Happy Friday you wonderful humans.
TLDR: Hit this button to listen to Episode #90 of the Virtus Performance Podcast.
At the end of March this year, I sat down and recorded episode #89 of the Virtus Performance Podcast. I’d spent the previous 89 weeks recording, producing and uploading these episodes of long-form conversation.
I’d created a chain of episodes, each linking in with the one before it. An online, audible, monument of commitment and perseverance to this ‘thing’ that I set out to do. It was a great feeling of accomplishment knowing that I had created, along with my distinguished guests, a body of work that could potentially be around longer than I am. Something that I could look back on and hear from the person I was, something that I could share with my children when they are old enough to give a shit about growth and development and all of that good stuff.
Fast forward 6 months or so and on Wednesday morning of this week, we were still at episode #89.
That chain had well and truly stopped getting longer, in fact, it was getting rusty, left in neglect. Not for any other reason than the fact that it had fallen off my priority list. Life was happening, as it so often does, and the victim of this was the podcast train that ground to a halt.
The podcast wasn’t dead and buried, but it certainly needed to be rejuvenated. Every now and again, we would chat about getting it back up and running, but it didn’t happen. Not because we didn’t want it to, but because with everything going on, we/I didn’t have the capacity to give it what we believe it deserved.
Stop for a moment, and think back to a time you’ve let your commitment to something that is important to you drop away. It might have been your work, your training, that nutrition protocol you were following, a relationship or even something as simple as a book that you promised yourself you would finish. No doubt with any of these things you begin with the best intentions, but ‘life happens’ and all of a sudden you’re 6 months down the track, and nothing has changed, or in my case, you’re still stuck on episode #89.
Change is hard, I’ve spoken about it often, and long sustained attendance/commitment to a goal or ideal is harder. My commitment levels waned and where the podcast was concerned, and at the time it wasn’t important enough for me to hang onto.
The most important facet to achieving any goal is showing up. The guy or girl who rocks up 300 days a year will improve more than the guy or girl that rocks up 100 days. No matter what you’re doing, you’ll know this to be true. However, the underlying driver that leads to attendance, is your progress towards a larger goal, a bigger reason, the search for fulfilment. My initial goal for the podcast was 52 episodes. 1 per week, for a year. I was so committed to that goal, that nothing was going to let me miss a week. Once I had surpassed it, I felt fulfilled and I enjoyed that feeling, but I didn’t have another target to aim for. Slowly but surely, my commitment waned, and eventually, it ran out at.
When you have a clear goal in mind, you can prepare a plan to get there. With that plan, you can focus on the next step in front of you. One thing that we tend to forget, is that when we achieve that goal, we need to stop, regroup, reflect and set ourselves up for the next one, otherwise the chain stops getting longer. It begins to rust, and you forget the amount of work you put into the thing. Suddenly, you end up where you started, the only difference being the voice in the back of your head wishing that you had kept going.
Long story short, I missed the hell out of the podcast. I missed connecting with people and sharing it with our community, so on Wednesday, Simon Cooper and I sat down and recorded episode 90, the first of 11 episodes that will be recorded to finish off a massive 2019, and allow us to reach our new goal of 100 episodes. After that, who knows, but there’ll be some serious thought put into how we can add value with this or another project.
Be amazing, commit to your thing.
Love Wallace
