motivate you, kinda like a form of validation for the work you are pursuing. But you still have to stomp it out so you can get to work.
Remember, Resistance will try to keep you from doing work, going to the gym, resisting dessert, making decisions you need to make, and so on.
The easiest way to recognize Resistance is when your brain knows you should be doing something, like going to the gym or skipping dessert, but your body is trying to get you to do something else, like not go to the gym or gorge on cake. When you feel this, it is Resistance. Take that as a sign that you need to do the opposite of what Resistance is urging you to do. Use Resistance showing its ugly head as a sign to do what’s right.
The next time you have a decision and your inner voice is telling you lies, tell Resistance to “get lost” and do what needs to be done. Use Resistance as a guidepost to point you in the direction of exactly what you need to do. Anytime Resistance tries to keep you from something, that’s your cue. Proceed anyway.
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Fall In Love With Learning
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
― Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”
When I think of learning I think of two kinds; knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge is what you learn when you go to school. You learn facts, figures, dates, people, formulas, etc. Some of this is will be useful (like logic and problem solving) while plenty won’t have much effect on your life.
Wisdom, on the other hand, is what you have been doing your entire life, even if you don’t realize it. Wisdom is learning through trial and error. It’s learning through pain, torment, success and failure. It’s the slow process that has played out every day of your entire life. It’s the reason you are the person you are today.
When I think of learning, I think of the wisdom you gain from experience. And I think of how we all can supercharge this process!
Unfortunately, many of us stifle ourselves from learning wisdom because learning through experience almost always comes with risks. You have to take action and take risks. And with those risks come the chance for embarrassment and pain. To learn valuable life lessons, you have to do things that make you vulnerable. Then you have to deal with whatever comes as a result of that vulnerability. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and most of the time you’ll be uncomfortable. Regardless of the outcome, however, you are winning because you are learning. And there lies the power in learning to be wise.
The thing about attaining wisdom is you have to seek it out. You have to view new experiences as a well of infinite wisdom, and then you have to pursue them fully. Otherwise, you’ll just stick to your routine bubble of comfort—which is what most people do. Bubble of comfort is the road that leads you to mediocrity. It’s that winding, dangerous looking road through the Sherwood forest that leads you to the riches of life. Always take the latter road as you venture through life. I promise you, you’ll never regret it later on.
Ok, I know this all sounds a bit esoteric so I’ll give you a few examples of how you can take more risks and garner more wisdom in your life.
You don’t just have to take action to gain wisdom. There’s actually another way that I wholeheartedly recommend. It’s books. You can learn from other’s lives by reading their story. Books, biographies, articles, blogs, and even, talking with people, are immensely valuable ways to learn from other people.
Start reading material that will make you a wiser, more aware human being. Instead of watching your typical YouTube fare—cat videos and random prank nonsense—try watching a few TED talks. Instead of reading the latest Twilight novel (nothing against that, just in moderation), try reading some nonfiction or a biography of someone you admire. Instead of gossiping with a friend over coffee, try asking them about their profession like an interviewer or investigative journalist might (they’ll appreciate the interest in what they do). You’ll not only connect with your friend on a deeper level, but you’ll also learn something you may not have known. You’ll be that much more worldly, experienced and knowledgable.
Make It A Habit
You have to making learning a habit. You can learn from everyone and everything in life. And you should. But you have to open your mind and put in a bit of extra effort. Once you get the habit down, it’ll come naturally. The most successful are always the most curious.
When I was younger, I worked multiple part-time jobs the way everyone does when they are 16 and wanting to get their first car. I worked at a movie theater, two restaurants, and a golf course. And while I remember various things about the businesses, I wish I would have paid more attention. I wish I would have had conversations and asked the managers about numbers, operations, and so on. These were prime opportunities for me to learn about business and people in different industries. Had I the wherewithal to take this approach, I would have had valuable knowledge and experience (wisdom) that would have served me years later when I opened my own businesses. Of course, as it goes for most 16 year olds, I didn’t think like this. So I missed out on an amazing opportunity to learn that was sitting right in front of me. At least I now know…
What’s ironic about this is I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to go back to these jobs and work them for free if I had the need or desire to learn those businesses. This is ironic because had asked my 16-year-old self to work for free in exchange for “learning,” he’d probably tell you to “go to hell.”
Ahhh, C’est la vie.
We all learn and grow on a daily basis, but some of us do it better than others. Some of us hold ourselves back because we want to protect our ego, while some of us dive head-first into whatever we are doing completely eager to learn and experience new things. Be the latter. Trust me, be the latter!
Learn from everyone and everything you can. Seek wisdom by doing, knowledge by reading, and both by living.
Always listening,
The post Fall In Love With Learning appeared first on Get Better At Life Through Fitness, Mindset, Psychology, Nutrition and Philosophy.
Life Is Tragic
Life is tragic, though.
We spend our entire lives yearning for what we don’t have while completely ignoring what we do. We kick, yell and scream when we don’t get our way, as if the way we want is the only way.
We search for things with little understanding of what we actually want (and need). We are happy sometimes, but these times are fleeting, soon replaced by something else we need to attain to replace our feelings of joy. It’s a hamster wheel. Life is a hamster wheel, and we are all running frantically going no where.
Each person is different. We all possess things that others want. For example, I’m envious of those that have a close-knit group of friends. I haven’t had this in years, and so I yearn for it. On the flip side, I work for myself which allows me to wake each day and do exactly what I want, when I want. To those that have jobs and a schedule, they might be envious of my lifestyle. The corollary to this desire, for my life, is I often yearn for a stable schedule where I have to go and work around other people. Instead, I find myself working from home or in coffee shops.
Ahh, such is life: we want what we don’t have.
Being single, I see couples everywhere. Yet in my pursuit, I have trouble meeting a member of the opposite sex that is interested in what I want (a relationship of sorts), and that I am interested in beyond the physical. It seems like the more I yearn for this, the further away it gets. Because I yearn for this, I end up seeing it everywhere—happy couples waiting in line for coffee, eating out together, and plastered all over social media. Of course, this is just my brain playing tricks on me via frequency illusion.
Ahh, such is life: we want what we don’t have.
So, what happens when we get everything we want? Well, as is commonly seen amongst those that do—e.g., successful actors, musicians, politicians—we end up searching still for new things that we think will bring us a new fulfillment. But until we get to a point where we have everything we want, we have no way of knowing what we will want beyond that. For example, what’s going to happen once I have a family, the amount of income and success I want, and everything else I need and want in life? Am I going to search for what’s next, possibly to the detriment of what I have so painstakingly achieved? Well, I hope that my awareness of this problem is my first line of defense in not letting this happen, but either way, I can’t be sure.
This is known as hedonic adaptation and it is one of the root causes of unhappiness and discontent in our modern society. We are all stuck in a cycle of pursuing things that will bring us temporary—although hollow—joy and satisfaction before soon wearing off and moving on to the next thing.
What’s the answer? Is there one? Yes. Yes.
Of course, I don’t claim to know all the answers. But I do know of things that have helped me with this matter over the years as I’ve cycled through stages of fulfillment and loss in my life. I’ve had to adapt living a certain lifestyle and amounts of income over the years as I’ve fluctuated between abundance and lack thereof so often. This experience has led me to practicing minimalism and celebrating simplicity. It has removed my desire for “stuff.” Overall, I’m happy about the result.
Of corse, I still yearn for things mentioned above, but somethings are my biological imperative and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to remove the desire for them—having a family/reproducing. So I wonder if it’s normal to yearn for these things. In a way, I think it is. It’s just Maslow’s hierarchy of needs playing itself out. Just like needing water, food and shelter, we all have a need to reproduce and love and to have friends and make a difference. These are the imperatives that make humans human. And so I pursue each understanding this while trying to be careful not to overdo it, which could lead to discontent.
Gratitude
There’s a technique that I’ve lately adopted as a means to appreciate the journey and hopefully help me appreciate the things I yearn for when I get them. The practice is called gratitude. And I think we should all start expressing gratitude in our lives as often as possible. Gratitude has a funny way of making us focus on what we have instead of what we don’t. The more you express gratitude, the more you step off the hamster wheel of chasing newness. It’s profoundly powerful. Then when we get what we’ve so desired and worked for, we are more likely to appreciate it fully instead of letting it bring us a temporary “hi.”
There are many ways to express gratitude. A couple I use include: The 5-Minute Journal, Anthony Robbins “Personal power” program, and a simple “What went well” practice every night that reflects on what I appreciate about my day. These practices are so useful for living a better life. I highly recommend them.
The first step is awareness. Then comes practice. And finally, experience. It takes work, as it should because anything worth having takes work.
Do the work: Start appreciating what you have. Get off the hamster wheel of chasing what’s next. And when you get what you’ve so long desired, savior each and every second of it for it may leave you soon enough.
Grateful,
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Struggles and Desperation: Absolutely Necessary?
-Jim Carrey
I totally love and agree with this quote.
But does that mean it’s easy to embrace, even seek out, desperation?
Nope.
I wax and wane through how content I feel with my struggles; sometimes I embrace them and sometimes I want to run from them like they are a pack of African Killer Bees. And just like anyone else, I struggle with bouts of frustration, anxiety, loneliness, fear, shame, and everything else that is a part of being human.
One of the things that I hate doing (yes, hate), yet find myself falling victim to regularly, is comparing. It’s hard to not feel frustration when I see others that I perceive as having less talent or work-ethic enjoying massive success. It can be disheartening to see individuals at the positive end of the bell curve, especially when you perceive their struggles to pale in comparison to yours. (This is, of course, an illogical trap, and one I don’t recommend.)
Another example of comparing is seeing people in relationships on social media. It’s hard to not feel lonely, or like some kind of social pariah, when I constantly see “happy” couples plastered all over Facebook. It seems like everyone is getting married, changing their status to “in a relationship,” or showcasing just how not lonely they are. Then you see those engagement and wedding photos that are littered with countless comments to the tune of: “You guys are adorable” and “The perfect couple” and blabla.
Listen, I’ve never ever been one to rain on someone else’s parade, but I have to say it’s hard to see stuff like this and not think about my own life. While everyone else is happily finding the loves of their life, here I am having trouble meeting just one quality female I “click” with that isn’t either married or in a serious relationship (which, as the irony of the universe goes, I’ve met plenty of each of those).
So ya…. that’s annoying. I call it the comparison trap.
I enjoy being happy for people. I think everyone deserves happiness and success, so when I feel the negative thoughts of comparison seep into my head, I don’t like it one bit. Unfortunately, the more I find myself on social media, the more these thoughts creep in—and is why I limit my time there.
When I notice myself falling into the comparison trap, I try to ignite the rational, stoic side of my brain. It usually chimes in with a bit of wisdom about how struggles are necessary in life (like what I’m going through now) and how they help you appreciate what you have and will have. When my logical brain kicks in to remind my reptilian brain to stop being an idiot, I thank him for his wisdom while trying to do the best I can to quell the pangs of desire that burn deep.
Ahhhh… such is life… tragically depressing yet wonderfully beautiful at the same time.
So, I have formed a couple philosophical “answers” to the comparison trap.
First, my previous point about appreciation is the most important. If one does not struggle through times of famine, he or she will not appreciate times when food is abundant. Do you think individuals who lived through the depression would become overweight—like most Americans—if they lived with an overabundant food supply the way we do? I think not. The reason being they know struggle, appreciate it even, and would not fall victim to gluttony as a result. They would be balanced by the opposing forces of feast and famine.
However, if we look to the average American, whom has likely never had to struggle for food, we find sick people. The only thing that Americans know is how much, how fast and how cheap. Just imagine what would happen to the average American if he or she had to go a few months living on only a couple hundred calories a day? Might be a great way to “balance” them out, don’t ya think?
The second “answer” to the comparison trap lies in the fact that we are all on different timelines in life. If you are jealous of someone who has more than you when they have been working the last ten years while you’ve only been working a few years, then you are severely missing the point.
Without struggle, getting something has no value because you didn’t have to earn it. It has no value. Things that are scarce are hard to get and thus require a great deal of effort to obtain. That is why they have value to you and the world. If water was scarce, it would be the most expensive and sought after item in the world, the way gold and diamonds are. In fact, water where I live is free and abundant, and thus, has no monetary value, but if I were to go to remote parts of Central American of Africa, I will find people that have to spend the majority of their money on clean water. You better believe they appreciate every drop.
If everyone had success, success wouldn’t mean anything. It would be like water in the United States: something we all have and take for granted. There are plenty of examples of this concept in life; it is a fact of human existence. When you understand the duality of all things in life, and how necessary the hard part is for appreciating the good, and vice versus, you might think it strange when you hear someone complain about how “hard” something is.
“Dude! It’s hard is the only reason you value it, and if you didn’t value it, it wouldn’t be hard!”
…is what I would normally say.
Life is hard, sure, but it’s also magical and beautiful. Take away the hard and it’s bland, boring, and like some black and white movie.
Success is hard, sure, but it brings about great rewards. Take away the hardness and it’s just another thing, like the water you use to take that 30-minute shower.
Relationships are hard, sure, but they are also great. Hardness keeps your relationship alive while giving it the ability to thrive.
And so on.
Did you know that the average “overnight success” is 10 years in the making? Just because you didn’t hear about them for the last 9.5 years does not mean that they got where they are fast. Other than the few extreme outliers that might shortcut their way to success, nearly all self-made success stories are just that: self-made.
Struggling with Struggles
I’m good at being aware of myself and my personal struggles. I try to ask myself hard questions on a regular basis. I’m usually aware of myself when acting emotionally, and I do my best to figure out why so I can correct it. Of course, none of this came easy, and it’s still a major work in progress. I’ve dealt with some shit in my life, and it’s all been a part of the process that has made me better.
A sadly ironic thing about life: Our worst situations contain our most potential for becoming a better person.
Damn.
Reading and writing have been the most important tools for helping me get through my struggles in life. They have allowed me to understand, cope, accept, and work on improving and learning to become a better person. For every traumatic experience in my life, I had writing and reading as my companions for getting through—and without, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. (Close friends come next on the list.)
I’ve recently started a journal. I love it. I write in it each morning before I write anything else. It’s very therapeutic to write something that other people won’t read. You can be unfiltered and unrestrained. As a writer, you are always gauging what people might think of what you write, which can often produce self-censored writing that just isn’t as powerful. In this piece, for example, I could easily edit out a few parts so I didn’t feel as ‘vulnerable’ with my words. I’m not going to that because I think it would be a disservice to us both.
What about you? Are you being honest with yourself? Or are you living in a world of perpetual distraction?
Are you aware of the things you want, and the “why” to what you do on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis?
Are you in one of these “happy” relationships that everyone deems so “normal” and “expected” yet you still feel a pit in your stomach? Do you know what that pit is, and what it’s trying to tell you?
Are you trying to believe in something because your parents, friends and family believe in it, yet you struggle?
Do you feel “lost” or “lonely” even when standing in a crowded room of people that care about you?
Do you get sick of the grind of life, and feel like you are doing a lot while going no where?
Are you comparing your life to the lives of people you see on social media? Is this sapping your happiness and sucking you into wanting more, better and different?
I encourage you to explore these questions and many more. The right questions and answers are different for us all, but the importance of asking and answering them is the same: absolutely necessary.
My favorite kind of writing is writing that begs you to ask questions, that spurs you to exploring your inner world. So much of writing nowadays comes in a neat little box with a ribbon. It catches your attention with a clever headline and a few opening sentences, reinforces a point or two in the body text, and then closes with an easy and clear, often step-by-step, lesson of what you should do next. You get the feeling that you “accomplished” something by reading it and that your work is done. To that I say, *$#*$#**$.
That kind of writing doesn’t do jack for you. You need to ask yourself hard questions. You need to be manipulated, cajoled, even guilted, into doing something more.
I hope that this piece will help you with some of that.
The post Struggles and Desperation: Absolutely Necessary? appeared first on Get Better At Life Through Fitness, Mindset, Psychology, Nutrition and Philosophy.
January 7, 2021
The Mistake Manifesto: Why Mistakes Shouldn’t Be Avoided
-Oscar Wilde
Life is short. Get as much experience as you can by making more mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn about yourself and the world around you; the wiser and more experienced you become.
I write and think about mistakes a lot.
It’s becoming redundant.
Of course, just because I do this does not mean I am great at regularly making mistakes… like I should be. I struggle with Resistance just like everyone else. I want to take the safe, stress-free route over the difficult one. I seek easy over hard.
To some this might not like seem like a big deal, but for me, it’s a real problem. You see, my life philosophy is based on a few beliefs I hold. One of these beliefs is based on the duality of everything in the universe—night and day, yin and yang, easy and hard, black and white, etc. I have learned (the hard way) that the best times don’t last just like the worst ones… and… that both are absolutely necessary for living a balanced, grateful life. (Check out some of my archives to find more writings on this topic.) In short, I want to make as many mistakes as possible because that means I am making progress. When I am not making mistakes, in my eyes, I feel like I’m not making enough progress. I feel like I’m being “safe” and “comfortable.” I don’t like it.
Mistakes
Making mistakes is hard because we have been conditioned to avoid mistakes our entire lives—school, teachers, parents, guidance counselors, peers, coaches, etc. Mistakes bring us pain and embarrassment while also bringing us learning and experience—which is why they are so valuable. Pain and embarrassment is fleeting and only as bad as you deem it so. They are your opinion, and you can change that opinion. Fundamentally, this is why we should seek to learn in the face of pain and embarrassment. Plus, wisdom itself is reward, and easily paid for by whatever pain and embarrassment it takes. So, when you make mistakes, you get a chance to learn and gain life experience while also getting exercise in controlling your opinions of what pain and embarrassment actually is (which is usually just your worry over what other people will think).
Of course, it’s not easy to force ourselves to seek out mistakes. The thing is, if we want to become the best we can be, we must. Mistakes are our path to improvement.
As I said before, easy is not useful. Easy is not a teacher, difficult is. Think about your past and you will see that the times you learned the most, that were the most beneficial to you as far as becoming a better, wiser person, were probably the times you hated the most. And such is a truism of life.
What’s difficult is where we have our greatest opportunities for mistakes, and thus, for learning. The harder and more painful something is, the more learning, wisdom, knowledge, and life practice we gain from it. (Of course, only if we are able to separate ourselves from the Ego to accept the lessons provided.)
This truism represents the greatest opportunity for attaining health, wealth and happiness for those that embrace it.
Unfortunately, most people try to fight what’s hard. Most people do everything they can to avoid embarrassment and making a mistake. They are professionals at seeking the path of least resistance. And when they do make mistakes, they do their best to forget them as quickly as possible because it hurts to think that they may have made a mistake.
These same people will avoid thinking of their past instead of confronting it. They try to escape what’s hard by seeking externals like pleasure and the illusion of the future. Of course, none of this works for very long. Invariably, when it all starts to unravel the way it always does, they end up feeling hopeless and lost, not knowing why they feel the way they feel or what they should do about it. That’s a shame.
What’s Easy Has No Value
Answer these questions:
Do you have an intense, burning desire to stay the same?
Do you want to avoid any and all improvement?
Do you want to stick to things that are comfortable for as long as possible?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, here’s your plan: seek easy and comfortable. For those of you that want to ‘fit in,’ ‘be average’ and not ‘rock the boat,’ then by all means, make it your job to seek only what’s easy and comfortable.
Easy and comfortable is how a golfer will shoot the same score his entire life. Easy and comfortable is how people stay in loveless, sexless marriages. Easy and comfortable is why people work jobs they hate for the large part of their lives. Easy and comfortable is why people become fat, sick and complacent. Easy and comfortable are killers, literally: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
In everything you do, seeking easy and comfortable is your path to sameness and mediocrity and, eventually, regression. The thing about anything that is easy and comfortable is it begets more things that are easy and comfortable. As you become more conditioned to do what’s easy and comfortable, you start seeking what’s easier and more comfortable. This goes on ad infinitum. Eventually, you atrophy and die.
Sad, prevalent and totally preventable.
Easy and comfortable also has a knack of insidiously seeping into other parts of your life. Start seeking easy and comfortable in one thing, and before you know it, you are seeking it in many things, and then, all things. Do this long enough and you become a professional at being average and mediocre. This will maintain your status quo for a period of time before you start regressing. When you start regression, it’s all a slow, downward spiral. Before you know it, your mind and body have weakened and getting out of the hole might seem impossible. You find yourself average at things you were once good at. You try less on things you used to try hard on. You enjoy things less that you used to enjoy more. And on and on the steady decline begets more steady decline. Bit by bit, your entire life withers away. Looks a lot like aging, doesn’t it?
Exactly!
In fact, I have this theory that most people age at about the same rate as their peers. For example, if you hang around people that start gaining weight and becoming more and more sedentary in their old age, you too will start gaining weight and become less and less active because you will subconsciously “accept” that you are “getting old” the way your peers are, and as a result, you will mirror their habits which will result in you looking, feeling and living about the same as those around you. You will gray at about the same rate as your peer group because your lifestyles will be so similar. Your peers will talk about things they used to be able to do but now can’t, and you will nod your head in agreement. Then you’ll start compiling about things you used to be able to do. On and on this rubbing off it will go, infecting each other.
This is why, I think, that people age at about the same rate as their age group of the culture they live in. Go to the island of Okinawa, off the coast of Japan, and you’ll find plenty of active and self-sufficient individuals living into their 90s and beyond because you’ll find that many of their peers are doing the same thing. (A reminder to the importance of carefully choosing your peer group!)
I have digressed.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live my life out in slow decay. As Seneca so eloquently put it, “Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.” I’d rather my life be an epic adventure filled with plenty of ups, downs and in-betweens than it be a “safe” and “secure” life of settling for a secure job, a comfortable relationship and a typical routine. No thanks.
I want to constantly grow and evolve and become the best I can be. And this is why mistakes is my way. To improve, I must put myself in uncomfortable situations and do my best to learn from them. The more I do this, the better I’ll get. Of course, as I said before, knowing this doesn’t mean the doing is easy.
I write and think about mistakes on a daily basis because I want to condition myself to take more risks. The more I think and write about mistakes, the more I’m subconsciously drawn to making them. Then, when the opportunity for grand and glorious mistakes presents itself—which might only happen once or twice in a lifetime—I will be more likely to act.
Do you think of your mistakes as an opportunity? If you are like most people, you don’t. If you are like most people, you try to avoid mistakes like the plague. This is why you are like most people.
It’s not often we get to make great mistakes. When we miss these rare opportunities, we miss more than we realize. Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” Alexander McQueen said, “You can only go forward by making mistakes.” I could go on and on quoting others on the merits of failure in the hopes of showing you how important mistakes are, but I’m not going to. If you don’t get why mistakes are important by now, you probably never will.
People making mistakes
Many of the world’s greatest companies were started by individuals that were told they couldn’t or shouldn’t. Their ideas may have been illegal, impossible, improbable, or sometimes, all three. Yet they did it anyway. They grasped their opportunity to make grand and glorious mistakes, and by acting on this opportunity, they achieved greatness. Their grand mistakes forced them to learn, grow and adapt, and as a result, they were able to capture an opportunity where others were too afraid to attempt.
A quick example: Apple computer has been near bankrupt multiple times in its history. It’s founder, Steve Jobs, was fired then rehired—which Jobs credits as one of the greatest things that ever happened to him. Now Apple is the biggest company in world. Had the company—and it’s founder—not made the mistakes it did, it probably would’t have been able to achieve what it did. It probably would have skated by as just another computer company.
Greatness is a path littered with mistakes. Greatness views mistakes as feedback that that way is not the way. Greatness embraces mistakes because it views it scientifically, not emotionally.
Are you able to separate your ego from your mistakes so you can achieve greatness?
Had Bill Gates played it safe and stayed at Harvard, maybe someone else would have beat him to building the Microsoft operating system. Had Elon Musk given up after either of the first three failed SpaceX rockets—which put him and the company at the brink of bankruptcy—he would not have launched the fourth rocket successfully and won the company a 2.6 billion dollar NASA contract, which saved himself, and the company, from financial ruin.
That’s the thing about mistakes: your greatest opportunity for mistakes provide your greatest opportunity for achievement. They go hand-in-hand. Being great at anything can be summed up—as Mr. Wilde suggests above—in how many failures one has achieved.
Think back on your life: How many times have you failed? How did these failures shape you into the person you are today? The answer, even if you don’t realize it, is a lot. Every failure you have ever experienced was an opportunity for you to become better and more experienced.
Mistakes are an opportunity we all must embrace. Unfortunately, most people let their mistakes bring them blame, regret and shame, instead of learning and wisdom. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest perceptual failures of our generation (and one you should change right now).
Another thing that makes failure so awesome is this: To truly appreciate success, you must truly appreciate failure. If you have never felt the sting of failure, how are you able to appreciate success, the opposite of failure? You can’t. Like I’ve already said, they are connected by a universal duality that is inherent in all parts of the universe.
So, when you complaining about your lack of success, your mistakes, someone else’s success, or any of the many self-destructive thoughts that try to sabotage us all, you must remind yourself of the rules of the game and this: your current lack of success is the path that every successful person in the history of man has had to take to become successful… and you are no different. And if you were to were to push a button to grant yourself all the success in the world, you would be a fool. You would be foolish to push that button because your success would be meaningless because it would not have been achieved the way success is supposed to be achieved, and thus, you wouldn’t appreciate it (and it wouldn’t be long until you were unhappy and complaining again the way you were complaining before you had any success).
Hard is fundamental to success. If you have easy, you don’t have success, you just have easy, and at the core of hard is making mistakes. Do some simple math and you see that mistakes to success. Hard, mistakes and success are interwoven and it’s time you accept them as such.
Shame
Most people feel shame from their mistakes. It’s a natural, biological response that was passed down from our ancestors due to the fact that failing in front of a tribe would have endangered our hierarchy in our tribe, and thus, our chances of reproductive success. We also lived in an environment that was inherently dangerous where a simple mistake could result in life-threading injury or death. Back then, it was much more dangerous to make mistakes.
Of course, times have changed. We have the chance to make massive mistakes while coming out the other end alive, healthy and better prepared for the next go-round. And that’s exactly what I suggest you do. Nowadays, success is earned by those most willing to make glorious mistakes. In fact, your life success can be exactly correlated to the amount of mistakes you have made and will make in your lifetime—and learn from. The more mistakes you make and learn from, the better you are. Period. It’s a simple as that. And this concept applies to all walks of achievement from love, monetary success, power, fame, everything. The greatest performers in the world are that way because they are constantly testing the limits of their bodies and discipline.
If you desire to be great, you have to adopt this mistake mindset. You have to start reframing your view of mistakes and failure. Instead of seeing mistakes and failures as things to avoid, seek them out. Instead of letting them bring you shame, have them bring you pride; pride in the fact that you were bold and took action when others wouldn’t.
It’s time to seek hard and shun easy. It’s time to seek the path of most resistance.
When you reframe how you think of hard, easy, mistakes, and success, you get the keys to the floodgates of growth and learning. On the flip side, if you carry around shame and aversion to failure throughout your life, you’ll never reach your true potential.
Mistakes are opportunity; seek them out. Reflect on your past mistakes and bleed them dry of usefulness.
I’m not going to pretend that any of this is easy. It’s not. Nor should it be because you would’t learn anything if it was (seeing a theme yet?). If you aspire to be better, you must become a professional at being bold and taking risks.
I’m not saying that you should become a careless and clumsy idiot that makes mistakes out of everything. No, that would just be you being an idiot. What I am saying is, you must do the best you can while constantly pushing yourself to the upper limits of your ability, which, in turn, will result in unavoidable mistakes. At the end of the day, you are seeking mistakes because you are seeking progress and progress does not come without error.
To become great and live great: Make grand and glorious mistakes by shunning easy and comfortable and by seeking out the dangerous, twisted and scary path of difficulty.
Yours in Life,
The post The Mistake Manifesto: Why Mistakes Shouldn’t Be Avoided appeared first on Get Better At Life Through Fitness, Mindset, Psychology, Nutrition and Philosophy.
You Have To Sell Yourself
-Mark Twain
“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
-Isaac Asimov
The quotes above make me laugh. You know: the kind of laugh that comes from someone who gets it.
Now, I’m not suggesting I know everything—duh, that would be totally absurd—but I do know a good amount about a lot of things. Being a voracious reader, a constant doer, and an obsessive learner grants you that. I’ve worked hard developing the contents of my brain, and I have no shame in admitting it. In fact, when I was younger, people would often tell me I came off as a “know it all.” This always confused me because the only times I claimed to “know” something was when I knew it, or when I knew enough to have an opinion on it. If I didn’t know something, I’d have no issue in admitting it, usually while expressing interest in wanting to know the answer.
For example, I don’t know much about politics; ask me the differences are between a liberal and a conservative and I could only guess at the answer. Likewise, ask me to do a complex algebra equation and I’ll straight up tell you, “I don’t know how.” O the flip side, ask me about something I am familiar with and I’ll have plenty to say. Ask me about something I know very well and I’ll have a lot to say—and will say it all with conviction.
I guess people are uneasy with someone that can speak intelligently on many subjects. Perhaps it makes them feel inferior? You know what, now that I think about it, in the 48 laws of power by Robert Greene, one of his laws suggests one downplays his intelligence. As he puts it, “To reveal the true nature of your intelligence rarely pays; you should get in the habit of downplaying it at all times. If people inadvertently learn the truth— that you are actually much smarter than you look— they will admire you more for being discreet than for making your brilliance show.”
I like this. I see how this could be useful in persuasion and power. And, actually, throughout the years of being labeled a “know it all,” I now realize that I’ve been doing this as I’ve grown out of adolescence as a means of trying to curb the perception that I’m a know-it-all. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that importance of talking less and listening more. Overall, as far as meeting new people and establishing friendships goes, this is definitely a thing I recommend everyone try to do. And since most people suck at listening, talking less is going to have an immediate impact on your people interactions.
Now, with all that said, I have learned that there is a downside to downplaying your skills, intelligence or self too much. It’s this: people won’t remember you or think of you when you might want them to.
Being a good listener isn’t as useful as you’d think in a business or networking setting when you need to be remembered. When you are trying to establish yourself as anything, especially as a contact for others to call upon in the future, you have to sell yourself. If you don’t add subtle self-promotion into your conversational repertoire, you may not get the results you want with people.
No matter how good of a listener you are, you will fade into oblivion in the minds of the people you come across if they aren’t given a reason to remember you.
This concept is more important today than it’s ever been due to the vast number of distractions, connections, opportunities, people and things that are all fighting for our attention on any given day. As Oscar Wilde so eloquently put it, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
Maybe you think that only entrepreneurs or business people have to promote or “sell” themselves. If you think that, you’d be wrong. We all must sell.
Want to attract a mate? You have to sell yourself.
Applying for a grant or scholarship? Your grant proposal or essay better sell.
Want that job? Sell yourself or the position will go to someone else that does a better job of selling themselves.
Want to sell your art? To first sell it, you have to sell yourself, then it.
Want to persuade anyone to do anything? You must sell.
As an attempt to readjust the perception that I was a know-it-all, I started to talk less and listen more. I started to filter my personality by keeping opinions that might seem edgy or controversial to myself. And guess what? It’s been a long time since anyone suggested I was a know-it-all.
So it worked. That’s good, right? Well, not exactly.
You see, now I’ve run into another problem; the problem of not selling myself enough. I’ve found myself not selling myself enough to potential mates, to potential partners, to potential customers, and so on. I’ve been working on this for a while now, and as a result, have been getting closer to the sweet spot between selling/not selling. As with everything in life, it’s the middle area where you get the best results.
As Daniel Pink writes in his #1 New York Times Bestseller, To Sell is Human, “The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.”
As I’ve tweaked and modified my personality over the years, one of the greatest realizations I’ve had to accept is what English poet John Donne has famously said, “No man is an Island.” See, I’ve always liked the idea of doing things myself. Within the confines of my business, art, my blog, and other projects I’m working on, I have the tendency (obsession?) to want to control every aspect. I also don’t like asking for help unless it’s within the employee/employer context. So, for me, I’ve always struggled with the idea of “networking.” It’s always felt weird to me to meet someone then followup with them asking for something. Even though I rarely ask things of people, I still find it awkward to reach out to people and ask for help. I just prefer to get stuff done myself.
I’m working on it.
I know that I will get more results in my life, business and relationships if I keep putting myself out there. It can be uncomfortable to put yourself out there. It requires vulnerability to self-promote, especially for those of us that already feel weird about self-promoting (which I always have).
Whether it feels weird or not, we still must sell. If we don’t sell ourselves, our services, our wants and desires, we won’t have much to call a life. If you don’t like the word “selling,” then you can substitute the word “persuading.” Selling is simple persuasion. And whether you are selling or persuading, a transaction is successful only if both parties are satisfied at the end. As long as you are giving more than what you are taking, you will always have happy transactions with people, even when you are asking for something.
Selling is not bad, or evil, unless it is used for such purposes. The best salesman are those that sell their goods or services in a way that satisfies the buyer’s need. If you feel awkward about selling something to someone else, it is because you are thinking about it the wrong way. You are probably thinking of the transaction as taking something from the person instead of giving something to them. That needs to change. Flip it around.
Successful selling is giving more than what you receive. Simple.
When you sell your art, you are providing enjoyment for years to come. When you sell yourself to a potential partner, you are giving them all the benefits of you. When you are expanding your network, you are also expanding someone else’s network. When you sell your kids on why they need to go to bed at a reasonable time, you are giving them a healthy habit that will serve them well for the rest of their life. And so on.
As you can see, selling is nothing more than value exchange. Don’t let dollars and cents, or your issues with vulnerability, confuse you to the fact that both parties benefit from selling.
Think of selling—or persuasion, self-promotion, dating, whatever—as doing a favor for the other party. When you think of selling this way, it becomes a much easier thing to do.
Remember, if you don’t sell yourself, you might not be remembered. If you can’t sell your ideas, you will never see them come to life. If you can’t sell your wants and desires, you will never fulfill them.
Always be selling. Always deliver more value than you receive.
Yours in Life,
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Your past is your greatest teacher. It’s up to you to become its greatest student.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
–Chinese Proverb
We reflect on the past and think, “I wish…”.
That’s bad.
When we do this, we let frustration and regret seep into the present, which is unnecessary and not useful. Sure, some of us can reflect on our past in a way that is useful because it motivates us and teaches us how to be better in the now, but that is the few.
Many think about the past in a way that is not useful. For them, the past is more often a haunting ghost than an encouraging coach.
Let’s consider an important fact about the past: you cannot change it. The past is the past and there’s nothing you can do about it… ever. Now let’s consider an important fact about the mind: you can control your mind to feel anything you want. Put these two together and you have this: change your mind so that your past is useful.
There are always two ways to view everything
“I wish” are two words that haunt us all. It is almost never productive to think about the past this way. If you find yourself thinking about the past this way, try to use it to your advantage. Think: “I’m not going to make that mistake again,” or “I learned something.”
If you can use your past to learn, you have access to one of the most powerful tools in your personal developmental arsenal. On the flip side, if you let the past infect the present by bringing on fear, regret or anxiety, then your past will become your greatest threat for living the good life.
Reflecting on the past can be your greatest source of learning and inspiration if you are able to set aside the pain and ego that often comes with reflection.
Your past can be a path to wisdom or a path to misery—your choice.
When reflecting on the past,you must be careful because there is a fine line between productive and destructive reflection. You have to squash the feelings of regret that tug at you when reflecting on your past so you can focus on the lessons that are hiding in plain sight.
Using the past
Sometimes a missed opportunity can serve as a wake-up call. It can spur you to action.
Hitting rock bottom, losing a loved one, getting laid off, and making any of the major life-mistakes that we all make can serve as your greatest teacher.
You didn’t mean to hurt his or her feelings. You are now wiser and more careful with your words.
You failed at something. You learned how not to do it.
You were cheated. You now know not to trust that person, and you are more selective with your trust in general.
You lose someone you love. You learn to not take life for granted.
Think about your past… what are some lessons you have learned or could learn?
Have trouble sticking to your gym membership? Sign up for a membership tomorrow.
Failed with your diet? Empty your pantry today and order a Paleo cookbook right now.
Trouble finishing projects? Set a timer for 20 minutes and start working on it. Get 20 minutes done, then another.
Failed relationship? Stop blaming the other person and ask yourself, “What did I do wrong?” Also, stop viewing your relationship as a waste: every person that has ever come into your life has served a purpose. Be grateful.
Lose a loved one? Remember this person the next time you let anger and negativity seep into your life over things that don’t matter.
The past can be a library of wisdom or a lifetime of hell on earth. It all depends on how you think about it.
Never let your past drag you down. Use your past productively or not at all.
Action: Forgive and let go of blame. Ask yourself hard questions and admit mistakes so you can learn. Forgive yourself. Turn your “I wish” into “I’m content, and I’ve learned.”
Your past is your greatest teacher. It’s up to you to become its greatest student.
Yours in The Past, Present and Future,
The post Your past is your greatest teacher. It’s up to you to become its greatest student. appeared first on Get Better At Life Through Fitness, Mindset, Psychology, Nutrition and Philosophy.
Comparing Is A Great Way To Be Miserable
–Seneca, Letters to a Stoic
You may not realize it, but you’ve been comparing yourself to others your entire life.
We all do it and there’s no shame in it, but it’s not particularly useful for happiness.
Our tendency to compare is an expression of our genetic makeup: We have always competed against other human beings for scarce resources, hierarchy in the tribe, and in competition to attract a mate. The more we get in life, whether that is status or resources or both, the better chance we have at passing along our genes to a suitable mate—which is the fundamental drive of the human species.
This is human biology 101 and it’s why we compare and yearn and desire so much.
The thing is, nowadays, in a world where we live in stark contrast to the way our ancestors used to live—in small nomadic tribes that stayed together for life—we find ourselves pursuing more than our peers in a way that is poisonous and leads to discontent and compulsion.
To put it simply: People want more and they don’t know why. So they just keep chasing.
They perpetually go after more and “next. “
They become jealous of what others have instead of being grateful for what they do have. They perpetually want better and greener grass, and their life becomes an insatiable pattern of “leveling up” to the next thing, for which there is no ceiling.
And this breeds insecurity, discontent and unhappiness.
I have no problem with ambition and competition. In fact, I’m extremely ambitious and competitive myself. But now, as I am a bit older, and hopefully a bit wiser, I always seek to be in tune with the “why” of my life.
For example, I long ago made the decision to make sleep and health the number one priority in my life. No matter what promise of success I may have, I will not sacrifice either of these to get there. (And I’ve learned that I’m more successful when I take this route anyways.)
I’ve also since adjusted what I consider “successful” to be. When I was younger, I ignorantly believed that I would have to become a “millionaire” to be happy. Now, I know that’s not even remotely true.
Of course, this realization does not mean I am not aiming high. It means as I climb the ladder of success, I will be remind myself of where I was and am instead of obsessively focusing on where I want to be.
I’m making a point to enjoy the journey.
It’s a tricky thing.
As one attains success, your time is more monopolized. It becomes harder to do things that don’t generate income because you always know you could be generating income. So you start finding that you are spending less and less time with friends and family or watching Netflix or doing your favorite hobby.
After a while, you struggle with happiness.
At this point, if you are wise enough to realize it, you see that the reasons you wanted to be successful in the first place were so you could spend more time with those you love, more time with your hobbies, and more time watching Netflix (or whatever else makes you happy).
Then, you either start making changes to bring you more happiness or you will dive right back in under the idea that “just a little bit more” will do the trick and solve your happiness problem (which it never does).
There are plenty of successful people that never come to this realization. They end up the richest people in the graveyard.
Some realize it, quit everything, and move to a beach somewhere so they can spend their time how they want.
Some are so stuck in the rat race that they don’t have the time to consider any of this. They convince themselves that if they can just get ahead they will be happy. The problem is, this never works. They just replace what they have now for something else in the future and the cycle repeats itself over and over until they die.
There’s gotta be a better way. A happier way.
This is what it is: Find a way to be happy with what you have now and everything else you get is gravy. It’s as Epictetus said, “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
Start by appreciating the journey, expressing gratitude for what you have and what you’ve accomplished, and balancing time with your health, hobbies and loved ones. And most of all, express gratitude. Being grateful fixes everything.
Does this all sound like a tall order?
I hope it does. It should… this is your freaking life we are talking about. But it should also motivate you, not deter you.
What’s better than chasing happiness? That’s usually what we are all after anyways. We just need to get better at recognizing what will actually bring us happiness so we can do more of those things and less of the things that we think will bring us happiness that actually don’t.
If you think this is all “too much work,” and you can’t bear the thought to slow down or take some time to work on these areas, then I have some sad news for you: you are going to end up regretful and miserable.
You don’t want to end up old and full of regret. Instead, be young, middle-aged, and old and full of gratitude and happiness the entire time.
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Your Past Can Make You Or Break You
-Robert Frost
Think about the last time something “bad” happened to you. Remember the thoughts that raced through your mind:
Why me?
This is terrible!
I’m so unlucky
Poor me
Now think about the days and weeks that followed:
Did you “get over” it fast or did it torment you every day?
Did you learn from it or did you sweep it under the rug?
Now consider where you are this very moment:
Are you better now because of what happened?
Did you learn from your struggle?
Are you stronger?
Are you happy?
Is your past now just a memory, minor in significance?
And now, the million dollar question:
Could it have been worse?
(Hint: It could have. It always can be worse.)
Let me tell you something about your past: it only exists in your mind; it is a memory and gone forever never to return. The memories of your past may or may not bring you feelings of joy, pain, happiness, or regret. What it brings you depends on how you think of these memories. It’s all perception, and in case you didn’t know or you’ve yet to appreciate this fact: perception is entirely up to you.
You are better or worse because of your past. You are smarter, wiser, and bolder, or you are scared, hurt, and depressed because of what has happened to you in your life up to this point.
And this is completely up to you!
You have the power to change how you feel about your past. You can make it a source of motivation and inspiration, or you can make it a source of misery and regret. It all comes down to choice. You choose by the thoughts that play through your head when you think of your past. If you don’t like your past, change your thoughts about it so you can use it for good. If you do like your past, find the lessons that may be hidden within so you can live the best possible future.
Why?
When thinking about life, the “why” isn’t always that easily explained. Life is unfair and cruel, and as cliche as the saying goes: That’s life.
Nature is not fair. Nature doesn’t give a damn about you or she or him or her. It is what it is: random and varied. Life can be represented via the bell curve—sometimes you are on the far left, the right far, the middle or somewhere in-between each of these points. Some people get this while some get that, and this is out of our control. Yes, I do believe that you can make choices that will help you get to the part of the bell curve you want to get to, but there is still no guarantee you will get there. Life will happen as it wants to happen; random and without giving a crap about what you deem “right,” “wrong,” “fair,” or “unfair.”
This is one reason why it’s time you stop dwelling on the negative to your past and instead focus on the positive. Instead of thinking about what you got or didn’t get from a negative point of view, focus on what you got or didn’t get from a positive point of view. For example, you didn’t die, so that’s something you didn’t get that you could have. Be grateful for that, and the fact that you are alive right now. On top of not dying, you didn’t have your left thumb cut off by some demented torturer guy. Something to be thankful for, no? In addition to not dying and not getting your left thumb cut off, there are about a trillion other things that didn’t happen to you that could have. It’s simple: be grateful for the things that didn’t go super wrong and this will shift your perspective of what did go wrong. Soon your wrong won’t seem like so bad. You might even be able to see how you actually learned something from what went wrong. When this happens—which is the goal—you have started the change. From here, the sky is the limit: your past, no matter how terrible, can be a source of learning and motivation for living in the now to the best of your ability. And since the now is all we ever have, does that not seem like a good thing?
By changing your perception of your past, you not only give yourself the power to learn and draw inspiration from it, but you also get to let go of the pain that is attached to your past that is holding you back from growing into the person you are capable of becoming. It is often our past that is the lead ball attached to our inner demons. Remove the weight and you can let go of the burden—or at least start the process.
Of your past, always ask yourself, “Could it have been worse?”
Life Fact: Your past is your greatest motivation for living life now, or it is a ball and chain that is dragging you down. You decide which.
I’m not going to tell you that a mindset shift is easy when contemplating your past. It’s not. In fact, it might be one of the hardest things you ever do. But it’s absolutely necessary for living a full life.
You might think you can just “forget” the past. But as many who have tried this—and failed—will tell you, it doesn’t work. Forgetting is not the answer. Our brains are not like a hard drive that we can just “reformat” or “delete” to remove parts of memory. Our conscious and subconscious mind is too complicated of an instrument to pull off forgetting successfully. Until we have the technology/ability to “erase” bad memories from our conscious and subconscious mind, we will have to take the old fashion route of dealing with our past productively.
The truth of your past:
The past is gone forever and there is nothing you can do about it. (You can’t change it, and so you have to accept it.)
The only power you have over your past is how you think about it. (And that’s where your power lies.)
Since these are the rules that govern your past, you have no choice but to change how you think about your past or it will forever be a lead ball dragging you down and holding you back.
No matter how unexplainable, unjust, or inhumane your past happens to be, it can still be the greatest source of motivation and inspiration for living in the now. You must decide to use your past as a source of inspiration and motivation through expressing gratitude instead of regret.
When you make this monumental shift in thinking, you have the template for massive change in your life. And I mean MASSIVE. As you start making this shift in perception, you start to see that your past has a purpose. You might even learn how to appreciate your past for making you the person you are today. (Which sounds like a paradox, but when you get there, you’ll understand what I mean.)
The purpose of your past is to grant you the ability to live as best as you can now.
That’s it, that’s the big secret to life and our experience through it. Your past is the night and today is the day. Both are necessary for defining the other. Life is yin and yang; it is balance. To experience the good, you have to experience the bad. To appreciate the good, you have to appreciate the bad. This is the law of positive and negative, and you cannot escape it no matter how hard you try. And this is why you absolutely must embrace it. Embrace it with all your being.
When pain comes your way, say to it: “I will take you Pain, because I know you serve a purpose. And after I have taken you, I will be stronger, better, wiser, and happier as a result. Thank you Pain, I’m now better for you having visited me. Until we meet again, so long and farewell.”
Think About it
Take a moment to think about it: If you never experience a bad feeling, how will you know how blissfully awesome it is to experience a good feeling? You can’t! They are each completely dependent on the other.
(Spend a bit of time thinking about this and you will see that much of what we do in life is in vain because of this simple concept.)
When you bitch, gripe or complain about your past (or present), what you are really saying is, “I don’t understand the duality of life. I’m dumb.”
The wise understand that pain is good, and necessary. And they understand that there is no situation in life, other than your death, that you cannot benefit from.
You may think you have a terrible past, maybe you did, but I know that you are alive because you are reading this and thus I know that your past could have been worse because you would be dead if it was the absolute worst! Now, it’s time to focus on the fact that you are alive and breathing and not dead and gone. As I’ve already said, it’s a choice.
Make the choice. Focus on the positive, on the useful. Forget the rest.
No matter what you have gone through in life, you have the opportunity to put it behind you and create a better life now. Each day you waken you are given the opportunity to experience love and friendship and kindness. You get to enjoy food, sex and laughter. You get to appreciate art and beauty. You wake to a world full of opportunity. You get to relish in these gifts as well as the fact that you have survived your past and you are alive and well. If you choose to see the world and your life as anything but the amazing thing that it is, you have failed. It’s like Tony Robbins says to me every morning when I listen to his Personal Power program, “What’s wrong is always available, but so is what’s right.”
Focus on what’s right.
Life and Problems and Perception
A week from now, your problems will be a week behind you soon to be replaced with a new set of problems. If you let this cycle repeat, you will live a life of perpetual, self-inflicted torment till the end of your days. Make the choice: Your past (and present) can rule you or you can rule it.
Reflect on your past and make the best out of even your worst situations. Take solace in the truism of life: It goes on.
No matter what is happening, or has happened, to you, your life will go on and you will get through it if you make the choice to get through it.
Life goes on. It doesn’t care about you. You have to care about you. You have to make meaning out of what happens to you and your life. The world isn’t going to give you a pat on the back and say “poor you” here’s my shoulder and a Kleenex. It’s actually going to do the opposite: It’s going to keep kicking you in the ass if you let it. The only way you cope is to get stronger and better. The only way to own it is to focus on what’s right, what’s useful, what’s positive.
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October 6, 2018
50 Ways To Get Better At Fitness
Your Task:1. Read the list…
2. Implement…
3. Watch yourself get better!
How to get better at Fitness (in no particular order):
1. Gear up. Get Oly shoes, some inov-8s or nano’s, a speed rope, wrist wraps, and quality workout clothes.
2. Lift heavy weights regularly. Don’t just stay in comfortable 70% zones. Push your limit… which leads perfectly to #3…
3. Use a spotter and FAIL. If you aren’t missing reps, you aren’t training hard enough. Period.
4. Work mobility A LOT. Before, During, After.
5. Take your training seriously. Always strive to become better.
6. Don’t take your training too seriously. Give yourself a break.
7. Train with others. It’s just better.
8. Show up no matter what. If you aren’t in the mood, here’s what you do. First: Walk to your car and drive to the Box. Second: Figure the rest out later.
9. Fast before you train. ‘The idea that we “need” to consume calories before, during, or after training, is bullshit hype pushed on us from the bodybuilding and supplement industries.
When you switch your metabolism over to training without food, you will PR more often and feel better in general. And you’ll want to send me a thank you card… you’re welcome.
10. Don’t throw your barbell or other equipment. It’s just douchey.
11. Warm-up A LOT. Make sure you focus your warm-ups and utilize dynamic movements before you train. This will improve your results and prevent injury.
12. Motivate other athletes. To receive, you must give.
13. Practice handstands often. You have to get upside down if you want to improve them.
14. For Females (and guys who don’t have strict pull-ups yet): Have someone spot your ankles as you perform strict pull-ups (push off the spotters hands to assist reps and go for failure). This is the best way to develop the dead hang pull-up that I have found.
15. Don’t cherry pick your WOD’s or days. Show up the days that make you want to hide. These are the days you should never skip (weaknesses… HeLLo).
16. Train your weaknesses. Really try to destroy them. This is the only way to become a better athlete in my professional opinion.
17. Utilize your coaches before and after class. They love to talk training, food, and lifestyle. Ask them questions and then shut up and listen. You will learn a LOT.
18. Ask other athletes for tips and tricks. We are all on different paths in this journey and have learned different things along the way. You never know who you can learn from.
19. Buy a jump rope and size it to you. Then never leave it at the gym.
20. Practice double-unders every day
21. Do a few strict pull-ups every day
22. Do a few one-arm push-ups every day
23. Meditate 5 minutes every day. This can improve your entire life (and your fitness).
24. Practice your Olympic weightlifting every day with a dowel and empty barbell. The gains you will make doing this are insane.
25. If there is an exercise you are not good at, do the following: perform 3 sets of 10 as part of your warm-up every day.
26. Work on heavy, light, and moderately weighted squats every week. Doing lots of squats will produce big gains for men and women. Squats are king.
27. Practice jumping in all modalities. Over, under, on top of, sideways, backwards, long, short, high. Get jumping.
28. Make sure you have a very good rack position. The barbell should be completely supported by your shoulders and not your hands.
29. Train planks often. And I really mean train them. The results from these come 30 seconds after your arms start shaking. You need some mental toughness for these.
30. Learn to bounce out of the bottom of a squat. This can be difficult for those of you that have tight hips and this is why you should practice squats often with a dowel and empty barbell.
31. Do pistols at least once a week (the more the better).
32. Make sure to hit all the major lifts at least once a week. Squat, Deadlift, Press, Bench, Snatch, Clean, Jerk.
33. Have a recovery plan: hot/cold water, massage, foam rolling, nutrition, ice, Epsom salt, etc.
34. Get your family involved. Who cares if you come off annoying at first? They are your family and you don’t want to bury them, do you? If you really love your family, you should give a shit if they are killing themselves with shitty food and bad lifestyle habits. Start working on them NOW.
35. Do shoulder dislocates with a dowel every workout. Don’t force them. Move smoothly.
36. Turn the wrists out at the bottom of the muscle-up. This will ensure you reach full extension of the elbows, lats, and shoulders.
37. Do lots of strict dips and negative holds on the rings.
38. Incorporate strongman work into your program. Sled work and the prowler can do amazing things. Walk with a sled attached to the hips as recommended by Louie Simmons.
39. Practice heavy farmer carries.
40. Throw things. We’ve been throwing spears and javelins for thousands of years.
41. Wake up to 20 push-ups every morning.
42. Do 30 air squats and 20 push-ups after every meal. No really..this is an awesome recommendation from Tim Ferris in The 4-Hour Body and I use it all the time. It’s even more effective after big meals. (The 4-Hour Body)
43. Walk after every meal. This improves digestion, prevents fat gain, and makes you feel less bloated and lethargic.
44. Do travel or home WOD’s if you can’t make it to the gym.
45. Practice L-sits often. Same with frog stands. These basic gymnastic skills are easy and low-stress movements that can help you become fitter.
46. Listen to your coaches! They see what you don’t see and they know training.
47. Work on your lifestyle and nutrition. Here are some resources: Cooking Guide, The Paleo Diet, MarksDailyApple
48. Take REST days. I know it’s an insane concept, but you CAN’T train every single day. HIIT training is very stressful on the body and requires adequate rest. If you want to live a long life, and give your body time to get stronger, you must let it repair itself through proper rest and recovery.
49. Take a REST week every couple months. This has done wonders for a lot of my athletes.
50. The best thing you can do when training is to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. You must learn when you can push past your redline and when it’s time to back off. Listen to your body when it tells you to rest. Figure out what your body responds to and what it doesn’t. Self-experimentation allows you to develop a plan that works for your goals and body type.
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