What if you’re making this too big of a deal?
What if you’re putting too much pressure on yourself? What if that is the reason you haven’t had your fitness breakthrough, and it’s not because you are incapable, weak, and/or unmotivated?
“Writer’s block does not actually exist…writer’s block is almost like the equivalent of impotence. It’s the performance pressure you put on yourself that keeps you from doing something you naturally should be able to do.
The reason you don’t get writer’s block as a writer is because you have a deadline and it has to be in and you have no choice. But if you sit there and you think this piece has to be the ultimate article or the ultimate book ever been written and my entire self esteem is wrapped up in this…the bigger of a story you make up about what you are doing, the bigger the block will get…it’s all completely a performance anxiety.”
– Neil Strauss on The Tim Ferriss Show Episode #15
Does that resonate with you?
Cross-discipline analogies are powerful. Neil Strauss could easily be talking about fitness block or health block.
You live in a society that contradicts itself. On one hand, you have airbrushed, ridiculous looking magazine covers with fitness model 8-packs as the golden standard. On the other hand, you have readily available, insanely palatable food marketed down your throat. Strive for the first and succumb to the second and you’re screwed.
So you put pressure on yourself. To look like that. To stay disciplined. To exercise. To eat well. Pressure, pressure, pressure.
It’s no wonder that the plan breaks after a while (not to mention the fact that many fitness plans are structured unsustainably to begin with!)
Relax.
All of the pressure is fake. Society imposed. Self imposed.
Relax.
Make up a small story. Small actions, small steps, small habits. Pressure? What pressure?
Neil Strauss doesn’t own a magic pen. His best-selling books all began with a word.
Your best-selling body begins with a step or a bite. Nothing more and nothing less.
Day 32 Recap
It was an all-out rest day in the exercise world. I had some serious tightness in my hips and butt from the hiking and deadlifting combination, so I took to a foam roller twice throughout the day. Doing preemptive as opposed to reactive foam rolling is an area to improve upon.
Steps and miles checked in at 14,272 and 7.66 (add 20%).
Sleep checked in at 8 hours and 33 minutes (13 restless minutes, 2 awake minutes).
The nutrition…
Breakfast: Grass-fed yogurt, (28g) whey protein isolate, (5g) creatine, raw cacao nibs, chia seeds, coconut flakes, organic blueberries, banana, cinnamon. Black gold.
Lunch: My Friday Grocery takeout habit continued with a collection of turkey, chipotle sweet potato slices, and swiss chard with mushrooms and golden raisins. Decent.
Afternoon Snack: Rise Bar.
Dinner: Unfortunately the meat that I picked up earlier from Fair Food Farmstand wasn’t defrosted, so I went with a Sweetgreen salad. While it wasn’t an amazing dinner, it did the trick. Quinoa base, double chicken, 1/2 avocado, organic sweet potato, carrot, beet, cucumber, romaine, arugula. Carrot chili vinaigrette.
Daily Fuel
Could it be anything besides the impetus for this post?
Go check out Neil Strauss on The Tim Ferris Show: Episode #15. Listen to insanely productive people often enough, and you just might become insanely productive yourself. Input = output.
Image Credit: Writer’s Block – http://laughthroughbreastcancer.com
Image Credit: Pressure – http://dailypicksandflicks.com
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