015 Grit or Quit? How do you know when to persevere and when to pivot?: The Philosophy of Fitness Podcast

You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run! But...HOW DO YOU KNOW? 

Grit is often touted as the key to success in any arena. Consistency is a necessary ingredient to progress. But knowing when to pivot, when to get help, or even when to QUIT can be just as valuable of skills. 

In this episode, we explore some strategies for evaluating when to apply grit, or when to smartly quit.

00:45 Icebreaker: What's in your protein shake?

3:35 Introduction: Pivoting from Plateaus, Questioning Routine and the difference between Consistency and Redundancy, Practice VS. Habit. When to trust the process and when to quit.

4:17 "Never give up!" is not universal advice, regardless of how inspiring it sounds.

5:41 Don't be so fixated on where you're going that you never stop to ask yourself how long you want to be there.

6:17 Growth often requires new experiences, so it's important to be ready to pivot.

9:16 There's no such thing as maintenance in fitness (or personal growth of any kind).

10:48 "Grit" can become an excuse for stagnation and playing it safe instead of seeking challenges that cause growth.

13:30 In reality, having a broad base (or range) can provide more safety than ever deepening the same grooves.

17:07 Practice VS. Habit

17:37 James Clear Atomic Habits, Charles Duhigg The Power of Habit, Steven Schuster Keystone Habits

21:31 How do these concepts apply to relationships?

27:18 The fear of too much structure

30:33 We are not machines. Groundhog Day wasn't meant to be something to aspire to. 

31:17 Structure provides relief from decision fatigue

33:19 Why is there a work ethic but not a play ethic or rest ethic? Why is it morally superior to be machine-like in your productivity?

35:05 Alan Watts; Life is not a journey, it's more like a dance (See the short, beautiful speech here)

36:07 Value in consistency, but grace for distractions. Are our inconsistencies simply an opportunity for assessment?

37:45 Recognizing past failures. Inconsistency was fed by a lack of mentorship. (Subscribe to this podcast to hear an upcoming episode on Finding a mentor!) and lack of asso

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Transcript

Hi, this is Cody Limbach. And I'm t Zari, and you're listening to the Philosophy of Fitness Podcast on the network.

All right, so I have an icebreaker for today, and then do you want to introduce today's. Sure. Okay. Cause the title's kind of long and janky and I don't really know what to say. But for today's icebreaker, what is in your protein shake? That's easy  for me. Okay. One scoop of collagen, one scoop of way.

That's the shake. That's it. Then I take it with vitamin D, zinc and fish oil. Well, that's not really your shake now, is it? Well, that's always taken together. Okay. Well mine has evolved. Over many years. And I am now at a point in my life where way makes me gag. I just want nothing to do with it. And so nowadays I was introduced to silk alternative milks.

So there's an almond cashew milk that has 10 grams of protein per cup. Yes. And so lately I've been doing a half a cup of that and then a half a cup of the chocolate version. It's a lot higher in carbs. So I try to mix the two. A banana, usually about three, three and a half ounces. Scoop of collagen and half a cup of egg whites and a scoop of Siam husks for fiber and some ice.

And that's it, Doish. It's really good. You should really try it sometime. It's kind of fruity for me, the banana part. Berries. Right? No berries in that one. Oh, okay. That's why I asked you to get more chocolate milk, because I like this one better. Gotcha. Than the blueberry one. Yeah, I'd probably dig that.

Yeah. Do you notice a difference with the collagen? No. No, Not significantly. I do. What kind of difference should I notice? I feel like I have less joint pain. Oh. Since I've started taking that regularly. I don't know. I was just asking my coworker about supplements for joint health because I was getting that cardboard sound that we've been talking about.

Mm-hmm. , which is super gross. And so I guess it hasn't alleviated what I want it to, but maybe I should be taking more. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if the, so if the noises will ever go away. I think that's just part of becoming cardboard as you age. Yeah. Well, aside from the sound, I would say my joints are doing just fine.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's super gross though. It makes it sound like it's really dry in there and just desperately needs hydration or lubrication or something. That's why we listen to music in the gym to cover up the sound , so you don't have to listen to my knees  at my knees. Yeah. Yeah. It's really distracting when I squat.

I'm sure. Like, it's so loud. So, yeah. The, the music is, it's not for motivation, It's to cover up the distractions with my creaking joints. Today's episode is untitled yet, so I'm just gonna read our descriptive notes and we'll figure out a title. Yeah. Pivoting from Plateaus, Questioning Routine and the difference between Consistency and Redundancy, Practice versus Habit.

I added that because I think that's a delineation that I like to make in a lot of things that I've written about. When to trust the process and when to quit. I added that part. . Yes. So I think that's enough to get the idea of where we're going and we'll figure out a good title for it. We've already touched on some of these topics before mm-hmm.

in a previous podcast, and I told you, I actually am interested in writing a book about this as far as like knowing when to quit. Yeah. Because it's a very difficult aspect of making progress is knowing when to quit, and we're always told, you know, Don't quit, Never give up. And the problem with taking your, like success advice from internet memes is that you get like a sentence, you know, take an out of context and so you'll, you'll have what's his name from World War ii.

Who from Britain? The Oh, Churchill. Churchill, Yeah. Winston Churchills . I wasn't gonna be my first guess. Winston Churchill's famous speech have never, never, never, never any like pauses for like 30 seconds. Never given, you know, like, and it's it's all inspirational and everything, but you know, it's one thing if Nazis are trying to invade your country.

But as far as your own success in life, like knowing when to quit is a very valuable skill. And I think in hindsight of people who have reached, you know, high levels of success, it's not talked about often, but I think it's easy to trace back where you can see where they have quit something to move on to something else that became their high value, you know, proposition.

So, yeah, you know, we've been talking a lot about business lately, and I think most people are more fixed on the idea of. Getting to where they're going or getting to their goal or you know, your lifestyle looking a certain way. And I have almost different fears. I think more about like, okay, once I get there, how long am I gonna wanna be there?

You know, this is a way that you and I tend to differ a lot, or I have a tendency to want to walk away from things more readily because I am convinced that there's something out there that might be a better fit. And I wanna find it where you have expressed that you have a harder time quitting. But at the same time, you and I both have something in common, which is that we both kind of revel in novelty and that new things are really exciting and wanting to try all those.

Is always on the table. Yeah. And I think that that can be really conflicting when you're talking about progress in athletics or in anything else where you have to be kind of prepared in some ways for a long road. Mm-hmm. . But I think that even on those long journeys or in the development of that discipline over a long period of time, there can be kind of milestones along the way that allow you to maintain interest.

That's where the pivoting comes in reassessment so that you are getting the right stimulus and that you're operating at the right frequency. And I just wanna talk about some of those things just because I think it's really easy to kind of get stuck in repetitive training or repetitive patterns in our lives and how important it is to be able to recognize when we.

Our plateauing and when we are ready for growth. Yeah. I am reminded of this client that I had when I worked at Ballet Total Fitness. So we're calling way back now, like yeah, 20 years ago. And he approached me from watching me train other people and he asked for some advice. He wanted to like switch up his program and he came in and he was like one of those like stall work regulars who came in at the same time every day, five days a week of just like clockwork.

You knew he was coming in at this, you know, you could set your watch by it kind of thing. And they had these machines in that gym. Of course, you know, the big global gyms have mostly full of machines and then just a little bit of actual space to work out in  . But they're getting a little bit better at that.

They're getting better. Last time I went to. A global gym. They had a pretty cool like CrossFit section. Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely think the market pressure that CrossFit provided to get those gyms to actually provide some functional fitness apparatus. Yeah. Cause when I worked there I brought a heavy bag in and corporate wouldn't allow it.

No way. Cause it's like, Oh, it's too dangerous. You can't have a heavy bag in here. I'm like, like people can't do anything except be on a machine and then well, they're safe. Weren't they invented for rehabilitation? Yeah, I think so. Which would make a lot of sense as to why they are as safe as they are.

Yeah. And then body building and fitness culture kind of latched onto 'em. But anyway, this guy came in and he said he wanted to get some ideas, sort of freshen up his routine cuz he was, you know, feeling redundant. Mm-hmm. . And I asked him how long he had been doing the same workout. He does the same workout every time he came in.

It wasn't like, . It wasn't even like lower body one day upper body. Even the next day it was the same circuit every day that he came in. And I asked him how long he'd been doing it? Seven years. Holy balls. I know. I was like, You've been doing the same workout for seven years. Yeah. So obviously he wasn't really getting anything out of that.

His body long ago adapted to everything he was doing. And there's, I don't think there's any such thing as even maintenance. Like there's no such thing as maintaining your fitness because you're aging. Like we're all aging all the time. Mm-hmm. . And so you have to be, you have to sort of be in the fight, you know, you have to be outpacing it.

Yeah, exactly. And so anything that you're doing that's redundant, if you've done it the same way for months in the fitness arena, If you're done it in the exact same way, like not increasing weight, not changing reps, like doing the same thing every time. You've, you've adapted quickly, like within, and for seven years, I'm sure within a few weeks your body is pretty much used to everything you've done.

Yeah. And it's not gonna change and you're gonna be going backwards. So I think that's an example though, where the philosophy of fitness is a little tricky to have carryover into other aspects of your life. Because in fitness it's just sort of obvious. It's obvious when you're doing the same thing like that.

Like that's such an obvious case that if you're doing ized machines where you're movement patterns are literally dictated for you as you're on the machine and you're not changing weights and everything's exactly the same, you can easily see within a few weeks that you've adapted, you're, you're no longer getting sore, you're not making progress, you're not, you know, nothing is there and it's time to change.

But in the real world, sometimes the timeframe is much different because sometimes you're not talking about a physical adaptation. You're talking about maybe an emotional adaptation, emotional or in the case of business, maybe you're talking about like market penetration, where, you know, it just takes a while to get noticed.

Yeah. In that kind of thing. So it's, it's very difficult to figure out where the signs are on, where to stay persistent and practice grit or where grit is just an excuse to do the same thing and be safe and not make progress. Self-sabotage. Well, so just taking it to the world of athletics, there's even a lot of variation.

Even just there. There's CrossFit, which is one side of the extreme, which is constantly varied. It's written in its definition or it's. Motto, it's tagline, whatever. And then there are sports like weightlifting that are periodized. So it is repetitive movement, but the intensity and your capacity is being manipulated over days, weeks, months, years.

Mm-hmm. . And then I also wonder about other sports like football, basketball, Like how much, for how much can those really change? Yeah, I think, I think the training for a lot of those sports has changed. Again, you know, if people want a dog on CrossFit, there's plenty of criticisms. The methodology, the way it's practiced, some of the people involved.

So it's not like I'm a CrossFit zealot, but you really have to give credit where credits do. When CrossFit started to hit mainstream and become popular even into professional sports, there was a, there was a shift in training because up until the popularity of CrossFit, even even football players, like some of the most agile, strong, powerful athletes out there in any like team sport they were still doing body building style workouts and, and biometrics.

Of course, they were doing biometrics, you know, jumping through the tires and all that shit. That's old school. But it was kind of this combination between endurance, agility and then body building. And you've seen a shift over the last 15 years or so where they're doing more weight lifting, where they're doing a lot more variety.

Explosive movements with medicine balls and stuff like that. Oh yeah. If somebody comes in knowing how to clean, I'm like, Oh, you've played football, haven't you? Yeah, no, I mean, the cleans are garbage, , sorry to say, the worst cleans I've ever seen. But they know what a clean is. Yeah. And so I think there's a recognition that some of training for sports specific is getting a baseline of more variety Yes.

To make you more bulletproof when you're actually out there on the field, because unexpected things happen. Yeah. All the time. And I've heard a statistic from a long time ago, so I don't know how accurate it is now, but at the time I heard it running was the most frequent. How, how am I gonna phrase this?

The highest rate of injury of any sport was running. Mm-hmm. . So people who just jogged for pleasure were like the most injury prone. I've actually seen like a ranked list of them before. I think I have it in one of my. Training manuals for weightlifting and weightlifting's kind of at the bottom. And that was something that they always kind of led their seminars with.

Like, this is actually a really safe sport to practice. Yeah. And then, and this is why everyone should do it. . And then soccer was second on that list. Well, soccer has a lot of running, but people running into each other. It does. And but I, I think a lot of that was just is overuse injuries from repetitive movement and not training your body to have a wider base of, of support if you For sure.

Well, it's like anything else that's got deep grooves like that stuff wears out. It's like your breaks or whatever, like those things will just wear out over time. You have to be able to change different modalities so that you have other options to work with. Yeah. And you and I, you mentioned that we are sort of neo fights that we love the new and is that what it's called?

The difference? Yeah. We we, we sort of crave.  new and interesting experiences. And so I feel like the grooves that you're talking about on a physical level, you know, if you're just running and that's your sport, there's these overuse injuries that can accumulate. Mm-hmm. , I feel that sort of on this emotional, spiritual level, if you will, where if I'm doing the same thing day in and day out, I feel like it's wearing a groove in my soul.

Like, it just, it hurts. Like it, it's like an overuse injury. Mentally. Do you think that that's something that you're only aware of when it's something negative? I think it's something that, I think there are traits to the redundancy that  that affects me the worst, which is like, if I have no autonomy in what I'm doing mm-hmm.

So if I'm just like, told what to do here, do this and you're gonna do that, that's the worst hours and hours at a time and day after day, that's like the worst thing for me. And then even if it's something that I'm given some autonomy for, if it's still in a redundant vein that gets old, like if it's the same time every day for long periods and I still am within a box, like that's, that's the thing I can't take, You know, when I develop my own practices, when I'm in a good writing groove or something, even if it's three hours a day, that was never boring to me.

But writing is a creative process, so. Practice where I was intentionally sitting down at the same time every day to write for consistency. Some of those days was writing the blog. Some of those days was writing in my book. Some of those days was writing in the course journal that I was creating. So I had this freedom to write whatever I wanted to write for those three hours.

It was just the discipline of, of getting the practice in. Well I think it's also easy for you to kind of look back at that time with, dare I say like rose colored glasses. Cuz you probably never reached a point where like, ooh, this is monotonous. And that's something that we're trying to explore today is like, how do you, like, obviously everything in life, like those points come at different timelines and so, you know, you might have been ripped away from that a little too soon.

That awesomely you're able to like reminisce and think of like, Oh, that's such an amazing time. The problem that can happen with repetitive practices of any kind is that. Sometimes we're, we're overdoing that timeline or that point where it is monotonous that we look back on it feeling like we wasted our time.

Yeah, Yeah, for sure. So this kind of brings up a point one of my notes for this though is you know, we talked about, or I mentioned practice versus habit. Yeah. And there's a lot of talk in self-help books and that kind of thing lately since Charles Dewig came out with the Power of Habit.

And then there's another one, I forget the author, so sorry about that. But we'll put in the, in the show notes of a book called Keystone Habits. And those two books among many others, sort of popularize this idea in recent years that developing certain habits is really the difference between you succeeding and, and languishing is, and.

I kind of have a little bit of pushback on that because I, I think it's true that there are keystone habits and there are specific habits that you can change, that it will improve. You know, if you, if you're not the type of person who is in the habit of brushing your teeth or whatever, and you develop that habit, then obviously it's gonna have some health benefits long term or whatever.

But the problem is, is that you don't need to get better and better at brushing your teeth. Like that's one skill you can pick up. And, you know, hopefully by the time you're four years old or so, and you, you got it. You know. But I think a good analogy for what I'm trying to talk about is the difference between practicing your penmanship mm-hmm.

or. Just doing your penmanship every day as an, as a habit. And, and a lot of people, you know, they've been writing for 30 years of their life and it's slot. Not anymore . Yeah, you can, Well, yeah, not anymore. But if you look at their signature or anything that they'll write to somebody even a little note, sticky note or something, and it's like, What, what is that?

Like? It's, I chicken scratches crazy and it's so bad. I don't know how people have gotten away with that for as long as they have, but I've also been incredibly neurotic about my penmanship. But I get, my point is, is that you can practice something, quote unquote practice for years and years and years and years and not improved.

You're structured practice. Maybe that's my point, is that there's a difference between a habit and a practice. Ah, yes. Okay. So practice has structure potentially a mentor. Intention. Intention, I mean, intention is the primary word there because, and then a habit's just like you do it. The habit is the way you've been writing for 30 years, cuz you want to.

Got it. And a couple years ago I changed my penmanship because I was sick of it. I, I didn't like the way I wrote. And so Was it bad? Yeah, when you met me it wasn't great. I mean, it was legible, but it wasn't, You were writing with fountain pens and that's my point. Polygraphy pens. No, that's my point. I took some calligraphy, intentional time to practice calligraphy each day.

And then I brought that over to my regular writing. And so now the way I make my ends and s and you know, certain letters have carried over from the calligraphy to change my actual. Day to day penmanship. That's so funny that you brought up those specific letters because just the other day I was thinking to myself like, damn, I really have to like figure out my G's.

My G's look like garbage right now. . . So I need to put some like actual intention behind my penmanship cuz it has it slid for sure. Yeah. But I don't write in my journal every day. I did that for a good while or mm-hmm. , you know, having to write things for work on the board, like CrossFit, you know, you're writing on a white board every day and I had very legible teacher like penmanship and you know, now that I don't have to show my penmanship to anybody, it's pretty, pretty lax.

I have a hard time reading, writing . But anyway, that was just an example though of, you know, most people's handwriting is the same as that guy who is going into the gym and doing the same thing. Yeah. And not getting any results from it. Not improving at all and still doing it, but Yeah. And in fact probably.

not only not improving, but probably going backwards. Yeah. And I think that's very similar with many of the things that we consider sort of set it and forget it type of things. Yes. Can all succumb to that. And so an intentional practice is very different than getting in the habit of doing something.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Cause habits on autopilot. Well, anytime we're talking about how do these ideas translate into our lives at large, I'm always imagining how they play out in relationships. That's just an area of life that I'm always really interested in and really always just trying to be aware of dynamics and how they can change and move into the direction of favor.

And, you know, it's a hard thing to to think about because you're involving other people who have their own free will. Right. And I'm always really cautious about being. Overly manipulative when it comes to quote unquote, like strategizing relationships because that doesn't feel good if it's noticed, but then it also kind of doesn't feel like it plays out authentically.

And so I'm just trying to think about like how there are redundancies in relationships in terms of how we respond together. You were saying set it and forget it and, you know, I, I've felt more and more since you and I have had full time jobs that not only do you and I not have the time that we used to together, but it's really easy to fall into sort of default, not just the way that we're spending our time together, like after work on the couch, blah, blah, blah, but also in, you know, asking you questions as I'm walking away or being on my phone when you're talking to me.

I'm trying to pay attention to those things because those are not habits that I want to keep. Mm-hmm.  between you and I, you and I have an incredibly rich relationship and I don't want to be at the mercy of our circumstances. Yeah. Which definitely takes more effort and energy. Mm-hmm. . But that's definitely like a, a potential like plateau that I can foresee happening if I wasn't thinking about this right now.

Yeah. And I really like potentially detrimental one. Yeah. Cuz that kind of adds up over time to like an overuse injury, right? Mm-hmm. , , like those little, those little things that seem dismissible easily mm-hmm.  in the moment can really add up over time to feeling sort of ticket for granted or kind of at a loss for the word, but.

Being well, it's kind of autopilot. You sort of lose the feeling of being important to the other person. Yeah. When you're existing, when everything is sort of so comfortable and casual after a while you don't feel like you're very important to that other person. Well, and I don't even think it has to be as a result of, you know, full-time jobs or whatever.

There's just kind of this mistaken belief I think, in our culture that like once I'm married, once I'm in a relationship, like that's all I've been looking for and I've found it, and now I, all I have to do is keep it. I have to hold it, maintain it, Yeah. Whatever. But I mean, I'm sure it's no longer the popular, popular narrative now that relationships are set and forget it.

They're obviously something that require. Like constant engagement with Yeah. And I'm really careful about saying that because I don't like it when it's like relationships are work. Yep, exactly. Work does not have a great connotation. Yeah. You're reading my mind. Cuz I think, I think the people who are talking about, I, I, I think there's good intention in the idea that, oh, relationships take work.

But I think what happens there, the reason it feels like work is that they've already let those things accumulate. So Yeah, you're pushing against a lot at that point. Yeah. So there's maybe some neglect or some imbalances, whether it's, you know work life balance or just the things that we've talked about as far as being comfortable with each other, taking things for granted and that piles up to the point of injury or, you know, like re overuse injury in, in the fitness terms.

But it's kind of an assault to the other person and it kind of builds resentment and then you have to overcome that resentment, which is very, there's hard, Yeah. There's the work and it's just like, it's really just like the fitness analogy. It's a much easier, even though it takes more diligence, it takes more diligence.

I love that word. It takes more intention to avoid injury long term by doing the right things and being intentional about avoiding injury. Mm-hmm.  than it does to get injured and then have to work to recover from that injury. Totally. And it's the same in relationships. If you can, you know, add some very intentional things, then I'm not just talking about date night either.

Cuz date night, again, that's too broad. A lot of couples do date night and I've fallen into this trap in past relationships is of, you know, long term relationship. I was married for over 20 years and date night was just a chore after a while. Mm-hmm. . And that sucks to say that cuz I, you know, I'm not trying to like,  hurt anybody, but by saying that.

But if your date night is just the same thing, like every week of, you know, going out for drinks and talking about the same things and behaving in the same way and it, you still have this sort of behaving in the same way, well, within the vacuum of date night or behaving in the same way that you would at home.

At home. Okay. Yeah. So there wasn't a, there wasn't like enough of a difference there. Yeah. There wasn't anything special about date night except maybe some good food or some entertainment or something like that, or intimacy . But, you know, that's not enough. Like it, it really takes some intention. So again, that kind of goes back to the difference between that practice and habit.

You can totally say that you're building healthy habits around your relationship or something, but if there's no intention there, if you're not really present and really putting in that effort. That habit can just be meaningless over time. Yeah. Or even detrimental. Well, I was also saying that you and I have in common that we are really interested in all things like novelty.

But I also think that we also kind of fear the idea of having too much structure or too much of a routine. Which, you know, maybe not this guy who's been training the same way for seven years, but maybe for other athletes who are training with a lot of periodization mentorship, you know, room for growth and everything kind of being mapped out for better performance.

I, I struggle with this idea because I really feel like I thrive on routine, but I fear it at the same time because I don't wanna like lose opportunity for being spontaneous, for being able to do new things. I feel like this topic in general, there's a lot of like polarities that we're kind of bouncing back between.

And I don't know if that's just because like we've assigned a certain value to a routine or diligence and then a certain value to, you know, not having any of those things. Mm-hmm. , Well, in the last couple years I have found sort of a new respect or. Even desire for certain routines. Mm-hmm.

particularly a morning routine because I feel like if I can take some of the really important things that I know I want to have consistent in my life, like working out, if I do that first thing in the morning, then I know the rest of my day is I've already won, I've like already won the day and it sets a tone for the rest of the day so that even if I have a lot of flexibility for three quarters of my day, just getting that routine in the morning helps set up sort of a momentum for me and I can still experience freedom throughout the rest of the day, but get, you know, make progress on things.

So I feel pretty confident at this point that once I quit my job and that structure is gone from my life, that I'll be able to maintain structure because I enjoy getting up within the sun. Comes through the window and then moving on from that directly into a set of practices, journaling, meditation, workout, and after the workout cleanup and you know, maybe do the podcast or something like that.

Well, when you and I weren't working, your morning routine was like half the day at one point. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. I just am wondering, do you ever, did you ever feel like too confined at that point? I didn't because a lot of, there was so much variety built into that.

That's why it was taking half the day because it included, you know, meditation, journaling, working out, writing which is a huge chunk of that. That's why it took so long. Cuz that's when I was doing like a daily blog post and working on my book and all, all that. Let me maybe confined in a way that isn't just specific to you.

I mean like, what about in your. Marriage for instance, like, you know, you wouldn't be available to me until like 12, one o'clock. Yeah. And I'm not saying that like I have any resentment. I'm just kind of questioning like, can you see that there's like a potential for like pigeonholing yourself when there is this desire for like consistency and routine and you know, we're always talking about how humans are not meant to be machines.

Mm-hmm.  our lives are not supposed to be the same thing every day. Like Groundhog's Day was supposed to be a bad thing. Yeah. In that movie. I forget who stars in it, but it wasn't supposed to be like a desirable quality that he woke up every day experiencing the same thing. So I'm just curious, like, what do you think?

Is it just a balance between having room for just doing something different or how much of our lives should be regimented? Mm-hmm. . It's such a hard one because like I've said, I really like when I got a job I was like, Ugh, I can breathe again. Because now I don't have to make so many choices in a day because then it's all on me to build the momentum.

Now I've got like something already in motion that I can build off of. I would say it's a little bit out of balance and it's maybe more than I wanna commit to. Yeah. But at the same time I feel like this is kind of a bigger part of this conversation is like there's. This really important emphasis on consistency, but like, we're not built to do the same thing.

Yeah. All the time. Yeah. I know. It's become a compliment in the gym life that, Oh man, you're a machine. And I like kind of resent that whole idea cuz I feel like we've been industrialized and I, I'm not anti-capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. I'm definitely pro free market and all that, but the industrial revolution had some very negative side effects for the human race.

Yeah. And part of that was that when the assembly line was invented, we, you know, people became part of the assembly line, like we're the machine. Right. And even though that era of the of history is, is in the west anyway, sort of, we're progressing out of that, we're not really progressing out of that. What we've really done is we've.

We've outsourced that to other people. Mm-hmm.  less fortunate than us. Kinda gross. We've maintained that model for ourselves. But that's my point. You think about folks who are in business for themselves. I think about your uncle. He was just in the paper and he was asked like, What are you gonna do with your summer?

And he's like, I'm gonna be working. Yeah. Like, this man works all the time, which it's your life. You get to do whatever you want. But those same grooves from that time in history have carried over into what we think is required of us. Yeah, That's the point I was trying to get to is that, Sorry. No, that's fine.

We read each other's minds. That's fine. But , we're still treated like those machines, even though we're not all in factories anymore. Yeah. It's just, it's looked at as a badge of honor for you to, you know, like I've said in the past, there's this term called work ethic. , but there's no play ethic or rest ethic.

Like where's the, where's the like ethical superiority in just being a machine and doing the same damn thing every day. Yeah. That doesn't sound like a human life to me. That doesn't sound like anything natural or organic. Cause it ain't. Yeah. So I think life in seasons, you know, maybe there's a, a harder work season and a lighter work season and that kind of thing I think makes way more sense.

Yeah. I kinda lost my train of thought from where we were before this. I was asking you, Oh, you were talking about, about, you were talking about structure and how.  it is restrictive or can be restrictive. Yes. Like what is the point between these two things? I feel like there's these polarities and these extremes that I, I can't quite figure out like what the balance is because yes, you need periodization.

Yes. You need consistency to create progress. But at the same time, it's like, when do I, Am I able to get off this train? Do I get to take rest stops or, you know? Yeah. I kind of fear that sometimes because, you know, trains are fixed on tracks. Yeah. It takes a lot to undo that. Well, and that's where, you know, Alan Watts's analogy for life comes in for me is that we're always, always, people are constantly analogizing life to a journey.

Like, life is a journey, but what's the destination? I mean, the only destination is you die one day. Mm-hmm. . And so He analogizes life to a dance like it's a dance and it's, it's a music. And the idea behind music and dance is not to get to the end. You're not trying to get to the end of a composition.

Cuz if that were the case, then all compositions would just be like one finale and that would be it. And so the whole point of it is to enjoy the music. And so I feel like there has to be some grace brought in. So there's a recognition that like, like in music, you know, there's a time signature, there's, there are rules to music that are mathematical rules.

And if you deviate too far from those mathematical rules, you just end up with noise. It's not music anymore. I'm loving this analogy, by the way. So there is structure to, to it, but within that structure you can riff, like you can, you can jazz improvise and you can hit off notes and you can like guitar.

So those Yeah. And you can, Yeah, and you can you can have 3, 4, 5, 6 different segments of that music that you're returning to back and forth and coming back to. And so I think that we can find a balance in, for instance, having a morning routine, but not making it a religious practice where there's going to be resentment if it's broken for a few days mm-hmm.

while we change things up and, you know, spend time at the lake or something, you know, like, yeah, that's, there needs to be some grace and forgiveness there. And I think some trust, because I think one reason why I have a hard time breaking routine once I finally get a good one is that, I don't trust myself to return to it because in the past I've had good routines, good practices set up, and then I'll deviate once and make an excuse once and then all of a sudden I look back six months ago and it's like, whoa, shit.

Like I haven't been doing this thing for six months. What happened? You know? Yeah. But doesn't that potentially, isn't that possibly an as an opportunity for assessment? That was another one of the show notes for today, is like we need to have moments of assessment to see like if the path that we're on is really even serving us anymore.

Yeah. Do you ever question if you didn't come back to something like if that's something you really wanted to do, you're a little bit of an exception cuz you're interested in so many things , that maybe that isn't the case. Yeah. But that is important I think to include here. You know, we talked about knowing when to.

And that doesn't always have to be, because it doesn't, because it like ran us into the ground or it ruined our lives. It could also be simply because there are things that are a higher priority that we resonate with more. That sounds noble. But I think for me it's just been like, I've been distracted and I'm not successful as a result.

Like, I had this plan, the plan seemed to be good, I didn't stick with it long enough. And I look back and be like, and I'm like, Well, shit. You know, like I, that seemed like it would've been a good thing had I stuck with it. Do you think that you set your yourself up though, to maintain that appropriately?

Like, you know, we've talked many times on this podcast about like, if you want to pursue something, get a mentor, get a coach, go to class, get involved with something that's already in motion. Mm-hmm.  Kind of like what I was saying about a job like. You're, you're putting yourself in position with the right people, the right environment, so that you can thrive.

And that is always something that I kind of hope for you is that you will be participating with others because it's hard to do everything in a vacuum. I know you like your solitude and I just think that's so hard sometimes to work with. Mm-hmm. , you know, you're always starting from scratch. You're always in silence.

Like, if you're not having anything to bounce off of or have leverage with it's just really hard to get anything going, I think in a, in a way that it can keep going. Mm-hmm.  know what I mean? Yeah. I think that besides inconsistency, I've identified a couple.  Things to work on in my life, I should say, like weakness, I'll just say it.

The weaknesses there. Things that I've looked back on and, and thought, Well, this is, this is what's held me back. One of those is a lack of mentorship. Mm-hmm.  Like you're saying. And it wasn't necessarily that. I didn't ever recognize that. It's just, a lot of times it was, sometimes it's, it's expensive to find a mentor.

Like, Oh, hell yeah, it's difficult. There's so many things that I wanna do. And I now jump to the idea that, Oh, I need to go to a class. Oh, I need to hire a coach. I'm like, I can't pay for that. Yeah. . And so there was a long time, long stretches in my business career, my former business career with my gym in Portland, where I desired the mentorship.

I found the mentor, but the price tag was just like, Well, I need to figure some shit out on my own first so that I can get over this financial hump and then I'll hire this guy. But then I never got there.  and you know, probably what needed to happen is I, you know, beg, borrow or steal, not steel, but you know, , find a way to get the fucking money and get the guy plugged in who could have helped me get to the next level.

Well, hey, here you are with a new business and you're, and that's right, Yeah. Doing the same thing with a marketing group. Yeah. That we still haven't pulled the trigger yet, but we've made the decision that that is the next step. Well, we actually, I have in kind of lined up several mentors. So we have I'm a member of Will.

We are a member of spi, which is Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynns group. I think I've mentioned him before in a previous practice a couple times. I can tell you're a fan. People who are entrepreneurs online will know who he is, and being part of that community is a big step toward that. But that, I feel, is mentorship on the backend business side of things, particularly the podcast social media structuring.

The online community that we're building and, and that kind of thing, cuz that's their specialty, are those kind of things. And then we have a marketing agency that we're gonna be working with soon. Like you said, that's specifically mentorship just on the marketing and sales process. And then depending on where we go from there, you know, I'm still open to the idea of even working with Chris Cooper and.

The mentorship there from the gym side of things, even though our physical gym is a small sort of icing on the cake, something fun on the side aspect, it's very wild carrot of us. Yes. That is the company that I work for where 90, 98% of their businesses through wholesale accounts and the last 2% is a retail store, which is just like a fun side project.

And a lot of people don't know that. Wild carrot is a huge iceberg. Yeah. In that way. Yeah. The iceberg. I like that idea because then it's just fun and then there's not a lot of pressure and yeah. That's our social engagement and Yeah. Yeah. I love that idea. So I guess you're right that some of those inconsistencies are learning opportunities.

You look back and you can see where like, what caused the inconsistency or for me to fall off the wagon? Well, I think there needs to be some sort of, Way of assessing that. You know, maybe it's by accident, maybe it's on purpose, but you know, in training there are, you know, there's testing. Mm-hmm. , that gives you an idea, okay, this is gonna be the focus moving forward.

That's how a lot of coaches program for their athletes, especially if it's custom programming. You use those opportunities of testing, you know, a one rep max to see where the faults are, where the wheels are falling off, and how do we correct it. Yeah. And this is something I talked about in my book, which is the difference between goal setting and and Assessing data, Those two things are not intrinsically linked.

Like you don't have to have specific goals in order to get data. So the way I like to approach things is instead of saying you know, I'll reassess this once I hit this milestone or goal, but what, what happens if you never reach it or if you reach it in a different way or it looks different once you're there?

You know, there's problems with this sort of future thinking. So what I try to do is develop practices that are on the right trajectory. They're going the direction that I want to go in life, but then have periodized approach to looking back. And so instead of looking forward toward a goal, I look back at what progress have I made?

Is it the direction I want to go? Is it the time? Like, is, is there Like, am I ever gonna get to where I want to go? Is, is it too slow? Is it maybe too fast and I'm not learning enough, but I'm getting inundated with, you know, certain aspects of business growth or whatever it is. So I think there's a mistaken idea that if you're not setting goals, you're not getting data.

And that's just not true. You can actually get a lot of data if you are still tracking things. Sure. You can still track the number of practice sessions, what you're doing in a practice session, the results of that practice session you know, whether it's. The scale or weight that you're lifting or, you know, whatever that is, you can still track those things without having a forward looking specific goal.

Hmm. I guess so. I think that still requires some sort of other party to be observing it to either help attribute meaning to the data. Mm-hmm. , I think when you're too close to it, if you are the test subject, it's really hard to see. All you know is that you've gone into the gym or you've done this many hours, but maybe, maybe it's hard to assess the quality.

Of that work or of that effort. Yeah. You know, and that's why I think it is so important to get out of a vacuum. Whether you're posting what you're writing somewhere where people can read it or asking for feedback or posting videos. I don't recommend weightlifting videos on Reddit because those people will tear you a part.

Yeah. You won't get any cons constructive anything on that. And I really learned the hard way. But, you know, I was lifting here at home, I decided that I didn't wanna work with a coach cuz I didn't want to be. In the same route that I was before. I have it in my mind that if I get a coach again, I am essentially reliving the experience that I've already had.

It was great. I don't really wanna do it again. Yeah. Automatically on a competition track, what's that? Automatically on a competition track? Well, on a competition track, and I also have really dysfunctional dynamics when it comes to authority figures. And it's not all the same in every realm, but when it came to coaching, I was too eager to please and would give up everything to be the best, you know?

Mm-hmm. , I worry that I still have those tendencies. I'm a different person now, so maybe I need to cut myself some slack and that won't be the case anymore because I'm so cautious. But what it has. Now done is that I have become overly cautious of getting into that situation again. So in trying to find other means of getting feedback, I started posting lifts on Reddit and commenting on people's lifts on Reddit.

And people are just Dicks  on Reddit. They. I don't know. It just, it wasn't like what I was hoping for in terms of getting feedback. And I'm not looking for like, just straight at validation. Sometimes it's helpful to like keep going and be like, Okay, this is worth continuing with. But it was not constructive in a way that I felt like I could use.

And I think that that's the really important key is like we need to create points of tension that we can like jump off of to change our course if needed. Because if you don't, you might end up like that guy who is doing the same routine for seven years. Mm-hmm. , I never saw that in a gym, but I was a lifeguard for many years.

And you see people who swim laps and things like that. And from an outsider's point of view, it just looks like people are going back and forth. But if you do it every single day, there are those same people who come in and do the same effing routine, like to the minute. Mm-hmm. , it's amazing, but I know that they're not getting any faster.

I know that they're not getting any leaner, whatever, like the, the work is no longer serving them. Yeah. And they're still putting in that effort. And it gets to a tipping point where, you know, you're not pushing yourself anymore. You're just kind of like floating through it. Yeah. And I think that that can happen in any place.

Yeah. So the earlier I mentioned intention versus like an intentional practice, but there's another way to think of it, is that to enter into a state of flow. If you read the book Flow by Oh shoot, Chi Accept Mehi is his last name. Oh, that's, that's not easy to remember anyway. Part of getting into the flow state is that it needs to be slightly challenging, Not so hard that it's frustrating.

Mm-hmm. , but not so easy that it's boring. It has to be kind of on the edge. Of your skill level. So if you are practicing a piece of music or drawing or in a sport or something like that, it has to be just challenging enough to take you sort of to that, that edge, that next level. And you can get in a flow state where you are performing at a higher level.

You're kind of unaware of time. You're, you're, you're very present. You're so present that you almost enter into a different, like, wave state in your brain. And I think that's really an important aspect of what we're talking about, which is a mentor can help you find that edge sometimes. Mm-hmm. . Because if you're doing something that's redundant, it may be easy and comfortable and you pat yourself on the back for being consistent, but you're not making progress.

If you're not challenge being challenged just a little bit. But if you don't have a mentor, sometimes challenge can look like, Beating the shit out of yourself. Like I've, I've been guilty about this. Yeah, it's managing it where, Yeah, where like, I'll try to gain strength too fast. I, I'm kind of fortunate that I have the genetics to gain strength pretty fast, but unfortunately that kind of gets me to be a little arrogant sometimes.

And I'll pick up a bar that I have no business picking up and so then it's just like this wave pattern of lots of progress, really fast, injured back set, you know, like start over, start over, start over. And. So again, I think, I think mentorship is the key. I don't think that's actually the key, because you said something I think that's even more important is the edge and being present.

And you know, we were talking about relationships earlier and how there are easy defaults to fall into. And one of the things, I don't think I had said it, but I was thinking at the time that what made our relationship so incredible or what makes it still so incredible is like our ability to be so present with each other.

And so I think that is really the, like what everything boils down to is like whatever we're working on, whatever we're aspiring to do, are we present within those moments? And maybe, yes, it requires a mentor or a program or something to kind of hone in that focus. Mm-hmm.  or that presence, if you will.

Mm-hmm. , you know, people probably do date night because they need that undivided attention. You go into it with that though. Yeah. If you go into it with that as the intention and not just, Well, Thursday's date night, so we're doing this and Right. You need to have that same intention going in. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that. But I guess it's, it's putting into place whatever allows you to catch that edge or to to assess appropriately. Yeah. And this is where things like meditation can be very valuable because it's literally practicing. It's literally practicing a skill of being present.

Yeah. There is only one thing that is kind of like red. I have a hard time with meditation, but there is part of the practice that I do find like a very redeeming quality, which is a lot about what we're talking about here is it's fine to stray, but the practice is. Coming back. Mm-hmm.  coming back. Coming back.

So there's no reason to like dog yourself for strain. You're just flexing the muscle every time you Exactly. Circle back. That's the rep. Yeah. You're doing, you're doing Yeah. I like that you're doing reps and every time your mind wanders and you come back successfully. That's, that's a rep. Can I, is it still meditation if I gamify it and count my reps?

Sure. Okay. . That'd probably be even like, you know, part of the meditation is like that could be a whole new keeping track of where you're at. Product Cody. Yeah. Instead of counting your breaths, you count mind wanders, . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So I, I guess my point with the, the mentorship though, is that we were talking about assessing data or if you get off track, looking back and seeing what you can learn from that and.

As you had mentioned, sometimes when you're so close to the situation, it's very, it's, it's easier for somebody else to, on the outside sometimes to look in and say, Well, this is the data you've provided me. This is what happened. And maybe here's how you can course correct. Because if your mentor is more experienced than you in that specific domain, and that's very important too, is specific domain.

That's why I want a team of mentors. I want specific mentors for marketing. I want specific mentors for improving the podcast. You know, the, these kind of things. Because they can help you assess that data and stay, they can actually help you stay more present. Cuz sometimes you can get distracted by what you think is important and then a mentor comes in and goes, Oh no, don't worry about that.

That's normal. Mm-hmm. , this other thing is what you really need to focus on. Well, I think the importance of a mentor too is that you are now. Recruiting other people to help you, you know, achieve whatever it is that you wanna achieve. And I think about this a lot in relationships where it's like, I've done everything I can, and only at that point do I feel okay to walk away.

Mm-hmm. . And I think that that's the same with any other practice. And recruiting a mentor, like going to counseling, people would say that's like their last ditch effort. But even if that doesn't work, that means that you have pulled from every resource that you can think of that is available to you. And then, you know, even if at that point it doesn't go where you want it to go, or if you're still not enjoying the process or the work that you're doing, that's when you move on.

Mm-hmm. . And I think that this just kind of brings up another layer that there's a certain amount of like investment or effort that needs. Assessment too. Like whether this is worth it to keep going or, Okay. Like I'm gonna turn my attention, I'm gonna pivot towards something else. Yeah. And so we're coming full circle back to that question, which is so hard to answer.

Which is, When to quit. When to pivot. When to quit. When it hurts more than it helps. Yeah. But sometimes it's so difficult to figure that out, especially like if you're talking about something like a relationship. You've got so many, so much emotional investment and sometimes there's this like sunk cost fallacy like, but you have to together for years and Well, that's what I was saying about not being in a vacuum.

You have to have another perspective to weigh in on it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I didn't realize that when I was with my weightlifting team that all I was doing so many dysfunctional things until you pointed them.  and I would be miserable like regularly. But I figured kind of like what you were saying, there's kind of a badge of honor of like pushing through the suck or just like never quitting because I've committed to something.

And I think it just really takes having some perspective from somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. But you also have to take that information seriously. Like there are so many people who are like, you know, they have they take issue with their friends who ask them for relationship advice and then never take it or stay with their partner or whatever it is.

And it's like, cool. I'm never gonna like, give my opinion again because it's just falling on deaf ears. Yeah. And that's the asshole that I pulled. It totally is. Yeah. And It's up to you to do what you will with that information, but it's kind of like analyzing data, right? Like you need to actually pay attention to the data.

It needs to be relevant to you to change your course. And that doesn't always mean abandoning ship, but it can mean that there's a tweak here and there. Yeah. Well that's what I mean by pivoting. I think I, I associate pivoting with let's try a different approach. Like you're not abandoning ship, you're not quitting necessarily, but it's like, let's change our approach to how we're gonna do what we want.

Or, I always think of pivoting as more like, I'm gonna do something similar, but in a different way. Like kind of one degree off . You know, I'm gonna do something athletic, but that's not weightlifting. Yeah. Or something, you know? Yeah, I agree with that. So. In relating to that guy I pointed out that had the same fitness routine for seven years.

Mm-hmm. , another aspect of what we're talking about is like plateaus and, and that type of thing. We are always adapting and I think we forget that sometimes that humans, one unique quality of humans is just how adaptable we are. I mean, it's crazy compared to much of the animal kingdom. We are just, we're in every climate on the planet and just endure all kinds of weird situations that people are in.

And if you look at YouTube and, and social media, you can see just the mo extreme edges that people are adapting to. That's just amazing. I saw a side by side footage the other day of Ooh, I forget what support it was. It seems like maybe it was Basketball or something. I forget. Oh, I've seen, I've seen a side by side of boxing too, where you look at old footage from 70 years ago and the skill level that they're playing at 70 years ago in the major leagues, like these are the best of the best 70 years ago look like little kids.

Oh really? Compared to today. Like we are just always figuring out new and better ways of doing things and adapting. And we can sort of see that evolution on a broad scale, but we forget that as individuals we are constantly evolving and changing. And that can be for the better or worse, you know, you are, you can adapt to sitting on your asshole.

I was gonna say, how does that, how does that play with our biological leaning into homeostasis? Yeah. Cuz there's always this pull for energy conf conservation. Yeah. Like part. What? Those sound conflicting to me though, don't they? Well, no, because you're always adapting to that. So energy conservation is, you know, the biological imperative to try to not expend more energy than we need to, right?

But in doing that, if you allow that to take over, then you can just be sort of this person with a super low metabolism who doesn't need much to survive, and you're just sort of withering away on the couch. Where's the evolution there? Because you're adapting, you're still adapting. You're just adapting to something that you probably don't want consciously, but unconsciously you're allowing it to happen.

So in other words, we're constantly, there's no such thing as homeostasis. There's no such thing as static. We're always changing. We're either perishing or we're progressing. Mm. There's no, there is no balance. There's no such thing as balance or maintaining. , we're always changing. We're always adapting to what we're doing.

So we need to make sure that we're putting sufficient pressures on ourselves to adapt to the things that we want to adapt to. And that's like you hear about evolutionary pressure. Mm-hmm.  in a species. For instance, there's this bird, I forget the details on this, so I'm gonna butcher the specifics, but there's this bird in on a certain island, so it's a really like isolated space.

And they were one color of bird up until recent years. There were, there were multiple colors of the bird, but one was super dominant. That was like blue or something like that. And then something came in, whether it was deforestation or something, I forget what the circumstances were, but the foliage changed so that there, that color of bird was no longer advantageous mm-hmm.

Because they stuck out without this other flower that was around or whatever. And within two or three generations, the whole species, a bird changed color. Wow. To adapt to being more camouflaged in its newer environment. And that's a pressure, that was a pressure of the environment that caused the adaptation.

But as humans, we can create our own pressures, and that's what working out is like, we're creating a demand on our body that it cannot do yet. Like we're trying to push the boundaries of what it can do mm-hmm.  so that it can adapt to a stronger, faster level. So I think we just need to be aware, Again, it comes back to this intention and awareness of the pressures that we're putting on ourselves.

Because sometimes those pressures can be negative, like slothful, you know, just taking too much time down or too much time away from a practice.  too much comfort in a relationship that we're not being intentional about. You know, all of these things that we've talked about, this whole hour can actually be adaptive pressures that make us adapt in a way that we are not gonna like in the future.

Mm-hmm. , So tell me this, the fellow who, he came to you for training, right? He wanted to freshen up his routine. Yeah. What came of that? Well, unfortunately he didn't, well, I got him off the machines a little bit, like okay. He was so addicted to, you know, he was just convinced that that was the way to go, but at least I got him doing some d some dumbbell work and onto some cable machines instead of theorized like seated type machines.

I feel like the fact that you're sitting is just like red flag number one. Yes. . Yeah. If you're sitting while you workout for your entire workout, that could be a problem. Unless you're a professional bicyclist or something. . But unfortunately he took the new routine and that was just his new routine.

No, So another seven , So he's probably still doing it to this day. I don't know. No, it's probably like the seven year itch that we've been talking about. Like maybe he recruited somebody else. Yeah, maybe. All right. Creature of habit. That's kind of funny. So I guess doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity for sure.

A lot of times that's still, still the same attributed to Einstein, but I don't know if that's true because the internet is full of quotes, but it's a good one. So consistency. To get results requires intention. I think that's the, the main takeaway that we've gotten here. And you have to be prepared to pivot.

Yeah. And knowing when to quit can greatly be improved and tracking your progress with mentorship. Yeah. And tracking progress is integral. Yeah. So you have to have data for that mentor,  or for yourself, but mm-hmm. . Yeah. This has been fun. Totally. Thanks, love you. Love you too, . See you guys next week.

This episode was produced by Tali Zari and Cody Limbal. Check out our writing, coaching services and home study adventures at Live all your life.com. For show notes, resources mentioned, or to submit a question or contribution, click on the podcast tab.