How to master yourself and your life

The secret to mastering yourself and your life is two things: routine and consistency alongside adaptation and flexibility. You may be thinking that these are two contrasting things! Well, it’s because you need different things and different times and the secret third ingredient to success which is self-awareness/conscious attention.

I love simplifying things. Self-mastery is complicated with all the small details but it’s also very subjective and personal. Depends what you want to master within yourself and your life, right? Well, that’s why I love this simpler idea. All of us, no matter our goals, need routines/consistency and adaptation/flexibility to succeed and master areas of our lives.

Let’s discuss…

Routines and consistency

If you want to be strong or fast (athletic and fit), you can’t work out irregularly. You can’t go hard one month then veg out on the sofa the next. That may look like balance but the real word for it is a lack of discipline and routine!

To truly succeed at something, you need to be consistent. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mean you need to go hard every single day. Absolutely not. But it does mean showing up for yourself and your goals in one way or another as regularly as possible in a way that’s healthy and sustainable.

Key word here is sustainable. You probably won’t sustain going to the gym 2x a day every day. Yes, that would make you very buff but it would also exhaust you and cause burn out. Instead, you could have the routine of going to the gym 2-3 times a week. Or to workout in different ways 5 times a week, accepting that you may do 30 mins one day, 1hr another day, 10 mins another.

Which brings me to the next part…

Adaptation and flexibility

The key second ingredient is one I think most people slip up on and one in truly embracing this year. Adaptability. We need to have routines and habits and consistency but we also need to recognise when to adapt. When to make adjustments. When to be flexible and how to be flexible in a productive and healthy way, not in a way that’s enabling excuses and giving up.

You need to be able to bounce back from setbacks. Be resilient and adapt. You couldn’t run this morning? Okay, let’s walk this evening. Couldn’t write 1,000 words? Okay, let’s write 250 words. We need to accept that we are all human. We have good days and bad days. Days when we’re tired or burned out and need to genuinely rest.

Again, it’s about what you genuinely need. It’s about honesty. It’s about recognising that your goal that you originally set isn’t working for whatever reason so you need to adapt it.

For example, I set a goal to write 50,000 words of my novel before our schools went on summer holiday. At the time, that meant writing 10k a week while working. I started off strong but I was getting tired. I needed a break so I took a week off. I accepted this and still felt productive because I had already set three goals: a simple goal, a medium/realistic goal, and a dream goal. The 50k words was the dream goal. I easily smashed the simple goal, and even with taking the break, I felt comfortable that I would hit the realistic goal. And I did. I adapted to my needs and benefitted from the break, came back to it and hit the 40k before the schools broke up.

I have been successful whilst being flexible and compassionate towards myself.

Self-awareness and conscious attention

This brings me to my last secret ingredient. None of the above works well without self-awareness and attention. You need to pay attention to where you always slip up. What your triggers are. Who or what holds you back. What your consistent excuses are. Where you want to give in.

It means paying attention to and learning from your mistakes.

For example, I have failed to maintain a running habit. For years now, I’ve wanted one, but I never keep it up. This is because I do it and I’m like “I’ll run 5ks twice a week” or “I can do 10k so I will do one every month”. It becomes about doing X or achieving Y and comparing myself to my husband who is a running beast!!

Instead, I need to know my pitfalls:

Too hot outsideToo cold outsideHaven’t eaten a little before I goHaven’t stretched properly Muscles are already aching from previous work outsNo music to accompany meWorrying about the speed or time limits

Knowing these things about myself helps me to curate ways to succeed in my running practice. Even that word: practice. That helps relieve the pressure of needing to be perfect or smash goals every time. Just show up, whether it’s for a 2k or a 5k or more. Whatever your mind and body can do that day, that’s what needs to be done. So my new plan is to build a running practice, that’s all. Not about a certain time or distance, just to be consistent. To put on my trainers and go outside for some time and move my legs quickly! Once a week, that’s it.

The same is with the gym. I just never want to go and finally this year I’m accepting that! The gym is so glorified but it’s not the only place to get fit. Plenty of fit people don’t attend the gym. It’s about adapting and accepting and being attentive to what actually makes you want to work out (or whatever else).

Ask yourself what would make doing the things you want to do enjoyable, simpler, and appropriately challenging for you personally. Silence the noise around you. If your challenging but enjoyable and sustainable workouts are long walks with your dog and an audiobook, brilliant! Very healthy! If it’s the gym three times a week, go you. If it’s rock climbing or yoga or swimming or a sport or dancing, brill.

Your awareness of what brings your joy and fulfilment is gold for ensuring you are consistent and keep to routines.

You need to know when and how you work out best. When and how you work best. When and how you socialise best. When and how you make the best decisions. Knowing this and using that information will transform your routines and allow you to adapt and be flexible actively to still achieve goals but in a realistic way.

This balance is how you master your life once and for all. Knowing which routines work best for you to optimise your time. Knowing what you do when you are feeling lower and how to adapt to still succeed in some way. And most importantly, to know yourself well enough to inform your decisions on goals and relationships and careers and hobbies and the like.

Know when to stick to a routine and be consistent.

Know when to adapt and be flexible with your goals and expectations.

Know yourself well, and you will master your life.

Sincerely,

S. xx