2 Sides to Compartmentalization
Too often we look at things in a compartmentalized state. It helps to do so. I wouldn't have started this business and done as much as I have if I hadn’t narrowed things down into bite sized chunks to keep plugging away at. But it can narrow the view of the bigger picture. None so more relevant than in movement and fitness. The mind is shaped by the success or “failures” we impose on ourselves. These successes and failures are of our own creation. Take a 300 lbs squat. A goal for many to achieve and not too lofty that someone in the correct position in life could achieve. Well the training and progressive overload that it takes maybe a year to achieve this goal, you have overcome struggle, pain and “failure”. But sticking it out you got the squat.
As Tom Platz says, it's very applicable in life what you do in the gym/for fitness. That overcoming, and training and long term delayed gratification is the very foundation of life. Sounds corny I know, but I have achieved goals that I said would make me happy. They didn’t. The aiming and going for the thing, very much is the thing.
Excuses end all progress. You may think not. How can deciding not to do one workout make progress die? Because the slippery slope of “I’ll just do one less mile today” slides into hundreds of miles a year. The volume makes a difference and the smallest drop over time fills the bucket.
This is backed by science as well. The mid cingulate cortex is designed to grow based on doing the things you don’t want to do. When you consciously decide to go run, even though you hate it, even though you don’t feel you have the time, even though you’re sore, and you break through the real desire to not go run, that section of your brain grows. When you don't and you choose comfort, you atrophy this part of the brain. Or it stays the same small size. Essentially, you can grow the power to do hard things inside yourself. If that isn't the coolest information to know I'm not sure what is. I can decide to get better at doing harder things and my brain rewards that and the positive cycle continues. On the other hand it can decrease in size and my positive loop of progress can be undone by lacking and slacking. Soon a mile less becomes 3 and maybe a whole run. If you can miss a whole run, why not a few other workouts too? You stretch less, recover less, and the cycle repeats and gets more challenging and more challenging to get more out of it. As David Goggins says, you are just creating a bigger stronger faster quitter.
