Life is a Muscle
If you think about the concept of building muscle, there are 2 main factors to bare in mind: Nutrition and Training(weight lifting etc.).
But if I had to choose, of these two factors, training would be on the top of my list of the most important.
Now before the buff guys from fitness communities start attacking me for this statement, yes, nutrition is of great importance too, absolutely. But let’s be honest, you can still get pretty far with hypertrophy without watching everything you consume. Because as long as you push hard enough and train often enough you will get some results for sure. Not enough to compete against world class body builders but good enough for the average Joe.
Apologies, you didn’t come here for a lesson in how to get ripped, there are plenty of YouTube videos for that. However to understand where I’m going with this, knowing how to grow a muscle is important.
Because you can apply that wisdom in daily life, in almost all areas of life.
In my fitness journey I learned that one of the main reasons why I didn’t see any results was due to the fact that i was not pushing hard enough when it was time to train. Being the poet that i am, i realized that i was doing the same damaging thing in in my actual life too.
I wasn’t doing that extra rep because it was getting uncomfortable, I wasn’t lifting to failure(a fitness reference about lifting until you lose your arm, or, less dramatically, your ultimate limit on a specific weight).
I wasn’t meditating on a daily basis, nor was I doing it properly when i did, and yet i was confused as to why my emotions were running amok.
I wasn’t writing on a daily basis and yet wondered why my writing wasn’t improving.
A few examples to illustrate in what ways I wasn't pushing hard enough to attain the things i wanted.
Because for some reason, we grow up believing that we are entitled to happiness or success, not realizing that there is work that goes into achieving this. This is a lesson that life demands of us. A rule as part of the vast game we are participating in.
We must work in order to gain things, whatever “work” means for you right now.
Working at a relationship
working at getting ripped
Working at becoming at peace with your self
Working at overcoming our insecurities, or
Working at growing our brands/businesses, etc. (It’s not enough to just have an idea.)
We do the daily routines and tasks that we set up for ourselves, we tick the boxes that we believe will bring us closer to our goals. But for some reason we find ourselves in the same spot we found ourselves last year. Stuck in Limbo.
The problem, and here is another fitness reference, is that we work only to maintain, we don’t work to grow. We reach a plateau of comfort. We also get told that the law of attraction will bring the things we want simply for wishing really hard.
I am not negating the awesome effects of Law Of Attraction and the energy signals we throw to the universe, but there must be balance between what it will give us and how much work we are willing to put into getting it. What a lot of people don’t understand is that actually working hard towards this goal, actively pushing yourself harder, is what activates the Law of Attraction.
Yes, rest is important too, just like in fitness. This is actually where all the magic happens, the after burn. But the only way to achieve an after burn is to workout extremely hard initially.
I truly believed, and told myself that, because mental health was so important that work, or everything else, came last. Even if it meant that a goal that could have been achieved in 1 year now only gets achieved in 2, because I believed that pacing slowly was important to keep myself sane.
Not realizing that I was pacing so slow i was standing still. Not realizing that I could find inner peace in hard work.
How do you know if you’re not pushing hard enough? Trust me, you always know if you aren’t putting in as much effort as what is needed. I knew it everyday I lifted weights that I could push harder. But my mind was overcome by a belief that pain is bad, comfort was good, I wasn’t just physically weak but mentally too.
The beautiful thing about lifting hard is that you begin to build endurance and tolerance in the long run. The more you work hard, the more it becomes an an ethic.
You could apply this “get out of your comfort zone” advice to being social. In an age where technology is designed to keep us indoors, by bringing entertainment to us without leaving the house, or being able to stay connected with friends, we become more and more disconnected with the outside world, especially socially.
One of the best ways to get used to being social is by doing it more often. I noticed this happening with me, and i am an introvert. The more i went out and saw my friends the more comfortable I became being myself around other people, including strangers. But it wasn’t easy, i had to work at getting myself out the house more often in the beginning. It wasn’t enough to just see my friends once every 4 months.
So what am i saying here?
I’m not saying to sacrifice all your time trying to get what you want. I am only saying to be brutally candid with yourself and put in the effort where it needs to be.
I’m not saying TV is bad, but if you find yourself watching 4 hours of Netflix and only doing 2 hours of work a day, its probably time to have a look at that scale again. I mean we do, after all, only get 24 hours a day.
I’m not saying to constantly be working to the bone, I’m only saying to prioritize, appropriately place your tasks in a way that they can get at least 110% of the energy needed to complete a goal.
Always push harder, because, like a muscle, you will get stronger.
Thank you for reading, this piece was meant to motivate you if you find yourself in a rut. So hit the “clap” button if you found this helpful. I do have lots of practical advice that I would love to share with you in the future on how not to get sidetracked by this world that demands all of our attention. So hit the “Follow” button to stay updated.
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