Journey, Not A Destination

And sacrifice.... I've always been attuned with it, thankfully. It seems from my perspective that all things worth having require some back-pedaling (sacrifice).
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You know what is funny? My entire life I have work my rear off to get where I am now professionally. I was never able to translate that into my personal life and most importantly with my body and what I was willing to do to it.

Funny how things change, isn't it? Sometimes it just takes the right stimulus, I guess.
 
First Ali, we posted at the same time, so I wanted to make sure you read my last post to you.

ali.smedley said:
You know what is funny? My entire life I have work my rear off to get where I am now professionally. I was never able to translate that into my personal life and most importantly with my body and what I was willing to do to it.
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I'm the exact opposite.

Though I'm "successful" in both realms, health and profession, from the outside on looker, I'm really only successful on the health front. It's were my natural passion lies, and b/c of that, the passion has fueled a life led in the pursuit of health, fitness, and physique. On that front, I'm successful.

But success is not determined by the outside onlooker, unfortunately for me. On the professional front I buried my passions in the hopes of pleasing those around me. And the way I thought I'd please them is by making tons of money... hence my career in finance.... that I'm still in today. Sure, I've trained full time, I still train part time.... but that's just a side hobby. The immaturity that accompanied my age during a time I had to make a lot of big decisions (college) led me down the wrong path.

Now, having a lot of life experience at a still rather young age, I have a lot of realizations that, when left unattended, make me stressed.

Namely, I now know that money means shit all if you don't stay true to yourself. If you aren't true to yourself, not only are you selling out to yourself, but also to those around you. I've been able to hold great relationships with my friends and fam.... but I've let my delusional thoughts of what I thought they'd want from me lead me astray.

I'm fixing that as we speak..... but it certainly is crazy how the world and mind works.

My new motto is I expect more from myself than any other person ever could of me. Might not work for everyone, but it's my way of staying true to myself.
 
Funny - that's been my motto for a while now.. and I get grief for it frequently...

My new motto is I expect more from myself than any other person ever could of me.
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We should have higher expections for ourselves than anyone else... Just keeping those expectations realistic is often a challenge... :)
 
maleficent said:
Funny - that's been my motto for a while now.. and I get grief for it frequently...
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Worrying about the grief from others is what got me in the predicament I find myself in today.

The way I look at it is most people could stand doing a little self-analysis and life improvement.... it's just much easier for them to analyze others instead b/c it takes no real action or thought on their part.

We should have higher expections for ourselves than anyone else... Just keeping those expectations realistic is often a challenge... :)
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Very true. Thankfully that's one thing I've always been naturally good at.... being realistic and expect just enough to keep me progressive, but not so much that I'm left more frustrated than anything.
 
Psychologists like to think said person chooses between the lesser of the two pains.... but IME, it would seem that some people bring a third option into the mix more often than not.... that being not taking any action.

What's crazy is, this lack of action is, in theory, ultimate pain if it's put in the right light b/c it goes against everything good, like progress, pursuit of happiness and passion, etc, etc.

But it appears like people have the common ability to shine a "lazy man's" light on to this option. I call it "lazy man" b/c it's the answer for someone not having to make a tough decision between 2 painful choices. And the fact that it erases the need to make said decision seems to outweigh or hide the fact that the lack of action is actually really painful, in many cases at least.
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Having made the choice to make no decision before, I completely agree...things don't get better and the problem/issue that requires the decision doesn't get better or go away and in the end, you end up upset and your life is disrupted. I will say, however, that making a decision that you know will lead to unpleasantness/unhappiness/pain takes an extraordinary amount of courage.

But success is not determined by the outside onlooker, unfortunately for me. On the professional front I buried my passions in the hopes of pleasing those around me. And the way I thought I'd please them is by making tons of money... hence my career in finance.... that I'm still in today. Sure, I've trained full time, I still train part time.... but that's just a side hobby. The immaturity that accompanied my age during a time I had to make a lot of big decisions (college) led me down the wrong path.
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I definately agree with this - I made decisions about college, etc when I was very young and spent the better part of my 20's correcting those decisions. I suppose that someone looking in from the outside would say that I was a success professionally due to my career choice but that doesn't hold water with me. The thing that tells me I am a success is how I got here, working full-time while going back to school at night, handling a very difficult pregnancy during my last year and then still achieving my goals after I had to take a year away from my field after I graduated due to a timing issue. I look at all that I did to get where I am today and realize that I did succeed, at least on that front.

It used to frustrate the hell out of me to look at all of that and not be able to apply any of that effort to getting my body together. Looking back, I didn't have the right mindset, which I do now.

It is nice to have something to work towards again. I kinda missed it.
 
ali.smedley said:
Having made the choice to make no decision before, I completely agree...things don't get better and the problem/issue that requires the decision doesn't get better or go away and in the end, you end up upset and your life is disrupted. I will say, however, that making a decision that you know will lead to unpleasantness/unhappiness/pain takes an extraordinary amount of courage.
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Courage sure.

And/or the right frame of mind. Looked at it acutely.... sure, it sucks. However, if you spent the time and analyzed the full spectrum of outcomes... things start to look a bit different.

I like to ask things like this:

Instead of "how is this going to hurt me" or "how bad is this going to hurt"

I ask things like:

"how bad will this affect me if I don't take action"

Focusing on the pain of inaction tends to be enough to drive me in the right direction.... and that takes effort since focusing on the pain of the acute moment is what our minds, unconsciously, want to do automatically.

I definately agree with this - I made decisions about college, etc when I was very young and spent the better part of my 20's correcting those decisions. I suppose that someone looking in from the outside would say that I was a success professionally due to my career choice but that doesn't hold water with me. The thing that tells me I am a success is how I got here, working full-time while going back to school at night, handling a very difficult pregnancy during my last year and then still achieving my goals after I had to take a year away from my field after I graduated due to a timing issue. I look at all that I did to get where I am today and realize that I did succeed, at least on that front.

It used to frustrate the hell out of me to look at all of that and not be able to apply any of that effort to getting my body together. Looking back, I didn't have the right mindset, which I do now.

It is nice to have something to work towards again. I kinda missed it.
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I understand that. I think humans are goal-striving organisms and if you don't have a goal, something to move toward, what are we?

I'm not saying we can never be satisfied. Even with all that's going on in my life, I'm satisfied. But that's not a stagnant trait in my mind. There's still a lot more I want and I don't see that ever changing.

Also, on the success front..... success, in order to translate into happiness, must be defined by you and no one else. Personal success is what drives positive emotion.
 
wow you're just full of...

INSIGHT today...

Deep thoughts with Steve -

is this what taking a week off the gym gives? :D

(and this isnt' a snotty sarcastic comment -it's meant to be encouraging :)
 
Hahaha, no, I usually do my best thinking IN THE GYM.

I'm just been putting a lot of time into myself lately, on the mental front.
 
Hahaha, no, I usually do my best thinking IN THE GYM.
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I'm the same way lately... I just have to watch myself from talking to myself out loud though - people tend to give you funny looks when you do that - LIKE they NEVER ever do that themselves?

I'm just been putting a lot of time into myself lately, on the mental front.
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Unless it's me - there's no better person to put time in on.. and it's oh so rewarding too :)

Just don't neglect Krista, Frank and Bob - one of them might pee in your shoes :)
 
maleficent said:
I'm the same way lately... I just have to watch myself from talking to myself out loud though - people tend to give you funny looks when you do that - LIKE they NEVER ever do that themselves?
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hahaha, I think my lips are moving sometimes but no words are coming out.... so unless they're looking at me.... they don't even realize it.

Just don't neglect Krista, Frank and Bob - one of them might pee in your shoes :)
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Frank and Bob get more than enough attention.

Although things are great between Krista and I, we haven't been seeing all too much of each other as of late. She's a swim coach and it's districts and states time... so she's been traveling all over the place on the weekends, plus she's taking her masters on top of her teaching job.

And you know how busy I am.

But we're as strong as ever, and if anything, she's been really helping me figure this all out. She wants me to quit my job yesterday.
 
OOOH you could be a kept man... that'd be too cool :)

I know I don't need to tell you but ya got yourself a good woman there.. you must be more extraordinary than I though :)
 
It felt good to get back in the gym again yesterday. Had a nice session of legs... looked something like:

Squats 5x5
Romanians 5x5
Bulgarians 2x12
GHRs 2x12
Calves 3x10

They were shaking by the end of the workout. And they feel like jello still today. Tomorrow I expect some DOMS.

Today is an upper body day, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm sort of developing this phase of my workout as it goes along.

I'm going to have a run up here in intensity for 4-7 weeks, I'd expect. Then I'm going to drop down intensity in bump volume way up. When I do that, I'll work in some <gasp> machine work.

In terms of my bulk.... it's been hugely unsuccessful.... not that I expected more. My weekends are just shot in terms of getting enough calories in. I'm fine all week long.... but life gets in teh way on the weekends, and it seems to be just enough to allow no increase in weight. I'm going to focus on fixing that for the next 4 weeks or so, since it's soon time to start cutting.

Problem is, fishing season starts soon, and that usually means starvation on the weekends. I have a few more weeks.
 
I don't drink when I fish..... I'd never last those marathon days drunk. And I don't keep the fish I catch, which I'm sure you know, so that second option is out.

I think I'll pack a huge cooler this year and make a bunch of trips back to the car.
 
Hey Steve,

I'm just stopping by to let you know i got my myotape in, and man it is pretty cool...one question though. The supplement waxymaize....do you know anything about it, other than its a carb? Im not sure if im spelling it correctly or not?
 
I'm not aware of that supp.

Admittedly, if there's on area of this industry I don't follow closely enough.... it's the supps.

Why do you ask about it? What's in it? What does it claim to do?
 
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