You may or may not be familiar with a guy named Tim Ferris, author of the 4 Hour Work Week, the 4 Hour
Body...
Basically, he's a guy who talks a lot about "hacking" life, and how to make various facets of your life as optimal and as easy as possible.
One of his latest books, Tools of the Titans, is excellent. It documents him talking to various experts and high profile people in their respective fields, and lays out key parts of his conversations with them.
One of my favourite ones is from Christopher Somner, who is
the former US National Team gymnastics coach, and they're talking about Tim's frustration with slow progress with his training program. Here's a little excerpt:
"Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence.
In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence
was easy, everyone would do it. In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals.
Unreasonable expectations time-wise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure. Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process.
The secret is to show up, do
the work, and go home.
A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.
And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself
up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end.
Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are not encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not
trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best.
Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes.
If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to.
Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small
decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way.
This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal.
The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox."
I’ve read this over and over, and I like it more and more each
time…
I’m working through some goal setting right now, professionally speaking. This excerpt from Christopher Somner is genuinely helping me with the process, and once I make those decisions it’s time to get cracking without waivering.
If you’d like my help setting a SERIOUS fitness goal, just email me back, and we can set up a time to discuss.
PPS. If Mike didn't understand the principles in today's
email, there's no way he would have made such an incredible transformation. So make sure you read and understand them if you hope to make progress like his.