I'm In No Mood... (For Any of this Sh*t)
I’m in no mood for this shit right now…
It’s an oft heard lament around this time of year. The reality of our lofty resolutions sets in, the going gets tough and frustration starts to peak.
First off, congratulations and great job to everyone who resolved they’d lose some weight, make positive changes in their life and become healthier.
The first step in accomplishing something is to visualize it and the second is to get started. You did the first two and that puts you on track to achieving something you’ve always dreamed of doing.
No one said it would be easy; just that it would be worth it.
You’re probably getting emails or reading articles telling you a break might be needed in order to help you keep going. While there’s certainly a time and place for it, along with evidence that a break can be helpful, that’s a subject for a different time and discussion. And how stopping the single month of momentum you’ve built up will get you where you want to go is another question entirely.
What they’re desperately trying to do is find a strategy to keep you from quitting because that’s usually what happens right about now.
If you’ve made it through the entire month of January hitting your diet targets with perfection, had no cheat meals or slip-ups and you’ve done every scheduled workout and cardio session with peak intensity then maybe you could think about a quick pit stop.
But why would you? There’s no reason to stop now.
You’re on a heater and, as the wise man said, “You never walk away from a table when you’re on a heater.”
We know you’re capable of much more and we want to encourage you to go for it and accomplish something you’ve only dreamed of doing.
The last thing we want is for you to give up and quit. Staying in the fight, learning the tough lessons, doing the hard work required to build a healthy lifestyle and seeing the results of those efforts will make you feel a lot better than the temporary relief you’ll get from quitting.
To borrow from Steve Greer’s fabulous exercise, “Laziness kills ambition. Fear kills dreams. Doubt kills confidence.” If you follow his instructions at the end – which are to read each of those statements backwards – you’ll realize the awesome power they unleash. I know you’ve made it through far more challenging trials and tribulations. You’ll make it through this one, too, and it’s going to change your life completely.
It’s time to flip the script and keep chasing the big dreams and lofty goals you set for yourself when you started all of this.
You don’t need a break. You need to double down, go harder and see just how far you can get because I’ll bet it’s a lot farther than you realize.
You should be applauded for showing up and starting the race. That’s a big deal and you did it.
But make no mistake; victory is determined at the finish line.
The good news is you don’t have to cross the finish line in front of everyone else in order to be victorious.
But you still have to cross it.
That means not quitting when times get tough. You may have to adapt, alter or adjust some things but you have to keep moving forward and you can never give up.
To use our racing analogy, it might be that the car you’re driving just isn’t as fast as some of the others out there on the track. Or that you’ve started this race more than once and not finished it. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean you can’t get to the finish line and extract a victory from this one.
If you drive the fastest race you possibly can while squeezing every bit of performance out of your car – all the way to the finish line – you’re victorious.
Using another sports cliché, as long as you leave it all out on the field then that’s all that matters. You’ve controlled what you can control and that’s all you can ask of yourself. You’ll find that your new attitude has carried you higher and farther than you ever thought possible.
There are going to be times when you’re just not in the mood. But that’s where the victorious are separated from those who quit and show back up at the starting line next year.
Just like they did the year before and the year before that and the year before that one, too.
What you’ve set out to achieve is one of the most gratifying and rewarding things you can ever do for yourself and your loved ones. It will directly impact everything you do for the rest of your life.
But you also took on a giant ball of suck. At least in the beginning.
I don’t care if you have five or fifty-five pounds to lose. It sucks… bad.
No one calls up their friends and says, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s cut our calories for the next three or four months.”
Let’s face it, if you want to lose weight (fat) you’re going to have to be in a calorie deficit for whatever amount of time it takes to get the job done. Sure, you can make it go faster with exercise and you’ll look a heck of a lot better while it’s happening but it’s not always a great time. I haven’t called up my buddies up on a Friday after work (nor has anyone ever phoned me) and said, “The weekend is here! Let’s get to the gym and do some heavy Squats and Deads.”
Of course, when we do all of those things – and stick with it – we love how we look, how it makes us feel, what it’s done for us and the sense of accomplishment it brings.
It can and will change your entire life.
It’s in the short-term that things get tough. You get buried in the day-to-day struggle of life and lose sight of the bigger picture and just how much is required to achieve what you’ve set out to do.
Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a month while grossly underestimating what they can actually do in a year. But that’s where the finish line is.
To make your dreams come true, you have to live in and conquer the present while using your vision for the future as the strength that gets you through the tough times you’ll inevitably encounter.
Things will happen in life over which you have no control.
But you have absolute power and complete control in how you respond to them.
I promise it will get a lot better once you learn to implement this whole “healthy lifestyle” thing we’ve been talking about. You’ll automatically make healthy choices with food. You’ll know how to stay in check when eating out and the when, where and how of going out and enjoying an awesome meal at your favorite restaurant even when it’s far over your normal calories. Going to the gym will be second nature. You‘ll feel like something’s wrong if you miss a workout but you’ll know how to handle it when you have to. Hitting the sack around the same time each night will be something you do without thinking. You’ll also know how to get away with staying up late watching the awesomeness that is Sixteen Candles.
You’re the only one that decides what you put in your mouth. No one can make you blow off going to the gym. And nobody can force you to stay up late.
That’s absolute power and it’s all yours.
Of course, there will be times you’re not presented with the best options when it comes to eating. The situations and circumstances won’t be ideal. Honestly, they’ll probably be downright terrible. You might be traveling for work or stuck at soccer or gymnastics all weekend and end up at a pizza parlor with the kids when you haven’t eaten for hours. You’re in trouble, my friend. Those are difficult scenarios but you still get to decide whether you play the best hand possible with the cards you’ve been dealt or you fold and quit the game.
You have the power and the ability to determine how good or bad what you do will be.
We’ve all had days where things are insanely busy at work. Your office phone is ringing off the hook and your cell phone is going off so much it vibrates right off of the desk. The nurse at school calls to say you’ve got a sick kid, the car has four flats and there’s no spare, the plumber wants thousands to fix that leak and on and on.
But the decision to blow off your workouts for the entire week is… wait for it… entirely yours.
You can still move your workout to a different day, shorten it up or even make do with a bodyweight workout or a quick walk. It doesn’t mean you also take off next week and the week after and the week after that, either. And those things have no impact on whether you decide to blow off your diet on top of it.
I agree with you that the modern selection of entertainment boggles the mind. Remember when we only had the three major networks, PBS and a couple of UHF channels and that was it for TV? Along with that awesome selection of programming, PBS took thirty minutes every couple of hours to ask for money and all the networks went off the air around midnight. Al Gore’s incredible invention – he named it the internet – was still decades away.
Streaming your favorite shows or surfing the interwebs doesn’t make you stay up past your bedtime. That’s 100% up to you. Sure, there will be late nights due to work, family, etc. but you have the power to make the best of what you get. It’s not like we aren’t going to stay up late watching a good movie every now and again. That’s part of life.
But champions and the highly successful expect bad or unforeseen things are going to happen every now and then because that’s also a part of life. It’s just how it goes. They know they can handle it because they vow to never let anything get in the way of their bigger vision.
You do it by focusing only on the things that are in your power to control.
Adverse events will happen throughout life but you can be a champion, too. Choose to take them in stride, refuse to let them affect your bigger goals and make each one of them an opportunity to shine. Your ambition will kill your laziness, your dreams will kill your fears and your confidence will kill your doubts.
You owe it to yourself and your Maker to give life your best shot.
So the next time you’re not feeling the love, remember you have bigger things to accomplish and you’re not letting anything get in your way. This time you’re going to see the finish line instead of showing back up at the starting line after another year has passed you by.
You’ll be – as the late Stuart Scott said – “As cool as the other side of the pillow!”
If you want help sticking to your vision, guidance on how to actually take a diet break and help building a lifestyle that automatically produces the results you’ve always dreamed of then you’d better get straight over to Commissioner Gordon’s office, pick up that red phone underneath the glass and give me a call. You’ll still enjoy life, have great times with family and friends and you won’t have to worry about ruining the results of your hard work. Just sayin’…
Regards,
Henry
P.S. I’m not saying I’m Batman but have you ever seen me and Batman in the same room?
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