Jim always thought of himself as a sportsman.
In his youth he played rugby, football and a whole host of other sports.
He always dreamed of doing some other stuff, climbing a few mountains, taking up back country snowboarding, maybe learning to fly.
At 42 he gave up on all these dreams for one simple reason…
When he first started dreaming about these things he was 20, he had his whole life ahead of him. He was fit, healthy and bursting with energy. But he told himself before he did any of these things he needed to sort his life out. To him that meant a good job, a mortgage and a family.
So he did those first, reasoning he still had plenty of time for his dreams.
As he got promoted he found himself with more and more responsibility at work, the kids took up more of his time, he spent more and more time in front of a computer. He did less and less exercise as there was always something more important clamouring for his attention.
His fitness declined and his waistline grew.
He didn’t worry too much as he knew to get rid of the belly, he just had to give up the booze for a few months and start eating healthy…
Only he never seemed to manage it.
In the background behind his failing fitness and increasing waistline something insidious was happening, out of sight, in the depths of his mind.
Slowly his identity was changing.
He no longer saw himself as the young, fit sportsman of his youth, but instead as an over weight, unfit, middle aged, has been.
Then one day his kids left home, suddenly Jim had more time on his hands than he had known, he had the money to do all those things he really wanted.
He also had a problem.
- His body was no longer capable of doing them.
- He’d stopped going to the gym as he could never find a routine which worked for him.
- He was overweight and hadn’t done any real sport in years.
- His hand eye coordination was starting to deteriorate
- He knew if he were to actually do some sport he wouldn’t last a day without getting injured.
He looked at the mountain he had to climb to actually do all those things he wanted to do…the weight he had to lose, the fitness he had to regain, and it just looked too big.
That was the day he gave up.
Don’t let your story be like Jims…
Jims Mistake?
Trying to eat the whale in one bite.
Look, before you start on any journey like this, you need to absolutely believe 2 things:
- This can be done.
- This will take time.
Once you have these 2 beliefs in place, start small. I see so many people race off and try to do everything at once and often do really well for 4 weeks, before stopping entirely and going back to their old ways.
Understand that getting healthy is a skill, and just like learning to play the guitar you will not be a rock god in 2 weeks.
To start with you will fail more than you succeed but as long as you keep on taking small incremental steps, asking yourself each day, “how can I make today a little better than yesterday“, you will get there…slowly.
There are no cheat codes for this.
You have to realise – to achieve anything in life you MUST sacrifice pleasure and comfort in the present for a better future, it’s one of the immutable laws of the universe. You have to literally put your (present) life on the line to get what you want out of the future.
For most people this is too big a gamble as there are no guarantees, and this is why they fail.
