The Pressure is Building.
Do you ever get the feeling that the harder you try the more often you fail? Ihave that feeling.
After a week of food poisoning I launched back into gym with full force, only to pull a muscle in my back. I spent last week wincing with back pain and avoiding the gym. Not my finest effort considering I only have five weeks left to get seriously ripped.
By pushing too hard I exhausted myself while training and lost form. When you do this, you get injured and move backwards instead of forwards. Now, there is no room for injury or cheating. It is simple. I have to Bant like a champ and train like an animal.
This is the part of the goal achieving process that I would normally consider giving up. But, I’ve read that the saddest thing about people who give up is, they don’t realise how close they are to the end.
If I look back, instead of ahead, I see that I have six weeks of pretty good training and dieting behind me. I’m really fit and I’m well rested. Although my form has regressed back to almost where I was four weeks ago, I am still twice as fit as I was back then. I can now train twice as hard as before and as a result, I will most likely get thinner and stronger twice as fast.
Have you ever had three weeks in a row of constant interruptions in your diet or any other goal you’re pursuing? I have. I often want to give up because I think I’m so far behind, there’s no point in carrying on. In this case, if I go back to what’s in it for me to keep going, the decision to ‘get back on the horse’ is quite easy.
Conversely, if I hadn’t made this bet on my six-pack, I would have given up long ago because I’d have had nothing riding on my goal. But so far, with a stubbed toe, food poisoning, a back injury, a rugby world cup of cheating, my birthday this week and a wedding to follow shortly, I would have absolutely every excusable reason to throw in the towel and get the most out of life. Besides, there are more important things than having a six-pack, right?
Right. And wrong.
There are more important things in life than six-packs. But this six-pack is simply the measurable thing I attached to my vague goal of ‘having an active summer and being full of energy’. It is something measurable that I could focus on. Adding to that, I have a lot riding on this result like staff salaries and funding for The Noakes Foundation.
In the process of getting this six-pack, I have completely transformed my health, my energy levels and my mind. If I didn’t have a lot riding on this goal, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I guarantee it.
What I’m getting at is, if you find you keep getting caught upand falling out of your goals, it might be more than just circumstance that is getting in the way. It might be that there isn’t a good enough reason for you to ignore the bright lights and distraction and just put yourself through discomfort to achieve it.
Here’s me on Monday. I’m behind on last week. But, I’m feeling positive about next week, and the five to follow.
Have a great week,
Jonno
