Obstacles/Distractions and Goals

“Don’t worry about what you can’t do, just get the work done for what you can! Age doesn’t matter. How the day went doesn’t matter. Who else is in the gym doesn’t matter. Physically starting out feeling lousy, it doesn’t matter. Just do what you can.” These are all wise words spoken from my day one client when I started off in this career. She hit the nail on the head with this one and helped inspire this post.

Sometimes in life we get caught up on all the shit we can’t do. We get caught up in all the excuses as to why we can’t do something and we just let it pile up and spill over everywhere. Focusing on the can’t can be super depressing and demotivating. There are plenty of days where I am tired or don’t feel like doing much of anything. In those instances, I’ve done nothing at all and just sat in my sunken stoop of dismay. However, this is not an every time thing. Most days the mentality that I have is to at least do something. Ok, I don't feel creative and don't think I can write a blog post, so I at least write something. However crappy it is, I don’t care, I just write. Some days I don’t feel like working out so I at least move, maybe do some mobility work or some light pushups and pullups. Any little win you can strike on the board is a plus. It is always better than doing nothing.

In the kettlebell world when someone's swing looks a little dusty we break it back down to the simplest form of the movement, the deadlift. In life applying this same principle of doing the simplest form is often the best option for building new habits. It is also a lot better than doing nothing. Obstacles in your life have one job, to try to deter you from a certain path or objective. However, if your destination is still X, you can’t let any excuse get in your way, you just have to work around it. So, you might not feel like doing whatever it is that you have to do that day, but life doesn’t care. It still needs to get done.

Worrying about what someone else is doing in the gym or elsewhere, such as how much money they make or whatever it may be, usually never helps you achieve what you want. What they do is completely unrelated to what you do. Every single person on this planet has a different and unique story that only they know every intricacy of. Until you become that person, which you can’t and you won’t, you should probably stop comparing yourself to them. Only time to think about what someone else has or is doing is for inspiration, not envy. Envy will oftentimes lead to a bad place. Whether it’s self-hate, self-doubt, greed, etc. Stay in your lane, mind your business, and take whatever steps that are needed to get you to where YOU want to be.

Remember, thinking you deserve something or trying to cut corners to accomplish your goals won’t get you there. You must put in the work necessary, make the necessary sacrifices, and just stop being a little b**** if you really want to get to where you picture yourself being. This means you still need to do something that leads you to your goals even on the days that you feel shitty, or when the swole gym rat is at the gym the same time as you, or if you had a bloody awful day. Don’t let any of those things distract you if you want to accomplish YOUR goals. Remember, you only live once, thats the motto so give each day the best effort. This is the true Power of Strength, being strong enough to put in work even when you don’t want to.

“This is our life it’s all that we get. The days are all numbered and the nights are all spent ”

— Rob Thomas

Challenge the Status Quo

Challenge the status quo. I was listening to Cory Booker speak on a podcast the other day and he said the most common way people give up power is believing they have none. I absolutely love this quote. Way too often people will accept things as is. They think that’s just the way things are, that's life. There is no need to accept anything you are unhappy with. Even if you do not actually change it, why not fight for change?

Becoming more weak with age is the number one thing that grinds my gears to hear people say. Though there may be some truth to what the numbers say, the honest truth is that a majority of people do not lift weights as they get older, nor do they do any resistance training of any sort. So the data will obviously show that as you get older, you get weaker. If you want to just accept that bit of info, then you can, no one will judge you. But if you are like many of the stronger, older people I know who are in there 50s, 60s, and 70s, and are setting personal records, then you know it is possible. You have the power to control whether you get stronger the older you get or weaker. The defeatist mentality of thinking you will just naturally become weak as you get older often leads to acceptance rather than taking it on as a challenge. The excuse of, “it'll happen anyway,” leads to people in their 20s and 30s to just sit around and wait to get “old” and “weak.” You can do something about it if you believe you can. The defeatist mentally never does anyone any good. At any age you can become stronger than you currently are. If you are in your 20s or 80s, you can become stronger if you work at it.

Another status quo that you should 100% challenge is, “You gain more fat the older you become.” This one does not grind my gears at all because there is some slight truth to this. In both men and women our bodies produce more or less of certain hormones that makes it easier to gain fat and harder to lose fat as well. However, the honest truth again is that most people do not move their bodies the older they get. They do not have the best eating habits and this just compounds with age. This also can be attributed to the slow-metabolism-as-you-age theory. It’s really just a lack of movement. I’d be willing to bet multi-multi millions of dollars, that I don’t have, that if a study was done on active people who eat well, and have done so their whole life, they would have gained minimal amounts of fat as they aged. I am not trying to throw shade at anyone or any behaviors that the majority of us have, but I do not want you to think that getting fat as you get older is just a fact of life. You most certainly can do something about it, especially if you are in your 20s. If you are in your 20s, now is the time to start building healthy habits that will benefit you down the road. If you are older, now is still the time to change your habits that may have put you in a situation you do not want to be in. You can check out my article on healthy eating by clicking here or my article about moving by clicking here if you have any questions about which healthy habits are beneficial to build.

The saying you can’t teach an old dog new tricks needs to stop being used in context with humans. I’ll be the first one to admit I don’t know jack shit about dogs but I am positive you can teach humans of any age something new. Obviously habits that have been reinforced for years will be hard to change, but “hard” and “can’t be done” or “impossible” are very different things. Most things in life that are worth it don’t come easy, right? Or else everyone would do it.

Isn’t that the old cliché? With the schedules that many adults have, it can definitely be harder to learn new things. Again, it depends how you want to see the world and mold it. If you want to believe that it’s impossible to learn as you get older, then you won’t learn anything. If you keep an open mind and realize that learning is a never-ending opportunity, then you will continue to learn until the day you decease. Morbid but true.

There are many other things that are accepted as status quo such as getting older means you will have injuries, or some of your parts won’t work the older you get, and so on. Challenge these things. DO NOT ACCEPT them as fact. These are fake news, fake facts, false opinions, whatever you want to call them. There are enough examples of people not meeting these “inevitable” truths to prove you can beat the odds too if you want to. Find the Power of Strength and let it help age you with grace.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work
”

— Thomas Edison

Present Day Health and Fitness Information

Before you stumbled on my gems, when was the last time you learned anything about nutrition or strength and conditioning? I mean, for most of us we are still basing habits off things we were exposed to when we were kids. Where do you currently get your health information? Do you have a good source? In today’s day and age we all think we can just ask Siri some ish to get an answer. Which leads to feeling butthurt when siri doesn’t know how to answer the question we are asking. We search stuff and whatever answer we find first or whatever answer sides closest to our predisposed position we will take as fact. This completely discludes all of the bits of information that might not support our case. Let’s start updating our knowledge from viable sources.

I am going to help you out. If you are searching for health and fitness information and aren’t quite sure where to look, check out some of these websites.

ACHIEVE FITNESS BOSTON

https://www.achievefitnessboston.com/blogs/news

This is my absolute favorite gym in the world. It’s run by two incredible humans and their awesome team of coaches. Their social media is full of great exercise tutorials as well as a community of kickass clients who all want to see each other win. They are a great example of how to do things right in the fitness world. They concentrate on changing your mindset as well as your behaviors. They understand that fitness is more than just exercising.

GIRLS GONE STRONG

https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/

I have not had the pleasure to meet any of these strong women in person, but I love their content. Though their name is clearly geared towards women, the information is useful to anyone who can read. They cover everything from why weight training is important for keeping good health through life, to how certain foods can affect you, to how to strength train while pregnant. They cover it all and the best part is, it is from a different perspective than the one we are usually gaining our information from.

PRECISION NUTRITION

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/blog

Talk about gems. Precision Nutrition does an amazing job of simplifying nutrition. Often, people will over think their nutrition which can get really confusing and hard to know what’s good and what’s bad. Precision Nutrition gets rid of all of the thinking for you and breaks it down into an easily digestible nugget of healthy eating.

These are just a few amazing sites. There are many other websites that have great information, but the three that I’ve listed do the best job of giving you the information you need without the confusing additives. They are all very reader friendly and you don’t have to worry about having to check dictionary.com every two seconds to look up some word that some dude is throwing at you just to sound smart. Gain knowledge from a different perspective and watch your world expand. Once you’ve paid each site a visit I am sure you will understand the Power of Strength.

Something's Gotta Give

Like Big Sean said, “To get ahead, you gotta make sacrifices.” This is a tough pill to swallow and many of us often choke on it and can never get it down. We end up making the easier sacrifices that lead us in failing to change, grow, or get any better. We remain stagnant. We sacrifice what we want later for what we want right now in the moment. This needs to be the other way around to reach any goal.

I understand this is so much easier to say and to understand than it is to actually follow through with. I habitually sacrificed what I wanted later for what I wanted in the moment. Back in my college years I wanted to get straight A’s, but instead of studying, I often chose playing video games, consuming some alcohol, or indulging in the greens of mother earth. I knew none of those things would help me achieve my goal but I wanted to do them right then and there. I was sacrificing what I wanted later for instant gratification. The day I finally learned how to make the necessary sacrifices was the day I wanted to join the football team at UCONN. I stopped indulging on Mary Jane's sweet, sweet nectar and severely cut back on drinking. I didn’t miss a day of training, and in return, I achieved my goal. Direct correlation and causation.

It cannot be a spasmodic effort or a short-lived sacrifice only made once.  In order to reap the benefits of sacrificing what you want now in order to gain what you want later, it needs to be consistent and over time. This means you will need patience, especially since it won’t happen immediately after you make the better choice to work towards your goal rather than plop yourself down on the couch. Patience is usually the missing key to achieving anything. Often the only difference between the person who succeeds and the person who does not is one person worked at it for longer and the other gave up because it seemed too far fetched. You never know how close or far you are from something, so thinking about the distance you need to go will not help you to stay consistent or patient. It always seems extremely far away when you start thinking about it. If it’s something you really want then you will find a way to be patient and to make the sacrifices that need to be made.

Most of us are greedy, and rightfully so. There is so much in this world to want. However, we cannot have it all, not all at once, at least. The toughest part about making sacrifices is some of the things that may need to take a backseat for a while may be something that you hold very dear to your heart. It is definitely not easy, but like they say, if it was easy everyone would do it. So whether it’s weight loss, muscle gain, passing an exam, getting a new job or advancing in your career, something's gotta give. For some of these goals you may have to sacrifice some of your favorite past times, such as binge watching netflix, smacking a pack of oreos weekly, the amount of time spent with friends or family, etc. None of those are easy sacrifices to make, but remember, if what you want later is important to you then you will have to give up some things for a decent span of time.

It’ll take true strength to have the restraint to stop doing what you want now in favor for what you want later. My job is to make you aware and to show you the Power of Strength. Your job is to be strong, make the tough choices, and reap its rewards.

Effort is Essential!

I'm currently reading the book Triggers. The premise is how to create behavior change in adults. There’s a section in this book that addresses the importance of focusing on effort rather than outcome. When I began reading this part, all the alarms went off in my brain! I thought, Wow this is gold. So many times we “fail” in achieving certain goals. This is mainly due to overly focusing our attention on the outcome rather than focusing on the effort being given. A healthy amount of exerted effort is how we attain our goals. Let me explain how.

Step one of goal setting is to have an outcome in mind, but step two is more important than step one. Step two is to come up with behavior based goals that, if done frequently enough, will lead to the outcome you had in mind. For example, let's say you want to be able to deadlift 100 lbs. Lifting 100 lbs is the outcome you wish to achieve. In order to reach that outcome, you have to create a series of behaviors that would help you reach that goal. One added behavior may be deadlifting at least once per week over the next 8 weeks. Consistency with the behavior goal will be key to reaching the outcome you wish to achieve. Without consistency, you have no chance of achieving the outcome.

Now, the mistake that is often made when trying to reach a goal is focusing too much on the outcome you wish to achieve. Often, we may even work on the behavior goal fairly consistently and still not achieve the outcome we are shooting for. Usually when this happens we get super frustrated and think, Life just doesn’t want us to accomplish X. We think, Well, I’ve been doing what I’m supposed to in order to reach X. Why am I not achieving my goal? That’s a rather fair question to ask, though it leans a little towards victim/fate type thinking. That mindset makes change seem out of our control. In these circumstances when someone may be “doing” all of the right things, they may be lacking one crucial piece of the puzzle. Effort.

It is so important to focus on how much effort is going into achieving your goals. Just going through the motions usually does not lead to progress. You can do whatever behavior you want for however long you want, but if it is done with no intent behind it, I can guarantee that you will end up in the frustrating situation of wondering why you haven’t reached your goal yet. Focusing on the effort you give on a consistent basis will have an eye-opening effect on why it is that you can never seem to reach goal X. Tracking your effort will reveal the underlying issues and might even get you to start knocking your goals off one at a time.

The best part about tracking your effort is that it places accountability back into your court. You are now responsible for achieving, or not achieving, your goals. It’s no longer a “world hates you” or “that’s just the way things are” mentality. You have the power to change. If you can be patient, set smart goals that are behavior based, and track your effort there is not much in this world that you can’t accomplish.