I don't mean this in that pathetic way modern Self-Esteemists mean it. I never bought this line when I was 65lbs overweight, and I don't buy it now that I'm 133 pounds of muscle, either (and contrary to what you may be thinking, it takes guts to tell you what I weigh, and I do it to prove a point here, not to brag; more on that in a moment).
Nowadays you hear about "Helicopter Parents", you hear about how "Millenials" are self-absorbed and can't handle failures, setbacks, and other common disappointments otherwise known as "Reality." We're beginning to hear how that whole damn "Self-Esteem" movement, how "You're wonderful just as you are!" and how "You all get a trophy just for showing up and trying!" has backfired like mad. In his book, "The Optimistic Child", Mertin Seligman, Ph.D. explains to us that self-esteem isn't gained by being told how great you are. He argues that REAL self-esteem is gained by trial-and-error, by trying and failing and conquering a skill on our own, and that even the smallest children know they're being fed a line of bullshit when they're told how special they are, even when they've done nothing to earn it. It makes them lose doubt in the person telling it to them, it makes them doubt their own worth (rather than believe in it), and it makes them feel helpless; if they're so wonderful, why don't they FEEL wonderful? Because they haven't EARNED it. Yes, folks, yet again, our society has fallen prey to Snake Oil Sales. A miracle in a bottle (or in this case, in a phrase). When will we learn that nothing worth having or doing is ever easy?
Today a friend of mine shared a NY Times article on Facebook that summed up the problem with our nation so succinctly that I am in awe of his gift for anti-gab. I could never hope to write an article this compendious, but as succinctly as he puts it, there is an angle on it that I want to expound upon (I know, who, ME? Expound? As if!) The original article can be found here. If you want to gain anything from this post, I need you to go read that article first. It's short, but it's painful. It's really difficult to read the first four or five paragraphs. DO IT ANYWAY. Because what's on the inside really IS what counts. More than anything. But not in that cheesy PopPsychology way you've been taught. And if you can't read this article, you have more problems than physical flabbiness, my friends. Your mind is a lazy, pathetic, cheetos-and-hohos-eating, tv-watching, my-mouse-finger-hurts-from-clicking waste of cells, and you can pretty much consider yourself a waste of humanity, NO MATTER HOW PHYSICALLY FIT YOU ARE. And there's no way you're very fit at all, if your mind is in this kind of shape. You rack-a discaprine!
I'll wait.
Finished?
Great.
So. In how many areas of your life do you lack mental discipline? The honest among you, or those of you further along in your Journey, can probably think of dozens of ways. Some of you are thinking of them lightheartedly. For those of you raised Catholic (raises hand), you're particularly good at beating yourself up and can probably come up with a whole laundry list. Excellent. The first step is to *acknowledge you have a problem*. Do you need some help identifying your mental flabbiness? Aunt Lisa is here to help.
Do you:
1. Procrastinate? (wahhhh I don't wanna!)
2. Tell yourself you'll "try" to do something? ("Do, or do Not, there is no Try"-Yoda)
3. Has it been six weeks/months/years of you saying "I'll start the diet on Monday"?
4. Do you have wonderful, seemingly valid excuses for not doing things you really need or want to do? "I can't afford to go back to school right now" "I don't have the money to take a class in that" "My kids need me at home, I can't commit to such a schedule" (I love the "dear God, won't someone think of the children?!" excuses, they seem SO high-minded!)
Dig deep here, people. Most of us know we don't have the mental fibre to undergo a mastectomy, sans-anaesthesia. And I'm not saying it's a horror we should have to live through. But think of the type of mind it takes to GO through that! And she was hardly the only one! President John Adams daughter, Abigail, ALSO underwent one without anaesthetic. And she Never. Screamed. Once.
And I bet you can't even make yourself get off the couch and go work out today, let alone go through something like that.
Can you see where I'm going with this? One of the first things I learned as I struck out on my own with my workouts, post personal-trainers, was that it takes discipline. *MENTAL* discipline. I kept nearly missing my workouts (and once did, and felt horribly guilty about it) because now that I didn't have a hard-and-fast date to keep with a trainer, I could procrastinate. But then it would get late, and I'd be pressed for time, and either have to skimp on the workout, or skip something (I'll make it up later, right?) or miss it altogether. I quickly recognized it was a recipe for disaster. And just as quickly, I realized that I couldn't "try". I had to set a hard-and-fast workout time, and STICK with it. I couldn't tell myself that I'd "workout this afternoon", I had to tell myself that I'd "workout at 2:30". Now, the mind is a tricky thing. What exactly is it that happens at 2:30? I get dressed to work out? I leave to work out? I arrive at the gym to work out? You see how quickly that can spin out of control, too. So I changed it yet again. I get DRESSED at 2:20. I LEAVE at 2:30. I am WORKING OUT by 2:40 AT THE LATEST (that 10 minutes is travel time and a last trip to the potty). Them's the rules, pardner. And it works great.
But I already had learned a lot of mental discipline in regard to going to my workouts. I also had to learn discipline to force myself to do unpleasant (read: difficult) moves in my workouts. Forcing your muscles to keep moving until failure SUCKS. It's HARD. It HURTS. You WANT TO WIMP OUT. If you do, you stagnate. You have to push.
Recently I went for a Metabolic Conditioning workout with a friend who does this four times per week. After that experience, I realized my own workouts looked like a walk in the park, by comparison. Her workouts are a near-death experience. Mine are a well-honed habit. How could that have happened? And then I realized; my workouts, when I first started out, WERE near-death experiences! But I'm fit now, my body is used to them! And after that workout with my friend, I thought, "HELL NO! I worked too hard to get where I am! I don't want to go through any more near-death experience workouts!"
The problem is, my brain wouldn't let me think that for long. No, I'd learned my lessons about challenge and change. You can't have one without the other. To improve is to change. If you want change, you must challenge yourself. And my workouts aren't a challenge any more. Now, the very idea of forcing myself through these gruelling workouts of the sort that she does makes me literally and figuratively wince. This shit HURTS. But my newly-strengthened mind recognizes that it needs done. Instead of making excuses, I'm finding possibilities. Instead of saying I don't have the extra money (true), or the extra time (true), or the flexibility in my schedule (true), I'm looking for inexpensive ways to turn my workouts into Metabolic Conditioning Gauntlets from Hell. And it's good practice, because it's not enough to WRITE the workouts; I have to PERFORM them, as prescribed. It's easier to be the Private with a Drill Sergeant yelling orders at you. It's really hard for your mind to be the Drill Sergeant and your body to be the Private. REALLY hard. If the Drill Sergeant were empathizing with the Private, how hard do you think he'd make him work? Seriously, it's an internal struggle. And it's one I NEED. It's one we ALL need.
And all of this has made me realize that there are lots of changes and challenges I need to make, and they all start on the inside. It really is what's on the inside that counts, folks, but that doesn't mean the outside doesn't matter at all! It means that, even if you work from the outside-in, sooner or later, you still have to change what's inside to change what's outside. Our internal state is reflected by our external appearance. So the next time you look in the mirror, if you don't like what you see, think about what that means (force yourself to! As the marines say, Pain is weakness leaving the body!). And then fix it.
Today, for once, Think! Then Go. It's harder to do it this way, but we need the challenge :)
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