Hello there!
How’s your weekend going so far?
Yesterday, my wife and I had a nostalgic trip when we re-visited the reopening of our old haunt. Back when we were in school and college, there was this coffee shop that we frequented. They eventually shut it down but after a decade-plus, it is back! And it was fun going back there, as they had a few of the old favourites still on the menu. Crazy how smells and tastes can take you back in time!
There’s always the fear and doubt - what if it is not the same. Of course, it is not the same but it was still awesome.
Anyways, on to the 3 things for today.
let’s find the thing that you are avoiding. I’ll share what mine is.
3 quotes that revolve around “We don't have to keep playing into the notion of the highlight reel. That's mostly bull.”
Don’t be limited by what you think is the dream outcome of a fitness routine. You are limited by what others say their results are. Dream your own dream instead.
let’s find the thing you are avoiding
easy to do more of the same
Most times, it is easy to do more of the same things that you are doing. For example, I love lifting weights. The prospect of a new training plan every quarter is exciting - even though the moves are more or less the same.
Every new plan throws a different challenge, forces you to improve your skill, and challenges you mentally and physically. Either you hit a plateau and have to plod your way through it slowly and steadily. Or you are learning a new movement that's just so hard to figure out.
But I dislike stretching. Even though I know it is good for me. In fact, learning to touch my toes after a month of a 30-minute daily practice is how I got my fitness journey going.
I'd much rather spend 10 more minutes per day practising light snatches, or playing around on how to plank better, or whatever strikes my fancy than to spend the time stretching my tight muscles.
Yes, that's just silly.
I find a dozen excuses every evening when the thought pops into my head.
I just got done with work. I just want to relax.
It is time for dinner and I am starving.
I can't stretch on a full stomach.
I am sleepy.
The above is a typical conversation/negotiation in my head which ends up with me not stretching. Once a week, a miracle happens and I grow a brain and I end up stretching. But more often than not, I find an excuse and slink away.
finding gaps
Every time I've looked at obvious gaps, they tend to be from things that I've avoided doing. And when I add them in, they tend to bring in wonderful changes. Three examples.
Working lesser, for example, has made the quality of my work better.
Reading more has made my thinking a bit more varied and imaginative.
Writing three times a week has improved the amount of learning I have made from my past, as well as understanding failures and successes.
All of these were things that I was avoiding doing. All of these were obvious things that I should've been doing. None happened until I just sucked it up and made it happen.
What are you avoiding?
Tell me. I just told you mine.
3 quotes
The highlight reel. The one action that delivers instantaneous change and result. The overnight success.
None of that is true. Or at least, the full picture.
As I try to navigate my jobs and life, I realise that my day is made up of the mundane. Most of it. But then, so are most of my joyous moments. Most of my meaningful relationships and friendships are full of regular moments.
We don't have to keep playing into the notion of the highlight reel. That's mostly bull. Every action that we can take, even if we are the only person who knows and sees it, is part of our fabric.
When we start to label things as "boring" or "trivial" or "what does this really change?", we just end up procrastinating, or worse. Eliminating unnecessary assumptions, looking at things with a clean slate (oh, so hard!) and approaching each problem and possible solutions as they are, without any baggage seems to be powerful.
Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.
-- Sir Henry Royce
What happens when you do not name? You look at an emotion, at a sensation more directly and therefore have a different relationship to it, just as you have to a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew.
-- J Krishnamurti
But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.
-- Marcus Aurelius
Don’t be limited by others’ results and dreams
The "I want to look this way" is just the start of what fitness can do for you, not the end. Dive in and discover how your mind and body explode if you will let it.
Getting to a better aesthetic place is not going to make you a different person. You think it will but you are who you are inside. Unless you let the journey transform you, nothing will happen.
Because from the outside, you think your goals are clear. But only when you dive in will they morph into a larger goal. Large is not about more but a larger, more encompassing one.
the point of it is the hanging out
You need to give in to the journey and enjoy where it takes you. Now, I understand that for a lot of us, fitness might just be a means to an end. And well, sure. I guess that works.
Drinking alcohol and smoking weed is fun, sure, when you are hanging out with your friends. But not if you descend into someone who needs whatever the lack of moderation of alcohol/weed/etc is. Replace those fun vices with chocolate ice-cream, watching TV or whatever - the point remains.
The point is the hanging out, not the drinking or smoking.
The point is the joy and journey of lifting weights and learning to figure yourself out. Not “how much weights can I lift” and “Do my abs look better than theirs”?
Strength training made my dreams come true
It was not even a dream that I knew I had. Because that door was never open to me being a weak and skinny kid.
But once I started down the path of lifting, my mind and body took off. It opened up a new dimension in my thinking, one that did not exist previously to that.
Once I saw that my friends had the same questions and needs, and my suggestions worked on them as well - I knew this was what I wanted to do.
Not that everyone is going to quit their job and start a gym - that's not what I mean.
Your dream might be to dance at your grandchild’s wedding. Or to build your company into an empire. To do either of these and most others in-between, you need to have your mental acuity and physical fitness as assets for the rest of your life.
Doesn't matter what you squat
It doesn’t matter what you squat. It simply matters that you squat.
Only elite athletes need to really worry about whether they have hit a standard or not. Us normal folks need to measure things differently.
Has it improved your life? Has it grown you as a person? Is it taking you closer to your dreams?
Thanks for reading/listening. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you have any.
