Day 17: Tough Times Never Last and Sometimes Tough People Don't Either...

 Sometimes it feels like I am hard wired to fail. Granted there are days when motivation shows up at my door like an excited puppy wagging its entire body and exercise looks like a shiny new car that I won on a game show. These are the days that make self- improvement worth the struggle of staying disciplined. You know what I am talking about, those days your eyes open and you feel great, the shower becomes a sound booth, and you are a rock start singing loudly and proudly… The day feels brighter and you just feel like everything is going to be okay. When I have those days, exercise is a pleasure, the 90 Day Life Challenge feels like it’s progressing, and you just feel good… 

Then we have today… 

When my alarm went off at 0521, I barely had the energy to reach for the phone and when I picked it up, my eyes slammed shut from the burst of gamma rays emitting from the screen… No thoughts, just reactions of despair and pain. Day after day of hard-hitting exercise has been tapping me on the shoulder and this morning it not only caught up to me, it tackled me and put me in a rear naked choke hold and I tapped out like Connor McGregor losing consciousness while Nate Diaz maniacally choked him out… Overslept an hour… Total fail but you know, sometimes failure doesn’t take no for an answer. Luckily, oversleeping isn’t like a rock climb and failing just means you get comfy again and not falling to your death…

My exercise felt like I was doing a ½ Murph in a lake full of gooey caramel and as far as P90X3 YogaX? Well… I will get there after work… Cause fuck YogaX and fuck Tony Horton right now… I will do it, no doubt but I’m hoping that the cement in my joints loosens up before I crawl through it… 

Ever feel like this?

So here the lesson I learned this morning… It’s okay to step in dog shit because stepping in dog shit is inevitable… It’s okay to not be motivated and it’s okay to slog your tired, unenthusiastic, and apathetic ass through a workout. It’s okay to rearrange your day to fit your mood and shove your goals to the back of the day. What is not okay is skipping shit because you don’t feel like it.

 “Lack of motivation is the framework for discipline.” – Bob Perrine

Do it on your time? Great… Do it later in the day? Works for me… Motivation is a feeling and feelings are fleeting and based on chemicals in your brain… Discipline is a mindset of self-control indifferent to how you feel and concerned only with the greater good of the intended act. 

So that’s my update today… “Like Granddad used to say, some days you get bear and some days the bear gets you and then there are days you just shouldn’t be in the woods at all…” 

Now… A word about overcoming the human condition…

“Necessity rules the world. People rarely act unless compelled to.” – Robert Greene

Doctors don’t scare the addict… Isn’t that amazing? A few years ago, when I was in the beginning stages of my life transformation, I was riding my bike to work every morning, learning about nutrition, exercise and developing a new mindset. I dropped ten pounds and my co-workers noticed that I was in better health, in a better mood and starting to morph into something besides the overweight, pale, pasty faced guy in the recycling department eating a constant flow of candy, cakes, cookies and donuts. Like all new transformations, people started to ask me about my newly forming habits and I gave them what little advice I could but in the early days after my “oh fuck, what have I become?!?!” shower moment, my information was limited, and my guidance was that of a novice. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and “just stop eating poorly and start exercising” was about all I could muster… Good advice for the people with the health epiphanies but bad advice for the people addicted but not aware of it… 

My big boss comes to me one day and asks me how I was losing the weight. He was a former bicycle enthusiast, former golfer and pictures of him as a younger, fitter man hung on the walls of his office standing next to ex-presidents, actors and other famous folks of his younger days. He sold the bike was riding to work. He wanted to know “my secret” to a life change at nearly 50 years old… He and I were about the same age, but his decline was much more profound than mine. He was not overweight; he was obese to the point of a health crisis. He told me that his doctor told him that he had become pre-diabetic and should intervention not be taken, he would be on the needle very soon. So I told him to stop eating candy, because his desk ALWAYS had candy on it and when anyone wanted a piece of candy, well he was the guy. First for the birthday cakes, first for the donuts and if no one brought donuts that morning, someone always got handed a twenty from his wallet to go get them. So I gave him the limited advice that I had up to that point in my journey and he said that was good advice and he made it a point to call me into his office and show me his cleaned out office. The secret stashes were gone, the candy dish had nothing in it and he looked like he had a vision… Now look, I was fucking shocked that someone had taken my advice. A high up admin guy was taking my advice… Well that motivated the fuck out of me… I began to read more about better health, started recommending documentaries like What the Health and devouring as much information as I could. You see, when I was sought out for my information and I helped someone else, it became so real to me that this idea that I had about holistic health was valid and the harder I worked, the more information I ingested, the better I felt…

A few days went by and I was walking by my bosses open office door and when he saw me, he swept the bag of peanut M&M’s into the drawer and looked at me with guilt and that was the end of his seeking my help. After I left, I heard that he was on insulin and a full blown diabetic… I used that to motivate myself. I know it sounds cruel but when people fail, it is an example of what not to do… Think of it as a learning experience for yourself. Imagine watching someone in a training explain that using the wrong tool will cause you to lose a finger and then during the training, he cuts off a finger… 

When the doctor tells you that change will stave off insulin shots and you end up on insulin, that should be a lesson to all of us. So take Mr. Greene to heart when he says: “Necessity rules the world. People rarely act unless compelled to.” But realize this, even when compelled to act, when faced with sure destruction, people cannot always overcome their bad habits. In a world where we are surrounded by junk food, you’ll struggle to lose weight. If you’re surrounded by smartphones and tablets, you’ll struggle to focus. In general, if you’re surrounded by “comfort” sources… you’ll almost ALWAYS give in to them because without discipline, humans are weaker than their circumstances. At the end of the day, achieving your goals (or even getting motivated to do it) is a struggle. We aren’t born with motivation even for goals we really want. We must scrape up every ounce of drive we have to make it happen. In reality, we’re at the whim of our mood. Typically, our mood will guide us towards instant gratification, and “not” goal-focused work instead. 

The question now becomes “Who do you want to be and how fucking bad do you want it?”

So let discipline your guide today… I wish I could just hand you a bag of it, but all I can do is show you the door, walking through it, well, that’s up to you. You can lead a horse to water, right? You can lead a pre-diabetic, obese ex-athlete to the 24 Hour Fitness, but you can’t make him put down the fucking M&M’s…

Have a day…

Love ya, all of you…

Mean it…

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