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SINS Challenge Update – Setting Smaller Goals…

April 12, 2011 by 4 Comments

Team Tire Flip Women

I’ve been thinking a lot about my body and health goals lately. I’ve also been reading Dan John’s excellent book, “Don’t Let Go.” I’m not sure how it all came together for me, but I started thinking about smaller goals. If you’ve read any kind of self-help/goal setting stuff – like the Anthony Robbins program “Time of Your Life” that I talk about in this post on creating a fitness vision – you’ve probably heard some talk about translating your big goals into smaller ones. I’ve heard that type of thing A LOT, but it never really clicked for me. Finally, it clicked…

Some of you know that I recently committed to doing yoga EVERY day. I talked about that in my blog post “If It’s Not Working, Try Something Different…” I’m doing pretty well with that protocol, although I might shift the yoga to post workout on my workout days. Anyway, I sat down last night (Sunday) and started thinking about my goals for the week. I guess that’s when I first had the thought that I needed to MAKE SURE that I did yoga every day. With that one thought, a lot became clear – because I was thinking about an individual goal at the day level. I now had ONE thing that I could check up on at any time and KNOW if I was doing what I should be doing to reach my ultimate goals. “Did I do yoga today or not?” That’s it. Small and simple goal. Simple yes or no answer. Pass or fail.

Thinking About Goals on a Daily Level…

Then I started thinking about my other goals in the same way – on a daily level. So, from the big, massive, global goals, I finally – FINALLY – got to the daily behaviors. Now it’s REALLY simple to get things done and focus on what I need to:

  • Did I eat completely Paleo today?
  • Did I eat enough?
  • Did I do yoga?
  • Did I do a workout or practice some skills that are on my list?

In a few weeks I’ll add: “Did I do Jiu Jitsu/MMA today?” (On Tuesdays and Saturdays.)

The Problem with BIG Goals…

Big goals are great for “setting the sail” and heading in the right direction. The problem with the big goals is that they can create a situation where you “live in the future” and don’t enjoy or fully engage in the present moment. The NOW. I talked about how this works in my post: “How Happy Are YOU?”

The big goals are great to get you motivated and get you focused on the future and where you want to go. But EVERYTHING happens in the present. This is where the disconnect was for me. I’m here now and my BIG goals are way “over there” in the future. There was no connection between the two. And I’ve been doing the major goal setting stuff for YEARS and not truly seeing this. I FINALLY saw it!

Here’s the Connection Between Today and the Future…

The connection between today and the future is this: Your days HAVE TO add up to the big goals you have for the future. You have to do NOW what will lead you to your future goals. And when you do those things, you have to love them and enjoy them and be thankful to be blessed enough that you can focus on “luxuries” like training, resting, eating or whatever.

You need to ask yourself – every day or even a few times a day: “What do I need to do NOW to have the things I want in the future?” And, to this I MUST add: “Am I enjoying the process of striving for my ultimate goals?”

If you can check in at the end of the day and say that you accomplished all (or most) of your small daily tasks, behaviors and goals, THEN you can be reasonably sure that you’re headed toward the big future goals. As Stuart McRobert has said over and over again: “Get the days and weeks right and the months and years will take care of themselves.”

That’s pretty much it. Simple and profound. I heard this stuff HUNDREDS of times from MANY different gurus, authors and speakers. But I never saw the connection. I now see the connection.

Set big goals. Do the little things everyday that will move you toward them. Enjoy doing these little things as you do them and live in these moments.

It couldn’t be any simpler…

Here’s a passage from Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” that sums it all up perfectly. In fact, this paragraph is highlighted and underlined and starred in my copy of the book. Apparently, it means something to me EVERY time I read it (I’m on time number 3 through “The Power of Now” at the moment…)

“If you set yourself a goal and work toward it, you are using clock time. You are aware of where you want to go, but you honor and give your fullest attention to the step you are taking at this moment. If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfillment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honored.”

Set big goals, but enjoy the process, the small victories and the journey… Honor The Now…

ttys

Adam

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I’ll Never Be Good Enough…

April 8, 2011 by 50 Comments

Fedorenko Competition Kettlebells

I’ve realized this morning that I’m never going to be good enough. At least, not as long as I’m playing by the rules of society and our fucked up culture.

I really shouldn’t care. But I do. It’s not even that I play by the rules anymore, but a lot of people I know still do. I’m VERY clear about my goals and who I want to be and what I want my life to look like. VERY CLEAR. The “problem” is that what I want isn’t what most people want.

Maybe what most people think they want isn’t truly what they want and it’s what our TV and internet culture told them they should want. Probably that. But I’ve met VERY FEW people who have thought through every aspect of their lives and made decisions based on their own internal desires and standards.

How many books have YOU written?

I love how everyone tells me how much I need to relax and have fun and “let loose.” That’s all nice – and I KNOW I could do a little better in the “relaxing department.” (Particularly since, ONE DAY into my “no computer in the morning and yoga first thing in the morning” habit I’m writing this instead of doing yoga…) But I know what I want and where I want to be and who I want to be – and you don’t get there by relaxing. I also know that when the muse appears I need to write. She will likely be gone if I wait until later… Welcome to the wonderful world of being a wacky creative…

I talked about what it was like to drive my book “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link” to completion last week in the post: “My SINS Challenge Update – Late is a Lot Better than Never.” IT WAS HARD. So was getting a Chemistry degree 10 years ago. So is making good progress in weight training and martial arts – I know these two are hard because I’m currently making SHIT for progress. Nothing worth accomplishing is easy! NOTHING!

But, it’s a lot easier to find creative ways to distract yourself from what you really want or tell yourself you’re happy with the way things are. And, unless you are surrounded by exceptional people, most everyone in your life will be thrilled to tell you you’re much better served drinking with them or eating garbage with them than you are working on what matters TO YOU. Misery loves company…

There was a great quote in the book I just started reading, “The War of Art.” In it, Pressfield says:

“When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do since birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.”

I wasted some of the best training years of my life in my early 20s trying to “have it all.” I was out “being social” instead of studying or resting for my workout the next morning. I was letting others decided what was best for me instead of doing what I KNEW was right in spite of the fact that no one else was doing it and in spite of the fact that all my friends encouraged me to “let loose” and not be so “intense” all the time. And what was the final outcome of that period of my life? A train wreck. If I had it to live over again I wouldn’t even answer my phone when people called me to hang out. I’d train and rest and study and let the world go fuck itself. Maybe a few more pounds of muscle or a bigger deadlift or better health isn’t what our culture values. But, it’s what I valued then and it’s what I value now – and THAT’S what’s important.

But I can only live in The Now…

I can’t go back there, though. I can only live today and apply the lessons of yesterday to what I do now.

And here’s what I know today:

  • I want to be a better writer and blogger
  • I want to write the best fitness blog IN THE WORLD (Yeah, the world…)
  • I want outstanding health, strength and fitness
  • I want many, MANY people to buy, read and LOVE my new book

That’s just a start. I wrote out a bunch of other goals here: “My OWN SINS Challenge Goals.” None of these things happen by being balanced, they don’t happen by relaxing and they don’t happen by accident. They happen when you put in the hard, HARD work and break through your own – and society’s – resistance.

I’m done with it all. Nothing I want or do or accomplish will ever be good enough for anyone else anyway. I’m going to continue to focus on ME and what makes ME happy and what I value. If people like me and admire me for it, great. If it’s not good enough for someone else, I don’t care.

YOU shouldn’t care about anything but YOUR OWN standards either – as long as they’re TRULY YOURS. Think about THAT for a while…

ttys

Adam

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My SINS Challenge Update – Late is a Lot Better than Never

April 2, 2011 by 3 Comments

The Paleo Dieter's Missing Link

This is actually my FIRST update for the SINS challenge. Where have I been? I’ve been hard at work on goal number one from my original post – Finishing my Paleo Diet book.

My original goal was to finish the book and launch it on the second Sunday of March 2011. I missed that deadline, but the book DID launch on April 1, 2011! If you didn’t know it was out, that’s OK – I haven’t made a big deal out of it… Yet…

But, yes, the book is DONE and yes, it ROCKS! It’s called “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link.” You can click on the image if you want to know more about it…

It Usually Takes Longer and is Harder Than You Thought

Most of you who know me know that I love to write. Well, let me tell ya… Writing blog posts is a lot of fun for me. Writing stuff in the 10-20 page range is enjoyable, slightly challenging and satisfying. Writing a book that’s over 160 pages is HARD. The longest technical papers I ever wrote in college were in the 20-30 page range. I’ve never done anything of the magnitude of this book. I definitely got up close and personal with some of my demons during this project.

This project could have gone on forever too. The closer I got to “done” the more work I seemed to have. The fact that I wanted it to be PERFECT had a lot to do with it. And perfection is hard when a proofread takes 2-3 days… BTW, if you have a hardcover book nearby, take a look at the first few pages. Likely there’s a STAFF of people who worked on it. A STAFF. This thing was just me. The cats were surprisingly uninterested and unhelpful with the editing…

The point is, writing a book was A LOT harder than I thought and it took LONGER than I thought. But I did it. There were many, many times I wanted to quit and find an easier way. There were a bunch of times I decided to take a break for a few days and found myself waking up the next morning stressed and obsessed with finishing – even though my mind wasn’t really recovered and fluid. I had to write very often when I didn’t want to. And I had to stay off of Facebook and Twitter, not post a lot on my blog and stay off of the SINS page on Facebook. Not fun, but sometimes you have to drop the hammer and make stuff happen.

The PROCESS wasn’t fun and wasn’t pretty, but the book is DONE – and DONE WELL. And it’s only a few weeks late (even though the ORIGINAL deadline was Jan 1, 2011…).

The Girls of MidCoast CrossFit

Pushing Through “The Dip”

Most of you know I’m a HUGE Seth Godin fan. One of the things that really got me through this project was his little book “The Dip.” I actually reread that book right around my lowest point in the project. It was VERY CLEAR to me that I was in The Dip and needed to push though it. As Seth says: “Starting is easy, finishing is hard.” I thought about that a lot. I also thought about how it seemed to get HARDER the closer I got to the end.

Here’s how Seth Godin describes The Dip:

“Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.”

But this made a HUGE impact on me. If my business and marketing hero can admit that projects get hard and less fun as they go on, how could I NOT push through The Dip and finish this thing?

BTW, there are little Dips too – Like the middle of a WOD. Right around the 3rd round of 5 when you want to stop. Or around rep 12 of a set of 20 Rep Squats. Starting is easy. Finishing is hard… The Dips are EVERYWHERE once you know to look for them.

Something else I thought of – A LOT – is how many people I know who have said they “should write a book” or  they “are writing a book.” Think about it. How many people have STARTED a book versus how many have FINISHED one? To that, let’s ask how many have actually FINISHED a GOOD one…

Starting is easy, finishing is hard.

There’s a REASON this is a running joke on Family Guy and there’s a reason it’s FUNNY:

 

 

Starting is Easy, Finishing is Hard

For me, it was really helpful to remember that finishing is SUPPOSED TO BE HARD. That’s what separates the winners from the losers. A lot of people start things. A lot fewer finish…

Finishing on time is nice. Finishing perfectly is nice too. Finishing on time AND perfectly is pretty special. But most of us – and many very successful people are included in this – finish well and reasonably on time. And, as far as I can tell, doing things well and reasonably on time – again and again and again – has something to do with being successful.

But you have to START and you have to STRIVE for great results

I had this argument with someone I was close to for a long time. I start anything I do with the intention of doing it at a very high level. I strive for perfection. I know I won’t achieve it, but I strive for it anyway. I did this in college. I studied for my exams and wrote all my lab reports and papers with the intention of getting 100. I almost never got it, but striving for it kept me turning out outstanding work. If, like the person I was close to, I was constantly starting things thinking “I’ll be OK with a C,” I’d never have done anything outstanding.

I’ve only finished two classes with Cs in my life – Biochemistry and Multi-Variable Calculus. Other than those classes, I was an A and B student. What do you think would have happened in those classes if I had gone INTO them thinking “I’ll be OK with just scraping by with a C?” I went in expecting an A and wanting an A. I didn’t get it, but I got out intact and was able to go on to the next year without repeating the class. And, what saved me in biochem was that the LAB portion of the class was worth 25%. I got an A in that part. I just got murdered in the lecture because I wasn’t a biochem major and was in an entirely different department in a class with people who had already been doing that stuff for a while. The A in the lab evened out the mess I was in with the lecture portion of the class. Perfection, no. But I finished a tough one and put it behind me.

Start Something, Finish Something or Do Something Well – TODAY

That’s about it for now. I have A LOT of blogging to catch up on, but it’s BEAUTIFUL out and I’m going to go for a run.I also have a fun day planned with a new friend and you just might, MIGHT be hearing that another one of my SINS Challenge goals happened soon… ;-)

If you’re starting something today, start with the intention of being outstanding. If you’re finishing something today, push through and really finish it. And, if you’re doing something today, do it as well as you possibly can. You won’t always get an A, but there are a lot of people who never even start and plenty MORE who don’t finish.

ttys

Adam

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